Page 76 of The Lord I Once Loved

If that was his usual type, of course I wasn’t it. No, that was Juliana Pembroke… that was girls like Genevieve.

That wasn’t me, and I knew it all too well. Even so, the reminder was a constant sting.

“We’re not together.” I responded stiffly, speaking only the truth.

I wasn’t sure what had happened recently, ever since Will had come catapulting back into my life like a fireball, but I certainly knew that we had no formal attachment to each other.

To my surprise, she just laughed.

“Oh, of course not. None of us are evertogether. For one, a man like Will can never settle down. And for another, when the rakes of the worlddofall in love, we can be sure it’s never with someone like us.”

Like us.

To Genevieve, her and I were the same. At first, I felt it was ridiculous – she was beautiful and wealthy. But she clearly wasn’t of the ton, either. She was a girl who, for whatever reason, had managed to capture the attention of a Lord. Just like I had.

But as she said, she would never marry a Lord. It was only a passing fling. She was a piece of arm candy to distract him in his wayward youth.

And she was right. When a rake did marry… it was always to a respectable girl of means and family.

Not to girlslike us.

I recalled the conversation I had overheard between my Uncle Nicholas and Will at Gracechurch Street. Will had sounded as if, for a moment, he might consider marrying me. But that was absurd. William Thorne was a rake through-and-through, but he was also one of the wealthiest Lords of England.

If he did ever marry, it wouldn’t be to me.

“You know, when I first met Will, I thought he was just going through a wild phase.” Genevieve said, leaning closer to me. “I’ve never seen someone drink so much, and I’ve seen quite a bit. But he doesn’t seem to have changed over the years one bit.”

I glanced over at him. He was laughing boisterously with Cavendish and some other men. The night was getting late, and I could tell the majority of the party were well-soaked in drink.

Will perhaps most of all.

“He’s rarely sober.” I said quietly, still watching him.

Genevieve sighed.

“Will’s behavior has always struck me as different than the other men. You know, most of these Lords are just in it for a fun night, to blow off some steam. But Will seems dedicated to the lifestyle, day in and day out. I mean, the stories I’ve heard…”

“Stories?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat.

I had heard plenty of stories about Will, but they were always filtered down to the most lukewarm pieces of gossip. Salacious, to be sure, but censored for the consumption of polite society. Something told me that Genevieve knew a bit more than that.

Genevieve laughed.

“Well, I actually met Will the first time because of my friend Georgia,” she nodded her head towards the opera singer I’d been introduced to earlier, who was now standing in the same group as Cavendish and Will.

“She was in a dalliance of sorts with him. It was quite dramatic, the talk of the ton. This was a few years ago, of course, so you might not have heard of it.”

I swallowed, feeling the blood drain out of my face.

Of course, I had heard the stories about Will. People had whispered of his dalliances. I had evenseenhim with Juliana Pembroke at the fountain at Lord Turley’s party just a few months ago. He had told mehimselfthat he was a seducer.

But for some reason, I had felt that our relationship was different. Deeper, somehow… because we’d known each other so long.

Had I just been fooling myself?

I watched Will take a sip from his flask, and the opera singer, Georgia apparently, giggled at a quip he made. I felt a sickening feeling of jealousy creep up my spine.

“Afterwards, Georgia had nothing bad to say about him, really, besides his overall lack of… seriousness. It’s like he is committed to being as drunk and detached as he can be.”

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