Page 32 of The Lord Next Door
He stiffened. “As you just said, I was pretending.”
“You could have given yourself a father—for instance, the butler—but you didn’t.”
He sighed. “Clearly it must be obvious to you that my father and I don’t agree on much, Victoria. I disapprove of the way he’s lived his life, and he disapproves of me.”
Her eyes held an understanding that made him uncomfortable.
“My lord, if you remember anything about me, then you’ll know that my father and I did not often agree with one another.”
“He tried to force you to be what you weren’t,” David said. “But you don’t need to draw comparisons between you and me, because there aren’t any where our fathers are concerned. My father only cares about himself, the prime evidence being how he treats the servants. And when he is cruel to you, please don’t take it personally.”
“You don’t think my father’s motives were selfish?” she asked.
For only the second time, she allowed him to see anguish in her eyes, and he didn’t know what to do, what she wanted from him.
“By the end,” she continued, “he was a very selfish man. It is difficult when your own parent seems to disregard you. I tell myself that maybe I was only seeing my own side of our problems.”
“Or maybe you were seeing the truth. You need to do what I did and just forget.”
She stiffened. “Forget?”
“Yes. If you work at it hard enough, it eventually won’t bother you anymore.”
“But your father is right here, alive. How can you forget him? Why would you want to?”
His stomach clenched. “You try to forget his actions.” Or they pare away at your insides. But he wasn’t following his own advice. “Do you think the quail is too dry tonight?”
She put down her fork. “My lord, something happened today that I cannot forget.”
“What did my father do?”
“It’s something you did. I was walking by the library this morning, and since you did not close the door, I overheard some of your conversation.”
He straightened in his chair and looked at her. “My conversation with Miss Lingard, the milliner?”
“Miss Lingard, your mistress.” Her face was pale but determined.
In a low voice, he said, “I made no secret that I was with another woman before you, Victoria.”
“But you told me it was over.”
“And it is. I swore to you as your husband that I would honor you.” And David had looked into Damaris’s sad eyes and had not felt the need for a last night in her arms. Already Victoria held a power over him he had not anticipated.
“What I witnessed today is honoring me?” she asked.
“I’m not sure how long you stood there, but if you heard the whole conversation, Miss Lingard knows that my relationship with her is over.”
Victoria took a deep breath. “You had a month to end it, and instead you forgot, and that poor woman was forced to come speak to you in your own home, risking her public reputation—or what is left of it.”
“She owns shares in Southern Railway, which is how we met. Our business together did not risk her reputation. Think of me what you will, Victoria, but I would not harm a woman in so callous a way.”
“You don’t think you harmed her?” she asked.
Her eyes were wide with disbelief. He didn’t like that she was trying to make him feel guilty.
“Victoria—”
“You allowed the two of us to meet at a luncheon, when you had not officially told her your affair was through. You let me, your betrothed, converse with her unawares, making me look like the fool.”
