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She didn’t doubt him for a moment.
“Oh, Apollo.” She gave his fingers a loving squeeze. “I don’t doubt it for a moment. But there is so much that is beyond your control. You aren’t omnipotent. You cannot be certain no one would ever discover the truth. London is filled with eyes and ears and gossip.”
“It is no different there than here,” he insisted.
“It is, and you know it. This estate is a place of secrets and pleasure. It is where lords and ladies can come for a charmed week and escape everything—all their worries, their troubles, their fears. Even their spouses, should they be unhappy. It isn’t true life, and that is what makes it so very intoxicating.”
His nostrils flared as he took a deep inhalation, as if collecting his thoughts before he continued. “You are saying that there is no future for us beyond this estate, then?”
“There cannot be. I am a mother.”
“You are also a woman with needs and desires. Let me take care of you. Let me be the one you run to when you are overwhelmed and tired, when you need a listening ear.” He pulled her against him and then released her hand to band his arm around her waist. “Let me be the one to give you pleasure. We’ve only just begun, Phee. Don’t give up on us now.”
Her hands settled on his shoulders. How she loved the way he felt against her, his lean strength burning through her dressing gown. She wished she could stay forever in the circle of his arms, that she never had to leave. But she missed her children, loved her children, and Catherine and Reggie mattered more than any of her selfish wants or desires. It was her duty to protect them, to keep Lord Timothy from taking them from her.
She held Apollo’s gaze, her own eyes burning with the prick of unshed tears. “There cannot be an us. Not after today. When we return to London, we must forget any of this ever happened.”
Anger and hurt glittered in the depths of his sky-blue stare, and beneath her touch, his shoulders were tense.
“How can I?” he demanded. “You may as well ask me to take out a knife and carve off my own arm.”
“Please, Apollo,” she begged. “Aphrodite can never know, and neither can anyone else. If what I’ve done here were to travel in the wrong circles…”
She allowed her words to trail off, not wanting to reveal too much. Not wanting to continue contemplating the actions her brother-in-law would take against her. She had already exposed herself to peril by coming here and agreeing to be hostess. The longer this went on, the more likely it was that her scandalous behavior would be discovered.
“I understand how careful you are, and you have every right to be so,” he allowed, his stare searching. “But tell me something, and tell me the truth, Phee. Do you plan to host another house party here in the future?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, unable to meet his gaze and face the hurt swimming in those cerulean depths.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“So,” he began, voice tight, “you have no qualms about playing hostess at a future den of debauchery.”
“I do have qualms,” she hastened to explain, opening her eyes again to see the pain etched on his handsome face, “but—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I don’t want to hear your reasoning. It’s enough to know that you are willing to risk the taint of scandal by playing hostess here at Wingfield Hall, but that you won’t even consider continuing what we’ve begun in London.”
With that, he released her, taking a few steps back. The movement was so sudden that she swayed, nearly losing her balance.
“You don’t understand, Apollo,” she tried again.
Could she tell him about the funds she needed, which had made the extreme risk she had taken worthwhile? Reveal to him the desperate struggle she had undertaken the last year to keep the estates from ruin, with Lord Timothy’s miserly management leaving them with barely anything? It had all been done for the sake of Reggie, amidst the crippling gambling debt Corbett had left in his wake, for the sake of Catherine, who deserved a bright future and a dowry to use as she wished when she came of age.
“You’re right,” Apollo spat before she could find the words, “I don’t understand. But I can see that you were correct as usual. It is better this way, knowing how you feel.”
He turned on his heel and started walking away, the action feeling as violent and final as any slap. She rushed after him in her bare feet, the cool morning air kissing her calves as the twain halves of her dressing gown parted in her haste.
“You cannot begin to know how I feel,” she called after him. “If you would wait, there are some things I must explain.” She chased him through the small hall where the stairs curved down from above, until they reached the entry, the floorboards rough under her feet. It didn’t matter. She didn’t care if slivers found their way into her soles. All that mattered was getting Apollo to listen before he left her here.
“Save your explanations, Phee. I don’t want to hear them just now.” He reached the door and stopped, his hand on the latch, to look back at her. “There is breakfast waiting for you in the kitchen. I’ll inform the servants that we are finished here when I return. That ought to give you sufficient time to dress and depart for the manor house with no one the wiser.”
“Apollo, please,” she entreated, reaching for him.
But he recoiled from her touch, flinging open the door and stepping over the threshold. “You needn’t worry, Lady Corbett. I’ll be discreet. No one will ever know it was you who was here with me.”
Stanwyck already knew, but there was no point in telling Apollo so, because he was already striding across the courtyard to the stables, where he had left their mounts for the night. Ophelia watched him go, clutching her dressing gown closed against a sudden, blustering wind that rose up. He didn’t even glance back at her. Not whilst he stalked to the stables. Not when he emerged on his gelding, and not when he rode away.
As he disappeared through the trees in the clearing surrounding the cottage, another gust of wind swirled the hem of her dressing gown around her bare ankles, sending a chill through her. The sound of him galloping away grew fainter until it was gone entirely, and there was no noise at all except the breeze rushing through the leaves overhead, the calling of the birds, and the sobs that suddenly burst forth from her.
