“I’m afraid it does.”
Guinevere strode to the nearest seat, which happened to be a settee facing Lady Constantine, and sat. “Well?” she demanded. “You may explain now.”
Lady Constantine cleared her throat. “He did ask me to wed him, but it was hardly a proposal of love.”
Guinevere had a sudden wish for the settee to swallow her into its plush blue cushions. “I could say the same about his proposal to me,” she muttered.
“I think not, Your Grace,” Lady Constantine said. “He offered me a marriage of convenience.”
That did not make her feel better. Lady Constantine’s revelation only served to reinforce what Talbot had told her.
“He offered for you, and you turned him down, Lady Constantine, so he came after me.” Guinevere didn’t care that she was relaying personal information. She didn’t care that it flew in the face of all the rules. She didn’t care about anything. Her heart hurt too much.
Her anguish peaked to shatter the last bits of her control. She rose on shaky legs as grief overwhelmed her. “He had to wed,” she bit out. When Lady Constantine did not deny it, Guinevere stilled, her grief mingling with burning anger. “You knew. You knew, and that’s why you jumped at the opportunity to aid him in being alone with me that night after supper.”
Lady Constantine reached toward her, but Guinevere jerked backward. She didn’t blame the lady, but she did not want a comforting hand.
“I, well… Yes, he did admit he was compelled to wed, but—”
“What else did he tell you?” She might as well get all the daggers plunged into her heart at once.
Lady Constantine offered a defeated sigh. Looking miserable, she said, “He admitted that someone had laid rules before him and that you were an acceptable candidate to them—”
“To them,” Guinevere interrupted, rocking back on her heels with the pain that assailed her.
Lady Constantine winced. “Well, yes, those were his words, but I am certain he cares for you.”
“Oh, truly?” Guinevere said, her voice rising in sarcasm. “What makes you certain?”
She’d been certain, too. She was a fool. Lady Constantine was a fool. Perhaps all women were fools led by their foolish hearts.
“Was it that he asked you to wed him first that makes you certain he cares for me?” she went on. “Was it that he said I was an acceptable candidate to the person who laid the rules before him but did not say I was an acceptable candidate tohim? Was it the wordacceptable?” she flung out, moving toward the door in blind fury and sorrow.
Why? Why had he played at being tender and caring? Did he think to make a fool of her? Was it some sort of game? Her emotions were too wild to consider anything but fleeing right then. She flung open the parlor door but was stopped by Lady Constantine’s hand upon her arm.
“I vow to you that I would have said something if I did not firmly believe you have his heart.”
Guinevere shoved Lady Constantine’s hand away. “His heart!” Her fury was scalding now. “He has no heart! You are as big a fool as I am!”
With that, she passed gaping servants to depart the house, and she managed to hold back her tears until she was in the curricle and headed once again to the park. The sky was darkening, and she should surely return home, but how could she go back there? She could not face him knowing what she now knew. She loved him. She loved him, and she did not want to feel that way. The wheels turned onto the path of Rotten Row, which seemed to be abandoned.
Her heart pounded mercilessly, and her throat ached with the need to scream. She wanted to flee from what she had learned, flee from her heartbreak, flee from her confusion. Before she knew it, her curricle was flying down Rotten Row. The wind whipped her hair and stung her face as she drove through the last rays of light. She squeezed her stinging eyes shut, and suddenly her curricle jolted and her horses neighed. With a scream, she opened her eyes and pulled back on the reins only to find a phaeton commanded by none other than Kilgore at the side of the row. Blackhearted rogues were everywhere.
The horses came to a shuddering halt.
“What the devil?” Kilgore bellowed as he dismounted, closed the distance between them, and snatched the reins from her. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
She didn’t know what she’d been trying to do, and her emotions were too much to contain. She burst into fresh tears, and before she knew what was occurring, Kilgore had pulled her down from her seat and tugged her into his arms to hug her.
“There, there,” he said in the most surprisingly soothing tone. It was one that bespoke of a man who had soothed a woman before. “Tell Kilgore what is the matter,” he said in a teasing tone as he patted her back as one would a child. “Have you found marital life to be more misery than bliss?”
Asher would not have believed it if he were not seeing with his own two eyes. His wife stood in Kilgore’s arms in the middle of Rotten Row for anyone to see. Not that there was anyone present at that hour.
Black rage swept through him, and he started to signal to his horses to go so he could confront them both, but then something stopped him. He held the reins tightly, keeping the beasts in place at the edge of the park. He would not give Kilgore the satisfaction of seeing him enraged, jealous, and a fool for Guinevere—again.
It didn’t matter where he confronted her. He knew the truth now. His wife had come to Town for a rendezvous with Kilgore.
He snapped the reins and swung the conveyance around before sending the horses into a gallop, the wheels crunching first over the gravel path, then grass and dirt. Why? Why had she wed him and not Kilgore? Had the bastard not offered? Had her parents forced her, after all, thinking wedding Asher was the best option for her sisters to secure a good future?
