Lord Garson’s Bride (Dashing Widows 7)

Garson accepted the glass and swallowed a mouthful. The liquor did little to soothe his disquiet. “Thanks.”

Silas took the chair opposite and sipped his own brandy, as he eyed Garson with a doubtful expression.

“Relax,” Garson said drily. “I’m not about to rampage around the house smashing the Ming vases.”

Silas didn’t smile. “That must be the first time you and Morwenna have been alone since she went back to Robert.”

“It was.” He l

ifted his glass to his lips. A distant corner of his mind remarked on the steadiness of his hand. So often, he’d fantasized about seeing his old love and finally getting a chance to talk to her and tell her his side of the story. Now they’d met, and in the end, the sad truth was there was nothing left to say.

“And you survived.”

“I did.” The churning whirlpool of emotions inside him calmed to a point where he could reflect on what had just happened. “I did,” he repeated more slowly.

“Good for you.”

An unexpectedly companionable silence fell. “I’m sorry I’ve been a stranger,” he said eventually.

“You’ve had other things to worry about.” Silas rose to refill their glasses. Garson waved him away. He didn’t need liquor. He needed to make some decisions.

“Jane’s left me.” The bald admission should sting his pride, but he was way past the point where his pride mattered.

Silas set the decanter down without filling his glass and regarded Garson with a troubled frown. “I’m damned sad to hear that. Anthony said that she’d gone to the country for a rest.”

“You didn’t believe that.”

“Perhaps not.” Silas returned to his seat. “But I assumed any estrangement was only temporary.”

Garson stared sightlessly in front of him. “I hoped so, too.”

“Morwenna?”

“Yes.”

“And now after all this time, you’ve seen her again.”

“Yes.”

Another silence, thornier than the last.

“Are you still in love with her?”

“Jane?”

Silas looked surprised at Garson’s instinctive response. “No, Morwenna.”

He prepared to deliver his usual heated declaration of eternal fealty to his first choice, then stopped before he spoke a word.

Was he still in love with Morwenna? He’d certainly loved her when he’d proposed to her. Since she’d forsaken him, he’d carried her image etched on his heart. Over the last four years, she’d been behind his every action. He’d pledged himself to her for life.

But had he? Meeting her just now had been touching and disturbing and awkward, but no overwhelming torrent of frustrated longing had risen to drown him.

She felt like someone he’d once known well and now met as almost a casual acquaintance.

While his reeling mind grappled with the prodigious change, habit shrieked that he couldn’t give up his impossible love. Since she’d returned to her husband, Morwenna’s absence had thwarted his every hope of happiness.

Look how his loyalty to his first love had poisoned his marriage to Jane and stopped him making a full commitment to the woman he married. At this moment, he wondered whether Jane was better off without him, after he’d caused her so much unhappiness.