Page 80 of Marriage Most Scandalous
“You don’t need to wait this out with me, John. Go on back and claim your lady.”
“And leave you to drown in your mistakes?”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Sebastian laughed at the rejoinder. When John was annoyed, he was quite amusing. But he supposed he shouldn’t have left him in the dark.
“I’m giving Maggie a week to start divorce proceedings,” he explained. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do. But if I find she hasn’t done so, then she will have lost her chance to be rid of me.”
“That implies you’re going back to check?”
“Of course.”
“Well, damn me, you couldn’t have mentioned that sooner?” John complained.
Sebastian shrugged. “It wasn’t an easy decision to make. Maggie deserves better than me. But for once I’m going to be selfish.”
“That’s if she hasn’t started the proceedings. What if she has?”
“Then fate will have decided the matter.”
John rolled his eyes. “Why leave it to chance? She doesn’t think she’ll ever see you again. She has no reason to delay a divorce.”
Sebastian’s lips thinned out. He’d decided only that morning to keep Margaret—if she didn’t immediately get her divorce. He really hadn’t thought much beyond giving her a few more days to see to it. But chivalry didn’t suit him at all. Why indeed leave it to fate?
“If she’s divorced me, perhaps I’ll get down on bended knee and actually ask for her hand. How long do you think she’ll laugh?”
John scowled at him. “Why do you do this? Why do you feel that the life you’ve taken on is contemptible? You’ve helped a lot of people who were desperate and would otherwise be flat out of luck if not for you.”
“And done a lot of meaningless jobs that merely served the greed or vengeance of the ones hiring me.”
“So there were a few bad jobs mixed in with the good. The good ones still count. What made you think Lady Margaret would turn you down if you offered her your life rather than the one she’s accustomed to?”
“I said I’m going back,” Sebastian said defensively.
“But you were joking about asking her to marry you, the real you, the man you are now, not the one you used to be. What makes you think she wouldn’t have you?”
“What makes you think she would? Every interaction I’ve had with her was forced on her, including making that marriage real. She had a host of reasons why she didn’t want to marry me and would have trotted them all out had I let her.”
“Perhaps because you forgot to tell her that you wanted to marry her? Or am I reading this wrong? Did you tell her how you feel about her?”
Sebastian downed the remaining brandy in his glass. “You’ve made some good points, John. I’ll give it more thought.”
“By the by,” John added curiously, “what did Denton have to say?”
“When?”
“In his letter.”
“What letter?”
John rolled his eyes. “I should have known you were too deep in thought earlier to hear me tell you I put his letter in your room. It arrived this morning.”
Curious, Sebastian went to fetch the letter but was disappointed when he read it. He returned to the kitchen to tell John in disgust, “Cryptic as usual. I don’t know what his problem is these days, that he has to skirt every issue.”
“Why did he write to you, then?”
