Page 42 of Beyond Scandal and Desire
He’d once thought her crucial to his scheme of bringing about Hedley’s downfall. Now he feared that she might very well lead to his.
Chapter 10
Aslyn awoke to sunshine pouring in through her bedchamber window. She hadn’t expected that. With such a heavy heart, she should be greeted with rain, an abundance of it gushing down in sheets that hampered visibility. Heaving a deep sigh, she shoved herself up and settled against the pillows. Last night, she’d instructed Nan to bring her breakfast. She couldn’t face the duke across the dining table.
Fortunately neither he nor the duchess had been waiting for her when she returned home, so they’d been spared wondering why their son didn’t escort her inside. After his bout of retching, he’d clambered back into the carriage, curled up on the seat and begun to snore loudly as though her threat of calling things off mattered little. For all of a heartbeat, she’d considered waking him so they could finish their conversation and come to some sort of terms or an understanding, but she’d been unable to rely on any rational discourse in his current state. She’d have to wait for him to sober up.
Upon arriving at the residence, she’d made a hasty retreat from the carriage, leaving him to see his own self home, where she assumed his servants would either assist in getting him inside or simply leave him to sleep it off in his conveyance. She rather hoped for the latter. He’d betrayed her trust, proved himself unworthy of her affections.
Where he was concerned, how could she have been such a fool? While she’d been brought up to expect marriage, to see becoming a wife and mother as her duty, presently she wasn’t convinced she wanted it. Never before had Kip shown such blatant disregard for her feelings.
With a deep sigh, she scrubbed her hands over her face. Melancholy didn’t suit her. She was weary of being so passive, of waiting for life to happen to her. She was as dependent on Kip for her happiness as he was on his damned cards and wagering for his own. When he had described what it was to win, all she’d been able to think was that the same things happened to her when she was near Mick Trewlove. She wasn’t exactly sure precisely what that meant. The man confused her in ways she’d never even known existed.
And with whom could she discuss all these confounding feelings, the ones about Kip whom she’d once admired and whose actions she now detested, Mick whom Society insisted she shun because of his birth, and yet she’d grown to admire?
She couldn’t seek advice from the duchess, couldn’t tell her about her son’s abhorrent behavior nor could she reveal what a gentleman she found Mick Trewlove to be. So who was there for her to talk to? She’d been raised in near isolation at the ducal estate until it was time to have a Season. She’d met other ladies, but she hadn’t become close to them; they didn’t share intimacies, only gossip. Kip was the one to whom she’d always spoken before, had shared her doubts and fears, her hopes and dreams. She felt as though he’d squashed them, torn them up, cast them aside and in so doing had cast her aside as well, with little thought, and anger, and words that could never be unheard.
Tossing back the covers, she scrambled out of bed, unable to abide this moping about. She was going to join the duke for breakfast. She was going to find a purpose to her life that didn’t involve marriage. She was going to determine how best to help Kip realize he needed to leave the gambling tables before they destroyed him. She wouldn’t abandon him, but neither could she embrace him, not as he’d been last night, not as he may have been many nights before.
A soft rap sounded on her door just before Nan opened it and walked inside carrying a tray. “I thought you wanted breakfast in bed.”
Oh dear. She couldn’t very well not eat in her room after putting her servant to such bother. “I’ll have it in the sitting area.”
Nan set it on the low table before turning to face her, looking rather guilty as she did. “Another package arrived for you—same as before. Well, not quite. It wasn’t the same gent who delivered it but a scruffy little lad who was told to give it only to me and I was to give it only to you.” She held out a leather box, similar in shape to the other, but larger.
Aslyn took it, opened it. On a small card was written:A lady should never be separated from her pearls.
She lifted out the note. Beneath it rested her necklace and comb. There was a pain in the center of her chest, a tight knot as though her heart were being squeezed tighter and tighter. Her eyes burned more than they had when she’d walked into the smoke-hazed card room. More than they had when she’d realized Kip had not kept his promise to her, that he had in fact lost the wager.
Mick Trewlove was showing her a kindness that her own betrothed had failed to do. A second man was stepping into her life while the first was stepping out of it. Confusion rocked her. She felt as though she were perched on the deck of a ship in the midst of a tempest. She had no business whatsoever thinking about Mick, but the horrible realization struck her that she had no desire to think about Kip.
Still, two hours later she found herself standing in the foyer of Kip’s town house.
“I’m sorry, m’lady,” his butler said, true sorrow reflected in his tone, “but his lordship is quite under the weather today.”
Glancing up the stairs, she wondered if she looked hard enough if she might see him suffering. She needed to speak with him; they needed to get things sorted out. Too much had been said, too much left unsaid. “Let him know I came by, and that I expect him to call on me as soon as he is able.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
She turned to go, stopped, swung back around. “Is he often under the weather?”
Clearing his throat, the butler looked down as though needing to check the polish on his shoes. His silence revealed his loyalty as well as providing the answer.
“My apologies. I’ve put you on the spot. I’ll be certain to let him know you hold his trust.”
“Thank you, m’lady.”
She walked out with her two maids following. All her life she’d listened and adhered to the duchess’s admonishments that dangers loomed afield, and she must never stray far from the familiar. Yet it was the familiar causing her heartache. She needed to help Kip, but she didn’t know how. Although she thought she might have a good idea regarding where to begin.
She waited on tenterhooks until the residence was completely quiet and absolutely still. Eerily so. She ignored Nan’s warnings and declined her maid’s offer to accompany her. If something went awry, she didn’t want her loyal servant to be faulted. Besides, there was a thrill to walking out of the residence unaccompanied. Until the precise moment when the door closed behind her and she found herself standing alone on the stoop, she didn’t realize she’d never ventured forth without a cadre of servants waiting for her or following in her wake, or Kip offering his arm.
But tonight it was only she. Well, she and the hansom driver waiting at the end of the long drive that now echoed her hurried footsteps. She’d made the arrangements earlier in the afternoon when she’d supposedly gone shopping. Instead she’d been scouting out her options for making a clandestine escape.
An unfortunate word that, but there were numerous ways to be caged and not all of them came with steel bars or locked doors.
The driver tipped his hat and opened the door as she approached. “Miss.”
“Thank you, sir, for meeting me.”
