“I fully understand my responsibility, Mama, and I have no intention of shirking it. But I’m glad you mention Josephine, because in light of what you did, of how you and Papa deceived me,I intend to be sure you have no chance at all to use Josephine in the same way. I intend to advise her to always post her letters herself, so that I may ensure she is never the subject of your machinations the way I was.”
“Machinations?” Magdelene sat upright, looking affronted. “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Kay?”
“I heard every word, and I accept your explanations. I even forgive you for them. But I will not forget them.”
“And will you tell Josephine about any of this?”
“No. And,” she added as her parent sagged with relief, “we will not speak of it again. We will put it behind us. But I do that for Josephine’s sake, Mama, not for yours. As for myself, I doubt I will ever be able to trust you again.”
With that, she turned and walked out, and as she closed the door behind her, she tried not to care that her mother had just burst into tears.
Devlin stared down at the offer to purchase that his solicitors had forwarded to him from Lord Shrewsbury, but despite reading the typewritten lines for the third time, he could still not seem to comprehend their meaning. His mind, sadly, was not thinking of a house in Eaton Square, but of a suite on the other side of the Savoy Hotel, and a pair of sage-green eyes filled with pride and defensiveness and tinged with desperation.
A week had passed since the Mayfair soiree, and yet he could not stop thinking about that night, about the facts he and Kay had both uncovered regarding their elopement so long ago, about theperfidy of her parents, and the misunderstandings, chaos, and pain that had resulted.
He’d lost his heart to her the moment he’d taken her into his arms that night at Lady Rowland’s ball, and her parents’ disapproval of him had only fueled his determination to have her. He’d been young and randy and wild, but he had loved her, body and soul.
He stared down at the papers on his desk with unseeing eyes, remembering it all, from the night he’d first seen her at the ball to the secret assignations, the whispered conversations, and the hot, stolen kisses of those three months in London. He thought of their desperate, clandestine meetings where they’d plotted running away together. And that fateful night in Birmingham when she’d refused to go on with it. These memories swam through his mind with vivid clarity—the gardenia scent of her hair, the velvety softness of her lips, the blazing lust she could ignite just by flashing him a look with those strange, wonderful eyes. His frantic desperation to have her, the triumph when at last they were on their way to a life together. He thought of that night in Birmingham, of her in front of him nearly naked, and lust raging in him like a hurricane.
But he’d actually done the honorable thing. He’d kissed her within an inch of her life, and then he’d torn himself away and slept on the floor. It had been agony. It had also been the happiest night of his life.
And then, it had all gone wrong.
The duke’s sisters had burst in, and like a bucket of cold water had been hurled over her, Kay had come to her senses. She’d looked at him, those eyes heartsick, and he knew deep down inside that he’d lost her.
He refused to admit that to himself at the time, of course. He’dgone to Wales, to Yorkshire, and then halfway around the world, and through it all—on the boat to Cape Town, during his trek from South Africa to Egypt—he’d propped up his hopes with each letter he’d written, determined to believe that somehow, some day, they’d be together. He’d consoled himself with memories of her for months on end, but looking back now, he recognized the strange unreality of it all, as if he’d been living in a dream. Her engagement to Giles had woken him up.
Then those memories of her had become not a solace to sustain him but a torment to torture him. His illusions irrevocably shattered, his love transmuting into resentment and hate, and then, slowly, all of it easing into some half-forgotten corner of his mind. He’d met Pam, and that had rather put the lid on things. At last, life had seemed worth living again, and he’d finally thought he was over the past, and that he could actually make a life with a woman who was not Kay.
He closed his eyes and tried to hang on to that—to the life he was building now, to the woman he would be marrying in a month, and to the future he would have with her, working to once again relegate Kay to that vague, hazy corner of his consciousness where she’d been before that fateful moment in the florist shop.
Pam, he reminded himself over and over, was his responsibility now. Kay was not. Kay had a fiancé of her own to take care of her, and though Rycroft might very well be a tyrant, marrying him was her decision and not his problem.
It was her decision, granted, but was it really a choice?
He muttered an oath and opened his eyes again. Yanking a pen out of its holder, he once again turned his attention to the document before him, forcing himself to read it all the way through.
His solicitors had assured him it was a fair offer, and he was inclined to agree. It would be an ideal investment property, likely to bring in a very high rent for many years to come, and though the asking price was steep, he could easily afford to pay it.
Not everyone, a little voice whispered to him, had that luxury.
Devlin sighed and leaned back in his chair, tapping the pen against the blotter on his writing desk, his mind drifting from his own comfortable financial situation to that of someone who had not been so fortunate.
It had never occurred to him that Kay could be in such dire straits. Thinking back fourteen years, he tried to remember if her father had ever shown any signs of financial impecunity, but it was hard to know. Peers tended to hide that sort of misfortune. Besides, his family and hers had not been well acquainted. The one time he’d visited Raleigh Grange in pursuit of Kay, he’d paid no notice to the conditions of the earl’s estate. His thoughts had been on Kay, not her home.
He did know that the earl had seemed prosperous enough. He’d managed to somehow scrape together two thousand pounds to get rid of the man he’d deemed a fortune hunter. In hindsight, he could recall no signs that indicated the earl had been desperate for money. But then, he hadn’t been looking for any.
If only he’d seen. Devlin tightened his grip on the pen in his hand. If only he’d known.
The moment those thoughts went through his mind, he almost wanted to laugh. Had he known her family was broke, would it have mattered? It probably would only have made his resolve to get her out of their clutches all the greater.
In the end, of course, none of it had mattered. Her determinationto escape had faltered at the last minute, and he’d known she would never go to Africa.
If only he’d stayed.
Ah, but what then? The options for the fifth son of a peer who hated his guts were limited. God knows, he wasn’t cut out for the clergy or the army, which meant he’d probably have become a barrister, or worked for a bank, or become some rich magnate’s secretary, and he knew none of those occupations would have enabled Raleigh to give permission for Kay to marry him. And, to be brutally honest, Africa was where he’d wanted to be. It had been so easy to believe the earl, to take his money, and go where he wanted to go, confident he’d make his fortune and come back to Kay with something to offer her. He hadn’t thought she would see his departure as an abandonment. How could he, given all the letters he’d written?
Looking back, the news of her engagement to Giles hadn’t really been much of a surprise. A shock, yes, but once the shock and disbelief had worn off, he’d accepted her supposed betrayal as a fact without really questioning why she’d done it. And given that he’d never heard from her, it had seemed quite likely that she’d given him up willingly to marry someone else.
