The Heiress - Lynsay Sands [88]
“Oh.” Lisa bit her lip. “It was your first time?”
Her head snapped up, eyes stabbing her sister.
“Of course it was,” Lisa backtracked at once, and then said, “Well, Fanny must have been wrong then. Or perhaps it is different for everyone.”
Suzette shook her head with disgust. “If you, who have known me all my life and know I have not been keeping company with men before this, doubts me, why would he not? He probably thinks I have been with half the royal navy.”
“Why would he think that? We live nowhere near the coast,” Lisa said with confusion.
Suzette glared at her and then shifted to get off the bed, crawling around her to do so.
“Where are you going?” Lisa asked, standing up.
“For a walk.”
“But I was going to read to you to cheer you up,” Lisa protested.
“I don’t want to be read to,” Suzette said grimly as she slipped her shoes on.
“I could tell you a story,” Lisa offered.
“No.”
“I could sing, or—”
“I want to be alone,” Suzette said impatiently, heading for the door. She just wanted out of there. She didn’t want Lisa’s pitying looks or attempts to cheer her. She wanted to be alone to consider what to do. If there was anything to do. Of course, there were things she had to do. She still had to marry to save them all from scandal. Here she was, just a day’s travel away from Gretna Green, where she would need to wed, but with no prospective grooms around to marry. If Daniel hadn’t wished to wed her, the least he could have done was say so days ago in London, where she could have found someone else. Now she was far away from the bachelors she had to choose from. What a bloody mess.
Daniel was an ass, and she was an idiot, and soon Richard and Robert would return and everyone would know just how much of an idiot she was, Suzette thought as she left the room and started down the stairs.
Although, she supposed, everyone probably did know by now. Christiana and Lisa did. No doubt by now Richard and Robert had caught up to Daniel and demanded an explanation, which he would probably give, and they would know. So that just left her father, and he would learn soon as well, she was sure. It was bad enough making such a mistake, but having everyone know just made it unbearable. Not that it mattered, Suzette supposed. Even losing their combined esteem did not hurt as much as losing Daniel’s. She had thought . . . Well, it didn’t matter what she’d thought. She’d obviously thought wrong. And now here she was, heartbroken, Suzette acknowledged, as she made her way through the main room and slipped out of the inn.
While she had instinctively denied it to Lisa, Suzette would acknowledge to herself that her feelings for Daniel had run very deep indeed. She had craved him like the very air she breathed, and still did. She’d wanted to touch every part of him, hear every moment of his life before their meeting and share every future moment there was. She’d sprung from her bed each morning since meeting him, eager to start the day and find him, not wanting to miss a moment with him. And he had seemed just as eager to spend time with her, which was why she was so crushed now to learn that he hadn’t ever intended to marry her, had been leading her to believe he would just to “get to know her better.”
Perhaps it had all been some plot to debauch her, Suzette thought. It wasn’t a pleasant possibility to consider. It meant she’d completely misjudged the man and hadn’t known him at all.
Avoiding even looking at the stables, the scene of her folly, Suzette walked around the inn and found a small path into the woods as she considered that perhaps Daniel was one of those bounders who went about deflowering unwary young debutantes naïve enough to—
Suzette shook her head. No. She couldn’t believe that. Surely, she couldn’t have loved such a bounder as that? In the