Poor Greeves tried not to look or listen as she kissed Octavian, and cooed words of love to him. Yes, she sounded like an infatuated peahen. But how could she not worship and adore Octavian after all he had done for her?
Before Octavian departed for the Admiralty, she reminded him of tonight’s plans. “We are to dine at Lady Dayne’s this evening. Shall I pick you up at your office? Or will you come home to change?”
He groaned and glanced down at himself. “Pick me up on your way over, will you? Well, it is a bit out of your way.”
“No, it’s fine,” she insisted.
He kissed her on the brow. “Can you bring me a change of clothes? I’ll wash up and change into them there. Do you mind?”
She laughed and shook her head. “Not at all. It is no inconvenience. I would go to the ends of the earth for you if you asked it of me.”
Greeves made a sound somewhere between a groan and a chuckle.
Syd sighed.
Octavian kissed her. “I love you, Syd.”
She floated back to the parlor to join her friends.
Neither Marigold nor Gory stayed long after seeing she was fine because they had all been invited to supper at Lady Dayne’s residence on Chipping Way and needed to prepare. “Until later,” Marigold said and gave her a hug.
Marigold loved to hug.
Usually, she hugged her husband, Leo, who did not seem to mind her displays of affection at all.
Gory, who preferred dissecting cadavers rather than dealing with living people, also gave her a sincere embrace. “We’ll stand by your side no matter what lies are spread about you. Friends forever.”
Marigold agreed. “Friends forever.”
Syd smiled. “Yes, forever in friendship.”
The day had started with so much trepidation that Syd marveled she was able to begin the evening in such good spirits. Amid the dark clouds of turmoil, she had discovered the light that true love and true friends had brought to her.
So it was with a dancing step that she walked into the Admiralty building and made her way up to Octavian’s office in the early evening to pick up Octavian. Most of the staff had gone home by now, so she encountered hardly anyone other than a guard at the entry and another few guards along the empty hallways.
Her footsteps resounded as she walked down the dimly lit hall to his office while carrying his change of clothes. Sheheld the garments carefully so that they would not wrinkle. “Octavian, I–”
Her stomach sank into her toes.
Her world fell apart.
Standing before her, with her octopus arms wrapped around Octavian’s neck and her body pasted to his, was Lady Clementine. “Oops,” the horrid debutante said with a malicious gleam in her eyes. “Your wife has caught us, Captain Thorne. Why did you not tell me you expected her here?”
If Octavian was a dragon, he would be breathing fire.
Syd wanted to run away, but her legs seemed bolted to the floor.
“Syd, seriously? Lady Clementine must have heard you coming down the hall and this is why she suddenly threw herself at me,” he said, trying to extricate himself from her grip. “You cannot believe I would ever…Syd? For pity’s sake. I knew you were coming to pick me up. Do you think I would be so stupid as to arrange a tryst with another woman at the same time? In my office, no less?”
Was it cruel of her to make him squirm?
Especially since she knew Lady Clementine had purposely set him up. She knew it because she could see the malice still gleaming in the odious debutante’s eyes. Revenge. This is what Clementine wanted, revenge on the man who had spurned her. She was another just like Lady Harcourt.
Octavian had told her so, but she had dismissed the warning until now.
Syd also noted the honest anguish in Octavian’s eyes, and knew this valiant man did not have it in him ever to be unfaithful to her.
But feelings of hurt did ripple through her.
