Blame It on Bath Page 0,109

from his hand. “Perhaps not the wisest move, but I did nothing to your wife. I merely seized the opportunity of her departure. I must speak to you—de Lacey, I am desperate.”

“And exceptionally stupid,” remarked Charlie. He hadn’t batted an eye at Gerard’s attack and was now watching in mild amusement, one elbow propped on the mantel.

Howe glanced at him in angry dismay. “I have little choice! If you call in that note, I’ll be utterly ruined. I attempted to make my case decently, and you refused to discuss the matter. I beg you, for the sake of my tenants and dependents, grant me some leniency.”

Gerard barely heard him. Kate’s letter simply said she felt a separation would suit them both, and she was going with her mother for a visit at Cobham. She expressed her hope that he had found something useful in his trip to Allenton and concluded by wishing him a quick resolution to his family’s trouble. She said nothing of when she would return.

“This debt was not of my making,” Howe pleaded when Gerard made no answer. “I swear I shall honor it as any decent gentleman would, but I must have time. For God’s sake, man, have some pity!”

But why would she go with her mother? Her mother was shallow and vain and had made Kate feel small and insignificant for most of her life. She was hardly the image of a loving and devoted mother. Surely even he was a better companion, great fool that he was. When Mrs. Hollenbrook first arrived in Bath, Kate seemed relieved when he said they didn’t have to see her and Lucien Howe. And now she had left Gerard to go away with her mother?

He raised his head. Perhaps he’d gotten it all wrong. Perhaps her dislike had really been of Lucien. The man could have threatened her or made her miserable once Gerard was no longer in town to keep him at bay, and she left to escape him. Eyes narrowing, he jerked out a chair from the round table in the center of the room. “All right,” he said. “Let us negotiate.”

Howe’s eyes skittered to Charlie, who merely drew out his pocket watch and made a show of checking it. The rashness of his actions seemed to have sunk in. “Thank you,” he said warily, and took another chair.

They sat, each taking the other’s measure. “I understand you pressured my wife to marry you at one time,” Gerard said abruptly.

Howe flushed deep red. “It would have been a very prudent match.”

“For you.”

“Also for her,” said the viscount stiffly. “She was a widow of advanced years. She was quiet and withdrawn, unlikely to attract suitors. Her only attraction was her fortune, which would have made her an object of prey to a host of villains.” His glare said he included Gerard in their number. “I offered her a safe home, a respectable marriage, and a continuation of the life she led.”

“How noble,” said Gerard without sympathy. “You, naturally, had no interest in her fortune.”

“Of course I did. My uncle left me no choice,” Howe retorted. “You know very well why I wished to marry her—why I had to marry her, instead of a younger lady who might bear me children and better suit my temperament. It was not my most ardent desire, but I was prepared to make the best of it.”

The best of it. Gerard had thought something like that, too, once upon a time. Before he’d become dependent on Kate’s company. Entranced by her rare laugh. Thoroughly addicted to making her smile and cry out in pleasure. Before he realized that her absence opened a gaping hole inside him that had nothing to do with making the best of their hasty marriage.

Perhaps he was no better than Howe.

He raised his eyes to the other man’s. “Did you ever hit her, as your uncle did?”

“Never!” Howe appeared genuinely appalled. “Never once! My uncle—?”

“If you were so desperate to beg my leniency, why did you follow her to Bath?” he interrupted. “Surely you could guess she wouldn’t be eager for your company, and hounding a woman is no way to win favors with her husband.”

For the first time the viscount looked vaguely uncomfortable. “It was not my idea. When her mother proposed the visit, though, I agreed because—because London had grown unwelcoming. Rumors of my ruin were everywhere.”

“Yes, I know how that feels,” said Gerard dryly. “You might also have reconsidered spreading that Durham Dilemma rubbish if