Kathryn Jensen – The Earl Takes A Bride (страница 3)

“I realize that,” he began, employing his best diplomatic tone nevertheless. “But perhaps there is a way to work things out between you and your husband.”

“No, there isn’t.” She ducked out of his arms and began pacing the vinyl flooring. “I know it was the right thing to do, signing those papers, but I can’t bear to think how my kids are going to suffer.”

Thomas frowned, feeling something like panic tug at his gut. “What papers?” Did she mean separation papers? Or was she already divorced? He couldn’t walk out without something more exact to report to Jacob. But he also wanted to know, for himself.

“Mr. Fields is where now?” The words came out casually enough, but the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched, as if prepped for battle with the man who had broken the heart of this amazing woman.

“I don’t know and I can’t say that I really care.” She smiled grimly at him.

Thomas stared at Diane, hesitant to push further. Seeing her in such anguish was devastating to him, although he didn’t understand why. Over the years he had hardened himself to the pain of others. He held little sympathy for anyone who wasn’t part of the royal family or the inner circle of the court. The von Austerands had, in every sense but one—blood—become his family.

After all his own parents had deserted him—each in their own way. He had been barely five years old when his mother had left his father, the Earl of Sussex, his two brothers and him. At six he’d been shipped off to a boarding school by his aristocratic father. Who had bloody well cared about him then?

The troubles of strangers were of no consequence to him. And Diane, though related by marriage to Jacob, was in all other ways a stranger. Yet, watching her suffer the rejection of the father of her children, he felt truly and deeply moved.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas began slowly. “He’s a fool to have left you.”

She gave him a tiny, appreciative shake of her head.

“If it’s money you’re worried about, there are ways to track down a deadbeat father and force him to do his share. It’s the law in this country.”

“I know. I’d just rather do this on my own. They’re my kids. He wouldn’t have left if he’d loved them.”

Thomas winced. Had his mother not loved him and his brothers?

Diane pulled the chenille belt tighter around her waist to close an enticing gap over her chest that Thomas was having difficulty pretending wasn’t there.

“I suppose not,” he said, mourning the view now blocked by fuzzy tufts of fabric.

Diane cast him an irritated glance. “You’re not going to leave, are you.” It was a statement.

“Not until I have something more to tell Jacob.”

She whirled toward the living room and disappeared around the corner. He found her digging through a stack of mail scattered across the coffee table among crayons, dried-up bits of modeling clay and miniature dinosaurs in molded multicolored plastic.

She came up with a long white envelope and thrust it at him. “Here. This tells all. Read and relay as much as you like to my concerned family.”

Her robe slipped open again.

He ached to kiss her. There. Right there between her beautiful breasts.

But she was holding the envelope out to him. Waiting.

Reminding himself of his duty for the hundredth time, Thomas took it from her, extracted its contents and unfolded a five-page document. “It’s a divorce settlement—legally signed, dated, notarized.” He looked up at her, but whatever emotions he expected to see in her eyes were absent. She’d pulled herself together in the time it had taken him to scan the agreement.

“You’ve accepted sole custody of the children and released your husband of all financial responsibilities?” He didn’t understand. “Why, Diane? Did he coerce you into signing this?”

“No,” she said. “I’m the one who filed for divorce and had the papers drawn up.”

“And your lawyer…he didn’t—”

“He advised me against releasing Gary from his obligations to the children. He said I had grounds to demand support plus a large settlement for emotional injury due to his desertion.”

“But you ignored his advice.”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “I don’t want anything to do with Gary Fields. The children and I are better off without him.”

“No doubt,” Thomas agreed. “But still—”

“Don’t say another word,” she warned, shaking a finger at him as if he were one of her brood. “It’s done. Now all I have to do is figure out how to survive on pride…because there sure isn’t a lot of money coming into this household.”

She started pacing again, this time crisscrossing the oval, braided rug that nearly covered the living room floor. “Listen, Thomas, I wasn’t trying to hide anything from Ally and Jacob…or from my parents. Or embarrass anyone. I just didn’t want them to worry, you know? I had decided to wait until I was sure of the end result. I didn’t know until yesterday’s mail that Gary had signed the divorce papers.”

“But he did.”

“In a heartbeat.” She laughed dryly, shaking her head. “He never loved me, not really. I don’t think even I know what love is. I was a good wife to him, but now it’s finished. And I’m glad, I really am. Neither of us was happy.”

“I understand.” What still didn’t make sense to him was why she hadn’t fought for what was rightfully hers. She couldn’t possibly support three children on the money she made from her in-home day care business.

She looked up at him from beneath thick, dark lashes. “Sorry, you don’t deserve to get dumped on like this. You’re just the messenger, right?”

Her fingertips were lightly smoothing the vee of skin between her throat and breasts, unconsciously opening the robe again. He followed their teasing pattern, wishing she’d stop doing that. He was having enough trouble giving a damn about wayward husbands and legal documents. He imagined how her long, delicate fingers would feel sliding down his bare chest, across his belly, descending to—

“We hadn’t been intimate for a long time,” she continued, more to herself than to him. “Sex just didn’t seem very important to Gary.”

Personally, he couldn’t imagine any man not wanting to be intimate with Diane. “Most married men are interested in sex, no matter what else they may say. They just search for a suitable outlet…which may or may not be their wife.”

“Outlet. How harmless sounding,” she murmured, nibbling thoughtfully at her bottom lip. “Is that all we women are to men?”

He put a hand out to touch her shoulder consolingly but thought better of it and drew his curled fingers away. “Of course not, not where a real man is concerned.” But he had a flash of guilt for the women he’d used in the past. Did it matter that they’d used him, as well? For his money, for the gifts, for an entry into glamorous royal functions and a leg up in society? Maybe he wasn’t totally innocent, either. “I just meant,” he added slowly, “that Gary’s character isn’t of a caliber to match yours. He didn’t deserve you.”

She looked at him strangely, as if trying to decide how seriously she should take his compliment. She had stopped keeping track of her robe’s antics: one creamy shoulder was bare.

Thomas turned away and stared out the front window at the Benz, parked in a shadowy patch between two streetlights. He drew a deep breath, recentered himself, told himself sternly that his reason for being here was Jacob…not his lovely, tempting sister-in-law.

“May I tell your sister and the king what I’ve learned tonight?” he asked, his voice restored to its formal, controlled chest rumble.

She didn’t answer right away. “Of course. But before you return to Elbia I will have called Allison and spoken with her. I realize they will need to know. I’ll also call my parents.”

“The children—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Gary never spent much time with them. They obviously miss him, but his absence isn’t a big change for them. The money will be tight for a while, but I’ll figure out what to do.” She sounded confident.

“You’re sure?”

She gave him a sunbeam of a smile. “Of course. I’m a survivor, Thomas. If you knew me better, you’d understand that.”

He nodded but decided to try one last time. “I have the authority to give you a blank check—”

“Somehow I guessed you would have. Tell Jacob for me, No, but thank you. We’ll manage.”

There was nothing more he could do. Right? He’d learned the truth and offered assistance, which had been politely refused. If he telephoned the pilot at JFK, he might still make it back to Elbia by midday tomorrow.

“If you’re sure,” he said, taking her hand in a gesture calculated to be gentle, friendly, consoling.

“I’m sure,” Diane whispered.

Then she ruined everything.

She stepped up to him, rose onto her toes and kissed him lightly on the ridge of his jaw. A feather of a kiss from a woman who had the charity to respond with graciousness toward others despite her own immeasurable grief and disappointment.

“Thank you for coming, Thomas,” she whispered. She undoubtedly didn’t intend for her breast to brush against his arm as she withdrew. But it did.

He marched to the car, cursing his body for betraying him. One little kiss, one accidental touch, one bare shoulder…and his hormones were bouncing around inside of him like blasted Ping-Pong balls. Now there was no way he could leave for home tonight.