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Before he could change his mind he went back to their room, knocked and when Paul opened the door thrust the money into his hand. ‘Call it a wedding present.’
He felt better for doing it, he realised when he got back to his room, his fingers sore from Paul’s heartfelt handshake on top of the effects of that knuckle-grazing punch. It was like drawing a line under the whole damn mess.
But Thea... Could Serena possibly be right? Could Thea have been in love with him ever since she was sixteen? Hodge stood patiently and Rhys gave himself a mental shake, pulled the pin out of his neckcloth and began to undress.
His own voice seemed to echo in his head from weeks ago, as the chaise had rattled towards Dover. Did he break your heart?
And Thea had smiled and said, Not deliberately. He had no idea of my feelings, you see, and besides, he was in love with someone else.
Surely not. His fingers slowed on his waistcoat buttons. Thea was not a good actress, but she had wanted to be his lover. Would she have given herself to him if she loved another man? But then she had appeared quite calm about the end of the affaire, so...
‘My lord.’
‘Hmm? Sorry, Hodge, I was woolgathering. You’re no doubt anxious to be off to your bed.’
To his amazement the valet blushed. ‘Er, my lord. I wanted to ask whether you’d have any objections to me and Polly Jones getting married. Here, if we can find a clergyman. It wouldn’t stop us working, my lord.’
‘I can’t pretend I hadn’t noticed you two were courting, but this is a bit sudden, isn’t it?’
‘Think it might be as well,’ Hodge said obscurely. ‘Polly’s a decent girl.’
‘And you’d not want anyone to draw conclusions from a seven-month pregnancy?’
‘Quite, my lord.’
‘Then you have my blessing, and when we get back to London I’ll see about finding the two of you some rooms.’
Hodge beamed. ‘Thank you, my lord. I wouldn’t want you to think I’m only marrying her because there’s a babe on the way. I love her and that’s a fact.’
* * *
By the time Hodge had stopped being grateful and Rhys was in a banyan and sprawled in a deep armchair by the bed, there was no escaping the poisoned dart Serena had planted so skilfully under his skin. His confidence that such a state as love did not exist was being severely shaken today, and somehow he had never been able to dismiss the reality of the feelings Thea had so painfully confessed.
And if he was the one she loved, then what was he going to do about it? She wanted a love match and he did not think he could manage to deceive her for long; she knew him too well. He liked her, admired her and desired her, but he could not live with emotion, with opening himself up to trust a single person with the essence of himself.
When he had admitted to her that he had never loved Serena, her concern, her need to understand and to question him had felt like a surgeon probing a wound. For a moment he had wondered if that would help, wondered if he could pass through the pain and be healed. And then he had known that was just a sentimental dream.
Perhaps he was wrong. After all, a sixteen-year-old girl would never be able to hide her feelings as well as Thea would have had to do.
‘Coxcomb,’ he told himself aloud. But he couldn’t just leave it, and besides, she was unwell.
He scratched lightly on her door, expecting either no response or for Polly to open it, but Thea called, ‘Come in!’
She looked pale and pinched as she sat up in bed against a pile of pillows. There was a glass by the bedside with cloudy liquid in it.
‘I came to see how you were. May I come in?’ She smiled and his pulse did that odd little stutter it so often seemed to do when he saw her unexpectedly, or when she smiled.
‘I am fine,’ she said. ‘Have they gone to their room?’
‘Yes. Never mind about them.’ Rhys sat on the side of the bed and took her hand in his, feeling for the pulse. It seemed steady enough and her skin was cool. ‘I am concerned about you, Thea. These lagoons and marsh fever...’
The colour came up under her skin and she looked down at their joined hands. ‘My courses have begun, that is all. My stomach cramps, my back aches, I feel like a wrung-out dishcloth—and you may congratulate yourself on the efficacy of your precautions.’
‘Ah. Oh...excellent. Not that you are feeling unwell, I mean.’ Probably all men were reduced to wittering idiots by the reality of the female system. His mistresses had always managed the matter by simply informing him when it was inconvenient to call.
How to ask that other question? He suspected the answer was not going to be as straightforward to obtain. ‘Thea, who was it you have been in love with all this time?’ Well done, Denham, that was subtle and tactful.
Thea shook off his light grip and sat more upright. ‘Why on earth are you asking me that now?’
‘It is just that Serena was hinting.’ He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ That’s right, belittle it. Now is a good time to remove foot from mouth.
‘What has she been saying?’ Thea demanded. ‘You should know better than to listen to her. She manages to tie you in knots every time, doesn’t she? You have hurt her feelings and I have witnessed it. Serena may have the intelligence of a peahen, but she has an instinct for making trouble.’ Thea folded her arms tightly across her chest, as if to hold herself together. She looked thoroughly upset and he felt a complete swine.
An idea struck him. ‘Is it Paul? Is that why you were so upset when she ran off with him? He was always the good-looking one in our circle.’
‘Paul?’ She laughed unsteadily. ‘You clot! Of course it isn’t him. And I was upset because of what they had done to you. How would you have felt if our positions had been reversed and a man, a friend of yours, had left me at the altar?’
‘I’d have killed him,’ Rhys said without having to think.
‘Well, there you are. Ladies don’t have the luxury of being able to rush off and create mayhem, so we just have to make do with being quietly upset for our friends. Mind you,’ she added, ‘if I could have got my hands on Serena just then, I think I might have pulled her hair out.’
They sat in silence for a while. Rhys relaxed, leaned back against the bedpost as Thea fidgeted with the laces at the neck of her nightgown. Then she raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘What was she hinting?’ When he shook his head she said, ‘Tell me or I’ll ask her myself.’
‘That it was me.’ He waited, braced for tears, an armful of woman, anger...
‘You must think me a very good actress,’ Thea said flatly. ‘Do you think I could hide that, living with you for weeks? That I could accept the end of our affaire so easily?’ She swallowed. ‘I am sorry, you must find this hideously embarrassing.’
‘No, it is my fault. I should have taken no notice of Serena. You are right, she is a troublemaker and, as you say, how could someone as honest as you keep feelings like that hidden?’
‘I cannot imagine.’ That was more like it; the tart edge was back on her tongue. ‘But I think you had better leave Venice, very soon. I will be fine here with Mr Edgerton and his respectable widow, and if you go there will be less for Serena to gossip about. I would hate it if somehow your prospects of making the match you desire are spoiled by her. She still has friends she writes to in England, no doubt.’
‘Leave?’ Leave you? he almost said.
‘I am sorry, because it must be one of the most spectacular of all the cities you were planning to visit, but you can always come back once Godmama is here and I have gone.’
‘You are, as ever, sensible.’ He supposed Thea was right—if he was anywhere in Venice it could cause problems for both of them.
‘You believe now that leaving home was sensible? That becoming your lover was prudent?’
Trick questions, Rhys thought. There are no correct answers. ‘If those were the right things for you, then yes.’
He stood up. ‘I’ll leave in the morning, just as soon as I am certain those two have gone back to their lodgings.’
‘Where to?’
‘Rome, I thought,’ Rhys said, plucking a city out of the air. He bent to drop a kiss on the end of her nose. ‘Goodnight, Thea.’
When he glanced back from the door she was quite composed. She must have seen something in his face for she shook her head at him, smiled and blew him a kiss.
Chapter Twenty-Two
No one would have guessed that she had spent the night wide awake, Thea reassured herself with a quick glance in the overmantel mirror as they sat around the breakfast table. She had finally dropped off to sleep as the bells were chiming five o’clock.
Paul and Serena were subdued but civil and left, to Mr Edgerton’s ill-concealed relief, after the meal. Paul and Rhys, she noticed, shook hands. To her shock, there was a boat at the landing stage for Rhys, his bags already in it.
‘I got up early and Edgerton arranged everything,’ he explained. ‘I thought the sooner the better.’
‘Yes, of course. But what about Hodge and Polly?’ she asked, halfway down the steps to the courtyard. How could Rhys just leave like this, as though he could hardly bear to stay another minute? Had she failed to convince him? Was he certain she was inconveniently and tiresomely in love with him?
