The Blood of a Baron - K.J. Jackson Page 0,22
meant to me. You were always jealous of it when we were together.”
“Jealous?” he scoffed. “That would mean I actually cared enough to manifest an emotion strong enough to trigger jealousy. Which was a stretch in our case.”
Her lips twisting, she shook her head, looking down at the paper in her fingers. The ink swam in front of her, her eyes not able to make out letters or numbers. “I was always a burden you were saddled with. I remember.”
“I didn’t have a choice on the betrothal. Our fathers decided it long before we were even old enough to know what a betrothal was. I made do with what was given me. You did too.”
She blinked back tears before lifting her look to him. “Except I would have chosen you regardless, Wes. Betrothal or not. That was always the difference between us.” Words that should be humiliating to speak, but she’d long since come to terms with the facts and Wes’s true feelings for her.
His head tilted to the side, his stare meeting her glare head on. No denial of the facts. Only cold acceptance.
She waved her hand in the air. “Just go, Wes. I don’t need your help. Never needed it. Go and do whatever it is that you do with your time.”
He stood from the chair and she inhaled a silent breath of relief.
Kicking aside papers and books by his feet, he sank to the floor, going to his knees. He picked up a loose leaf of vellum and scanned it, then lifted the paper to her. “Ledger pile.”
The breath stuck in her chest.
Of course. Of course he’d know it was crueler torture to have him here—in her presence—than for him to leave.
Satan, through and through.
But she wasn’t about to let him do that to her. Torture her minute after minute. She refused to let his presence bother her.
If he wanted to stay and waste his time sifting through mounds of papers, it was fine with her.
For she was done with him. He meant nothing to her—needed to mean nothing to her.
Done.
She was done with him, save for what little assistance he could give her in finding the box.
Done.
{ Chapter 10 }
Wes nudged a glass of cognac along the black muslin dress covering Laney’s shoulder and she took it without dispute.
She apparently needed a drink just as much as he did.
Hours—the full day—they’d sat in that blasted study, paper after paper passing through his hands. Laney fanning through book after book.
The destruction in the room had been complete. More complete than he’d intended. He’d have to talk to Rune about that.
He stepped past her to the far corner of the study opposite the fireplace, settling onto the floor with his back propped against the dark mahogany wainscoting, his legs crossed and stretched long in front of him. It’d been dark for two hours, and he’d had to start squinting at the papers in the dim light of the sconces as he sorted.
A quick sip of the Sazerac de Forge et Fils cognac he’d delivered to Morton’s townhouse months ago—he couldn’t stand the cheap liquor Morton had grown accustomed to—and Wes set the glass onto the floor next to his thigh, then picked up the closest stack of papers to him.
Shuffling them into a neat pile on his lap, he scanned the top page. More stark numbers. More debts that Morton had managed to pile upon the estate.
Wes had no idea that Morton had been this deep into debt. No wonder all the fortunes Wes had seen Morton win during the last seven months disappeared within days, again and again.
It was startling to see how low a man could sink on his own volition.
“What waters were you in on the ship where you said you lived—the Firehawk? Were you on that ship the entire time?” Her fingers no longer crinkling papers, Laney had stopped shuffling through books and papers and had stretched her legs out in front of her, propping her left arm to the floor as she leaned back and lifted the tumbler of cognac to her lips. “You just disappeared. You never contacted anyone. Never wrote to anyone we knew. Never again appeared in Yorkshire. I held out hope for the longest time—too long. But you vanished so completely it was as though you never even existed. As though you had been a dream. We had been a dream.” Her words were uncommonly soft and calm as she looked at him—not accusing.
Wes set the stack of papers