So, he was truly not going to do anything. Anger rose in Priscilla’s heart, anger at the situation, but predominately anger at Charles. He could do something about this, he could break the engagement with Miss Lloyd – but he would not.
“I should not have said anything,” she said, moving around the settee toward the door, her skirts rustling in the silence. “I thought if you – if you cared for me at all, you would wish to be with me. I see now that I should not have spoken at all.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have,” said Charles coldly.
If he said anything else, Priscilla did not know. She slammed the door behind her and paced down the corridor toward the hallway. She did not need to wait for Hodges; she knew where the cloakroom was.
Not until she reached the cool of the night air did she allow the tears to fall that had threatened from the moment Charles had said he would not break his engagement.
It had all been too little, too late.
Chapter Nine
Charles fell heavily back into his soft leather chair and sighed.
A week. Seven days. One hundred and seventy-odd hours.
However he thought about it, it was far too long to go without seeing Priscilla. A week ago, she had stormed out of his drawing room and out of his life, it seemed. She was not in town; she was not at home. She was nowhere to be found.
Well, that was what Mrs. Busby had said. With tinged cheeks and a stuttering voice, both times Charles had called at the Seton house, she had informed him that Priscilla was unwell and not to be disturbed for visitors.
Charles closed the lid of his inkpot and frowned. What did that mean, unwell? Was it another cold – it was the season for them, after all. Autumn nights drawing in, dew bringing a chill to the evening air.
Was it something worse? Was she bedridden, so ill that she could not descend the stairs?
Or was she so unwell, and the thought made his hands clench, that she had gone away, perhaps to the Continent? Could she have come down with something awful, and the last thing he would ever say to her was that she should not have spoken of her affections for him?
Charles shook his head, laying down his quill and pushing away the paper he had been working on all evening. Priscilla had a far stronger constitution than that, surely. A few colds, perhaps, but she had never suffered anything worse.
A painful twist seared his heart. Or perhaps, the traitorous voice inside his soul murmured, she was not indisposed, but merely does not want to see you…
His gaze dropped to his paperwork. Lists of names, food orders, tack orders; the plans for the autumn hunt had never interested him less. What was the point in inviting nobility and gentry from up and down the country if Priscilla was not there?
He should finish the instructions to his groundskeeper. Mr. Michaels wanted to know how many horses to prepare, how many fox dens to hunt out before guests started to arrive.
Mr. Michaels would have to be disappointed. Charles had spent all week attempting to force Priscilla from his mind, never allowing himself to dwell on her. He had been worse than unsuccessful. Every moment, she was never far from his thoughts.
His eyes were sore, but that was not surprising. It was nearly midnight. The clock in the hall, just beyond the study door, had chimed half-past eleven not long ago, and he could concentrate no longer.
However much he attempted to convince himself it was because of the time, or the headache of trying to ascertain whether Lady Romeril would be offended if her son were not invited to the Orrinshire hunt, he knew the real reason for his distraction.
Priscilla.
How could he concentrate with the memories of that delicious kissing on the settee in the drawing room?
Charles stirred in his seat, his body tensing at the very remembrance of that moment a week ago.
Had he ever felt like this before? Not that he could recall. He had found women attractive, he was hardly dead, but never before had he allowed himself with complete abandon to pour the passion in his blood onto the lips of a woman.
A gentleman at six and twenty usually had far more experience, he knew that. It did not bother him. No wife of a duke was ever going to complain.
And it had not mattered, in the end. He had not needed practice nor advice. His body had just known, and so had Priscilla’s, and when they had allowed themselves to put caution aside and just be together, as they were so desperate to…
Charles smiled. It had been incredible. How was it possible to feel something so powerfully, and then not be able to do anything about it?
“Engagements can be broken.”
“No, I will not do that to her. She has done nothing wrong.”
Had he done the right thing? It had been easy, in that moment, to try to be righteous – but now he had to live with that decision each and every day of his life.
It was torture, and not only he was condemned. No, he condemned Priscilla to the loneliness that she undoubtedly felt. How could it be wrong when two people loved each other, freely, and wanted to…
His body twitched. Well, he knew what he had wanted to do.
But Miss Frances Lloyd. Charles sighed as the memory of his betrothed forced its way into his conscience.
Sometimes he could barely remember what Miss Lloyd looked like. He had been in her presence…what, perhaps ten hours in total? Ten hours with a woman who would become his second self, his waking shadow, for the rest of his days.
He laughed aloud in the dark and empty study. He had probably spent more than ten hours with Priscilla in one day, countless times. He knew her better than he knew any other person
