Just One Kiss (20 page)

“Strange.  It looks smaller than I remembered,” Daphne mused quietly, as Dunnely finally came into view.  Anthony gave an affronted huff and didn’t deign to make any reply to her remark.  “I suppose that mother will be at home?” she asked in a small voice.

Of all the topics that Anthony had tried to discuss over the long hours of their journey their mother had never once been one of them.

“I should think so,” he nodded slowly.  “She could have gone visiting, but- she tends to keep to herself nowadays.”

Nowadays
… he meant since their father died, Daphne assumed, or maybe he even meant since her marriage and disgrace had left the family name in ruins?  Well, not
ruins
, but definitely tainted.

“She won’t want me back here, Anthony,” Daphne blurted, unable to hold the words inside any longer.

“
I
want you back here,” her brother growled forcefully.  “Mother will see that it’s for the best.  You’re still her daughter after all.”

Daphne couldn’t seem to find her tongue.  She could barely even nod.  Yes, she was still her mother’s daughter, but that hadn’t made any difference when her father had died… and it hurt, it hurt
so much
, and that was why Edward had to understand!  She had sacrificed everything for him.  Unknowingly perhaps, but it was done just the same, and that was the real reason why she couldn’t settle for second best where her marriage was concerned.

.

.

Chapter 21

She’d gone.  She’d
really
gone.  Edward let the curtain drop from his numb fingers and stumbled back to the chair by his desk.  How dare she just just get up and go!  She was his
wife
!  Didn’t that mean anything to her?  He stared, unfocusedly, at the bottle of whiskey that sat on the middle of the desktop, glared at it accusingly, and then rang for another.

She wasn’t allowed to just
leave
whenever they fell out.
Edward lost his train of thought slightly as he nearly fell out of his chair. 

She
was the one who had wanted to marry him after all!  Edward thought accusingly.  He might also have been muttering words to the same effect when Wilkins came in with a fresh decanter.

“Women,” he slurred, before barking at the servant to leave him alone, not bothering with a glass as he took a long swig of whisky. 

He wanted to numb his thoughts.  He wanted to numb the
pain
.  Edward hiccupped.  Was this- was this how Daphne had felt after he had gone?  Was that what Daphne leaving was all about, revenge?  He frowned furiously at the opposite wall.  Had she been looking for any excuse to punish him?  Well, it wasn’t going to work!  Society would judge her far more harshly than him after all, and besides, he had lived the past six years without his wife, what was to stop him living the next six without her too?

“Oh damn!” he cursed aloud, banging the whisky decanter down on the top of the desk.  “Baby,” he groaned, burying his head
in
his hands. 

Well,
as Daphne had said, she
might
already be expecting.  That would solve everything nicely, Edward thought wryly, he could simply swap his wife for his son and everyone would be happy.  Perfect.  Of course, if she
wasn’t
pregnant then he was definitely going to need her again – that idea still held a perverse appeal.

Daphne had betrayed him, she’d left him, but he still wanted
her. H
ow long would it be before that desire faded, Edward wondered dimly, and what if it
didn’t
fade?  He groaned heavily.  There
was
something about Daphne that he hadn’t ever found in a woman before, something special that he couldn’t quite name.

Edward gulped down another mouthful of whisky quickly.  He really didn’t want to be thinking these things!  He definitely didn’t want to weaken and find himself riding down the road to Coventry.  He shou
ld have found a way to stop her.
  No!  He
had
tried to stop her! 
Hard enough though? 

“I don’t know what she wants from me!” Edward railed at himself. 

He was beginning to fear that, instead of numbing his thoughts, the whisky was only unlocking his true desires, because he was beginning to
realize
that he
wanted
to know what it was that Daphne wanted from him, but he still didn’t have a clue how to work that out for himself
--
so he
drowned his thoughts in another glass of whisky
.

“This is a good look for you.”

Edward winced as the sound of a loud male voice met his ears, and then he flinched when the glare of daylight met his eyes.  He sq
uinted up through a drunken haze
and tried to focus on a blurry Berwick.

“How’d you get in ‘ere?” Edward slurred, trying to glare accusingly at the Duke, but he wouldn’t seem to stand still.

“Your butler showed me through,” Berwick said affably, taking a seat, and not outwardly appearing to find anything amiss with coming to call on a friend who seemed to be dressed in last
week’s
clothes, who was slumped over his study desk, and who was surrounded by a forest of empty whisky bottles.

“Bastard,” Edward growled.

“He didn’t want to let me in,” Berwick admitted mildly.  “But then I promised to knock some sense into you, literally if necessary, and after that he seemed quite happy to show me through to your study.”

“Bastard,” Edward grumbled again.  He muttered something almost incomprehensible, although it seemed to have something to do with
firing the butler… out of a ca
non?  And then he laid his head down on the desktop and shut his eyes.

Berwick leant forward in his chair, reached around the
labyrinth
of bottle
s
and gave Edward a sharp prod.  “I know you haven’t been back in England long, but I should tell you, sleeping when you have guests, not really the done thing.”

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be,
Your Grace
?” Edward snarled.

“I can think of several places actually,” Berwick replied coolly and evenly.  “However, I’m here to tell you to go after her.”

Edward’s head shot up off his arm where it had been laying, which was a very,
very
bad idea.  He groaned and swayed in his chair, raised a hand to his throbbing temple and closed his eyes.

“You’re here to what?” he barked, and immediately regretted the loudness of his tone, thinking, (hoping?) that he must have misheard the Duke’s bald statement.

“I’m here to pack you off into a coach and send you back to Coventry,” Berwick clarified.  “Before you drink yourself into an early grave.”

“Berwick,” Edward growled, trying his hardest to scowl at his interfering friend, which was a difficult feat, given the pain that was pounding through his head at the present moment.  “When I want your… help I’ll-”

“Ah here we are,” Berwick interrupted as the door to the study swung open.  Wilkins walked in, his nose high in the air, carrying a tray laden with tea and toast.  “I thought you could use something to drink.”

“I
could
use something to drink,” Edward snarled, but Berwick ignored him.

“And something
to
eat before you leave.”  He passed the plate of toast in Edward’s direction. 

The Earl turned away looking green.  “I’m not going,” he spat.

“No?”

“No!”

“You’re going to stay here?” Berwick mused, helping himself to a slice of toast.

“I’m going to stay here!”

“And receive your mother like
this
?”

“What?” Edward choked,
holding his head in his hands as
the pain redoubled when he shouted.

“Your mother,” the Duke nodded.  “I saw her carriage pull up outside when I was drawing the curtains,” he explained amiably.

Chapter 22

It had to be Berwick’s idea of a joke, Edward prayed groggily.  He got slowly to his feet and stumbled over to the window, cursing aloud when he
realize
d that the Duke was not joking, that his mother was in fact just alighting from her carriage.

“Quick,” he barked, snapp
ing his fingers at Berwick as if
he was a private in his old regiment.  “You’ve got to help.”

His friend looked mildly interested.  “Help how…?”

Edward dragged Berwick after him, using the servants’ stairs to avoid his mother in the hall, they hurried upstairs, or rather Berwick hurried, and Edward tried to hurry.  Wilkins had been given instructions by the Duke to inform Lady Margaret that her son was in the midst of a very important business meeting, but would be with her as soon as he was finished.

Edward stumbled into clean clothes while Berwick forced glass after glass of water down his throat.  He reached fumblingly for his razor, but the Duke persuaded him to wait for his valet.

“She’s going to know,” Edward grumbled.  His head was splitting, but at least the room was in focus now.

“Oh I expect so,” Berwick nodded cheerfully.  He sat on the edge of Edward’s bed and started to peruse the paper that he’d brought upstairs with him.  Edward meanwhile was sinking slowly into despair.  Whatever his mother was visiting for, he didn’t for one moment imagine that he was going to enjoy their meeting.

It was going to be about Daphne.

Just the thought of his wife’s name
cause
d the pain that was pounding inside his skull to shift and move to his chest.  He missed her.  If he had been sober enough to think about it properly Edward might have been surprised by just how much.

“Ready?” Berwick said suddenly, folding the paper again.

“Not r-”

“Excellent,” the Duke interrupted.  “Let’s go down then.”

Edward moaned sickly as he was jostled out of his bedroom and made to walk down the main staircase.  He hadn’t reached
the
halfway
point
before his mother’s shrill voice met his ears.

“Edward?” she sounded puzzled, no doubt wondering what on earth he and the Duke had been having a meeting about in the private, family rooms of the house.  “Y-your Grace,” she added quickly, bobbing in a curtsy.

Berwick nodded his greeting and farewell to Lady Margaret before turning to back to the Earl.  “So I’ll see you in Coventry this weekend, for that spot of shooting we discussed, Edward?” he said innocently, taking his hat off Wilkins, who seemed to be smirking conspiratorially, before Edward could answer.

“Coventry?” his mother cried instantly.  Edward grimaced, silently cursing Berwick as his friend made a well-timed exit.  “What did he mean ‘Coventry?’  Why are you racing off to Coventry, Edward?” Lady Margaret shot the questions at her son relentlessly.  “To see that
the
chit
stays
there, out of the way I hope?”

“No, mother,” Edward said slowly, thoughtfully working through things as best he could in his present condition.  “I don’t think that’s why I am going actually…”

“I don’t understand-”

“Neither do I,” Edward grumbled under his breath.

“Pardon?” Lady Margaret snapped, but her son simply shook his head and showed his mother through to the drawing room.  “You don’t really mean to go down to Coventry
this
weekend do you Edward?” she began, the moment that they were both
sitting
down and her son had rung for refreshments.