imon was thoroughly inebriated. Sauced. In his cups. Whatever the words one preferred to use, he was claiming them all. He took a healthy swig of whisky, enjoying the burn down his throat. He’d been unable to sleep, so he’d spent the night in his study, drinking and wondering what in the hell he was going to do next. He’d never been more bloody confused in his life, torn between the past and a possible future with Maggie.
Maggie, his passionate poet who never failed to surprise him. Did he love her? The truth of it was that he had begun to believe love was more fiction than fact, that it was an impossible state invented by fools and romantics. He was drawn to her, to her responsive body and kind heart. She had shown him more generosity than he deserved, and he would always admire her for that.
“Christ.” He took another drag of spirits. Libations were not the solution to his problems either, but they did a fine job of distracting him. His mind was lighter even if his heart was not.
A discreet tap at the door interrupted his solitude. “Enter,” he called out, assuming it was the butler with a breakfast tray.
Maggie swished into the room, looking formidably lovely in a day gown of aquamarine silk. Her flaming locks were styled simply, with curls cascading down over her shoulders. The bodice of her dress flattered her slim waist and full bosom to perfection. Damned if he didn’t get hard just looking at her, whisky and all. A series of bows bedecked her skirts and sleeves, and he itched to untie them all, then peel her out of her dress, spread her over his secretaire and slide his cock deep inside her.
“My lord.” Her tone was stiff as baleen corset stays.
Hell. The chill emanating from her luscious body was enough to dampen his ardor. Something was wrong. He belatedly realized her ordinarily full pink lips were pinched into an unhappy line. “Maggie,” he returned, standing as he recalled his manners. “Good morning.”
She stopped halfway across the room, hands clasped at her waist. She was a fiercely unique beauty. “I don’t find it to be a good morning at all, I’m afraid.”
He raised a brow, trying to fend off a looming sense of trepidation. “Indeed? And why would that be, my dear?”
“My slumber is frightful at best, easily interrupted.” She stared at him in that knowing way she had. It quite stripped his soul bare. And he hadn’t thought he possessed a soul any longer.
“Out with it, Maggie,” he commanded, doing his best to sort out what was amiss even with his whisky-soaked brain. “What have you to say to me?”
She caught her luscious lower lip between her teeth before venturing into the dangerous waters before them. “I heard voices last night.”
The weight of dread settled down upon his shoulders. How much had she heard? “Indeed?” Oh damn it all, he’d said that twice now. Now he was a cad and a twit in addition, of course, to being a drunkard.
“Indeed.” Her expression was pensive, slightly wounded. She had never appeared more beautiful to him, and the realization startled him. “I believe you were conversing with Lady Billingsley. In your chamber.”
Bloody, bloody hell. He wanted to lie, but he could not. “She availed herself of my chamber whilst I was sleeping.”
“And you did not see fit to summarily dismiss her?”
Of course he should have done. Not as a husband, for God knew that husbands and wives alike strayed when and where they would, but as her lover. He’d sworn to be true to her for an entire month. Although he had not made love to Eleanor, he had certainly not been true to Maggie for most of their marriage. He knew this in his black heart.
“I did not.” He knew as he said the words that they could cost him more than he was willing to pay—everything he’d managed to find over the last fortnight, the tentative happiness he’d only begun to believe could be possible. “I removed myself when she would not comply.”
Everything was too dear a price to pay, damn it. He wanted Maggie in his bed. The whisky rattling about in his troubled mind wasn’t giving him a bit of clarity.
“Did you bed her?” Her voice broke.
“Christ no,” he assured her. He wouldn’t now. Couldn’t. The act had once seemed so natural, his mind conditioned by society to do as everyone else did: marry for practicality, find love elsewhere. “I may be an utter bastard, but even I have morals when I need them.”
“You wanted to, didn’t you?”
Her blunt question shocked him, as much because she had dared to ask it as because it shook him. The plain truth of it was that if he’d wanted Eleanor, he would have taken her. At least, he would have in the past. His unfettered time with Maggie had changed him, and for the better.
“You still love her,” Maggie said then without waiting for his response, her voice devoid of inflection save a slight tremor that he knew meant she was on the verge of tears.
Did he? The alcohol was muddled his already confused mind. All he knew was that he was hopelessly ensnared in Maggie’s violet eyes, their light filled with an accusatory glow. He had disappointed her. And that hurt him, smote him more than any other blow in his life. He was an utter failure. There it was, laid out before him. He had lived almost thirty years and yet this young scrap of American idealism had brought him low.
He was not worthy of her. He wasn’t worthy to kiss her hem.
Didn’t she know? Why did she dare to believe him better than what he was? He was nothing more than a broken, confused, bloody soused fool. “A fortnight cannot change a man as much as you hope.”
“I will not stand in your way.” Maggie bowed her head, composing herself with grace. Her beauty took on a fragile quality for the first time, her pale complexion fading into an ashen tinge. Her lips thinned. Even her elaborate upswept curls seemed to sag in defeat. She tucked her chin back up, defiance flashing in her gaze. “You must live your life as you see fit.”
She was giving him freedom, he realized, the sort of freedom he’d once dreamt of owning. During his days of being her husband, long before he’d come to know her, the guilt had been at the edge of his conscience. Nagging him. Eating him alive. And now, she was telling him to pursue the woman he had loved. He should be thrilled. Overjoyed. Overcome with elation.
Instead, he felt only hollow. Eleanor was not the woman he wanted, not any longer. What of Maggie, the sweet wife he’d grown to care for over the last few weeks? She had inspired him, shown him new facets of life, brought him passion and joy. She had been giving and wonderful to him when he had only ever been unkind to her. The truth of it was that she deserved so much better than a bollixed-up horse’s arse like him. Perhaps whisky was making him see straight for the first time.
“What of you?” he asked, hoping that she would not release him so easily.
He dared to think she might fight for him with that fierce American spirit of hers. That she might want him despite all his flaws and peculiarities. But she turned her back, taking a deep breath that bespoke emotions too raw to let loose.
“I expect I will find my way. I always have.” She exhaled and turned to face him, her expression bearing a false cheeriness. “Perhaps I will write again. You’ve made me see that I ought not to have given up my dreams, and for that I will be forever grateful.”
She spoke as if she expected never to see him again, and the thought of her disappearing from his life assailed him with a foreign sense of fear. His chest tightened. “What do you mean, find your way?”
“Oh, it is merely a figure of speech,” she hastened to assure him. “You needn’t fear that I will be underfoot. I can always go to London or to stay with friends.”
“No,” he bit out, perhaps faster than he ought to have. “You must stay here at Denver Hall. Why would you leave?”
He wanted her to stay. At least, he thought he did. He’d never felt so adrift in his life. He was a boat, bobbing upon the sea, no land in sight. Jesus, he didn’t have a compass to tell him which direction he ought to take.
“Of course,” she said with equal brightness. “I would never leave if you didn’t wish it of me. Surely you must know that, Simon.”
Feeling relieved, he nodded. “Very good, my dear.” But when he would have closed the distance between them and taken her in his arms, she was already fleeing the room. He watched her go, helpless to stop her.
Maggie was reading in the comfort of the drawing room, trying to distract herself from the awful knot growing inside her stomach. She had sought out Simon in the hopes that he would tell her something that would give her reason to stay. She had hoped he would tell her that he didn’t give a damn for Lady Billingsley, unlikely though she knew it was. But he had been conflicted as ever, his eyes bloodshot and his hair mussed. That he appeared to be in as much turmoil as she was left her little comfort. Even if he did care for her, he still had feelings for his old lover.
She feared she would have to leave Denver House. There was no earthly way she could remain, watching Simon fall back into Lady Billingsley’s arms. She could go to London, she supposed, or perhaps seek out her dear friend Victoria while she booked passage to New York. She tried to tell herself it was for the best, but she couldn’t quite muster the strength.
It hardly seemed fair that she would have discovered her feelings for her husband only to have the one woman who had kept them apart reemerge, determined to raze the fragile truce they’d built. As if on cue, her unwanted guest sauntered into the room, disrupting her peace.
Dear heavens, was there never a time when she could avoid the dreadful woman? She was everywhere. At dinner, in the drawing room, standing too near to Simon whenever she could, staring at him as if he were nude before her. She had only been at Denver House a day, and already it was one day too many. Maggie loathed her. With great reluctance, she looked up from the pages of Anthony Trollope into which she’d been attempting to escape.
Lady Billingsley was of course beautiful as ever, wearing an ethereal afternoon gown of rich lavender that emphasized her tiny waist. Maggie swore she was so heavily corseted it was a miracle she didn’t faint whenever she seated herself. Her blonde curls were artfully arranged, golden as any angel’s. But an angel she was not. She raised her nose ever so slightly as her gaze settled upon Maggie, as if to say Maggie’s mere presence was an affront to her sense of English nobility. Maggie’s brows snapped together into a frown. The feeling was mutual.
“Lady Billingsley, how lovely to see you.” She was aware that she must at least uphold the pretense of being a happy hostess. It would never do for the woman to discover how much she vexed her.
“My lady,” her foe acknowledged with a regally inclined head. “I’m delighted to find you here as it will save me the effort of seeking you out.”
Dismay swept through Maggie. It didn’t escape her that the woman had refused to refer to her as Lady Sandhurst. “Why should you need to seek me out?”
Her ladyship crossed the room, closing the distance between them, and reached into a pocket on her day gown, extracting a ribbon-bound stack of what appeared to be envelopes. “I have something I want to give you, something that I think will alter the way you must see me.”
Maggie shook her head, eyeing the packet dubiously. “I’m sure it cannot. I don’t want it, my lady.”
“You must take them. I want you to have these.” Lady Billingsley thrust the envelopes into her hands.
Maggie accepted them, but only because it was either close her fingers about them or allow them to drop to the carpet. She studied her adversary’s face, wishing it was not nearly so lovely. “I don’t want anything from you, Lady Billingsley, other than to never see you again.”
“I understand that you despise me, but I love your husband,” she said, startling Maggie with her candor. “And I know that he still very much loves me. I was wrong to leave him.”
“But you did leave him,” she pointed out, “and regardless of whether or not you accept that, it changed everything. Once, you had complete power over him. Now he no longer harbors even a hint of tender feelings for you.”
Of course, she was blustering. Even if she knew this was not a war she could win, her pride demanded she not allow the woman to see it. In truth, she was terrified that her husband was still in love with the woman before her. After all, he had never given her any reason to hope for more than their month of passion. He had never spoken words of love to her. The letters in her hand burned into her skin in an awful reminder.
Love letters. Maggie knew it without bothering to read them. What made their existence all the more humiliating was that he had never written her a line. Not even to inquire after her welfare. Not even to ascertain whether or not she still existed.
“He is attempting to make me jealous,” Lady Billingsley insisted. “You’re a distraction to him. Read the letters, I implore you. You shall see how deep our connection runs. It cannot be broken by a mere American girl who has shared his bed for a month.”
“I’m no mere American girl.” Anger lent her new pluck. “I am a woman of her own fortune, a poet, a wife. What are you other than the woman who clung to a man who could never truly be hers?”
“He was,” her nemesis hissed. “He has been mine and so he shall be again. Let him free. Can’t you see how he feels trapped between us? He pities you.”
Maggie looked from the insidious letters in her hand back to the woman’s face. She was intent, her expression as if it had been chiseled from marble. But there was an underlying emotion in her voice, an urgency, perhaps. Her words rattled Maggie. He pities you, she’d said. Could it be true? She wouldn’t allow herself to think it just now. “Let him free? I have no hold over him.”
“This month you’ve made him promise to give you,” she insisted. “He’s told me all about it, and his sense of honor won’t allow him to extricate himself. It is solely in your hands. That is why I give you these letters. You can never mean to him what I have meant to him. We have loved each other for years.”
“I have been his wife for a year.” She knew her protestation was a hollow one.
“In name only. You have been in his bed for a paltry amount of time.”
It shocked Maggie that Simon had apparently shared the secrets of their relationship with this woman, the woman who had been a barrier between them from the moment she’d met him. Perhaps there was something to what Lady Billingsley told her. She had long ago lost her naiveté, after all, and that largely thanks to Sandhurst.
“My marriage is none of your concern,” she forced herself to say through lips that had gone numb in her escalating fear. “You do not belong here, my lady. Indeed, you would do best to return to your husband.”
Her ladyship’s face transformed, her expression becoming smug. “I cannot. Sandy loves me, and I love him. I’ll not make the same mistake twice. I must have him in my life or it’s not worth living.”
Dear God. What hope did Maggie have of winning against this woman? She had not been able to win before. Now, she had nothing more than heated embraces and wicked lovemaking to hold Simon to her. He had never spoken words of love, nor written them. She stared down at the letters, her heart aching. Disappointment sank through her. She knew what she must do.
She was gone.
The realization was akin to a punch directly in his gut. Simon nearly doubled over, so violent was his reaction. He threw open the door to her chamber and stalked inside, confirming what his butler had already told him. His wife had left in a flurry of hooves and portmanteaus. Her chamber still smelled of her perfume, but other than her scent and the handful of letters she’d left scattered over her bed, it was as if she had never been there at all.
Damn. He never should have allowed Eleanor to remain at Denver House, not even for a day. He scooped up a letter and scanned its contents, recognizing his youthful signature at the bottom of the page. Instantly, he knew what Eleanor had done. These letters were old. He’d never been one for dating his correspondence as he ought to have done, and he cursed himself for it now. Christ, he’d been a lovesick milksop, he thought with disgust as he read a particularly flowery line.
She had given these letters to Maggie, knowing she would read them and assume the worst. And then he found another letter, tucked into an envelope bearing his name. Maggie had left him a note, it would seem. He snatched it up far too quickly and tore it open.
She wrote that she was freeing him. She did not wish to see him ever again. She was going away, never to return. His fist tightened on the letter, crumpling it before he finished reading.
Damn her. How dare she think she could leave him so easily, without warning, without a word? She couldn’t. He wouldn’t stand for it. He had to find her. But first, he needed to confront Eleanor. Tossing the entire sheaf of papers to the floor, he stalked from the chamber, his former lover’s name on his lips as if it were a war cry.
“Eleanor!” His vision had blackened with his rage as he realized the depths to which she’d sunk. She had been cruel, had hurt Maggie. “Eleanor, goddamn it, show yourself.”
She refused. He knew which chamber she’d been assigned, neatly solving the immediate problem of giving her a tongue-lashing. Without bothering to knock, he threw open the door. Eleanor was seated at a writing desk but she stood hastily at his entrance, her eyes wide.
“Sandy, whatever is the matter?”
“You can dispense with the pretense of your innocence,” he hissed, crossing the room to her and only stopping when he feared he may be capable of grabbing her arm and hauling her out the door. He wouldn’t do her violence. “I know what you’ve done.”
“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 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 sounded 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 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 came to him and placed a dainty palm on his chest. “You’re 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. 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 the first worthy cause of his life. “I have to, Eleanor. You made your choice a long time ago, and now I have made mine.”
He’d known her for half his life. Each of them had been left in dire straits by their families. He’d needed to marry a fat dowry, and Eleanor had needed to marry a fat purse. But he was not the young buck she’d known any longer. Nor was she the girl he’d once admired. They had changed. Irrevocably.
“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. He didn’t want her to disappear from his life.
“I’m sorry.” Rage seeped 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.”
“If Billingsley hurts you, don’t return to him. You have many friends, Eleanor. Seek them out.” He gentled his tone 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. She’d done him the greatest favor of his life. He’d merely been too stupid to know. “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 indiscretion with him. How many others had there been? Likely, he would never know. “I’m sorry 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 nauseated her. 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 just 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 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.
“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 as the rains lashed him. A hero torn from the pages of a book she once sighed over.
He had followed her. Relief slipped over her. “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. Rains battered them. He was soaked. She didn’t care.
“Damn you, Maggie. What the hell were you about, leaving me without a bloody word?” The question was almost a snarl.
She searched his face, finding not a hint of tenderness there. He was all harsh lines and unforgiving angles. 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.
His words, however gruff, should have heartened her. But they left her cold, questions clamoring within her. Why had he followed her? Pride? His rage? 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.” Fat droplets of rain landed on her cheeks, rolling down in a rude mimicry of tears. She dashed them away, not wanting him to think she cried for 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?”
The vibrant-green depths of his gaze trapped her. “I thought you had changed. But then Lady Billingsley appeared, and you seemed so torn. I won’t 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 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 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 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. The rains had at last ceased, and servants milled about outside in an uncharacteristic flurry. Before she could think, the door to the carriage flew open to reveal the shocked face of their butler, Milton.
“My lord.” His voice carried 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…
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 indeed 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.
“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.
“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 rocked Lady Billingsley in his arms. He looked wild, as if he were in shock. And no doubt he was. They all were. “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 held 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 took care 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.” His voice was 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 door as if she were a child. “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 whispered, 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 fell over the entire household, even the servants wandering about with bleak expressions.
Dinner had been served with Simon nowhere to be found and Maggie 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 Maggie’s 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 feelings didn’t matter at the moment, she knew, as she hovered near the threshold to his closed study door. Another loud bang could be heard from within, along with a muffled curse. She winced and took a deep breath, her hand wavering on the knob. Likely he still would not wish to see her, but she had waited in vain in her chamber for him to arrive. She hadn’t been able to wait any longer. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he needed her, whether he wanted to or not.
The door opened to reveal a dimly lit scene of inanimate-object carnage that undoubtedly reflected the tumult of his soul. She stepped inside and closed the door at her back, mindful of the shards of glass at her feet, perhaps the remnants of a decanter. Then she saw him, his back to her, his head hanging.
“Goddamn it, I told you I don’t want anything for the remainder of the evening,” he all but yelled.
Maggie jumped, stilling to contemplate the wisdom of her invasion. But it was too late for second thoughts. “Simon, it’s Maggie.”
He turned around at her voice, his face haggard in the poor lighting offered by the two gas lamps on the far wall. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Not the welcome she’d been hoping for, but Maggie was in for a penny, in for a pound. “I’m worried about you. I haven’t seen you in hours.”
“I’m not fit company just now.” He raked a hand through his already askew hair. “You should go.”
At least he hadn’t tossed anything yet, she reasoned. “I cannot leave you like this.”
“You ought to, by God. I don’t trust myself. Damn it, I’m responsible for her death, Maggie. I killed her.” His voice broke on the last word, a rare show of real emotion from a man who was often cold unless he was in the bedchamber.
Her heart broke for him just as surely as his voice had. She had no choice but to go to him, crossing the chamber to his side before she could think twice. She slipped her arms around him and he surprised her by leaning into her, pressing his face into her neck. “You didn’t kill her, Simon. You mustn’t think such an awful thing.”
“I all but pushed her from the window with my own hands.” His tone was tortured. The wetness of his tears slid over her skin.
Dear God, he held himself responsible for Lady Billingsley’s awful decision. Little wonder he was falling apart before her. “She chose this end, not you.”
He shook his head, lifting it to look down at her. His hands tightened upon her waist with an almost painful grip. “I chose it for her. I left her. My God, if I had realized how delicate she was, I never would have gone.”
The implications of his words were painfully clear. He would have allowed Maggie to leave if he’d known Lady Billingsley would kill herself. That stung, much as she knew that he was in a rough state of mind, blaming himself for something he’d had no power to stop. “She was not well, Simon, or else she would not have done what she did. It was not within your power to stop her.” Surely no one would make such a final decision precipitously. She little knew Lady Billingsley other than the brief time she had spent at Denver House, but Maggie believed beneath her lovely exterior had been some ugly demons, demons that had nothing at all to do with Simon.
“I abandoned her when she needed me the most. Christ, I’m my father.”
His despair hurt her heart more than what he’d said. “You’re not a bit like him.” He refused to look at her, his eyes a deep, pain-filled moss, staring unseeingly beyond her. “Look at me, Simon.”
“No. You should go, Maggie. You should get the hell away from me,” he snarled, his tone vicious. He caught her arms and pushed her from him.
She staggered back, flinching at the raw rage emanating from him. She’d seen him at his ugliest before, when he’d discovered he’d bedded his wife without realizing. But even then, he had not been as he was now, mercurial, filled with fury and pain. Ready to wound.
“I cannot leave you when you’re like this,” she said at last, all but wringing her hands as she watched him give her his back and stalk away. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he was further away from her now than he’d ever been, lost in the regrets and sorrows of his heart. He must have loved Lady Billingsley deeply, more deeply than she had supposed.
Had it been nothing more than guilt that had prompted him to follow her and stop her from leaving him? She had to wonder now. Surely he must have felt something for her other than duty. He had said so, had all but confessed tender feelings for her mere hours before. That had to mean something yet. After all, he’d certainly never felt responsible for her a day in his life before. She shrugged the troublesome thoughts from her mind and followed him across the study, uncertain of what she ought to do yet unwilling to leave him alone.
“You should leave me,” he called over his shoulder, stopping in his angry strides only when he reached the paneled walls. “Good Christ, you ought to have left me a long time ago. I’m a bloody curse.” He pounded his fists against the wall with so much force she feared he’d injure himself.
Maggie rushed to his side, not stopping until she was near enough to entwine her arms about his lean waist. She embraced him as she had that long-ago day at Lady Needham’s before she’d known he was the husband who’d abandoned her. This time, it was because he was the man she’d grown to love, and he was in pain. Somehow, nothing mattered—nothing could matter—more than that Simon was hurting, lost, and confused. He needed her.
“You’re not a curse,” she told him firmly, past the knot in her throat. She hated that Lady Billingsley had chosen such an awful end, that she had been spiteful enough to pitch herself from a window knowing Simon would find her. It had been a final act of exerting power over a man who had no longer wanted to be beneath her dainty thumb. And it had wounded Simon as mortally as any bullet could have. Surely Lady Billingsley would have recognized that.
“Go, Maggie,” he ordered her lowly, resting his head against the wall. His breathing was deep and hitched, his heart a rapid thrum beneath her ear. He slammed his fist again, startling her. “Go now.”
“No.” She held on to him when he would have shrugged her away. She was afraid to leave him, afraid of what he might do in his anguish. If he injured himself in some way, she’d never forgive herself. She couldn’t bear that. No, she needed Simon in her life, as impossible as that seemed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Have you no notion the danger you’re in?” His voice was deceptively quiet, laced with darkness. “I’m not myself. Jesus, I don’t think I’ll ever be myself again.”
But Maggie remained undeterred. “I’m not here to make drawing-room pleasantries with you. I’m here because you need me.”
There, she’d said it. He stiffened beneath her touch, and she feared she’d overstepped the fragile boundaries he had once again erected between them. But then he startled her by spinning around to face her, his hands sinking to her waist. He hauled her up against him, her breasts pressing into his chest.
His gaze seared hers, raw agony and grief starkly reflected in his eyes. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I do need you. What will you do for me, Maggie?”
She wasn’t sure she liked the implications in his tone. She didn’t know what to say. It was as if the passion that always burned between them had spun into rage. She didn’t want that to tarnish what they’d shared. But still, she wanted to show him she was here for him, an anchor of support in a storm-tossed sea. “What would you have me do for you?”
“Nothing. There’s not a thing you can do.” He drew away from her, gripping her arms, and shook her with enough force to catch her breath. “I keep seeing her face, her body hanging impaled on that damn fence. I caused it. I’m responsible.”
She cupped his face, trying to comfort him, knowing she couldn’t. He was in pain, blaming himself, lost in the depths of his agonizing grief. There was no place for her in his heart after this. Everything he’d said to her earlier that afternoon outside the carriage seemed to have fallen away. Now there only remained the jarring shock left to survivors. I don’t think I’ll ever be myself again, he’d said. Thinking of it struck fear within her, fear that all they’d accomplished would be whittled down to naught. That the love she possessed for him would forever go unanswered.
But she couldn’t think of herself, for that was selfish and weak. She needed to be strong for her husband, to help ease his suffering. “You mustn’t punish yourself,” she told him. “You did nothing wrong.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “I did everything wrong.”
She flinched, supposing he referred to the last fortnight they’d shared together. His words stung. “Perhaps I’m at fault. If I had never decided to create a scandal, none of this would have happened.”
“I wish to God it wouldn’t have happened.” He sounded incredibly weary, as if he spoke from his very soul. “But it has, and it is our heavy mantle to live with. Christ, I’ve got to send word to her family, to Billingsley. They need to know what’s happened.”
“I can write the letters for you,” she volunteered, numb. Maybe he blamed her as well as himself. If so, it was possible he’d never forgive her.
“No.” He pushed her away from him. “It’s my duty. Jesus, Maggie, just get out of here before I hurt you. There’s nothing you can do but leave me to my misery.”
She rushed after him as he stalked away from her, placing a staying hand on his arm. “Please, Simon. Don’t keep me at a distance.”
He shrugged away from her touch with such violence that she lost her balance for a moment and stumbled over a book he’d thrown in his rage. It sent her sprawling to the floor, the breath knocked from her lungs. Her head smacked off the carpet before she could catch herself.
“Damn it.” He dropped to his knees at her side. His expression had softened to one of concern. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she said, feeling merely shaken and horribly sad for him, for Lady Billingsley, for herself. “I tripped over the book.”
“Devil take it.” He took her hands in his and hauled her to her feet, severing the contact the instant she stood. “Leave me now, Maggie. I don’t trust myself.”
“But—”
“Now.” His tone was as fierce as his expression had become. “Go at once.”
There was no arguing. No winning. He didn’t want her company or her comfort. No, he didn’t want her at all. “Very well,” she allowed. “I shall go.”
As she left his study, she couldn’t help but feel she was making a terrible mistake in leaving him alone. But what choice did she have? Pride would not allow her to force herself upon him when he didn’t want her there. All that remained for her to do was to grant him the solitude he desired. He didn’t want her, and he’d made that more than apparent. How quickly, she thought as she cut a somber path back to her chamber, the world around her could change. How quickly it could crumble, never to be mended.
When Maggie woke in the morning, it was to a heavy heart and an empty bed. Simon had never come to her. She had spent a nearly endless vigil waiting for him until, exhausted and puffy-eyed from the tears she’d been crying, she finally gave in to slumber. The awful events of the day before seemed as though they’d been a nightmare to her as she allowed her lady’s maid to dress her. But the evidence remained in her reflection, the pinched lips, pale cheeks, still-swollen eyes.
Her lady’s maid was uncharacteristically silent as she dressed Maggie’s hair into a subdued style. Her morning dress was a somber black. Yes, there had been a horrible death. She’d woken in the night twice, swearing she’d heard screams. It was terrifying to think of what Lady Billingsley must have experienced in the final moments of her life. There would have been the stomach-churning fall, the impalement on the fence. Maggie prayed she had passed instantly, that she had not lingered in pain overly long. And she prayed too that Simon would somehow recover.
After a final errant curl had been tucked into place, Maggie thanked her lady’s maid and descended to the breakfast room. She wondered what it would be like to face Simon by the grim light of day. Had he slept? She doubted it. Likely, the days to come would only prove more difficult. He had lost the woman he loved and he felt responsible for that loss. Maggie knew her own guilt for her part in the bitter affair. She never would have wished for Lady Billingsley to commit such an act, but she little knew now how she would react if she were to do it over again. Would she pursue Simon? Would she leave knowing he would follow?
It all made her head spin and her heart ache.
As she rounded a bend in the lower hall, she nearly collided with Mrs. Keynes, who appeared unusually flustered, her time-weathered cheeks flushed with the exertion of her frantic pace. Maggie stopped herself short of the petite woman, startled and a bit flummoxed herself.
“Mrs. Keynes, good morning,” she greeted, although she didn’t feel a drop of cheer.
“I’m afraid it’s anything but, my lady,” Mrs. Keynes returned, sounding uncharacteristically worried. “Haven’t you heard the news, then?”
News? Dear God. Maggie’s heart plummeted to her toes. She couldn’t bear any more terrible news. “I have not,” she said slowly, almost afraid to hear it. “What has happened?”
“It’s his lordship.” Mrs. Keynes pressed her lips together, taking a moment to compose herself, it seemed. “He’s gone.”
Ice crept into her heart. “What do you mean that he’s gone?”
“I’m so sorry to tell you this, my lady, but he’s disappeared. The head groom tells me he took a horse last night and never returned.” She wrung her hands together, the picture of distress. “We’ve sent men out to search for him, thinking perhaps his horse went lame or…”
Maggie knew the ominous portent of the unspoken portion of Mrs. Keynes’ words. Perhaps he’d been thrown from his horse. Perhaps he had chosen to hurt himself as Lady Billingsley had done. Perhaps she would never see her husband again.
“I’m sure he will return in no time, Mrs. Keynes,” she forced herself to say through numb lips.
She tried to tell herself it was yet too soon to worry. After all, he could have only been gone for hours, not days. But fear still unfurled in her, a snake waiting to strike.
“Of course, my lady. He’s likely to return before we know it.” Mrs. Keynes gave her a kindly, almost pitying look. “Word of Lady Billingsley’s incident has been sent to her husband at Elton Hall. I expect Lord Billingsley will arrive in the next day or two.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Keynes,” she said, grateful that the tragedy had at least been dealt with by their capable servants. She imagined Lord Billingsley would want to keep the facts surrounding his wife’s death hushed. “Your efficiency in this is most appreciated.”
“It is my honor, my lady. Pray forgive a woman in her old age for having a moment of sentimentality.” She curtseyed, her countenance remaining pinched as ever.
Maggie suspected they both knew that the housekeeper’s attempts to conduct business as ordinary only glossed over the fact that, at least for the foreseeable future, life at Denver Hall would be anything but ordinary. If indeed it ever had been to begin with.