“You keep saying that.”
“What else can I say?”
I love you, Jane. She shoved aside the futile wish. “I’ve put you in an impossible position.”
“I’ll do my best not to hurt you.”
“That will hurt me more than carelessness,” she said sharply. “We can’t spend every minute guarding our words and actions.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Impatience lengthened his mouth. “You seem to forget that we’re tied together for life.”
Her turn to wince. He made that sound like a death sentence—which she supposed it was. It was certainly death to anything that felt like gladness or hope. “I don’t forget,” she said flatly. “I suggest…a separation.”
He swore on a deep growl. “By God almighty, you won’t leave me.”
She’d known he wouldn’t like her idea. If only because once again, he’d be caught up in a scandal. London’s most famous rejected suitor suffered another rejection, this time from his wife. Any man’s pride would revolt at the prospect.
“We can arrange it so we avoid gossip.” She paused. Since arriving in London, she’d come to know this world he inhabited better than that. “Or mostly.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek. “Good Lord, girl, I don’t give a rat’s arse about talk. Let the rattlepates wag their tongues into the next century. I only care that you don’t want to stay with me.”
She didn’t believe him, but she appreciated his attempt to save her pride, if not his own. “I’ll retire to the country. That’s nothing noteworthy. Plenty of men come to London without their wives.”
“Do they indeed?” His voice struck her like a whip. “And what the devil do you do when I go home to Beardsley? Hare back to London like we’re playing some stupid children’s game?”
She bore up under his anger. After all, from his point of view, she’d spoiled everything. He must want to strangle her. Worse, the news of her love struck him completely unprepared, while she’d had time to winnow their limited choices.
“I won’t be at Beardsley Hall.” The thought of living somewhere redolent of Hugh’s presence, even when he wasn’t there, made her stomach heave.
“So where are you going? To Susan? To Felix?”
“After our quarrel, I’m not sure Susan would have me. And the last thing Felix wants is his cousin moving back to the estate she once ran.”
“You seem to be out of options, don’t you?” He so rarely used sarcasm, that this cut to the quick. “You’ll have to stay with me, much as you despise the idea.”
“Hugh, you’ll be better off if I leave you.” She struggled to steady her voice. “Think about it. Life’s been bad enough these last weeks. It will only get worse. Already, what’s happening between us is breaking my heart and driving you to distraction.”
Tears edged Jane’s shaky inhalation. Last night when she’d rehearsed this scene in her mind, everything had proceeded much more smoothly. She’d laid out her position, and Hugh had responded like the reasonable man he was. If he
said he couldn’t love her, they’d calmly and sensibly discuss a divided future.
She’d never imagined she’d have to deal with a wounded lion. She knew that Hugh didn’t love her before she asked the question. As expected, he’d made his rebuff more than clear, but that didn’t stop him snarling at her for wanting to leave and all but roaring his pain aloud.
“Being without you will drive me to distraction,” he said, his beautiful voice harsh.
If only she could believe that. “I don’t expect you to stay faithful.”
Saying the words nearly killed her. While for all the good they did toward placating him, she might as well have saved herself the trouble.
His anger, barely suppressed, flared again. “Well, that’s bloody marvelous, isn’t it? I have my wife’s permission to become an adulterer. What a treasure I unearthed when I married you, Jane.”
When he’d said that before, he sounded like he meant it. Hearing this distorted version shrunk her heart to a tiny pebble. She extended a shaking hand to clutch at the back of the sofa. She needed something solid to hold so she didn’t crumple into a heap. “Stop it,” she said through stiff lips. “You’re not helping.”
“And you’d really like me to be helpful,” he jeered, folding his arms. “Tell me the rest of this brilliant plan. I’m all ears.”
She struggled for composure. “If I still receive my pin money, I can revive my original plan and find cheap lodgings somewhere.”
Her suggestion, well meant as it was, made him angrier. It seemed everything she said only made him angrier. “Tea and good works, and tucked up in bed by nine every night? After taking London by storm, you expect to be happy with that?”