Page 75 of Bad Luck Bride

“How convenient for ’em.”

“Convenient” wasn’t quite how she’d have described it. She thought of Pam’s father and her own, peers trapped in the morass of financial obligations associated with their rank and estates, obligations they’d never been allowed to prepare for and that their social position prevented them from doing much about. Desperation, she knew, had led to her parents’ actions regarding her all those years ago. That, she appreciated, was why she’d been able to forgive. Desperation was something she understood quite well. She’d been desperate enough to marry a man whose need for absolute control would have given her a lifetime of misery, a man who, she realized now, would have been equally unhappy with her.

“Either way,” Wilson went on when she didn’t speak, “it’ll be a good matchup, I think. She’ll be able to rub her American husband in her mother’s face every chance she gets, which is something I gather she’s looking forward to tremendously. They don’t get on.”

Another thing, Kay thought with an inward sigh, she understoodquite well. “Will you be living here permanently, then, instead of returning to New York?”

“Oh, no, we’ll live in New York, of course. She wants a place here, too, which makes sense, since we’ll come back for a bit when she brings Charlene out for your London season.”

Kay nodded. “Of course. And in spite of her elopement, Lady Pamela’s position in society is still far more established and secure than mine; she’ll be able to do much more for Charlene than I would have been able to do. In fact, looking at it objectively, she’s a far better match for you than I am.”

“Yes. I’d—” He looked away. “I’d have preferred you,” he muttered.

He looked at her again, and in his craggy, ruthless face, was a flash of something she’d never seen there before. She saw pain. And a hint of vulnerability.

“I loved you, you know,” he said.

She blinked at this unexpected declaration, and she had no idea what to say in reply.

He smiled grimly, noting her reaction. “You seem surprised.”

“So I am, rather,” she murmured.

He gave a harsh laugh. “And here I thought my feelings were painfully obvious.”

“It’s been clear from the start you wanted me,” she said. “But that you loved me?” She shook her head, still not quite able to believe it. “That never occurred to me, to be honest. You never declared it, and…” She hesitated, then added, “To me, your regard always seemed more like a need for possession than love.”

He frowned, uncomprehending. “I don’t see that there’s much difference.”

“No,” she said gently. “I know you don’t.”

He stood up, not waiting for her to do so first. “I guess there’s no more to say, then. I just didn’t want us to part on angry terms.”

A strange remark given his actions, but one that reflected a similar view to her own. She wondered, though, if his motive was not to make peace with her but was instead a belated attempt to salvage his connection to the Duke of Westbourne, for his daughter’s sake.

She didn’t express that rather cynical assumption aloud, however. Instead, she merely rose and walked him to the door. Opening it, she waited for him to walk through to the corridor. Then, when he turned, she held out her hand. “Good luck to you, Wilson.”

He stared at her hand for a moment, then took it in his. Giving it a hard shake, he let it go. “And you, Kay,” he said. “I hope you get what you want out of all this.”

With that, he bowed and left her. “So do I, Wilson,” she murmured under her breath as she watched him walk away down the corridor. “If only I knew what that was.”

She closed the door and leaned back against it, her own words echoing to her in the sudden silence, bringing the obvious question.

Just what did she want?

She stared at the flowers all around her. What Mama wanted was obvious. Devlin offering her marriage was, from Magdelene’s perspective, the perfect solution, but Kay no longer cared much what her mother wanted.

Josephine, of course, would reap the same benefits if Kay married Devlin that she would have if Kay had married Wilson. And yet even her beloved Jo wasn’t enough to make Kay willing to make another attempt at marrying for security. She’d done it with Giles, she’d done it with Wilson, but she would not do it again. Fear anddesperation had led her down that path, but though her situation was as dire as ever, she was suddenly no longer afraid. She didn’t know what would happen, or how she would provide for her mother and sister, but whatever the future might be, she would meet it with whatever courage she could muster.

And now that the shock of her third broken engagement had worn off, she realized why she had turned Devlin down. It was time for her to stand on her own two feet, to find a way forward that didn’t depend on a man or his money, that didn’t require the goodwill of people who were not her friends. She didn’t know what that way forward was, but allowing Devlin to swoop in and save her was not it.

All well and good, but what, she wondered, was that way forward?

As she asked herself that question, Wilson’s contemptuous words rattled through her head.

What is it with you Brits?

Kay jerked, straightening away from the door as the answer came, an answer as obvious as the proverbial elephant in the drawing room.

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