went in a private carriage.”
Nat frowned. “A private carriage?” There was no way that Lizzie could have made an assignation because she had left so abruptly. Unless…The doubt slipped into his mind and could not be dislodged. Unless she had been thinking of leaving him all along and her discovery of the bargain he had made with Tom had simply precipitated her actions. She could have sent word to someone as soon as she left.
But he could not believe it. Not Lizzie, fiercely loyal, courageous, admirable Lizzie. Not when she had told him in her fever that she loved him, not when they had started to build a future, not when there was so much he needed to explain, so many things he wanted to say to her…
“She went with Viscount Jerrold,” Josie Simmons said, extinguishing Nat’s hope like the snuffing of a candle. “They took the road to the south.”
LIZZIE SAT IN A CORNER of John Jerrold’s traveling coach and felt lonely and wretched and betrayed. The curtains of the carriage were drawn and inside it was almost as dark as out. The track was bad and the journey slow, but Jerrold had wanted to make as much progress as they could that night. Lizzie had not asked him why he was leaving Fortune’s Folly. She had barely spoken to him. When his carriage had pulled into the yard at Half Moon House she had scrambled in and begged to be taken wherever it was he was going, and had sat and shivered like a dog left out in the rain. Jerrold had asked no questions, had wrapped the blankets around her although their warmth seemed to do little to dispel her chill, and had passed her his brandy flask. She had drunk from it with gratitude and great appreciation, feeling the coldness in her bones ease a little although it seemed likely that the soreness of her heart would need more than the numbing of drink. This time, it seemed, not even the strongest brandy could dull the pain. It hurt too much.
“I’m leaving Nat,” she had announced baldly at one point, and Jerrold had laughed and said that he had rather thought she was, and they had lapsed into silence again. He had not asked her why; perhaps, Lizzie thought, he did not care. She had thrown herself at him-for she had got into his carriage in front of the entire alehouse and fully aware that it would be the final ruin of her reputation-and he was not going to ask any questions. There was tension in his silence and in the way that he watched her. She knew what would happen when they reached the next inn and stopped for the night.
She waited to feel something. She was about to betray her husband, break her wedding vows and give herself to another man. Surely she should feel some guilt? Yet no feelings came. There was nothing. Nothing but cold, black emptiness. She felt as though she was floating, tiptoeing lightly but inevitably, toward disaster. Her mind was numb. What did it matter what she did now? Nat did not love her and nothing else seemed remotely important. She had lost him. He had never truly been hers to lose. Gregory Scarlet had been right when he had said she was like her mother. Like the Countess of Scarlet she had pinned everything on her one true love, gambled and lost. Like her mother she would run away with second best-with a man who wanted her even if he was not the one she wanted.
They finally stopped in Keighley at the Crossed Hands. The inn was busy but the landlady, seeing quality, made a private room available to them at the top of the creaking stair. Lizzie sat down on the bed, realizing as she caught sight of herself in the mirror what a shocking fright she must look. She had no cloak or bonnet, her hair was awry and the diamond clasp long gone, and her gown was ripped and stained. She wished she cared but she looked at her reflection and saw a stranger looking back at her.
“Here you are, my lord, my lady.” The landlady’s eyes darted slyly from Lizzie to Jerrold and back. “A nice cozy room for you. Shall I send up some food?”
“Just some wine, thank you,” Jerrold said. Lizzie heard the chink of money changing hands. “Then you can leave us alone-and you have not seen us.”
“No, my lord,” the woman said. She dropped a curtsy.
The wine arrived quickly. Jerrold poured her a glass and Lizzie drank it down almost greedily but still she felt nothing other than a lassitude that stole all thought. It was too much of an effort to move, too much of an effort to do anything at all. John Jerrold came across and sat next to her on the bed. He took the glass from her hand and placed it on the table. She watched his movements and they seemed so slow, as though everything took so long to happen, her seduction unraveling before her eyes with agonizing detail. She could not feel, could not think. Jerrold kissed her. He was good at it. She had known he would be. She remembered that a month or so ago-was it so recently? It felt like an age-she had been tempted to go out onto the terrace at the Wheelers’ house with John Jerrold to see if he was any good at kissing. And now she knew.
Yet still she did not feel anything. Jerrold turned her around so that her back was to him and put his hand beneath the fall of her hair, his fingers cool on her nape. Lizzie closed her eyes and thought of Nat tracing his fingers down her neck and down the curve of her bare back, and she shivered. Jerrold’s hand had gone to the laces of her gown. She felt the ribbons give and the bodice ease, and then it fell apart and Jerrold’s hand was on her bare skin and she thought of Nat sliding his hands over her body and suddenly her feelings came alive with such force that she gasped. The pain hit her so hard and so fast that she almost cried aloud in anguish. She grabbed the bodice of the gown to her breasts and spun around.
“I can’t do this!” She stopped, looking at the expression on John Jerrold’s face. “My God,” she said slowly as she saw the look in his eyes. “Neither can you.”
Jerrold’s expression eased into rueful amusement. “Actually I think I could,” he said, “but I’ll allow it is more difficult than I had thought.”
“I love Nat,” Lizzie said. She gulped in a breath. “Whatever he has done, I still love him. I’m so sorry, Johnny.” She felt stricken, desperate. “I did not mean to be a tease,” she said painfully. “I don’t know what happened to me, but I can’t make love with you because I cannot bear to betray Nat. I love him so much.”
“I think I knew that really,” Jerrold said wryly.
“Fasten my gown up so that we can talk,” Lizzie said, spinning around again. “I cannot hold a conversation like this.”
“A pity,” Jerrold said, the amusement returning to his voice. He tied her laces. “I could definitely have done it,” he added, his hands lingering on her bare shoulders. “Damn it, Lizzie…”
Lizzie slapped his hands away. She felt wretched with misery over Nat but at the same time a small spark of spirit had kindled inside her. It made everything hurt like the devil but at least she was feeling again.
“It’s too late for that,” she said. She looked at Jerrold, at the fall of his fair hair over his brow and the wicked light in his narrowed eyes and she sighed. “You make the perfect rake, Johnny, but I cannot let you seduce me.” She put her head on one side. “Nor do I think your heart is really in this. Tell me what was so difficult for you. Was it because I’m married?”
Jerrold laughed. “That’s never stopped me before.” His smile vanished. “No, it’s nothing to do with you. You’re beautiful and I like you very much and I thought that I wanted you, but-” He stopped and ran a hand over his hair. “Devil take it, Lizzie, I think I’m in love, too, and it is the most damnable thing.”
Lizzie’s eyes grew huge. “You’re in love with Lydia!” she burst out. She pressed a hand to her mouth. “I thought that you liked her when first she came to Fortune’s Folly last year. Oh, that is bad, for Lydia will never give you a chance. She has been so hurt by Tom I doubt she will ever trust a man again.” She broke off. “Sorry,” she said. “That isn’t very helpful.”
“No,” Jerrold said, “but it is accurate.” He picked up his wineglass. “I have been trying not to kill your brother for months,” he added conversationally. “It is very difficult, for I hate him more than any man on earth.”
“There’s a long queue,” Lizzie said. “You’ll have to wait your turn.” She sighed. “Don’t give up on Lydia. When we go back to Fortune’s Folly I’ll help you-” She stopped dead.
“You’re thinking,” Jerrold said, “that you can’t go back. You have run away from your husband and by now everyone will have heard that you are with me and that you are ruined.”
“Yes,” Lizzie said. “And I am thinking that although I love Nat with all my heart, he does not love me and nothing can change that.”
“Tell me about it,” Jerrold said, smiling at her. “Perhaps I can help. After all, we’ve got all night.”
NAT’S HEAD HURT. His body hurt. Everywhere hurt. Even in the worst excesses of his youth he had not appreciated that alcohol could have such a devastating effect. Then he remembered that he had not taken any drink. As memory rushed in, irresistible and damnably painful, everything started to come back to him. He had lost Lizzie. Hurt and confused by his betrayal, she had run off with John Jerrold. The grief crashed through him again and he closed his eyes and wished for oblivion.
