“Are you not pleased?” She frowned at him. “I’ve only made it apparent to the silly cow that she has no place here.”
He had not been so enraged in a very long time. He clenched his fists and took a breath, forcing himself to calm. “She has every place here. She is my wife.”
“In name only,” Eleanor protested, her voice sounding suddenly fragile.
But Simon was unmoved. “Indeed, Eleanor. Just as you have been wife to your husband. If he beats you, then you should not return to him. But you will need to find another roof above your head. You cannot remain here.”
“I beg your pardon?” Her already wan complexion had gone even paler.
“You must leave. I cannot countenance your machinations,” he explained, realizing he had erred in ever allowing her to stay when she had first arrived. She had ever been a weakness of his, and he had pitied her, still moved by the tender feelings he’d had for her. But he should have urged her to seek other shelter. He had been too bloody stupid to see it.
“You love me,” she protested, going to him and placing a dainty palm on his chest. “You’re simply angry. I only did what I thought you wished me to do. You mustn’t permit yourself to feel sorry for her.”
He shook her touch away. “No, Eleanor. I do not love you. I doubt now that I ever did. Nor do I think you love me. We were two people searching for something bigger than ourselves, naïve enough to think we’d found it.”
Her expression disintegrated before him. “How can you be so merciless?”
“I might ask the same of you, madam,” he reminded her tightly.
“Are you truly taking up the cudgels for that woman?”
Yes, damn it. He was. Over the course of the last month, he had learned quite a bit about the wife he’d ignored. She was a poet, a wild lover, a kind heart. She hadn’t deserved to be thrust into the position in which he had placed her. That much he knew for certain.
“I am,” he said at last, feeling as if he had just taken up a cause in a civil war. “I have to, Eleanor. You made your choice a long time ago, and now I have made mine.”
“How could you?” Her hands fluttered about her as if they were lost butterflies before she pressed them to her mouth.
He had the uncomfortable impression that she was stifling a sob. He didn’t want to hurt her either, but she had left him with a decision to make. He didn’t know what would come of his marriage with Maggie, but he did know they were inextricably linked for the rest of their lives. He didn’t want her to disappear from his life.
“I’m sorry,” he managed, the rage seeping from him as if he were a torn sail. “I’m going to find her, and when I return, I want you gone from here. You may take my carriage.”
Tears slid down her cheeks in earnest now as a sense of finality weighed upon the moment. “Where shall I go? Billingsley will not take me in now.”
He didn’t believe her. “I never asked you to leave him,” he reminded her, his tone gentling as she continued to weep. “You chose your fate.”
“He chose it for me,” she argued.
“No.” For Simon knew differently. He would have done anything to keep her, run away with her to the continent if he’d had to do so. He had told her as much then. She had still walked away. “You chose it. I begin to think you aren’t at all the woman I believed you to be.”
“But I love you.”
“You also lie. Frequently and without compunction.” He forced himself to think of Lord Needham and her early indiscretion with him. How many others had there been? Likely, he would never know. “I will always care for you, Eleanor, but our time together must be at an end.”
“You’re throwing me over?” Disbelief clouded her voice. “Truly? You would be so callous as to chase after her and toss me out as if I were no better than rubbish from the dustbin?”
“Not rubbish,” he corrected her. “Merely my past. I must go now. I hope when next we meet it shall be as friends.”
He didn’t wait to hear her response. He left the chamber, determined to find Maggie if it was the last thing he did.
* * * * *
The hired conveyance rumbled over the roads as Maggie pressed a hand to her roiling stomach. Perhaps her idea had not been a good one, she acknowledged now, for the carriage she’d been able to procure after sending Sandhurst’s back to Denver House was appallingly creaky and old. It smelled of sourness, must and horse dung. The combination of swaying, rumbling and odors made her horribly nauseated. To add to already dismal matters, the skies had opened up in a bitter torrent of rain, and the carriage had a leaking roof. But she hadn’t wanted her husband to find her. She was not simply leaving him, she was disappearing entirely. Oh, she didn’t fool herself that he would bother to find her, but she didn’t want it to even be a possibility.
She certainly hoped they would soon reach Lady Needham’s estate, for she couldn’t bear to be trapped within the carriage for much longer. At least the unpleasantness of her surroundings was somewhat serving to distract her from the ache in her heart.
Maggie had never felt more broken in her life. She felt like a teacup that had been hurled from a rooftop to shatter into infinitesimal shards below. She was reminded of the poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, My Heart and I. You see, we’re tired, my heart and I. We dealt with books, we trusted men, went the verses. Yes, Maggie’s heart was tired indeed. She had trusted Simon, and in so doing had fallen headfirst into her own demise. And in our own blood drenched the pen. The poem rang so terribly true to her.
“Stop this carriage!”
A familiar voice, commanding and arrogant and yet beloved as ever, broke through her uneasy thoughts. Simon? It cannot be. She moved from the uncomfortable bench to press her face against the dingy window. She was afraid to hope, terrified that somehow she had conjured him. Perhaps she was dreaming, and any moment she’d fall to the dirty floor of the carriage and wake up to the awful realization that Simon still loved Lady Billingsley and he’d happily live the rest of his life without Maggie.
But no. There he was. Her foolish heart swelled with joy. Crouched low over his horse, a fierce expression etched on his handsome face, he looked like a marauder of old. A hero torn from the pages of a book she once sighed over.
He had followed her. Relief mingled with love, slipping over her like a warm blanket. “Stop,” she called to the driver. “Stop at once.”
The carriage groaned to an unsteady halt and she was already on her feet, throwing open the door. Simon dismounted when he saw her, closing the distance between them in three long strides. He caught her waist in an almost punishing grip, hauling her down from her perch. “Damn you, Maggie. What the hell were you about, leaving me without a bloody word?”
She searched his face, hoping to find tenderness there but finding none. Somehow, she hadn’t anticipated his anger. As she’d played out his reaction in her mind, she had expected his relief. She had hoped for his sadness. She had not thought of rage, but it was an irate husband glaring down at her now, demanding answers.
“I wrote you a letter,” she managed, holding on to his arms.
“A wrong-headed nonsensical piece of shite,” he declared.
Dear heavens. She had done it this time. While she was gratified that he hadn’t wanted her to leave after all, she didn’t know precisely how to mollify him. She decided to begin with the heart of her leaving. “Lady Billingsley gave me your correspondence. I read it all, and I couldn’t bear for you to be apart from someone you obviously loved so much.”
“You might have asked me,” he countered. “You could have come to me, Maggie. Why did you not?”
“You never wanted me from the first,” she reminded him. “I know you certainly never loved me.”
“A man can change, by God.” His grip on her tightened as he gave her a slight shake as if to shock some reason into her. “Haven’t you ever thought of that?”
She was trapped in the vibrant-green depths of his gaze. “I thought you had changed. But
then Lady Billingsley appeared, and you seemed so torn. I care enough for you that I didn’t want to stand in the way of your happiness.”
“Don’t you see?” He took her face in his palms then, drawing their mouths impossibly near. “You are my happiness.”
Her heart soared. “Me?”
“You,” he confirmed. “I don’t know how the devil it happened, but somehow you’ve managed to rot my brain.”
Oh dear. That didn’t sound very romantic at all. She frowned at him. “I’ve done nothing of the sort.”
“The hell you haven’t. Before I stepped on your train at Lady Needham’s, I was perfectly sane. I didn’t need laughter or dancing in the rain or a wife at my side. But then a beautiful poet with hair the color of fire had me making love to her in the bloody library and on a hill in the middle of my estate and on the breakfast table and everywhere else I possibly could. And she made me realize I’m not the man I thought I was.”
She flushed at his mentioning of their lustful adventures. “You’re not?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Because the man I thought I was could live without Margaret Emilia Desmond, a woman who is kind even when she bloody well shouldn’t be, who made me feel at home for the first time in years, a woman who broke her arm when she was a girl and never once cried.”
Tears pricked her eyes. He had remembered. He had remembered everything. And perhaps he had felt an answering love growing within him as well. It wasn’t precisely a declaration, but it would do.
“I thought I could live without you,” he said again. “But I cannot. Come home with me, Maggie.”
He wasn’t asking, but she didn’t care. That was Simon’s way, all gruff blustering without a hint of persuasion. No, he had not told her he loved her. But he had followed her, and he wanted her back. It would definitely do, she decided again.
“Yes,” was all she said, and then she was in his arms, his mouth on hers. She was precisely where she wanted to be.
* * * * *
Something was amiss. Maggie could detect as much the moment the hired carriage rolled to a stop before Denver House. Servants were milling about outside in an uncharacteristic flurry. Before she could even think, the door to the carriage flew open to reveal the shocked face of their butler, Milton.
“My lord,” he greeted them, his voice carrying a distinct thread of worry. “I regret to say there has been an incident.”
“What the devil is it?” Simon demanded.
“I’m afraid it’s Lady Billingsley,” Milton intoned. “She has fallen.”
“Christ,” he bit out. “From what?”
The ordinarily formidable butler swallowed. “From a window, it would appear, Lord Sandhurst.”
Shock speared her. Lady Billingsley had fallen from a window? Dear heaven. Judging from Milton’s grim visage, she was either grievously injured or worse. And then something sinister occurred to her. Lady Billingsley would not have merely fallen from a window. It was architecturally impossible. No indeed, she would have jumped on her own accord.
“Is she…” Simon allowed his question to trail away, seemingly incapable of completing it.
“I’ve sent for Dr. Williams, but I’m afraid his attendance will not be necessary, my lord.”
“Where the bloody hell is she?” Simon shot out of the carriage as if he were a cannon ball, leaving Maggie to be handed down in his wake.
“In the east garden, my lord,” Milton called after him, but Simon was already running.
Her heart plummeted. Maggie gathered her skirts up in her fists and hurried after him as quickly as her mules would allow her feet to travel. She was terribly afraid of what she would find but neither did she want him to face the awful scene on his own.
She had to stop twice on account of pebbles working their way into her shoes. By the time she reached the edge of the immaculate east garden, Simon had garnered quite a bit of a lead on her. Her corset bit her sides as she rushed to catch up with him, fear tangling with the growing knot of worry in her stomach.
And then she saw it, a billow of pastel skirts marred by the undeniable stark red of blood. The dress itself appeared to be suspended in the air, draped over the intricate wrought iron fencing on the garden’s perimeter. Maggie’s frantic pace slowed as comprehension filtered through her jumbled mind. Heavens. She pressed a hand over her mouth to stifle the horrified scream rising in her throat. The entire picture came together as she spotted pale arms and a blonde head hanging listlessly downward.
Dear God. Lady Billingsley had been impaled on the fence when she’d fallen from the window. Her form was utterly still. Milton’s words returned to Maggie as she watched her husband rush to Lady Billingsley’s side. I’ve sent for Dr. Williams, but I’m afraid his attendance will not be necessary… Maggie knew without a doubt that Lady Billingsley was not long for the world.
Simon ran straight to her anyway, not faltering for a moment as he attempted to rescue her, Maggie supposed, by lifting her limp body from the spiked fence. He struggled to free her, letting out an inhuman cry of grief. Maggie reached him as he at last pulled Lady Billingsley from her ignominious perch atop the fence. Blood seeped from her wounds anew. Her skin was the gray of a sky before a storm. Her eyes were open yet sightless. Red trickled from her mouth as Simon held her to him, sinking to his knees. All lingering questions were dashed. Lady Billingsley was dead.
“Eleanor,” he moaned. “Jesus, Eleanor. What have you done?”
A violent surge of nausea hit Maggie, forcing her to turn away from the grisly scene. She had never seen death in a way that was less than peaceful. Lady Billingsley’s departure from the earth had been anything but. She thought of how frightened the woman must have been, falling through the air to her demise. How horrific it all would have been.
“Simon,” she forced herself to say through lips that had gone dry with the terror of the moment. “She is gone.”
“No,” he denied. “She’s not, damn it.”
She looked back to see him cradling Lady Billingsley’s lifeless body as if she were his dearest possession on earth. It was clear to Maggie that his love for the other woman had never abated. He was devastated, his voice laden with wild grief. She felt like an interloper, watching without knowing what to do, how to help him. Tears pricked her eyes.
“Simon,” she said again, placing a hand of comfort on his shoulder. “You mustn’t torture yourself.”
“Where the devil is Milton? Get me Dr. Williams, damn you,” he growled, rocking Lady Billingsley in his arms. Tears fell unabashedly down his cheeks. “She needs assistance.”
Maggie’s heart broke for him. She searched her mind for words, but what could she say that would ease his suffering? He was holding a dead woman in his arms, the woman he had loved. It was as if the tentative bond they’d forged had fallen from a cliff, dashed on the rocks below. Maggie was once again an unwanted wife who didn’t belong before and who certainly didn’t now.
But she hated to see him tear himself apart. “I’m so sorry, Simon,” she said simply, careful to keep her voice low, comforting. It was quite a feat given the horrors before her. She never could have imagined returning to this.
“Leave me, Maggie,” he demanded, his voice ragged. “Please. I need to be alone.”
He could not have hurt her more had he slapped her fully across the face. She snatched her hand from him and spun away. The tears she’d been holding finally fell, tears for Simon as much as for Lady Billingsley. And yes, as selfish and horrid as it was, tears for herself as well. She knew instinctively that there could never be a recovery from such a tragedy. Never. This horrible death would change everything.
Milton stood behind her, his ordinarily expressionless face filled with open sympathy. She knew he had heard Simon’s dismissal of her. He cleared his throat. “Come along with me, my lady. You ought not to linger here. I shall see you into the care of the capable Mrs. Keynes.”
“Yes.” She allowed herself to be escorted into a side doo
r. “Thank you, Milton. You’re most kind.”
“Of course, my lady.”
“Please stay close to him,” she added. “He doesn’t want me, but I very much fear he shouldn’t be alone.”
“I will do as you ask, my lady.” With a bow, he handed her off to Mrs. Keynes, who hovered over her like a mother hen.
“Blessed angels, Lady Sandhurst. There now. You’re horribly pale. Do sit down.” Deep furrows of worry lined the housekeeper’s kindly round face. “You didn’t see anything, did you, my dear?”
Maggie swallowed, feeling ill anew at the thought of Lady Billingsley’s bloodied, lifeless face. “I’m afraid I did.”
“Oh, my poor dear.” Mrs. Keynes patted her hand in an unusual show of caring. “Sit down and I will have some tea brought round for you. You mustn’t think upon it. Not for another minute. God rest her ladyship’s soul.”
“God rest her soul,” Maggie murmured, feeling as if she were far away. Her vision began to blacken. Then, there was the abyss of nothingness stretching before her, calling her name. She fell headlong into it.
* * * * *
The crashing, thumping and sounds of breaking glass emerging from Simon’s study told Maggie exactly where her husband was. It was late. Hours had passed since their return to Denver House and the horrible discovery of Lady Billingsley’s lifeless body. Maggie hadn’t seen Simon since he had told her to leave him. A pall had fallen over the entire household, even the servants wandering about with bleak expressions. They had all seemingly been to the gates of hell and back.
Dinner had been served, but Simon had been nowhere to be found. Maggie had been unable to eat. The pervading silence at the table had been almost unbearable, and the entire time she sat alone with her laden plate before her, all she could think of was that a woman had killed herself. The woman Simon had loved. And Simon hadn’t wanted her comfort. He hadn’t wanted her presence.
It was hurtful, his turning away from her, especially since it followed so closely upon the heels of his desperate ride to bring her back to Denver House. She knew he was grieving, that he’d witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, but his defection remained nevertheless troubling.
Her Lovestruck Lord: 2 (Wicked Husbands) Page 17