Lord Garson’s Bride (Dashing Widows 7)

Jane’s lips turned down. “I’m here with all my faults.”

“All your warmth and gaiety and beauty.”

She shook her head. “It’s not enough.”

“Have you asked him if he still loves her?”

“No.” She shuddered at the idea. “I’m afraid to mention her name.”

“That only makes her more powerful,” Fenella said sharply. “I love Morwenna dearly, but she’s not superhuman.”

Jane shook her head again and pulled free of Fenella’s comforting hand. “In Hugh’s heart, she is superhuman. I can’t bear it.” Her voice broke on the last words, and she turned away toward the windows. She didn’t want Fen to see how close she was to breaking down.

“Jane?” Fenella asked, in sudden concern. “Are you all right?”

Jane fumbled for her handkerchief and dried the few stubborn tears she couldn’t stanch. She turned back to Fen. “It’s impossible, living with a man who loves someone else. Every moment feels like a punch in the face.”

“Oh, my dear…”

She stood on unsteady legs and stepped away from the sofa. If Fenella touched her in sympathy now, she really would lose control. If she did, she’d cry into next month. “I don’t know what to do.”

Fenella’s delicate features hardened in determination. “First, you must find out if you need to keep fighting this battle. Hugh feels something for you. That’s clear to everyone who cares about him. I’d hoped it was love—or at least its beginnings. But you say not, and you’re in a better position to know.”

“Love wasn’t part of our arrangement,” Jane said bleakly.

Fen made a dismissive sound. “Arrangements change as circumstances do. Believe me, when I met Anthony, the last thing I wanted was a new husband.”

Jane considered Fenella’s remark. Was she torturing herself over a phantom? “You’re right. All this silence only gives Morwenna more space in my marriage.”

“You won’t believe me, but if you met her, I think you’d like her. Most people do.”

Jane doubted it, although she was well aware that the real Morwenna wasn’t the same as the idealized Morwenna who set such a wedge between her and her husband. “I’d probably scratch her eyes out.”

Fen gave a huff of laughter. “Then it’s a good thing she rarely comes to Town.”

Jane hardly listened. “What do I do if I ask him, and he says he can never love me?”

That was the likely outcome, she knew.

“Then you have some thinking to do.” Fenella stood up next to Jane and placed her hand on her arm. “If you need a friend to talk to or some neutral territory to make your deci

sion, I’m always here. Remember you’re not alone in this, Jane. You have somewhere to go.”

Curse it, she was going to start crying again. Jane blinked back prickling tears and forced a wobbly smile to her lips. “Thank you, Fen. I don’t deserve your kindness.”

“Of course you do.” Fen smiled back, but concern clouded her blue eyes. “I’d give anything to see you and Garson resolve your problems.”

*

Chapter Thirty-Two

*

When Garson emerged from the bedroom the morning after the Jamesons’ dull musicale, he was puzzled to see Jane in the sitting room. Over recent weeks, he’d mostly breakfasted alone, then taken a long ride in Hyde Park. His wife’s late rising made perfect sense, given the hectic life she led. But he couldn’t help thinking that she lingered in bed to avoid him.

The sight of her lifted his mood. Perhaps she waited to tell him that she wanted to go to Derbyshire. He’d come to loathe London, which was strange as he’d always loved it before these last weeks. The prospect of a few quiet months at Beardsley Hall beckoned like heaven. But he’d be damned before he abandoned Jane to her admirers, while her husband limped away like a beaten hound. He and Jane left together, or they stayed to finish this purgatory of a season.

“Good morning,” he said, hoping against hope that he was right about Derbyshire.