“It would not have been proper to invite you to such an event whilst you are still in your period of mourning for your husband,” Hunter said sarcastically. “Although I see your mode of dress almost denies that your husband ever existed at all.”
Hunter thought the behaviour somewhat spoiled even for Felicity. It was clear that she did not like the idea of spending the next twelve months confined to her home and wearing the deepest black of mourning. And so spoiled was she that she would risk scandal and comment on account of it. Of course, a young woman who would marry another man whilst her fiancé was away tending to his dying father was not a woman who took such things as much into account as she perhaps ought to.
However, she was still the Duchess of Galcross, and there would be none in the county who would dare to broach the subject with her.
“Am I to take it that the current Duke of Galcross, your husband’s nephew, knows nothing of your excursion this evening? After all, he would surely be the one person who would dare make comment on your behaviour,” Hunter went on, hardly giving her a chance to speak.
“The one person apart from you, apparently,” she said and held his gaze.
“Do you care nothing for the scandal that might surround you once people here become aware of your attendance?” Hunter said and, seeing a brief smile pass across her lips, knew that she was amused by his concern. “Or perhaps that was the very sentiment you wished to create this evening. Perhaps you wish to sour this celebration for Miss Fitzgerald and me?”
“Is it not sour already? Really, that you are choosing to go ahead with such a thing.” She shook her head, and her blonde curls bounced prettily across her shoulders.
“All that I am choosing to go ahead with is a marriage of my own. I do not need to gain your approval, Felicity. You of all people.”
“After we spoke at the funeral, I was convinced that you would come to see me. In my heart, I was certain that you would forgive me for my mistake and would come to me in the end. But you did not, Hunter. What has changed you so? What has made you so very cold that you could not come and tell me yourself that you had decided to marry another?”
“That such a question can come from your lips, my dear lady astounds me. What astounds me further still is your appearance of hurt. Can you not hear the irony in your own words? Can you not see that you are accusing me of something that you first practiced upon me all those months ago?”
“I know that I did not behave well, Hunter, and I have apologized for it,” Felicity said and lengthened her neck a little as she raised her chin high. “But I am surprised that you have chosen to punish me by following my example.”
“I have not chosen to punish you at all, Felicity,” Hunter said with a sigh, his temper finally dissipating. “I did not invite you for the reasons I have already given. That I did not come and tell you myself that I would not finally decide to marry you was remiss of me. I had not chosen it as a punishment, and I apologize now, for I ought to have spoken to you in person. But beyond that, I would wish you now to leave. I would not like Miss Fitzgerald to see you here and have her evening upset by any sort of humiliation.”
“Oh yes, of course, because you are quite well scripted on how to save that young lady from humiliation, are you not?”
“You have done your research, I see,” Hunter said bitterly.
“Having seen you so often in her company, I thought it prudent.”
“Prudent? But it is nothing to you, Felicity. I am nothing to you anymore, or at least I should not be.” He shook his head in an exasperated fashion. “There is no prudence in you discovering every fact about my fiancée. It will change nothing so you would be better served by letting the matter go.”
“Hunter, I know that you are simply letting your pride get in the way of things. I know that you would wish above all things to marry me instead of her, but you cannot be seen to do it. You cannot admit that you still love me, even though I know that you still do.”
“You have me quite mistaken, Felicity,” Hunter said and began to feel somewhat disgusted with her.
Felicity was not quite making a display of her own feelings, but her complete confidence that he would still love her, no matter what, was making him angry. She really was every bit as vain and spoiled as Algernon had claimed her to be.
“I am sure that I do not, although I do not think we ought to argue about it. Time is running out, and I have come here this evening to beg you to reconsider this foolish decision.”
“Foolish decision?” Hunter’s countenance darkened.
“Please, do not give me that look, Hunter,” Felicity said in a manner which suggested she was perhaps becoming bored. “There is still time to back out of it all. And it need not be such a great humiliation to the poor young woman, simply do not make your announcement. Yes, there will be a little gossip, but she will not suffer as greatly as she did the first time.”
“Felicity, even if I cared nothing for Emmeline Fitzgerald, I would do no such thing. That you can be so flippant in regard to the feelings of another astounds me. But it should not, should it? After all, are you not the same woman who thought that my father’s passing was not fast enough for your liking? Are you not the same woman who remained dry-eyed at her husband’s graveside while she entreated another to wait twelve months and marry her? You have no idea what love entails, do you,Felicity?”
“Of course I do, Hunter. What a truly hurtful thing to say. I love you as I have told you before. I love you now as I loved you before I made my mistake. I shall always love you, Hunter. You know that.”
“What I know is that it makes no difference. Whether you love me or not, whether you know what love is or you do not, nothing changes.”
“But why would you go ahead and marry a woman you do not love simply to satisfy your foolish pride?” she said, and her face fell as she regarded him. “Oh, but I can see that I am perhaps mistaken after all.” Her voice trailed off into silence.
“Felicity, I think it best you just leave,” Hunter said, suddenly feeling a little sorry for her.
As callous as she had been these last months, as vain and as vacuous as she truly was, Hunter knew himself to be a better man than one who would take delight in hurting her.
“You really do love her, do you not?” Suddenly, Felicity’s eyes were shining with tears.
“Yes, I do love her,” Hunter said, his voice low and his throat dry.
Even then as he looked at Felicity, her bright blue eyes blinking hard at the tears which threatened to fall, he knew that her tears were those of dismay at not getting exactly what it was that she wanted. Felicity did not love him as she claimed to, even if she thought that she did. She was a young woman whom he now knew incapable of such feeling, a young woman he was glad never to have married in the first place.
And she was also a young woman he no longer loved, and never would again.
Chapter 23
“Why not? I think weddings ought to be more fun than they seem to be,” Algernon said with comical surliness.