His one-syllable response only made the hurt sharper. “You might at least express some shock, or pretend to feel a little sympathy.”
At the quiver in her voice, the earl frowned. “Allow me to say he has no idea what a mistake he’s making. But, Miss Langley, if he has doubts, it’s better to know that now, before it’s too late.”
“You mean you actually support him in this?” She stared at Ayersley in shock. “But he asked me to marry him, and I haven’t done anything!”
The earl came closer, leaning his weight on the library table only a foot or two from where she stood. “Sometimes feelings simply change.”
She shook her head. “How can you say that so lightly? I thought you were my friend!”
“I am your friend, and always will be.” He caught her hand when she tried to turn away. “No—I am your friend,” he repeated with a firmness strangely at odds with his usual mild demeanor. “And because I am, I can’t be sorry that a man who doesn’t love you as you deserve had the honesty to admit it.”
What a Job’s comforter he was, refusing even to feel sorry for her. “But don’t my feelings count for anything? And what about my reputation? I have two choices open to me, to appear a jilt or to appear something even worse—the kind of girl who deserves to be jilted.”
“Your friends will know better.” All the earl’s usual reticence had vanished. Standing only inches from her, he dipped his dark head low enough to look her in the eye, his hand still holding hers. “You think people will talk. So they may. But it will be a nine days’ wonder and then something new will take its place. You must believe that. In the end, you’ll be the happier for this.”
“Be the happier?” Incredulous, she tore her hand from his grasp. “I’m twenty-three years old. I waited five years for George Wyatt while he fought on the Continent. I dreamed of marrying him. Now everyone will point me out as the girl Major Wyatt would not marry, and make guesses at the reason why. And you think I’ll be the happier?”
She was shaking.
Ayersley stretched out a hand toward her again. “I’m sorry, but…it’s not easy for a man to face a woman and tell her it’s over. If Major Wyatt broke off your engagement, you can be sure tonight wasn’t the first time the possibility crossed his mind. You’ll save yourself a good deal of pain—and Wyatt, too, though that may not matter to you now—if you’ll only let him go.”
“But I love him.” To her horror, she began to cry. At first the hot tears simply stung her eyes and she tried to blink them back, but as one after another spilled over her cheeks, she gave up the attempt. Her face crumpled and she let out a sob.
“Miss Langley!” The earl, stricken, stepped toward her and held open his arms. She fell into them gratefully.
Suddenly everything that had gone wrong in the past few weeks came welling up, to pour out of her at once in a storm of emotion—George’s infidelity and neglect, her awful mortification when Ayersley caught them kissing in the church, and now this long, humiliating night.
Sobs choked her, making her breath come in harsh gasps like those of a frustrated child. She was always making a fool of herself, and now she could add to the list of her stupid blunders having blindly devoted herself to George Wyatt, only to be unceremoniously thrown over. She shut her eyes against the betraying tears, but they only fell faster.
“Oh, Roxana, he isn’t worth it,” the earl whispered. Still the sobs racked her shoulders, shaking her, making her head pound. She leaned her forehead on the earl’s white waistcoat and let the tears come, hot and bitter. How silly and laughable she must seem to him.
Her sobbing went on for what felt like forever, while Ayersley held her, patient. With her upraised hand against his chest, she could feel the strong beat of his heart. At last the flood of emotion began to exhaust itself and she sniffled and turned her head. Ayersley took his handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. She wiped her face. The tears were still there but they were slower now and she could breathe again. Still Ayersley went on holding her.
“I think I’m better now,” she managed after a time.
“Yes, I suppose you are.”
He sounded strange. Roxana looked up at him, his face swimming a little because she’d been crying. Their eyes locked.
“You can let me go now, Ayersley.”
Instead, he leaned his head down and kissed her. The kiss was salty from her tears and she must have been dizzy from having sobbed out her misery a moment before, for her head sang. His lips were warm and gentle. She’d wanted to pull away from George’s kisses, but if anything she pressed closer to Ayersley, clutching the lapels of his coat with a swooning feeling. His hard thighs were against her thighs, his arms strong around her. How shamefully needy she was, losing all sense of discretion simply because another man had broken her heart.
Ayersley took a half step back, and like a waltz partner following his lead, she took it with him. The library table stood just behind him and he sank back against it, pulling her almost onto his lap. His arms tightened around her, and when he opened his mouth, she followed suit as if it were the most natural thing in the world for them to kiss that way. He tasted faintly of champagne, and had to be half-foxed. A sober Ayersley would never have kissed her this way.
A voice in her head screamed, This is wrong. Yet when he eased her back on the table beside him and leaned over her, making a low groaning sound in his throat as they kissed, she grew so breathless she was sure she would faint. The whole world seemed to spin and tilt around her. It had never been like this with George.
George.
Was she really kissing another man—flat on her back—lost to all sense of propriety—less than an hour after the love of her life had cast her aside? Was Ayersley’s hand really traveling up the curve of her waist, really sliding experimentally over her décolletage? Twisting her face away, she gasped a feeble and halfhearted “Don’t.”
Immediately the earl lifted his head. He looked surprised, as if he’d been roughly woken from a dream. For the space of several seconds they stared at each other, Roxana with her chest rising and falling as she struggled to catch her breath again.
“Oh my God,” the earl said suddenly in a shocked voice, and moved off her so quickly she might have been a viper. “I’m—oh, God, I’m sorry.”
He turned his back to her. She sat up slowly, self-conscious and confused, to straighten her gown in embarrassed silence. She’d behaved like a fool, throwing herself on his neck. He’d probably thought this was what she wanted, after seeing the way she’d let George grope her. And she had wanted Ayersley to kiss her, at least in that brief moment of misery and need.
She got to her feet. Ayersley was standing stock-still, staring blankly at the wall of bookshelves before them as if he couldn’t bear to look at her. Her immodesty must have shocked the daylights out of him, to judge by his reaction.
The whole scene felt so awkward Roxana had no sense of the right thing to say or do. “We’d better get back to the ballroom,” she said, twisting his handkerchief in her hands.
He turned to face her again, his face strained. “Yes. You should go before you’re missed.”
She nodded and wiped the last vestiges of tears from her cheeks, glancing at her reflection in the garden windows. The silver fillet she’d threaded through her hair had gone wildly askew. She reached up to right it.
Ayersley opened the library door for her. Her breathing had not quite slowed to normal as she slipped past him on her way out. Still lightheaded from too much emotion, she couldn’t pull her thoughts together.
She started mechanically up the corridor to the ballroom. A small figure was sitting on one of the silk-upholstered benches set at intervals along the walls. Roxana closed the distance. It was Miss Penn, the mousey girl who’d attached herself to Edward Sherbourne. The girl was fanning her face, but when she saw Roxana, she stopped fanning and gave her an appraising stare.
Roxana ducked her head and hurried past her, hoping Miss Penn cou
ldn’t see she’d been crying.
Chapter Six
Reputation, reputation, reputation!
—William Shakespeare
God, he felt so sorry for her—and so ashamed of himself. Miss Langley did a fine job of keeping her chin up after they left the library, but after Wyatt’s desertion had devastated her, he’d added insult to injury. Why couldn’t he have kept his hands to himself, when she was clearly beside herself with shock and sadness? How could he have taken advantage of her trust that way?
Alex was careful not to allow himself to be alone with her again, not after such an unforgivable lapse, though he did check on her when he could. Keeping the details of her distress to himself, he enlisted the help of his mother and his secretary. Mostly, he tried not to think about how completely he’d lost all restraint, kissing her.
As the ball wound down, she stared miserably at Wyatt, who stood across the room in a huddled conversation with a militia officer. Alex couldn’t stand the lost, heartbroken look on her face. He crossed the floor to the enemy camp and drew Wyatt aside.
“May I have a word with you, Major?” Alex kept his tone low and confidential. “I understand you’ve called off your engagement to Miss Langley.”
Wyatt glowered at him. “What does that have to do with you?”
“Look around you, Major. You’re under my roof, and Miss Langley is my guest. I know her brother would want me to act for her in this matter.” Actually, Alex knew nothing of the kind. If Tom had even the faintest inkling of the way Alex had just mauled his sister in the library, it would spell the end of a lifelong friendship.
Wyatt sighed in grudging acquiescence. “Very well, but I’m only talking to you for her sake. Don’t imagine this gives you carte blanche to meddle in my affairs.”
The loathing was mutual, but at least Wyatt answered his questions. After a brief exchange, Alex bowed himself away to report back to Miss Langley. “How are you holding up?” he asked her.
“As well as can be expected, I suppose. What did he say?”
It would have been easier to talk with her if he could only meet her eye, but he was too conscious of having overstepped the bounds of civilized behavior. “Major Wyatt desires me to tell you that in consideration of your feelings he’ll say nothing until after you’ve left tonight. If it’s agreeable to you, he and his family will then put it about that you called off the engagement. He was absent more than five years, and you realized the two of you had grown apart—”
“But—”
“Please, Miss Langley, I beg you to oblige me in this. Keep your head high and you should avoid unpleasant speculation.”
She nodded mutely.
Alex took it upon himself to tell Lady Langley her daughter would be traveling home with her instead of with George Wyatt. Her face registered surprise, but after taking one look at Miss Langley’s sorrowful expression, she refrained from asking any questions.
Soon the two ladies were leaving the ballroom. Alex had to fight off a powerful urge to run after them and apologize to Miss Langley again for the way he’d treated her. It wasn’t the crowd around him that held him back, but rather that he hadn’t the faintest notion how to explain himself.
* * *
Roxana dreaded having to tell her mother George had broken off their engagement. She was afraid she might break into tears again, or worse yet, that her mother would give in to her longstanding dislike of George and deliver a hearty I-told-you-so.
To Lady Langley’s credit, however, nothing of the kind crossed her lips. “Oh, my dear.” She hugged Roxana tightly as they sat together in the carriage. “What a scoundrel! You were always too good for him.”
This show of support nearly did make Roxana cry. In fact, she gave an involuntary hiccup of emotion.
“You’ll find someone much better.” Her mother sounded almost cheerful. “I’m certain of it.”
Roxana shook her head. “I loved George, and he doesn’t want me.”
“There are other gentlemen.”
“But it’s been more than five years, Mama. I wouldn’t even know how to love someone else.”
Her mother patted her gloved hand. “Such things have a way of taking care of themselves.”
Roxana turned her head to stare out the window at the moonlit countryside. “I wrote to him faithfully every week while he was away. I never once missed a week, even when Papa was dying.” An uncharitable impulse made her add, “And George’s letters to me were never very good.”
When they reached home, she fell gratefully into bed, wanting nothing more than to curl up and hide from the world. Exhausted from the night’s emotions, she fell asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Roxana awoke the next morning with the sense something significant had happened, something calamitous. She stared up at the ceiling, unable for a moment to remember what it was. Then the events of the night before came flooding back, bringing a frightening sense of loss. No more George. No more wedding. No future to speak of.
The weather was hot and bright, but she kept to her room all day with the curtains drawn. Her abigail brought up her dinner on a tray, but Roxana did not have much of an appetite. Instead she stared blankly out the window to the garden below, brooding on one question.
Why?
There had to be some reason George had jilted her, some meaning behind It’s not you, it’s me. Though he’d denied it, perhaps having a wife as ordinary and provincial as she was would have embarrassed him when he rejoined his regiment. Or was there something wrong with her personally? Had she been too slow to understand him, too quick to complain? Had her shrinking responses to his kisses convinced him he’d be better off with someone else?
Whatever the reason, waiting for him had cost her untold opportunities. She might have had a Season in London and met someone who would have proven more steadfast. She might have enjoyed those five lost years, instead of wasting them on a man who didn’t want her. Now she was twenty-three and nothing but uncertainty lay ahead. What if she ended up a spinster like poor Miss Hill, with no family and no life to call her own? What if the best she could hope for was living out her days under her brother’s roof, playing maiden aunt to his children?
Sometimes into her misery would creep the memory of the kiss she’d shared with Ayersley. It always left her strangely breathless, but whether from embarrassment or anxiety, she couldn’t tell. She knew Ayersley had only kissed her because he’d had too much wine and she’d thrown herself on him, lost to all sense of decorum. After seeing her in George’s arms, he must have thought she meant to invite such attentions. But could anything be more unfair? George evidently considered her too cold, while the earl must think her little better than she should be.
The second day after George jilted her was a Sunday. Roxana awoke to the sound of rain. Slipping out of bed, she went to her bedroom door and opened it, her stomach rumbling. The air in the corridor felt invitingly cool.
Her mother was on her way down the stairs. Hearing the creak of Roxana’s door, she turned and looked back up at her. “Roxana. I was just wondering if you were coming to church today.”
Roxana’s hand tightened on the doorknob. “What if George is there? What if no one believes I called off the engagement?”
“Don’t worry about that. You’ll have everyone’s sympathy.”
Roxana looked away. Everyone knew she’d waited for George, and now they would know he felt nothing for her. “You mean their pity.”
Her mother came back upstairs to join her. “Roxana, dear, I’m so sorry.” She set a cool hand on her daughter’s forehead, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Did you really want to marry him so much?”
Roxana met her mother’s worried gaze, and for a fleeting instant she wondered if she and George really would have been happy together. But that was absurd. Perhaps things had not been perfect these last few weeks, but they’d had a long separation to overcome. They would have grown closer. She’d loved him since she was seventeen.
“Yes, Mama,” she said, sure that must be the right answer.
Her mother patted her shoulder, wearing an oddly disappointed look.
In the end, Roxana went to church after all. As she made her way to the family pew with her mother and Harry, their neighbors nodded greetings. Though she received enough curious glances to suggest the news of her broken engagement had already spread, none of the looks seemed particularly disapproving. Much of the local gentry had not even bothered to come to church, since the rain had stopped only minutes before their arrival. Perhaps she’d worried for nothing.
She was surprised, though, to see Ayersley in his pew. She’d thought he would already be on his way to London. But then, he hadn’t said exactly when he meant to leave, and very likely the earl was the dutiful, strictly observant sort, the kind of man who never traveled on the Sabbath.
When the service ended, the congregation poured out into the churchyard, where the sky overhead remained a leaden gray. Roxana stopped with her mother and Harry on the steps to chat with old Mrs. Truitt and her companion, Miss Hill.
“We heard about you and Major Wyatt,” Miss Hill said before Roxana even had a chance to greet her. “I was so surprised! What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. We simply decided we wouldn’t suit.”
Miss Hill’s face fell. “Oh. I thought perhaps he might have been carrying on with some other girl.”
“No.” Roxana’s shock was genuine. “Nothing like that.”
“They were apart so long, when he was on the Peninsula,” her mother said. “Feelings change, especially with young people.”
Old Mrs. Truitt looked Roxana up and down critically. Exercising the privilege of age, she leaned in and poked Roxana in the ribs with a gnarled finger. “You’re too THIN, Miss Langley,” she said loudly. “You must eat something. Gentlemen don’t want to look at BONES.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
While her mother talked to Mrs. Truitt, Roxana glanced about her. Fanny’s family was standing in the churchyard amid the puddles, along with Miss Penn and a middle-aged woman who must be the girl’s mother. The older woman glanced her way. Roxana smiled at her in acknowledgement.
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