Page 27 of Fatal By Design
Then again, Hugh’s predilection for blunt honesty had forced her to acknowledge there were two sides to Philip’s actions. He had wanted to give her the chance to marry for love. But Philip had not understood that the man she wanted would not have her once he knew she was not truly widowed. Philip had not understood that Audrey couldn’t simply lie to Hugh and let him be blissfully unaware. She could never betray him that way. Tears of frustration stung her eyes.
“Bollocks,” Hugh scoffed. “He was not thinking of your happiness. He was thinking of his own. Hell, if you’re not going to be angry on your own behalf, then I will be.”
“I am angry!” Her cry pierced the air, which until that moment had been filled with nothing but cautious, harsh whispers. She stood from the sofa and clenched her hands into fists but felt utterly powerless. “I’m furious, but not just with Philip. With myself and my choices, and with this whole bloody world and the rules we must abide by, and the terrible luck of falling in love with you when it would have been so much simpler to feel nothing at all!”
She sucked in a sharp breath the very moment those last words had flown from her tongue. Hugh’s livid scowl went slack as Audrey backed up a step. She’d said too much.
“Audrey—”
“No, I shouldn’t have…I need to...forgive me, goodnight.”
The awkwardness of her abrupt departure didn’t fully strike her until she was on the steps to the first floor. She barely took a breath as she rushed headlong toward her room. What a fool she’d been! The confession of love had appeared from nowhere, slinking out from the corner of her mind where it had been kept tucked away, safe and secret. What good could come of saying it now?
Stinging tears fell freely as she shut her bedchamber door and leaned against it. She swiped them away. So rarely did she give in to emotion that her wet cheeks infuriated her. Crying would achieve nothing. So why could she not stem them?
Philip’s promise to never return, to allow her to move on with her life without fear of his deception being made known, would never be enough, not for Hugh. He had seen the destruction of a bigamous marriage firsthand with his own father and stepmother. He would never risk such a thing himself.
“Audrey.”
Hugh’s voice came through the wood at her back. He’d followed her. A jolt of pleasure, and one of dread, chimed through her. He hadn’t knocked, likely knowing the sound might carry. “Don’t run away from me. Please, open the door.”
It wasn’t locked. He could turn the knob himself, but instead he waited for her to choose to let him in or not. She composed herself, angrily wiping the tears that had wet her cheeks. Evidence of them would still linger, but she couldn’t leave a man in the upstairs landing for a servant to come upon. She opened the door, and immediately, Hugh crossed the threshold, forcing her back a few steps. He took the door from her hand, shut it behind him, and without stopping to so much as speak, his arms came around her. Hugh bent to capture her lips, stealing her breath with the insistent press of his mouth. Initial shock melted beneath his kiss, and Audrey gripped his shoulders to keep her legs steady.
“Why did you do that?” she asked when their lips parted, though he remained close enough for the tips of their noses to touch. “You’re supposed to be angry with me.”
“I am,” he said, then pulled back to see her better. She noted the lack of ire in his eyes now, the wrath he’d displayed in the drawing room seemingly exhausted. He drew his thumb over the curve of her lower lip. “I am also in love with you.”
The words tolled through her and drove out her next breath.
“But I thought you wouldn’t accept… Your principles, they’re…” Her breath wasn’t the only thing to have scattered, apparently. Coherent words were lost as well.
“Principle. Yes, there is that. And I’ve clung to it.” He tucked a strand of hair framing her face behind her ear. “Perhaps too tightly. But what you said is true. He cannot come back. Not now. I don’t believe him to be a fool, and regardless of what I said in anger downstairs, I don’t believe he is cruel. Selfish in many ways, yes,” he said, still holding her, keeping her from floating toward the ceiling, for she’d started to feel light as air. “But not too long ago, he was willing to go to the gallows to preserve his secret. The damagethissecret would cause would be even more severe. He won’t risk it.”
Everything Hugh was saying was a revelation, but as Audrey stared at his mouth, she only wanted it to form those few precious words again:I’m in love with you.She wanted to be certain she hadn’t imagined them. But instead, his lips lowered to press against hers. Audrey draped her arms around his shoulders and reveled in the tender kiss.
“Come what may, whatever the risk, I have made my choice: I am not giving you up. I cannot,” he said, his lips moving against hers as he spoke. Decadent, weightless sensations filled her. Relief. Joy. Exhilaration. She had expected none of these.
“But…what happened with your father and mother and stepmother—”
“That was different.” He shook his head, his nose brushing against hers. “April Barlow deceived them both, and she felt no remorse. Just as Esther Starborough and Doctor Warwick deceived Mr. Starborough.” The horrible murder and blackmail situation from last November had involved a selfish couple who’d led a man to believe his wife was dead, so that they may start a new life and family together. Their tragic situation had crossed her mind many times the last few months.
Hugh continued. “Philip was honest with you, and you are being honest with me. There are no lies between us. Between the three of us, I should say.”
“But I am still helping him to deceive other people. Michael and Genie, Cassandra and Tobias…the House of Lords, for heaven’s sake.”
“Do you plan to marry any of them?”
Audrey widened her eyes, and her heart tripped to a stop. She all but croaked, “Marry?”
With a wicked grin, Hugh touched his nose to hers again. This close, his presence was overpowering. “It is what I want.”
As close as his confession took her to it, she refused to swoon. Not until she laid out one last crucial truth. “But we will both know that I am still married. That we are not truly wed.”
“Did Philip ever make you his wife in truth?”
He held her stare, waiting, even though he already knew the answer. Slowly, she shook her head.
“Audrey,” he began, his dark brown eyes simmering to a deep umber. “I intend to make you my wife. My wife, in full,” he added, with a roguish arch of his brow. She thought it entirely possible she might expire, there and then, from a profusion of pleasure. Of undiluted bliss igniting in the very center of her soul.
