Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,106

at the sun. She had thought Asher would return home from the club, find she was not in their bedchamber, and come looking for her, but he had done nothing of the sort, and it hurt dreadfully.

Despite all she had discovered, he still managed to wound her. She pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on her kneecaps. No tears pricked her eyes, thank heaven above. She supposed there was a limit, after all, of how much a body could cry in a day.

Her husband had not come to her. Did he not care enough to do so, or did he care and her cold behavior yesterday had confused him? Try as she might last night, she could not completely reconcile what she had discovered about his father’s will with the reason for his wedding her and how he had acted in the last week. It simply did not make sense. If Asher had wed her only to gain the unentailed property and money, why had he been so caring, so tender, so passionate?

Making up her mind to confront him and tell him what she had learned, she dressed hurriedly with Miss Ballenger’s aid and made her way to the bedchamber she and Asher had shared until last night.

His valet was inside laying out clothes. When she paused at the door, Cushman glanced up from his task and looked at her. “Your Grace, may I help you?”

“Yes, where is my husband?” The valet looked immediately wary, which knotted her stomach further than it was already tangled. When he didn’t answer, she said, “It’s all right, Cushman. I believe we had the beginning of a row yesterday.” It was more than that, but no need to get into specifics with the man. “I was hoping to speak with him.”

“Ah, Your Grace, that explains why he did not come home.”

“What?” Those blasted knots tightened further.

“I assume he spent the night at the Orcus Society, Your Grace.”

“He did,” came a voice from behind her. She whirled around to see Talbot standing there in the corridor, looking as if he himself had spent the night out.

She swallowed as familiar humiliation burned her cheeks. “Did you see him?”

The look of pity in Talbot’s eyes was her answer, but it also set warning bells off in her head. She wanted to hear what Talbot knew but not in front of Cushman. She would be disgraced enough without the entire staff being privy to the fact that Asher truly did not care about her. She would rather his valet not be an audience to what might come.

“That will be all, Cushman,” she said, indicating with her hand that the man ought to depart.

“Yes, Your Grace,” he replied immediately, but she noted as she moved out of the doorway and into the corridor to let him by that he hesitated for a moment, giving her an odd look.

“You’ve been dismissed, Cushman,” Talbot said in a curt tone. “Stop lurking.”

The valet cleared his throat and shifted from foot to foot, but after a severe glare from Talbot, he finally departed. When it was just the two of them alone, she said, “So you saw him?”

Talbot nodded, looking clearly like he did not want to say more.

“At the Orcus Society?”

Another nod accompanied by a darting gaze. Goodness, it had to be worse than she thought. “Was he… Was he alone?”

Talbot shook his dark head and sighed.

Her throat tightened, but her eyes still did not prick. Perhaps her heart had hardened a bit, after all. “Was he with another woman?”

“I’m sorry.”

Two heavily laden words filled with such force. She felt ill.

“He doesn’t deserve you. He never did.”

On that, she could agree, though it was slightly odd the way Talbot had phrased it.

“What will you do now?” he asked.

The question echoed in her head. What would she do? They were wed. She supposed she could try for a divorce? The thought made her feel worse. She loved him. She couldn’t automatically quit, though she would not simply go along, a blind, foolish Society wife.

“I…I don’t know,” she admitted. “I suppose I’ll go to my parents’ home and—”

“Do you think that’s wise? He’ll go there undoubtedly, and your parents will, of course, want to protect you from him, but it might anger him, and with his power—”

He could do harm to future matches for her sisters, but no, Asher was not capable of such cruelty. Was he?

“I’ve a house that he doesn’t know of,” Talbot said. “I could take you