Page 26 of Lady Petra and the Wolf

“Was it?” Petra spoke quietly but her voice was uncharacteristically harsh. “I believe we stated this was false from the beginning.”

“Not false,” Wolf bit out.

As she looked up at him, Wolf was seized by another realization that nearly knocked the air from his lungs. She no longer trusted him. Whatever open and warm quality had filled her eyes earlier in the evening was completely absent, as if it escaped on a gust of wind once the doors opened. He knew he had moments to convince her before her father whisked her away.

“Petra, while I apologize for the manner of our coming together, I do believe we could be—” Wolf had never had to speak of the heart. Of romance. His liaisons were typically devoid of both. How could he convince her with words? “That we would get on well together…”

“How could we get on well together when I will never trust you again? When I will never love you? I cannot love someone I cannot trust. And I realized recently I should like to have both in my marriage. You and my father can do your worst.” With that, she walked away from him and went to stand next to her father, who immediately began placating Lady Stillwell with promises of a swift marriage.

“Petra,” Wolf pleaded as her word sank in. She was never going to love him.

She gave a minuscule shake of her head as her father approached him.

“I expect to see you first thing tomorrow, Wolfridge.”

Wolf said nothing, his entire focus on Petra, as Kemberley allowed Lady Stillwell to show him a way to quietly leave the ball without fanfare.

Wolf remained rooted within the library’s mahogany embrace, a solitary figure amidst the retreating members of the ton. Lady Wyestone, as she made her exit, bestowed upon him a final, patronizing inclination of her head that he barely registered. Collapsing into a leather wingback chair, he buried his face in his palms, the weight of the evening’s catastrophes finally bearing down upon him.

Petra would never love him. The stark truth of it settled in the marrow of his bones, a final and devastating realization that rendered all his previous schemes a bitter mockery. That compressed ball of longing within the cavern of his chest now flared with an agonizing intensity as he was forced at last to concede the impossible: he would never hold her heart.

And the most wretched irony of all was the discovery, arrived at far too late, that she likely held his own irrevocably in her keeping.

Chapter Nine

Just as they had arrived at the ball, Petra and her father rode home in silence. Her conviction that her father and Lord Wolfridge had conspired to entrap her that evening was intensified by the latter’s contemplation out the window. Any caring father would be near apoplexy to find their daughter so publicly ruined, but once he entered the carriage her father did not mention Lord Wolfridge. For he would never be just Wolf to her again. Her eyes watered at the pain until she forced her gaze to the roof of the carriage to prevent tears from leaking out. Never again would she show her father weakness.

Swallowing her anger and frustration down, she allowed herself to rage internally. How was it that just hours earlier that she was finally admitting to herself a kernel of affection for the gentleman? He had burned any warm feeling she might have had toward him with his actions, she thought, as an ache bloomed deep inside of her. Never had she been so alone, even after her governess, Miss Winston, left her years ago. She had stupidly, briefly, thought her connection with Wolfridge could have been a partnership, could have led to trust or even love. It had made her feel oddly hopeful, and surprisingly it felt more real than any moment she had shared with Lord John.

In fairness, Lord Wolfridge likely did not know the depths of her father’s treachery. That her sire had been using her for years, leaving her to be groped by lecherous peers in the hopes that he could keep them in his pocket should he need a favor. And Petra had let herself be used, let herself be a pawn in her father’s larger game. For so long, it had been to protect anyone else from that suffering. When she had learned how Kemberley had been setting up the maids years ago, it had destroyed any fundamental faith in her father that she possessed. When she had fought to save them, bargaining with her own person to protect the domestic servants at Kemberley House, Petra’s heart had almost turned to stone.

While Wolfridge did not know the full extent of her father’s villainy, she could never marry someone who would manipulate her so for their own benefit. While the viscount’s heart may not be black like her father’s, it was too selfish for her to want for her own.

The carriage stopped briefly at something on the street and her father descended from the velvet-lined interior to confer with the coachmen.

Watching the door close, Petra knew that tonight was her only chance to escape. She could no longer stay with her father and she would not be forced into a marriage of entrapment.

As she sat waiting, a blanket of certainty settled over her. Since the day she had discovered that her Greek grandfather left her an inheritance outside of her father’s control, she had built a secret empire strong enough to protect those that her father sought to hurt.

Which now included herself.

As he reentered the carriage, Petra’s father eyed her, as if expecting her to object to his clear intention to marry her off to Lord Wolfridge the next day. She vowed she would sit quietly on their return, knowing she would never give him the chance.

For she would be gone before sunlight.

* * *

Wolf was in the exact same place he had been just a day earlier. Physically at least. Mentally, Wolf could scarcely recall an instance in his existence that had descended to such a level of emptiness. He noted with a clinical detachment that Kemberley appeared seized by an uncharacteristic tension as the man rose to wend his way toward the sideboard, his knuckles blanching to a ghostly pallor against the glass of the decanter he so forcefully gripped. The earl was uttering some further pronouncement, yet his voice reached Wolf as a series of disjointed, muffled echoes, much as if he were struggling to perceive a conversation from beneath the surface of the water.

“What was that, my lord?”

“Would you like a brandy?” Kemberley offered as he poured something for himself.

Wolf nodded, knowing he would not touch one drop of the brandy that Kemberley then handed to him.

“You have come here today so that we may work on a marriage contract.” Kemberley paused, and for the first time in their acquaintance, Wolf realized the man was unsure of what to say before he went on.

“We will come to some kind of understanding. At the moment, though, I need to—” The man’s lip twitched, which was disconcerting for someone whose face was usually a mask of smooth surety. “Let me speak frankly. Lady Petra is not currently here, yet I know we will locate her within the day.”