“I’m always up for it,” Warnick boasted. “And with you so distracted, I might actually win this one. I’ll send notice to the lads. When would you like to leave?”
“Tomorrow,” King said. As soon as he could be rid of this place and its memories.
Warnick looked to the curricle. “I see your darling is repaired.”
King followed his friend’s gaze, hating the look of the carriage he’d once loved so dearly, now rife with memories of her. “No thanks to you.”
The duke smiled. “She was a clever girl, selling your wheels.”
“They weren’t hers to sell. She’s a thief.”
“You think I didn’t know that? She’s very convincing.”
I wished to say that I love you.
He’d never been so convinced of anything in his life.
He’d never wanted something to be more true.
The damn curricle was full of her. Of wagered carriage wheels and her glorious defiance earlier, when she lifted her skirts high and climbed up on the seat.
He’d been an ass, not helping her up.
And now as he faced a drive back to Lyne Castle, those memories marred the perfection of his curricle—no longer a place of safety, empty of all but thoughts of speed and competition. Instead, it was filled with thoughts of her. With her pretty lies.
I wanted you. Forever.
“I’ll sell it to you,” he said.
Warnick blinked. “The curricle?”
“Right now,” King said.
The duke watched him for a long moment. “How much?”
It was worth a fortune, the custom box, the high, special wheels, the perfectly balanced springs, designed to keep the seat as light and comfortable as possible on long races. It was several stones lighter than other curricles. Built to King’s exact specifications by the finest craftsmen in Britain.
But he couldn’t look at it any longer.
She’d ruined it.
He shook his head. “Nothing. I don’t want it any longer.” He considered the horses and turned back to the duke. “I require a saddle.”
“You are giving me your curricle,” Warnick said. “For a saddle.”
“If you don’t want it—” King said.
“Oh, no. I want it,” Warnick replied, shock in his Scots burr, moving to the door to send a servant for a saddle.
“Good,” King said, moving to unhitch one of the blacks. “You can return the other horse when you’ve time.”
The two men stood in silence for the long minutes it took for a saddle to arrive from Warnick’s stables, until the duke spoke. “If I may . . .”
“I thought I made it clear that I wish you wouldn’t.”
Warnick did not seem to care for King’s wishes. “I’ve never seen a man brought so low by love.”
“I don’t love her,” he snapped.
And what a lie that was.
“It’s too bad, that,” Warnick said, crushing the remainder of his cheroot beneath his boot. “As she seemed to love you quite a bit.”
She’d betrayed him. For his title. Which he would have given her freely. Without hesitation. Along with his love.
“Love is not everything.”
The saddle arrived then, and King made quick work of fitting it to his horse. Warnick was quiet for a long time, watching him work before replying. “That may be the case, but with the way you look, I wouldn’t believe it. And with the way you look, I’m damn grateful I’ve escaped it myself.”
“That, you should be,” King said, pulling himself into the saddle.
“She’ll want children, you know,” Warnick said. “They all want children.”
The words brought back the vision of those little, blue-eyed girls. The ones he’d been sure he’d never know.
He’d been right all along.
The line ended with him.
“She should have thought of that before she married me.”
Chapter 21
MISERABLE MARQUESS
MAKES MASSIVE MISTAKE
He returned to Lyne Castle as darkness fell, the dwindling light having already seen the house and its residents to their chambers—sun set late during a North Country summer. He was happy for the quiet and the dark—the best conditions for getting drunk. He would leave on the morrow, to his house in Yorkshire.
The library was obviously out of the question, as it was filled with her memory, and so he took himself to the only place he knew there was decent scotch. His father’s study.
He did not expect to find his father in residence.
And he certainly did not expect to find Agnes in his father’s arms.
They broke apart the moment the door opened, Agnes immediately turning away from the door. Good Lord—she was relacing her bodice.
Good Lord.
King turned his back on the tableau as quickly as he could. “I— Christ. I beg your pardon.” And then he realized just what he’d seen. His father, in flagrante, with Agnes.
His father, the duke, in the arms of his housekeeper.
“You may look, Aloysius,” she said quietly.
He turned back to them both, standing at separate ends of the great window at the far end of the study. He considered the duo, his father silver-haired and distinguished, and Agnes, as beautiful as she’d ever been.
He glared at his father. “What in hell are you doing?”
The duke raised a black brow, a smirk on his lips. “I imagine you’re well able to divine it.”
Agnes blushed. “George,” she admonished.
King couldn’t believe he’d heard it correctly. He’d never heard anyone refer to his father as anything other than his title. In honesty, it would have taken King a moment to remember his father’s given name.
Agnes did not even hesitate over it.
His father turned and winked at her. “We aren’t children, Nessie. He needn’t be so shocked.”
“I am, indeed, shocked,” King said, “How long has this—” He shook his head and looked to Agnes. “How long has he been taking advantage of you?”
They both laughed at that, as though King had told a wonderful joke.
As though he did not want to kill someone.
As though this day were not the single worst of his life.
“I do not jest,” he said. “What in hell is going on?”
“What is going on is that we’ve a houseful of visitors, and Agnes insists on our skulking about rather than telling the truth.” His father moved to a sideboard and poured two tumblers of scotch. He looked up at King. “Drink?”
King nodded, watching, flabbergasted, as the duke poured a third glass and delivered it to Agnes with a warm, unfamiliar smile before crossing to offer the remaining scotch to him. “What is the truth, Father?”
The Duke of Lyne met King’s gaze. “I love Agnes.”
If his father had sprouted wings and flown about the room, King could not have been more shocked. “Since when?”
“Since forever.”
Forever.
God, how he hated that word.
“How long is that?” King drank, hoping the spirits would bring reason.
Agnes replied. “Nearly fifteen years.” As though it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
He looked to his father. “Fifteen years.”