The Rake’s Mistake: A Regency Historical Romance (One Night in Blackhaven Book 6) by Mary Lancaster

Author:Mary Lancaster [Lancaster, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2024-09-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Henrietta walked away because she could not bear what she had just seen. She could not think for the shock, merely kept moving from instinct.

He will come after me and explain. It can’t be what I am imagining…

But he didn’t come near her. At the corner, she turned and glanced back. There was no one in the street at all except Henrietta and Dog.

She walked on blindly, letting Dog decide the direction, while disappointment warred with reason in her head. She had always known what Aubrey was—a joyous rake. A man could not change so quickly.

Vanya did, for Lizzie.

Aubrey is not Vanya. I am not Lizzie. And I will not cry…

But her eyes were too full. A tear trickled down her cheek. There was no one to see, so she left it there.

She had so quickly grown used to thinking of Aubrey as her friend. She had been so sure that his kisses meant he cared for her, that in him she had found the elusive being who could not only be her husband but her love. All those hopes built on nothing. For Aubrey had gone straight from kissing her to a night in that woman’s arms. She was not naïve enough to believe anything else of what she had just seen. The intimacy of lovers.

No other loss had ever been as painful as this, not even the deaths of her parents nor the loss of their home. This clawed at her stomach with anger and humiliation and a sadness so profound that she felt lost. All her bright, foolish hopes, her silly dreams, gone again. Life without love, without Aubrey, stretched out before her in bleak desolation, made all the worse because it had seemed within her grasp.

It never had been. It had only ever been her foolish fantasy. She gasped, her throat aching, and wished Dog had woken Michael or Georgi or Vanya. She hadn’t needed to bounce out of bed as she had, eager to greet the day and the next expedition with Aubrey. If she had only pretended to be asleep, Dog would have moved on to someone else, and Henrietta would never have seen Aubrey emerge from that house, never have seen him embrace that tousled, yet beautiful, woman…

A door opened and closed nearby. Blackhaven was awakening, and she needed somewhere to hide before her grief exploded. Dog made one of his sudden halts, jolting her to a standstill, and she realized he had brought her home. All she had to do was open the door and stumble inside.

So she did.

*

“You smell like last week’s ale,” Delilah greeted him in the kitchen as he hacked a slice off yesterday’s loaf.

“I’m largely made of last night’s ale,” he confessed. “And brandy. Lots of brandy. I’m going to stick to claret from now on.”

“I doubt it will smell any better when it sticks to you.” She watched him slather butter onto the bread, then raised her gaze to his face. “Rough night?”

“No,” Aubrey replied. “The night was fun.

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