Chapter Twenty-Six
Jerome returned from Ascot just after nine, to learn that Her Ladyship had gone out in a hackney about an hour and half ago, which extraordinary piece of news made his skin prickle in foreboding. Going up to his room, he took only moments to find her note.
My Dearest Jerome,
I beg you will temper your anger, for I am breaking my promise to you. But the circumstances are, I believe, extenuating. I have taken a hackney and am wearing a veil, so no one will know me. You need not fear any more gossip will be heaped upon us.
I have heeded a request from Rey to meet him, for the poor man is in great distress.
I know you find this upsetting, and I am truly sorry to cause you distress, but I owe him a great debt and I cannot in all conscience let him down when he has always been my staunchest champion and friend.
I do not expect to be out late and will speak with you upon this matter anon.
Your loving wife,
Ava
The anger boiled up so swiftly it took his breath, fury so white-hot he couldn’t contain it.
He had thought he had successfully dealt with the events of a few weeks ago and was getting on with his life happily.
Congress between himself and Ava had been both passionate and contented, wrapped up in a warm blanket of mutual love and affection.
This! This threw a cannonball into his fantasy of wedded bliss.
He knocked the ornaments on the mantelpiece off with a roar and a sweep of one hand.
Which did little to relieve his feelings.
He went through to her room, hunting for the correspondence from Lannister that had sent her flying to his side.
His hands were shaking by the time he found it stuffed into the top drawer of her writing desk.
Having mastered its contents, he sank down on the bed with weakened knees.
He felt gutted. Jealousy roiled through his stomach, making him feel physically sick.
What game is Lannister playing? He had thought the man had more honor than this, but clearly his original assessment of him was more accurate than he had been brought to believe more recently.
But whatever Lannister’s motives in contravening his request that Ava keep her distance from him, it was Ava’s breaking of her promise that ate at his soul.
Her willingness—nay eagerness—to fly to this man’s side whenever he asked it of her in defiance of her husband’s request that she not do so.
She professed to love Jerome, and yet—all his old insecurities came bubbling to the surface, and he wondered in despair how he could ever have fooled himself into thinking he could have a happy marriage. I am not fit for it. I don’t deserve it.
A step on the stairs made him sit up as the door opened and Ava stood there in a plain white muslin gown beneath a blue satin cloak. Her golden curls tumbled around her shoulders beneath a white mantilla, thrown back from her face.
“Jerome!” She smiled, but it was weak, for she saw the paper in his hand. “You got my note?”
“I did.” His voice was husky. He cleared his throat.
She came into the room and shut the door.
Then she crossed the room and dropped to her knees before him, clasping her hands.
“I know you’re upset. I promise you, there is nothing to worry about.
No one will ever know I met with Rey tonight.
The waiter thought I was a high-class light-skirts, and his notions of propriety were offended, but he had no inkling of my identity, I assure you. ”
“That’s a small consolation, I suppose,” he said bitterly. “You broke your promise to me, Ava.”
“I know,” she said composedly, “but I didn’t seek to hide it from you and even if you had not discovered my note, I planned to confess the whole to you once you came home. If you had been here when I received Rey’s note, I would have spoken to you about it.”
“Would you?” His face pulled tight in a grimace of a smile. “We will never know, will we? I suspect it is too much to assume you would, in that circumstance, have asked me to relieve you of your promise?”
She looked down a moment and then up, squaring her shoulders. “I would have asked for your understanding of why I needed to break it.” He closed his eyes, battling with himself. Her voice came to him, quiet and steady. “I would ask you to trust me.”
He opened his eyes. “I do trust you, Ava. I will admit that at one point in time I doubted, I wondered—I—”
“If you trust me, what is the problem?” she asked.
He shook his head, unable to articulate the hot ball of emotions in his chest.
“Jerome, his sister died!” she said softly. “He has no one else. No family to share his grief. He just wanted a hug!”
Jerome stared into her eyes and his heart turned over in his chest. Jealousy and compassion battled inside him.
Part of him wanted to tear Lannister apart for daring to ask his wife for a hug, and part of him felt an unaccustomed surge of sympathy and compassion for the other man.
After an inward struggle, he said hoarsely, “God, I’m sorry, Ava.
I’m a monster of selfishness.” He put his arms around her bringing her into his chest. “I didn’t even know he had a sister,” his lips pressed against her curls.
“She had been ill for a long time. She never came to London.”
He nodded. “I see. I’m sorry,” he repeated.
His chest was aching. He hated that Lannister could command hugs from Ava.
Yet it was her open-hearted warmth that he loved so much.
But he wanted it all for himself. Which was both unreasonable and selfish.
The old prickle of self-loathing tore at him. He was so very far from perfect.
She cupped his face in her hands and smiled mistily at him. “No. I’m sorry to have upset you so. After everything you’ve had to deal with . . .”
In his fragile state, her sympathy tipped him over the edge. Jerome felt tears sting his eyes and the tight ball of pain inside his chest that he had been keeping bound down ever since his arrest for Charis’s murder, suddenly exploded, and he gasped on a sob that wouldn’t be suppressed.
Ava rose up on her knees with an exclamation.
“Oh, Jerome!” She clasped his head to her bosom as he clung to her and cried.
He had not shed a tear throughout the whole process of his time in prison and the trial.
And now it all came boiling out in a flood of white-hot pain.
It hurt so damned much he had trouble breathing through the storm of tears.
He couldn’t remember crying like this in years.
Even after Charis’s death, he hadn’t cried like this.
He had shed a few bitter tears of regret, but then he’d packed it all away, pushed it down, tried to forget it.
All the regrets, the failures, the mistakes.
All the loneliness of his boyhood, spent in a gloomy, half-empty house that was full of bad memories, with a mother who was ill more often than she was well, and periodic visits from a man whose temper terrified him.
All that pain layered on year after year, and consolidated into a hardened ball of self-loathing, hidden beneath a facade that fooled the world into thinking he was perfect.
It all came unraveled in this moment of weakness as he wept in his wife’s arms like a little boy. His tears soaked the bodice of her gown, as the warmth of her generous bosom cushioned his face and his sobs gradually abated, leaving him feeling hollow and slightly sick.
He sat up, wiping his face with his palms and found Ava offering him a handkerchief from her reticule. He took the dainty bit of white cloth and lace and blew his nose, wiped his face and sniffed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said thickly.
Ava sat back on her heels and glared at him. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare apologize for feeling! I was wondering when you were going to crack. You’ve been so strong!”
She leaned in and wrapped her arms round his neck. “I love you so much!” she whispered and kissed him.
“Oh Ava, I don’t deserve you!” he said brokenly.
“Yes, you do!” she kissed him again and he kissed her back fiercely.
“God, I love you,” he muttered and dragged her down onto his bed.
“And I love you,” she responded between feverish kisses as their hands tore at each other’s clothes.
His mouth landed on her bared breast and took the nipple with a deep, almost punishing pull that made her arch off the bed with a moan, as his hands scrabbled beneath her skirts to reach the soft weeping flesh between her legs.
His fingers plunged inside her, his thumb swirling on her clitoris, his mouth laving and punishing that poor nipple until the surrounding breast was red with the scratch of his bristled chin and the ravaging of his lips and teeth.
“Give me this,” he whispered, his fingers curling inside her. “Come for me!”
She arched up with another moan and shattered. With a groan of satisfaction, he kissed her. “At least I can make you do that,” he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.
She blinked up at him and frowned. “Jerome, it’s not a competition. A fight. You don’t have to defeat me. I’m not the enemy.”
He stared down into her flushed face, her curls in disarray around her head.
The lace veil had come off and was lying on the pillow.
Her gown was open at the front, baring her breasts to the waist. She lay beneath him, vanquished.
And it was a hollow victory. He withdrew his fingers as a cold wash of horror ran through his body.
Suddenly, a picture of himself he’d never seen before presented itself to him.
Is that how others see me? Is that how I am? Someone who must win at all costs?