“No, Hugh. I will not be attending the parlor while Mr. Sutton concludes his business. I shall speak to him. At once.”
“My lady…”
She raised her hands as if in warning. And heaven help her, but if he had been the guard whose offensive tongue had taught her girls bitch and arsehole, then she would take great joy in boxing his ears as she had threatened.
“Do not think I shall not, Hugh,” she said.
“Mr. Sutton won’t be ‘appy.”
“Nor will Mrs. Sutton.” Her eyes narrowed. “Speaking of displeasure, Hugh, are you responsible for teaching Anne and Elizabeth that their former nursemaid was a bitch?”
A flush suffused his cheekbones, and he shuffled his feet some more.
She knew guilt when she saw it. “It was you.”
“Ain’t it a proper word? That’s what Mrs. Bunton was, my lady. I was only telling the truth.”
“What about their misguided belief that Motley is named Arsehole? Would you know anything about that, Hugh?” she demanded.
He moved to his right, granting her access to the door at last.
“I shall deal with you later,” she warned him, sweeping past to open the portal and venture inside her husband’s lair.
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But the moment she did, everything stopped.
Time seemed to halt.
Her heart, too.
Because her heart…it was breaking.
Shattering and pounding in her ears and aching all at once. Humiliation rose, supplanting all the righteous fury which had previously dwelled within her. Because there stood her husband, in an embrace with another woman.
Jasper and the woman with her arms wound around his neck sprang apart. The reason for his absence and his desire for her to be denied access to his office suddenly made sense. Bile rose in her throat. The woman turned to her, a smug smile on the lips which had so recently been pressed to Octavia’s husband’s.
“Octavia,” he said, voice strained.
What else he would have said—excuses, lies, she knew not. She did not want to hear. She held up a hand to bid him to keep quiet. She had come here for Anne and Elizabeth, and for their sakes alone, she would be strong. She would not run away. Nor would she shed a tear.
Stupid, stupid girl.
Had she truly believed a man like Jasper Sutton would be faithful to her? Had she truly imagined what had happened between them yesterday had held significance? If so, she no longer possessed the imprudent misconception. He had just shown her everything she needed to know.
“A word with you, Mr. Sutton,” she bit out.
“Go,” he told the other woman, his voice harsh.
She did not protest, but the look she cast in Octavia’s direction said more than words could. Her saunter from the room seemed to take a lifetime.
Finally, when she was gone, Jasper moved toward Octavia. “I can explain—”
“No,” she interrupted. “You cannot. I saw everything I needed to see with my own eyes. But I cannot say I am surprised. What else should I expect from a man like you? Certainly not a faithful husband.”
His lip curled. “A man like me?”
“A scoundrel born in the rookeries who runs an immoral den of vice to earn his bread,” she elaborated, anger making her voice tremble and yet crack like a whip all at once.