Simply Unforgettable

longer, she was sure. She shut her eyes tightly. She felt very close to hysteria, though she knew she had far too much pride to give in to it. What she wanted to do more than anything else on this earth was burrow beneath the covers of the bed and lie there, curled into a ball, for the rest of her life.

If she were to look out through her window, she knew, the street below would be empty.

He was gone.

Forever.

By her own choosing.

He would have taken her with him. Or he would have stayed in Bath.

She clenched both fists in her lap and fought panic, the foolish urge to rush back downstairs and outside in the hope of somehow catching up to his carriage before it disappeared forever.

It was hopeless—hopeless. He was not only Lucius Marshall, gentleman. He was also Viscount Sinclair. He lived most of the time in London. She could never return there, and she could never move in high circles again—even if he had ever asked her to. He would not have done so, of course. He would have made her his mistress for a while, until he tired of her. And that would have happened. What had been between them during the past couple of days was no grand romance, after all.

She was in no doubt that she had done the right thing.

But doing the right thing had never seemed bleaker.

This is good-bye after all, then, Frances.

She swallowed once, and then again.

And then she heard the echo of his final words.

But if you should have need of me, you will find me at the address in London written on that card. I will come immediately.

She opened her eyes, realizing that her right hand was still clenched about the card he had placed there. She opened her hand and looked down at it, still folded in two, the partially opened sides facing away from her.

It was over. They had said good-bye. He would come again with assistance if she should need it—if she discovered that she was with child, that was.

But it was over.

Very deliberately she folded the card once more, tore it across and across again, and as many more times as she could before dropping the pieces into the back of the fireplace. She recognized the rashness of what she did. But she had sent him away. She could never now appeal to him for aid.

“Good-bye, Lucius,” she said softly before turning determinedly to the washstand and pouring cold water into the bowl.

Ten minutes, Anne and Susanna had said. She would look presentable by the time she arrived in Claudia Martin’s sitting room. And she would be smiling.

And she would be armed to the teeth with amusing anecdotes about Christmas.

No one was going to know the truth.

No one was even going to suspect.

Lucius spent the following week at Cleve Abbey and then removed to London even earlier than he had planned, too restless to remain alone in the country with his own thoughts—or, more to the point, with his own emotions.

The latter consisted predominantly of anger, which manifested itself in irritability. Being the rejected rather than the rejecter was a new experience for him in his dealings with women. It was also, he supposed, a humbling experience and therefore good for the soul. But the soul be damned! The very idea that anything good might come of his experience only added to his ill humor.

What could be good about losing a bedfellow one had only just begun to enjoy?

That Frances Allard had been quite right in ending their budding affair did nothing to alleviate his irritability either. When he had made his offer to take her to London with him, he had not stopped to consider in what capacity he would take her there. But it could not have been as a wife, could it? Devil take it, he had just promised to wed an eligible bride before the summer was out, and he did not imagine that either his grandfather or his mother would consider a schoolteacher from Bath in any way eligible.

He had always been impulsive, even reckless. But this time part of him realized that if she had taken him up on any of his suggestions, he would have found himself in an awkward position indeed. He had not only promised his grandfather, he had also pledged himself to turn over a new leaf, to become a responsible, respectable man, perish the thought. He was going to court a wife during the spring, not indulge his fancy with a new mistress.

And that was what Frances would have been if she had come with him. There was no point in denying it. He could not have kept her long. Part of turning over a new leaf involved committing himself to one woman for the rest of his life—the woman he would marry.

It was time to say good-bye, Frances had told him. They had enjoyed a pleasant day or two together, but it was time to get back to normal life.

Pleasant!

That particular choice of word still rankled for a while even after he had arrived in London and immersed himself in the familiar daily round of his clubs and other typically masculine pursuits with his numerous friends and acquaintances.

His lovemaking had been pleasant. It was almost enough to make a man weep and tear his hair and lose all confidence in himself as a lover.

She had done him a favor by saying no. She really had.