Page 104 of The Devil of Clan Sinclair
Enid stared down at her clasped hands. “I don’t wish to see anyone,” she said, her voice sounding scratchy and unused. She raised her head and stared at him. “I especially do not wish to see you.”
Despite her words, Paul entered the room, closing the door behind him.
Why hadn’t she had the courage to dismiss this arrogant boor a few months earlier? Because she’d been afraid he would tell someone what he knew. Wasn’t it strange how things could change in the interim? Her perspective was different. Life was different without her darling Eudora.
“We have to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.
Nothing was the same as it had been, and he didn’t seem to realize it. She barely ate or slept. She rarely spoke. The pain at the back of her throat felt like her unshed tears had turned to acid.
She wasn’t hungry; she didn’t feel pain. She couldn’t hear or see. She was enveloped in a black cloud.
His face altered. Gone was the perennial affable servant. In its place was a scowling man with brown eyes flashing fury. His hands balled into fists as he strode toward the chair where she sat.
At another time, he would have frightened her.
She touched the locket at the base of her throat. Inside was a lock of Eudora’s hair. The locket had become a talisman, a way of enduring one moment to the next.
She’d discovered something odd about grief. Grief was different depending on the person being mourned. She’d never thought about it before and now she couldn’t think of anything else.
Her husband’s death was unexpected, yet she’d mourned him with the devotion of a wife married twenty years. She anticipated Lawrence’s death from the moment he’d been born with bluish lips. She’d watched him grow more frail with each passing year and worried about his death so much that his eventual demise had been almost a relief, God help her.
Eudora’s death, however, had been shocking and unreal, the loss still twisting inside her like a knife wielded by God.
Her darling daughter was gone. The lovely child with her husky laughter would never tease her once more. Eudora, with her love of shopping, would never again be fascinated by the scents and spices imported from around the world. Eudora would have liked to travel. She would have written letters from the places she was visiting, sprinkling each with anecdotes about people she’d met.
Eudora couldn’t be dead and yet she was. Enid dreamed of her when she finally slept, and when she awoke it was with tears on her lashes and a heaviness in her chest.
No, she didn’t want to talk to Paul Henderson. Nothing he had to say would interest her.
“Virginia’s been gone three weeks,” Paul said. “You need to summon her home.”
Even before Eudora’s death, she would’ve taken umbrage to his tone. Now his words flailed her like a whip.
“How dare you speak to me in such a way?”
“I dare a great deal, Countess, since you’ve refused to leave your room. Don’t you care about your household?”
No, she didn’t. Nor did she care that she didn’t care.
“Virginia needs to return to London.”
“Are you dictating to me now?”
She leaned back in the chair and regarded him with steady eyes. He had threatened her a few months earlier. At the time, she’d thought it was simple greed, a case of him taking advantage of a situation he could manipulate to his benefit. Now, watching him, she was not so sure. There was a light in Paul’s eyes she should have noticed. A ferocity to his expression she should have seen before now.
“Where the Countess of Barrett is, or what she does, is none of your concern.”
He strode forward, putting his hands on either arm of her chair, trapping her. Leaning forward, he breathed into her face, his lips twisted in a cruel smile.
“If you don’t summon her home, Countess, I’ll be forced to tell the truth about Lawrence’s heir. Tell me, does being thrown into the street appeal to you?”
Once, his threats might have mattered. How foolish of him not to realize everything had changed.
She was calm and strangely at peace when she smiled at him. “Do your worst, Henderson,” she said, reaching up and patting him on the cheek. “I find I simply do not care.”
Chapter 26
