Page 54 of Earl Crazy
They all turned to stare at Lady Fosberry.
“Once Harriett awakens,” her ladyship went on, “She’ll tell her brother the truth, and this mess will be set to rights. James is shocked and distraught right now, but he’s not an unreasonable man. He’ll come to his senses, I promise you. If you do love Christopher, Mathilda, then accept his hand, and allow yourself to be happy.”
“Do you love him, Tilly?” Phee asked, seeming to hold her breath. “Are you in love with Lord Prestwick?”
“I told you, it doesn’t matter.” Couldn’t they see it didn’t matter? “He’ll wed Harriett, just as Lord Fairmont demands. They’ve long been promised to each other, and I think… I think it was meant to turn out this way all along. Lord Fairmont is right—it’s the only way to save Harriett from scandal.”
She couldn’t let her tender-hearted friend face the scorn of theton.
But it was more than that. So much more.
Even if Kit would never be hers, she couldn’t bear to lose him.
A marriage to Hariett was the only way to save him from a painful, bloody death, and then there was the child, Samuel, to consider. What would become of him if Kit… if Kit…
“I—I’m sorry.” She raised Kit’s hand to her lips, and pressed a brief kiss to his palm. “I’m sorry.”
“Tilly, wait!” Kit called after her, his voice breaking, and that…oh, God, it shattered her heart into a thousand pieces to walk away from him, but she didn’t return to the drawing room, take his hands, and tell him shedidlove him, and would be his forever, because if she looked into the dark eyes that made her heart pound, and butterflies batter against her rib cage…
She’d be lost.
And in two days’ time, he would be as well, his body lying bloodied and broken on Primrose Hill just like his uncle’s before him, a victim of a curse that didn’t distinguish between the innocent and the guilty.
She could never doom him to such an ugly fate. She wouldn’t, even if it meant she must give him up. So, she fled up the stairs without a backward glance, tears scalding her eyes, and Kit’s desperate pleas echoing in her ears.
ChapterSixteen
“Tilly? Wake up, dearest.”
A gentle hand was shaking Tilly’s shoulder, but she squeezed her eyes closed as tightly as her eyelids would allow. Last night had been torturous. She’d tossed and turned in her bed until the moon had traded places with the first meek rays of the sun, and when she had managed to fall into a fitful sleep, she’d been haunted by Kit’s voice calling to her, and the memory of his dark eyes filled with sadness.
She didn’twantto wake up. Nothing but heartbreak awaited her.
But Phee, who’d never been one to be easily deterred when it came to her sisters’ wellbeing, gave her another nudge. “Come, Tilly. I know you’re unhappy, but we really must talk.”
There was no avoiding it, was there?
She let out a long sigh and peeled her eyelids away from her sore, gritty eyes. “We said everything that needed to be said last night.” How few words it had taken, to destroy the happiness of so many people! “I don’t see what’s left to talk about.”
Her voice was hoarse from weeping, and her tone not at all friendly, but Phee overlooked it with the unending patience of a lady burdened with five younger sisters. “Did we? Because I was under the impression we’d only just begun.”
Yes, and that beginning had left a long, jagged scar on her heart. If they delved any deeper, she’d bleed to death. “Rather a painful start.”
Phee wisely ignored this as well and reached behind her to plump the pillows. “Sit up, dearest. Yes, that’s better.” She retrieved a tray from the table and placed it on Tilly’s lap. “Here you are.”
Tilly stared down at the pot of tea and the plate of toast. “I’m not hungry.” She sounded like a sulky child, but there would be no choking down any toast or tea today.
Phee said nothing, only busied herself arranging the tea things, pouring out a cup of tea and setting it into the saucer. “Perhaps just a sip of tea?”
Tilly let out a beleaguered sigh, but she raised the cup to her lips, her gaze wandering toward Harriett’s bed. She’d expected to find her friend curled into a ball of misery, but the bed was empty, the coverlet neatly smoothed over the pillow. “My goodness, what’s become of Harriett? Is she—”
“Harriett is fine, or as well as can be expected, given her ordeal last night. Lady Fosberry came and fetched her earlier this morning. The two of them were closeted in her ladyship’s private parlor when I came upstairs. They’ve been in there for hours.”
Goodness, poor Harriett. Tilly didn’t envy her that confrontation. There weren’t enough hours in the day for her to explain how she’d ever agreed to Lord Wyle’s mad scheme in the first place. Lady Fosberry wielded considerable power over theton, but even she couldn’t set such a mess as this to rights.
But then, she wouldn’t have to, would she? Harriett would marry Kit, and it would be as if that terrifying encounter with Lord Wyle had never hap—
“How long have you been in love with Lord Prestwick, Tilly?”
