B005R3LZ90 EBOK (16 page)

She went back to the desk and penned a letter to her solicitor, a self-satisfied smile on her face. As she sat there writing, Adams came in with the day's post. "An urchin just delivered this missive for you, my lady."

She reached for it and the other posts. "Thank you, Adams."

Though an urchin had delivered the note, it was written on high-quality paper. When she opened it, she was shocked to see letters cut out of newspapers forming the message. Even before she read it, it looked menacing. She trembled as she began to read it.
Your husband lost four-and-twenty pounds at Mrs. Glenwick's Gaming Establishment last night. Also, he has no desire for you. He was in another woman's bed.

As she read the last, her stomach tumbled. Sally didn't give a fig about the lost money. It was the other woman who upset her. Greatly. Could she be the reason why George had behaved so angrily this morning when she had asked about his celibacy? Was Sally getting too close to the truth of his inconstancy?

Her head cradled in her hands, she wept bitterly. She had been better off not knowing. It was bad enough that she had fallen in love with a man whose heart was long buried. It was even more painful to learn that same husband preferred to assuage his manly needs with another woman. A woman who likely meant nothing to him.

Why not me?
she asked with a convulsive sob. No woman could ever offer her husband a more willing body than the woman he had married. Sally knew that if only given the chance, she would pleasure him as no other.

She viciously tore up the menacing note and added it to the pile of periodicals and letters to throw on the fire.

* * *

As she did every morning, Sally awoke before her husband. And as she did every morning, she drank in the blatant masculinity of his bare chest and hulking shoulders. Her heart was still horribly bruised over the knowledge he found his sexual release in another woman's bed. She was better off before when she had thought he desired no one save Diana. But now . . . now she knew of his virility. And now she knew that her physical self was so repugnant to him, he could lie beside her every night and never be tempted to slake his need with her.

She had tortured herself with speculation on the identity of the woman who had lain with her husband. For the past two days she had been unable to see a pretty woman and not wonder if she were the one.

Her heart caught as his lashes lifted, and he languidly turned toward her, his mouth hitched into a lazy smile.

"Good morning, George. Did Lady Luck smile upon you last night?"

That lazy smile hitched into a big grin. "I'm twenty pounds richer."

She fought the urge to fling her arms around him in celebration. "Speaking of riches, do you remember me telling you about the modest legacy I receive from my grandmother?" She peered into his eyes and for the first time realized they were the same color as English ivy.

His bored glance raked over the ceiling. "A hundred pounds or some such figure."

Her poor, dear husband, she thought, a smile breaking across her face. To him, one hundred pounds was much the same as eighty. "Eighty, actually."

"I don't want your eighty pounds, Sally. Do with it whatever you wish."

"I wish to send it to Mr. Willingham."

He snapped up to a sitting position and glared at her. "What do you know about Willingham?"

Clutching her thin shift to her chest, she pulled up to sit beside him, her back to the headboard. "I know he's your steward, and Glee says he's a very fine one, indeed."

"I wouldn't have him if he wasn't, but how is it you know of him and his need of money?"

She shrugged. "You said I could clean off your desk."

"You saw the letter." He did not sound happy about it.

"You told me you had nothing to hide."

"I don't. It's just that I don't wish to burden you with financial matters, either."

"My dear husband, it's no burden whatsoever. Since you no longer have a secretary, I propose to perform those duties. I'm rather good at ledgers."

"You're too bloody good at everything," he barked.

Her chin tilted upward. "I shall pretend you said that in flattering tones." She really hated being so overbearing, but her husband—having been born to nobility—had never learned to be practical. His secretary had always taken care of his accounting matters, but the small house in Bath was not large enough to accommodate the large staff George had once employed at Hornsby Manor.

"My dearest husband," she cooed, "you have married a most practical woman, and it's my hope you will allow me to help get you out of debt."

He muttered an oath under his breath. "I don't want your grandmother's bloody money."

"It's not my grandmother's, dearest," she said sweetly. "It's ours. You've seen to it I want for nothing. Therefore, all I want is to make the lands at Hornsby more productive." She painfully recalled that a few years earlier that's what George had wanted, too. He had removed himself from the distractions of Bath and applied himself to turning around the Hornsby fortunes. And he'd been extremely successful. Until Diana died.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. "Very well, Sally, order my life for me."

As had become her custom, she turned so she would not see his nakedness. "If you don't care for yourself, think of the children, George. Do you not want them to be proud to bear the name of Sedgewick? Do you not desire that Hornsby be a source of pride to them?"

He swallowed as he stepped into his breeches. "Of course you're right, Sensible Sal." He straightened up and began to put on his shirt.

She moved to him and wordlessly began to fasten his buttons, as she did each morning. Her daily thrill. She was so close she could feel his warm breath and the rise and fall of his powerful chest.

As she drew close to him, she remembered the horrid letter, and she could not bear to think of George lying with another woman. Her eyes moistened, and she quickly turned away from him as she fastened the last button. Impatient to flee their chamber, George did not notice her distress.

Chapter 15

Every day now, after her husband left the house, another of those wretched notes would be delivered, each time by a different street urchin and each time addressed to Lady Sedgewick. Every letter would be composed of words cut from the newspaper. And each time, the letter would apprise Sally of her husband's movements of the night before. Wednesday night, it was the announcement of a lost ten pounds at a cockfight. Last night, the letter confirmed her husband had won twenty pounds at Mrs. Glenwick's establishment. It seemed whoever the vicious person was who was sending the letters knew every move her husband made. Today's letter revealed that George had again bedded his lover. "Would you not wish to know who your husband's lady love is?" The letter made Sally sick.

The first few days Sally had racked her brain trying to imagine who could be so mean-spirited as to be sending her such vile letters. By the third day, though, Sally wondered no longer. She knew only one person who was that vicious. Betsy Johnson.

Sally grew to hate Bath and everything there that was destroying her family, especially her husband. If only she could get him away from here.

Barely a day passed when he did not lose what seemed to Sally large sums of money, and never a night passed when George did not drink to excess.

By God, she
was
getting angry! If she had to wait up until dawn she would have it out with George.

He was gone all day and did not come home for dinner. She wondered where he was. Tomorrow's sinister letter would tell her every move her husband had made. With each passing hour, she waited . . . and wondered. Was he at Mrs. Glenwick's or at the card room at the Upper Assembly Rooms? Had he and his rowdy companions found another cockfight to wager on? Her stomach clenched when she recalled the letter that told her George and his friends had enjoyed several hours at Miss Avery's. All of Bath knew Miss Avery's was a house of prostitution. Sally was ever so disappointed in George. Not only was he bedding another woman, but he was also visiting establishments where he could contract unimaginably horrible diseases. Her brother David had told her about these things.

Oh, George,
she lamented,
Why? Why not me?

She had barely touched her dinner and had been unable to concentrate on her embroidery. She got up and went to the piano where she banged out a passionate piece, hoping she was not waking the children or the servants who had long been in bed. When she finished, she sat and watched the ormolu clock on the mantel. It was past midnight. Early yet for George.

When he still had not come at one, she moved to the library and examined a pile of unpaid tradesmen's bills.

Because of her shuffling of papers and the crackle of the fire, she had not heard George enter the house, but she soon heard the library door open and looked up to face her glassy-eyed husband. It was rare that she actually saw him in his cups. Usually she only smelled the evidence the next morning and had come to associate the smell of stale liquor with George's unquestionable manliness.

His eyes ran over the length of her evening dress. "What are you doing up still?"

"I wanted to talk to you," she said, snagging him with a contentious gaze.

"Is something wrong with the children?"

She shook her head but continued to glare at him. "They're fine."

"Then what's the matter?" he asked in a concerned voice as he moved toward her.

"If you must know, I'm out of charity with you."

"Oh, that," he said, stopping in his stride. Then he turned and walked to the table where the wine decanter was and poured himself another drink.

"Don't, George," she said through gritted teeth.

He spun around to peruse the source of the angrily uttered words. His mouth slid into a lazy smile, and his eyes sparkled as he met her impatient gaze. "It's taken you long enough."

"Yes. I've been a fool these first seven weeks of our marriage, but not any longer. I'm heartily sick of your immature behavior and lack of concern over your children's futures."

"I am concerned over my children's futures. Why else would I have married you?"

Tears sprang to her eyes. The cat was out of the bag. She had always known why he had married her. In the past, though, he'd been too much the gentleman to tell her. But not when he was in his cups.

Seeing the pain in her face, he moved slowly toward her. "Forgive me, Sally. I didn't mean . . . "

"I'm not blind to your reasons for marrying me, George, but I am growing weary of being made a laughingstock."

"You're not a laughingstock."

"I'm just the woman whose husband avoids her company at all costs—and the costs, I might add, have been heavy. Instead of quiet dinner parties and trips to the Upper Assembly Rooms with your wife, you'd rather be throwing away your children's inheritance at gaming establishments and whorehouses."

His face grew red. She had only seen him this angry once before: the afternoon at the Pump Room when Betsy Johnson had ignited his rage. "What makes you think I've ever stepped foot in a whorehouse?"

"I have a very reliable spy." She handed him today's letter that had obviously come courtesy of Miss Johnson, whose pockets were certainly deep enough to hire a Bow Street runner to follow George every night. Sally wondered if Miss Johnson had invented another lie about George in an effort to convince the runner that George was a scoundrel of some sort.

He quickly glanced over it. "What the deuce is this?"

Sally shrugged. "I get one of those charming letters every day."

"Vile creature!" he uttered. "I'll ruin her."

"So you, too, have a good idea of who is sending these to me."

"Betsy Johnson. I am do sorry, Sally. If you'd never married me, you wouldn't have to put up with this woman's filth."

A tear trickled down her cheek.

His brows plunging, he moved to her and spoke in a gentle voice. "I swear it's a lie about Miss Avery's. I've never set foot inside the place." As he reached Sally he hung his head and spoke in a throaty voice. "Everything else is, unfortunately, true." He removed his handkerchief and dried her tear. "There now," he said gently. "How long have you been getting these wretched letters?"

"Every day since last week."

He muttered another oath. "I'd love to get my hands around her whoring neck."

Sally's mouth dropped open.

"Pardon me, my dear, but it's the truth. Betsy Johnson lifts her skirts for any man who wants her used goods. Never men of the
ton
, you understand. She likes her men—and boys—coarse. Like her father."

Sally had never been so shocked in her life. "How do you know this?"

"It's something all the men know. Was she not known to regularly climb from her window while you girls were at Miss Worth's?"

Sally's eyes widened. "How did you know about that?"

"Males have a network about that type of female."

"I can't believe it," Sally said, stunned.

"Believe it. She's no better than the women who are employed at Susan Avery's. In fact, she's a great deal worse. Those women are there because they need the money. Miss Johnson wants for nothing but a good reputation."

"You know Miss Avery's first name."

"I swear to you, Sally, that kind of woman is not for me, but I do have friends who are regular customers there."

"Is Blanks?"

"Never."

She was enormously relieved. For Glee.

He gently patted her cheek, then restored the handkerchief to his pocket. "Have you saved all the letters?"

"I burned the first, but I've kept all the others. Why, I don't know. Sort of a self-torture, I suppose."

He settled gentle hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry for any pain I've caused you."

She couldn't face him for what she was going to say next. "The letters claim you make love to your lover nearly every night."

"So that's why you think you're a laughingstock!" His head lowered and he brushed his lips over the limp curls on top of her head. "I give you my word, Sally, I've not been with another woman."