A Wife for the Devil by Shruti Rao

Author:Shruti Rao
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, love story, historical, victorian, interracial, regency
Publisher: Evernight

Chapter Nine

Elizabeth sipped her tea as a blue-tinged dusk fell over Mayfair, obscuring the houses across the street. She could imagine the cold outside, a cold that could sweep into your bones and freeze your marrows. But inside the Manor’s kitchen, the colors were burnished and warm. Bessie’s hair made a golden halo around her. The fire was crackling. The tea, itself a golden brown, was hot and fragrant, sweet and bitter.

She should be glad that it was over. She had come back to the Manor four days ago, her mind restless, unable to erase Hugh Atwood’s amber gaze from her thoughts. He had left her just after dusk, but in less than half an hour, a woman had shown up at the hotel, willing to escort Elizabeth back to her own house. Elizabeth had soon parted with the woman and walked back alone, to her room, dressed in her own clothes. No one at the Manor had said anything. No one had questioned her. Until now.

Five nights and four days had passed since she had last seen Hugh. Those hours in the hotel room had begun to take on aspects of a dream. Or even a story, read and forgotten a long time ago. She had said it herself, “This doesn’t feel real.” And removed from Hugh’s overwhelming presence, all of it seemed more unreal than ever.

And yet, the pain she felt at the ending of this unreal dream was quite real. She felt it in the depths of her stomach, the base of her throat, in the corners of her eyes where tears prickled. And in her heart, which felt bruised and bloodied, and rendered old and more bitter than ever.

She sipped her tea again, her movements mechanical. She needed to recover from all of this and move on. There was simply no other option for her.

“I thought he would have a grand house,” Bessie was saying, her words muffled by the cake in her mouth.

“No.” Elizabeth reached for a cake and brought it up to her nose, hoping to elicit some hunger in herself, something other than the heartache she felt. But it was ineffectual. She put the cake back. “His house used to be a factory.”

“How’d you know that?” Bessie asked, her wide mouth slightly ajar.

Elizabeth sipped her tea again, trying to look more animated. She did not wish to worry Bessie, who believed that Elizabeth had taken quite ill at the Atwood House. “His brother told me,” she told her friend. And thought back to her brief visit to the sun-dappled backyard. The mood among that small group had been light and loud. Then she had thought of Hugh’s brother and sister. Such a contrast to the brooding man who sat in the clean, sepulchral library. But now she knew why. And she also knew that Hugh could be joyful himself, his laughter as warm and sweet as honey. Don’t think about him, she told herself.

“He has a brother?” Bessie asked, her blue eyes wide. “Pfft, I don’t know why I’m surprised.

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