When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,84
his head. “I can’t.”
Her lip curled. “You can’t or won’t give me my money?”
He gritted his teeth. “Won’t.”
“Fine, then.” She turned away. “When you give me my money—and you will give me my own money—then Lucretia and I will quit this house. Enjoy your bounty, Gideon, but do not try and trick me again. Leave me in peace.”
He felt as if he’d been stabbed in the gut as she marched to the door. This was a nightmare.
He was losing her.
“Wait.” He strode after her, meaning to grasp her arm.
But in a swift movement she wrenched away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Messalina,” he said, his chest swelling. Breaking.
Shattering.
“No.” Her voice was stern. “You may own this house, my money, and my name, but you do not own me.”
And she left him.
* * *
She felt as if her limbs were lead. Messalina carried herself very carefully as she made her way to the staircase. It wouldn’t do to show how mortally she was hurt.
How Gideon had so nearly broken her.
Just a few more steps, just a little bit more, and then she could rest, but in the meantime she held her head high.
She was a Greycourt, and she did not bow before disaster or humiliation.
Bartlett was in the hallway outside the room she’d shared with Gideon. “Ma’am? Are you well?”
“Yes.” Messalina nodded jerkily. “You may retire for the night.”
“But—”
Messalina ignored the lady’s maid’s bewildered protest. She continued down the hallway. She wished to never see the inside of Gideon’s bedroom again.
She had her hand raised to knock on Lucretia’s door when it was flung open. Her younger sister dragged her into the room and wrapped her arms around Messalina.
“I’m so sorry,” Lucretia gulped. Her voice was rasping as if she’d started crying again. “I had no right to discuss your marriage with Julian. He was speaking so ill of Gideon and I blurted that you and he had consummated your marriage now, so you must be more at peace with him. Julian leaped on my words, demanding to know what I meant and…”
Lucretia pulled back, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand like a little girl. “I’m sorry, Messalina. I should’ve never spoken at all. Please forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Messalina shook her head wearily as they sat side by side on Lucretia’s bed. “Really, it’s best that I know. I was a fool living a pantomime.”
“But you were so happy,” Lucretia whispered, crystalline tears caught in her eyes.
“Yes, but it was a false happiness, wasn’t it?” Messalina tried to smile and found she could not. “He doesn’t care for me. Not in the way I cared for him. Perhaps not at all. He was pretending all along, I think. Sooner or later he would’ve revealed the truth: our marriage was a sham.”
The tears so long kept in check suddenly overwhelmed her defenses. Her eyes blurred as she caught her breath on a sob.
She felt Lucretia’s arms wrap around her again in a tight hug.
“I wish I could call Gideon out,” Lucretia exclaimed fiercely. “I’d drive a sword right through his shriveled, black heart!”
Messalina snorted. “What a bloodthirsty thing you are. I do believe you’d do it if you could.”
“Of course I would,” Lucretia replied indignantly.
“Calm yourself, Mistress Tigress. I’d be quite alone were you to be imprisoned for illegal dueling.”
“Oh, very well,” Lucretia said with mock disappointment.
Her sister was trying to cheer her, she knew, but Messalina couldn’t produce a smile, let alone stop her steadily falling tears.
Lucretia’s voice was soft and gentle when she next spoke. “Let me help you with your bodice, Lina.” For some reason the childhood nickname, one Lucretia had invented when she was still in leading strings, made Messalina sob aloud. Lucretia unpinned her, drawing off both stomacher and bodice. “There. Now stand and I’ll untie your skirts. Careful.”
Messalina wobbled to her feet. “I shouldn’t have dismissed Bartlett,” she said, gulping. “And you ought to have a lady’s maid of your own.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Lucretia replied, her voice unbearably gentle. Her clever fingers were working at Messalina’s waist. “I’ve always been quite happy sharing Bartlett.”
“If you say so,” Messalina murmured. She was so weary! She felt as if she were wading through mud, her skirts dragging her down, down into black depths where she’d inevitably stop struggling at some point.
“I do say so,” Lucretia replied briskly. Messalina’s skirts fell about her feet. “Step out now. See, I can even act the lady’s maid with you. We don’t need anyone else at all.”