Of all the things he might have thought she would say, that particular question wasn’t one of them. “I beg your pardon?”
“If so, how did you learn of it? Did someone tell you, and if so, who was it?”
He frowned, hearing the rising urgency in her voice but unable to pinpoint the cause.
“Does it matter?” he countered, buying time. “Why should it matter to you when I learned of your engagement to Rycroft? Or who might have told me of it?”
“Damn it, Devlin, stop toying with me and just answer my question.”
“I see no reason why I should. At least not until you tell me why you want to know and why it’s so important that you would risk coming to my room this way to find out.”
Their gazes locked, hers imperious, his unyielding, as the clock on the mantel ticked away the seconds.
At last, it was she who capitulated, breaking the silence with an aggravated sigh. “Back in January, I reserved the Pinafore Room here at the Savoy for my wedding banquet. But then I was told my reservation had been canceled and that the Pinafore had been given to someone else. This afternoon, I discovered that that someone was you.”
“What?” He blinked, taken aback. “Really?”
She folded her arms. “You seem surprised.”
“Well, of course. I mean, that’s quite a coincid—” Devlin broke off and stiffened, suddenly wary as he began to realize what all this was about. “Just what are you implying?”
“Lord Calderon canceled my reservation. Calderon is your very close friend, is he not?”
His suspicions confirmed, Devlin felt anger rising again, higher, hotter, a rekindling of all the resentment, hurt, and disillusionment that had been smoldering for years under the ashes of their dead romance.
“And you think that I stole it from you?” he demanded, his voice strident to his own ears, any pretense of indifference now beyond him. “That I did it to spike your guns and ruin your wedding plans, or something along those lines?”
“Why shouldn’t I think it?” she cried, unfolding her arms,clenching her hands into fists at her sides. “It’s not as if such a thing would be out of character for you.”
“That tears it,” he cried, whipping the towel from his neck and tossing it aside as his smoldering emotions flared to blazing life.
He must have looked a formidable sight at that moment, for when he stepped forward to once again close the distance between them, she stepped back, her eyes widening in alarm as her back hit the closed door behind her.
“I’ve had it to here,” he said through clenched teeth as he stopped in front of her, “with having insinuations and accusations about the past thrown in my teeth as if I bear all the blame for what happened and you bear none. I’ve had enough of that from my own relations, including my father, who disowned me, cut off my share of income from the estate, and who, to this very day, still isn’t speaking to me because of what happened between us. I don’t need to stand here and tolerate the same accusations from you.”
She didn’t reply, and her silence only sent his fury rising higher.
“When we eloped, you knew full well what it all meant. We talked about the ramifications in detail, including the risks if we were caught. I was scrupulously honest in warning you—”
“Honest?” she cut in, a sudden quiver in her voice that seemed at odds with the scorn in her eyes. Her face twisted, going awry, and she looked away. “You? Is that supposed to be a joke?”
The pain he saw in her countenance hit him square in the chest, but he set his jaw and ignored it, reminding himself that she wasn’t the only one who had suffered.
“You may have a point there,” he conceded, his voice tight. “I did lie, and quite blatantly, too, when the news eventually got out. If you recall, I denied to anyone who would listen that the elopementever happened. I even gave interviews to the gossip rags. I lied myself blue in the face to salvage your reputation.”
“An attempt that dismally failed, perhaps because you made these denials by letter from thousands of miles away, instead of coming home to face them in person. How brave of you. How noble.”
He couldn’t help a laugh. “So, let me see if I have this right. I was not only obligated to lie about our elopement ever having happened, but I was also expected to abandon my business interests in Africa just as they were beginning to bear fruit, travel halfway back around the world, and utter those lies in person, all so that I could watch you marry another man?” He laughed again, a raw, caustic sound that made both of them wince. “You’ll have to forgive me, Kay, but I’m just not that big of a hero.”
“Hero?” she scoffed, the contempt in her voice razor-sharp, cutting him to the quick.
“You thought so, once,” he muttered, and it was his turn to look away.
“Then I was a fool, for it’s clear you don’t even know what the word means. I was ruined because of you, and your weak attempt at lying on my behalf from the other side of the globe didn’t do a thing to stop it.”
“An unfortunate outcome that is hardly my fault. I did what I could to mitigate the damage, but—”
“Mitigate the damage?” she echoed. “Mitigate the—”
