Regency Society. Ann Lethbridge
his heart for the asking. And she was his wife as well, and commanded his honour and loyalty, along with the rest of his love. He would be her faithful servant, if she wished to take him back. And though he came to her with head bowed, she would make sure that he lost nothing by it. They would both gain by his homecoming.
Once they got past the surprise he would get on learning her identity.
Emily smiled to herself and dismissed it. Surely that would be as nothing. It would set his mind to rest to realise that the woman he loved and the woman he had married were one and the same.
From his place in front of her, Hendricks cleared his throat, reminding her that she was not alone. ‘Well?’
She smiled up at him. ‘He has chosen me. Me. Emily.’
The man at her side looked confused, as though he did not see a distinction. ‘Was there ever any doubt?’
‘Surprisingly, there was. And now I must go to him, and explain the meaning of his choice, as gently as possible.’
‘I suppose you will expect me to come along in this, to support you when it goes wrong.’ Hendricks was glaring at her. His tone was sharp, as though he had any right to question her activities.
‘I do not expect you to make the explanation for me, if that is what you fear,’ she said back, equally annoyed. ‘It is my husband who leaves you to write his messages for him, not I.’
‘While you have never made me write them, you have had no qualms in making me carry them,’ he reminded her. ‘You have forced me to lie to a man who is not just my employer, but an old friend.’
‘As he forced you to lie to me,’ she said.
‘But he did it in an effort to protect you,’ Hendricks answered. ‘Can you say the same?’
‘What makes you think you can question me on my marriage? After all this time, neither of you has cared to inform me of the truth. If I choose to keep a secret for a matter of days, you have no right to scold me.’
‘I do not do it to scold,’ he said, more softly, ‘but because I know Folbroke and his pride. He will think you did what you did to amuse yourself with his ignorance.’
‘And now, after all this time, I do not know if I care,’ she admitted. ‘If what I have done annoys him? Then it will pay him back for the hurt I suffered, all the time he has been away. When he did not know me, and I told him the truth of our marriage, he did not recognise that, any more than he did me. He thought my husband’s treatment of me was unfair. And he had admitted the same of his treatment to his wife.’
‘Then you must realise that he has suffered as well,’ Hendricks said.
She spread her arms wide, to encompass the problem. ‘And tonight, he will apologise for it. And I will apologize for tricking him. And then the matter will be settled.’
Hendricks laughed. ‘You really think it will be that easy. And have you thought what you will do if he does not forgive you? He might well cast you off for this. And if he does, he will be in far worse shape than you found him in.’
‘It will not come to that,’ she insisted, but suddenly felt a doubt.
‘If it does, he will not last long. You will have taken his hope from him. It might be more merciful of you to leave him with that than to bring him a truth that comes too late.’
What good would it do her to leave him his fantasy, and destroy any hope she had that they would ever be together? And what would become of her, if she could not have him?
Then she remembered Adrian’s suspicions about his secretary’s interest in the unobtainable Emily. And she said the words that she was sure both dreaded, but that needed to be spoken. For if there was any truth in what her husband took as a fact, than she must settle it now, once and for all. ‘Mr Hendricks, if there is something else you have to say on your hopes for my future, then you had best say it, and clear the air between us. But before you do, know that I decided on the matter from the first moment I laid eyes on Adrian Longesley, many years ago and long before I met you. Nothing said by another is likely to change me on the subject at this late date.’
She waited in dread that Hendricks might speak what he was really thinking and thus ruin their friendship and any chance of his continued employment.
There was a pause that was longer than simple circumspection. And then, he said nothing more than a curt, ‘I understand that, my lady. And I have nothing to say.’ And for a moment, she could see that he smouldered with frustration and a range of other emotions inappropriate to his station. Then they submerged beneath the surface again, leaving him the placid and efficient secretary she had grown to depend on. ‘I will accompany you this evening to assure Lord Folbroke that there is no hidden motivation to your actions, and that all was done in his best interest. But I suspect that although he may say he loves you both, it might not extend to an easy forgiveness to all of us who have had a part in this attempt at reconciliation.’
As the afternoon changed to evening, Adrian paced the floor of his sitting room, wondering if he had done the right thing. After a few false moves, he had learned to correct his course to avoid the pianoforte that still blocked the corner. And he wondered—would he ever have to explain the thing? Or would Emily take it as a given that it had come with the rooms? Perhaps she would expect him to show some interest in playing it, just as its giver had done.
If she did, he would admit his ignorance, but would submit meekly to lessons, if they were necessary to keep the peace. And if, each time he touched the keys, he thought of someone else?
It would be better if he did not think of the thing at all, and suggest they remove to Derbsyshire. It would give them a chance to discuss their differences in private, and he would be far from temptation. And if necessary, it would disguise the length of Emily’s confinement.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, realising that it made no difference. His progress across the room was unaffected, and it did nothing to shut out the pictures in his mind of his wife growing big with another man’s child. One did not need eyes to see one’s thoughts.
But he had told himself for over a year that this was likely to happen, and that it would not bother him. Now he must survive the future he’d created with as much grace as he could manage. Tonight could not be about recriminations. He had promised something quite different in his letter.
And had that been the correct course of action? Perhaps it would have been better to go to her, rather than expecting her to come to him? It would have shown more respect.
And that would have left him fumbling his way through Eston’s town house, demonstrating the worst of his condition before he had a chance to speak to her. Or, worse yet, he’d have discovered she was at her rooms.
‘Hendricks?’
‘He has not yet returned, my lord,’ said the footman who had come into the room to bring his afternoon tea.
Now Adrian imagined his secretary and his wife in the process of a tearful parting, spending a languid afternoon alone in each other’s arms.
He sat and took a sip of tea, scalding his tongue and focusing on the real pain instead of the imagined one. He must not doubt his choices, now that they had been made. Here, in his own home, he could show to best advantage that he was not the helpless invalid she might fear him to be. He had told his man to take care with his dressing, that everything about him must be just so, clean and unrumpled. And he had not taken so much as a drop of wine with his noon meal, that there would be no evidence of excess in his diet. He would hold himself with a posture worthy of a dress parade, so that, in the first glance she had of him after so much time, she would think him strong, capable and worthy.
Yet he knew them to be superficial changes that might not be enough. Perhaps it would be better if he were not alone for this. He was blind. And he had not told her. There was no way to excuse that.
He called out to the footman, ‘Parker, I wish to see Mr David Eston. Send someone to his rooms