to her as her lover. It seemed a betrayal of sorts. As if she were wounding him, lying to him, misleading him.
Because you are, Hyacinth.
But she swallowed down the bile and nodded, smiling. “Thank you, Tom darling.”
Hyacinth had never called him Tom darling. Not once. Tom, yes. Sidmouth, of course. Also, my lord. But not just Tom. Tom darling? No, never. He would have bloody well recalled. And as he waited for her to join him in the bedchamber, suspicion stole over him like a shadow. Creeping, steadily.
He stalked the perimeter and consulted his pocket watch. Five minutes had passed since he had first arrived in the chamber he had come to think of as theirs over the duration of the last fortnight. And still, no Hyacinth.
Very well. She did have a great many layers and underpinnings, even if she had skipped some of her garments in the name of facilitating their lovemaking. That corset. Good God. For as long as he lived, he did not think he would ever again be capable of viewing that particular shade of amethyst without envisioning Hyacinth’s delectable curves enhanced by that lace-frilled corset.
She had been stunning.
Utterly riveting.
Breathtaking.
Tom paced some more and extracted his pocket watch for another examination of the time. Seven minutes had passed.
He told himself to be patient. That righting her gown required time. He told himself there was no reason to worry. That the tremor he had thought he had heard in her voice and the sheen in her eyes before he had left her in the library had been imagined.
His pocket watch was in his hand once more. Ten minutes.
Surely that had been enough time to assemble some buttons and laces? To rearrange herself into a semblance of order?
Her suggestion returned to him, deepening his ever-mounting suspicion. There had been something in her countenance when she had spoken to him. A sadness, unless he was mistaken. At the time, he had disregarded it as the effects of their potent lovemaking coupled with the knowledge that this night was their last together.
But now?
Now, he was no longer as certain.
Why would she not simply slap on her gown and skirts, thread her fingers through his, and race upstairs with him?
He consulted the time once more. One quarter hour had passed. There had been something different about her in the wake of their heated joining. He did not think he was mistaken there.
Misgiving assailed him, sending him from the chamber. Down the hall. He descended the staircase two steps at a time in his haste to find a wide-eyed chamber maid staring at him as if he were a monster who had suddenly sprouted from the fiery depths of Hades.
He knew he looked disreputable, but he was hardly a monster.
“Have you seen her ladyship?” he asked pointedly.
They had not used either of their formal titles with Brandon’s staff, mostly out of deference to Hyacinth. Although every domestic had seen her face over the last fortnight, none of them knew her name.
The maid dipped into a belated curtsy. “Her ladyship has just left, my lord.”
His blood went cold. “Left?” he repeated dumbly.
“Yes, my lord,” said the girl. “She asked for the carriage to be brought round, and she was off.”
Curse it all to hell and back.
In disbelief, he stalked past the chit, slamming into the library like the winds of a hurricane.
Only to find it empty. Nary a trace of Hyacinth lingered. There were no signs of what they had been about only a half hour before. Indeed, it was as if they had never been there together at all. As if those rare moments of connection had never existed.
So this was the conclusion of their affaire.
A frenzied shag on the goddamn library carpet.
He absorbed the shock of it like a blow. Because it was a blow. A blow which left him reeling. Dazed. He had not been ready for their time together to end. But she had obviously been of a different persuasion. She was Lady Endless Parties after all, was she not?
The stanza of the poem he had been reading when she entered mocked him now. The Garden of Proserpine. So fitting, for he had met Hyacinth in a garden, surrounded by the scent of summer rose blooms, enrobed in the milk of the moonlight.
No loves endure.
That was what Swinburne had written.
And the man was bloody well right.
Chapter Fifteen
Seven endless days had passed.
Seven endless, horrible days of longing and yearning. Of telling herself she must move on. That putting an end