Too late.
Every instinct he possessed was very sure of that. He needed to see Therese tonight—or at least before the next dawn. He couldn’t let her misapprehension—and the vulnerability that drove it—remain unaddressed for a moment longer than necessary; he was unutterably certain of that.
And he did have the most up-to-date driving lamps installed on his curricle.
He shook his head and refocused on the stationmaster. “No. Don’t hold the train for me.” The man’s face fell, and Devlin managed a weak smile. “No doubt you’ll see me and the countess when next we head north.”
Reassured, the man smiled and bowed. “We’ll look forward to it, my lord.”
Devlin reined in his impatience and allowed the man to deferentially escort him from the platform and across the hall before firmly taking his leave beneath the ornate entrance.
Finally free, he strode to where Mitchell waited, chatting to several urchins who, attracted by the show of prime horseflesh, had drawn close enough to pepper the groom with questions.
Mitchell saw Devlin coming and saluted.
The urchins took one look at his set face and scattered.
He returned to the curricle’s seat and, when Mitchell offered them, retook the reins. He settled the ribbons in his hands as Mitchell swung up behind, then set the horses trotting toward the road.
Once he’d turned in to the traffic heading west, Devlin called over his shoulder. “Are you up for a run to the Priory? Or would you rather I drop you off farther along, and you can take a hackney back to Alverton House?”
He didn’t need to look to know that Mitchell blinked in surprise. “What? Now, my lord?”
Devlin merely nodded.
Mitchell huffed, apparently faintly offended by Devlin’s suggestion. “If it’s all the same to you, my lord, I’d rather not leave you to be forced to rest these beauties in some stablemaster’s care while you take a break. I’ll stick with you.”
Devlin faintly smiled. He’d expected as much, but had felt he should ask. Given he was driving his cherished bays, he would have to manage them over the distance. Under those circumstances, it would take at least eight hours to reach his country home.
But that was neither here nor there. He fully intended to be reunited with his wife before tomorrow dawned.
In their compartment in the third of the first-class carriages rattling northward along the rails, Therese leaned back against the squabs and tried to relax.
Spencer and Rupert sat opposite, on the rear-facing seat, with Spencer leaning forward alongside Rupert to press his nose to the window in a likely vain attempt to spot the usual landmarks the pair knew bordered the tracks as the train chuffed out of London.
Out of habit, Therese took visual stock of their small party. On the seat opposite, Nanny Sprockett’s comfortable bulk filled the spot beside Spencer, with Horry wedged between Nanny and Gillian, the slighter of the two nursemaids; Gillian was playing a quiet game involving fingers, which fascinated Horry and kept the little girl amused. Therese herself sat beside the window on the forward-facing seat with Parker beside her, and red-haired Patty, the other nursemaid, filling the spot closest to the compartment’s door.
Morton and Dennis had seats in the second-class carriage immediately behind the one in which Therese and the footmen’s other charges sat.
Feeling sluggish and dragged down, Therese shifted her gaze to the window and stared past her sons’ heads at the backs of houses, barely discernible in the darkening night. There were no lamps in the compartment—within the train, the only light came from tiny lamps in the corridor alongside—and the occasional gleam from a lantern or streetlight outside illuminated little of the drab scenery, leaving her with no distraction. Nothing to prevent her thoughts from turning inward, nothing to block awareness of her bruised and battered heart from rising and swamping her mind.
The pain—a dull, throbbing ache—was real. She’d always dismissed as a melodramatic metaphor the notion of one’s heart being physically hurt by emotional events, but she could now testify that heartache was a very real affliction.
The train clattered on, and the boys gave up peering into the night in favor of eating the bread, fruit, and cheese Cook had packed for their supper. While waiting for the train to arrive, they’d consumed the pies provided for their main meal. Grateful for the distraction, Therese took Horry onto her lap and, in the dim light, fed her daughter bits of bread, apple, and cheese. Once their stomachs were full, the children grew sleepy, and between them, Therese and Nanny Sprockett settled the three to nod and nap, with Rupert and Spencer curled up opposite Therese and Horry snuggled down on Nanny Sprockett’s ample lap.
Therese sat back. As the compartment quieted, she gazed unseeing at the darkness beyond the window, and inevitably, her inner tempest rose to the forefront of her brain.
It took some time and an effort of will to force her mind to focus on the happening—on the singular moment in time—that was the source of her anguish, her emotional turmoil. Every time she brought the image to the fore, her mind balked, and her wits skittered and tried to shy away; grimly, she tightened her mental grip and pushed herself to look again and see.
She forced herself to replay the brutal moment, to observe, recognize, and catalog all she’d seen. The beautiful, quietly voluptuous, dark-haired woman with her face lighting in joyous welcome at the sight of Devlin. She forced herself to note again the quality of the charming smile he’d bent on the lady in reply.
Ruthlessly, she forced herself to view it all, to examine and analyze every second, no matter how painful. It had happened. She’d seen it with her own eyes, and now, she had to find some way to deal with the outcome—to deal with all she felt.
She drew in a deep, unsteady breath.
She’d told Child the unvarnished truth—she wished Devlin had never claimed to love her. If he hadn’t told her that and made her believe it, learning what she had that day would still have been painful, but the damage would, relatively speaking, have been minor, nothing like the raw, gaping wound she currently bore.
If he hadn’t told her he loved her, the entire episode wouldn’t have been so emotionally catastrophic.
