Page 66 of Bad Luck Bride

The knocking at his door had not paused. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he called as he raked his hair with his fingers into some sort of order and crossed the sitting room. “For God’s sake,” he added as he opened the door, “is the hotel on fire? Or—”

He stopped, staring in disbelief at the figure in the corridor.

“Kay?”

He thought he must be dreaming, but almost at once, he dismissed that possibility, since in all his dreams of Kay this week, she had never been wearing this many clothes. Besides, she looked angry enough to spit nails, and she never looked that way in his dreams.

Wondering if his vague half-formed idea of dying on his feet had been prophetic, he glanced down, but thankfully, she wasn’t holding a pistol. The only thing in her hand was a rolled-up newspaper, and that wasn’t going to do him any damage, even in his present, decidedly fragile condition. Bolstered a bit by his observations, hedecided to meet her anger with as nonchalant an air as he could muster. His masculine pride demanded it.

“You again?” he said, managing to keep his voice light, though it took a great deal of effort. “We really have to stop meeting like this, Kay, or people will talk.”

“Believe me, they already are.” With that, she unrolled the newspaper in her hand with a flick of her wrist, slapped it against his chest, and as he took it, she let it go and pushed past him into the sitting room. “Only they aren’t talking about us. Not yet, anyway.”

“How refreshing,” he said as he closed the door and turned to face her. “Not having our names spread across the scandal sheets is a nice change of pace, I must say.”

“You won’t think so when you’ve read the shocking news. Other side,” she added as he frowned down uncomprehendingly at an article about the most fashionable hats for Ascot.

He turned the paper over, read the enormous headline at the top of the page, and grimaced.

TWO BIGGEST WEDDINGS OF THE SEASON CANCELED!

“Aw, hell, Kay,” he said and looked up. “I know I’m to blame for all of this. Not that I’ll be sorry, I confess, if you and Rycroft have called it off, because he wasn’t right for you—”

He stopped as her eyes narrowed, and his hazy wits grasped for something better to say. “I know it’s going to be embarrassing and difficult for you for a while, and I truly regret that part of it—”

“Embarrassing and difficult?” she cut in, staring at him as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Is that how you’d describe this?”

He frowned in puzzlement, wondering if perhaps the aftereffects of last night’s binge were preventing him from a proper understanding of the situation.

“Well, I’m not sure how else to describe it, Kay, to be honest,” he said at last, trying to be as tactful as possible. “I don’t find this news particularly shocking, at least not from my side of things. I knew Pam would be doing this.”

That only seemed to deepen her bewilderment. “You knew?” she said, her voice rising a notch. “You knew and you didn’t tell me?”

“Well, you really can’t blame me for that, can you?” he asked, managing a weak smile. “You did threaten to shoot me the last time we spoke.”

Kay folded her arms, showing she was not amused.

He coughed and tried again. “I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss any of this with you as yet, but let me say that it’s true that Pam and I have called things off. She was outraged by what she saw that night—”

“Understandably,” Kay interrupted, her voice icy.

“Just so,” he said hastily. “I spoke with her the morning after it happened, we talked things through, and in the end, by mutual consent, we decided to dissolve our engagement.”

“Yes, but, Devlin—”

“Still,” he went on, returning to the matter at hand, “I can’t imagine howTalk of the Towngot hold of the news that my wedding’s been canceled. Pam would never have told them anything. She hates being the subject of gossip.”

“Does she?” There was an odd inflection in Kay’s voice that puzzled him. “Does she, indeed?”

“Yes. Granted, she was quite hurt and angry, but even out of spite, she’d never tell the gossip rags anything. And she certainly wouldn’t tell a soul she and Rycroft caught us kissing, if that’s worrying you. I doubt Rycroft would, either. Both of them are far too proud to ever let it be known that we found each of them less attractive than we found each other.”

“Don’t you dare speak for me and who I find attractive,” she said hotly. “As for that kiss,” she added, a wash of pink flooding her cheeks, “there was no ‘us’ involved. There was only you kissing me.”

“Oh, really?” he countered at once. “I seem to remember you flinging your arms around my neck and kissing me back. Rather passionately, in fact.”

“I didn’t do any flinging,” she muttered, tossing her head and confirming his memory hadn’t played him false. “And anyway,” she added before he could debate the issue further, “that’s not the relevant point, for heaven’s sake!”

“Then what is? I take it you didn’t know your wedding was canceled until you read this drivel? Well,” he went on when she shook her head, “it’s a hard way to learn that he’s breaking off the engagement, I grant you. You could sue him for breach of promise, I suppose, but I doubt you’d win, since—”

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