A Fallen Woman (8 page)

Rachel glanced up at him uncertainly. She had not
remembered he was so very tall and she had to tilt her head back to
do so.
She
searched desperately for something light and inconsequential to say
but her long years of training had somehow deserted her. Before she
could say anything, however, Worsley did, his voice low. ‘It seems
that circumstances are much changed for you, Miss Sheridan. I must
ask… how do you like your new life?’

Shock rebounded through her. There was a small smile on his
lips and he wore an expression of polite
inquiry but there was something
darkly chilling in his eyes. Rachel groped for something to say but
she could think of nothing at all.

‘
I…’

‘
And now you are a fallen woman and all your beauty, all your
charm has come to nothing and you are faced with a future that must
seem entirely desolate. Unless you find a man who will have you and
we all know what such a bargain would entail, do we
not?’

Rachel
stopped moving, shocked beyond words. She stared up at him
incredulously, hardly believing that she had heard him correctly.
Her family were already moving up the stairs and there was nobody
to hear the earl’s scathing words. He had kept his voice
low.

He had come to
a stop as well and looked down at her, expression considering.
‘What, is the clever Miss Sheridan speechless? I did not think that
was possible.’

Finally, Rachel found her voice. ‘Why would you say such
things to me?’ And in such a
way
.

‘
Am I the first to do so?’ Worsley’s lips twisted a little.
‘Then I believe you can count yourself lucky. All the world thinks
as I do, Miss Sheridan. You have been shielded by your doting
family but you must know that, the moment you step outside your
door, the world will judge you.’

Anger ignited in Rachel at this. This man was a guest in
her parents’ home and yet he dared to speak to her in such a way.
Not even Charity had been so cruel, so…
vicious
. ‘Nobody need tell me how very fortunate
I am,’ she returned, trying to keep her voice level. It was
difficult as she found her throat was tight with a mixture of
conflicting emotions. ‘I have had reason to thank God every day
since they rescued me from my folly. But I did not have the luxury
of running away for years and turning my back on my
responsibilities. Society may find me wanting but it seems to me it
has not been able to find you at all! You may be older but you are
certainly no more gallant, Sir. And your manners seemed to have
suffered greatly during your time away.’

With as much dignity as possible, she marched past him and
up the stairs, chin high despite the fact that she was teetering on
tears. She would not cry! She must not, not when she had vowed to
put her tears behind her. It was just the unexpectedness of the
attack. Once, she would have said Worsley was the kindest of men.
Now she was convinced she must have been entirely wrong. He was not
kind. He was cruel and
judgemental and extraordinarily rude.

And she would
be happy to have nothing more to do with him during his time at
Thorncroft. Any thoughts she had had of apologizing to him
disappeared. As far as Rachel was concerned, she would be more than
happy never to exchange another word with the man again.

He had
insulted her beneath the protection of her parents’
roof.

Worsley, it
seemed, had turned into an utter cad.

Chapter
Four

Nash
stood just inside the closed door of the very pleasant
bedchamber that had been given over to him and stared blankly at
the room.

What the
hell had he done? What had possessed him to speak to Rachel
Sheridan, when he had been determined to ignore her completely? He
had not meant to. During all of that interminable gathering, he had
been fiercely focused on doing exactly that. It had been difficult
– no, it had been damned near impossible! – to keep his eyes off
her. She was still so extraordinarily beautiful. No, it was more
than that. Her loveliness was a luminous thing, a soft beacon that
tempted him to look towards her. It seemed to light the very room
itself and all the willpower in the world had not been sufficient
to stop his gaze from straying. Once or twice she caught him at it
and he had felt himself momentarily drowning in sea-green eyes. The
effect she still produced on him was as powerful as it had been
nearly three and a half years ago.

And the
knowledge had both terrified and infuriated him.

Leaning his
back against the door, he groaned softly.

The sight of her had come
like a physical slap, a facer he had not
seen coming, even though he had been mentally preparing himself for
the jolt he thought he might receive when he laid eyes on her
again.

Jolt!
Dear God, the word did not do justice to the intense ache that had
gripped him when he had laid eyes on her. Three years and four
months after he had turned his back on England and his torturous
memories of the girl, and he was still at the mercy of a pair of
astonishing green eyes and a girl with the face of an angel. It had
taken all the internal strength he had mastered over the years to
remain impassive, to keep his expression neutral. God, he hoped he
had managed to do so, bottling up his reactions behind an
unemotional façade. It would be unbearable if anybody had been able
to glimpse the mad gamut of emotions that had raged through
him.

Nash
opened his eyes and blew out a long breath. His plan had
always been to treat Rachel Sheridan with cool civility when he
could not avoid dealing with her. In an intimate house party some
interaction would be unavoidable. Initially, in London, he had even
toyed with the idea of thanking her for being the catalyst that had
seen him cut the apron strings in England, although the closer he
drew to their actual meeting, the more inclined he was to think
that any mention of the past should be avoided.

So it was
inexplicable that he should have taken pains to speak to her. And
not just speak to her. To insult her in a manner that was both
confrontational and excessively rude.

‘What the hell is
wrong
with me?’ he demanded into the silence.

The answer was
painfully clear. It was the same thing that had been wrong with him
all along.

Rachel
Sheridan. Fallen woman, social outcast and, it seemed, the one
creature that could shatter his carefully created persona into
fragments.

He drew a
deep breath. Then another, fighting for calm. He needed a cool head
to deal with what had happened, not a muddle of emotions that would
subvert him even more if he let them get the upper hand. How much
of what he was feeling was shock and how much was…

He ran a hand
through his hair, disordering his valet’s careful arrangement of
his thick brown locks.

What,
exactly, had he felt when he had looked at the woman he had once
offered his heart and his protection to? The woman he had
determined to marry? It was curious, but he knew there was a
yawning difference in what he had experienced then and what he felt
now. As one of her many suitors, Nash had been overawed by Rachel
Sheridan, a golden Aphrodite who had appeared to be as remote and
unattainable as anything to be found on the fabled Olympus. Not
that she had been standoffish. On the contrary, she was an
excellent conversationalist and he had thrilled at the feel of her
in his arms when they had glided around the dance floor.

But awed admiration wasn’t what he felt for her now.
Something had changed, fo
r when he had seen Rachel again it had been
desire, hot as a flame and just as dangerous had flared within him.
It had been followed immediately by a slow ache of need that had
gripped him, stealing the breath from his body and leaving him
deeply shaken.

But there was more to it than that, much as he hated to
admit it.
Desire was a physical reaction, as understandable as it was
controllable. But the other, more subtle emotions that had gripped
him, making it impossible to keep his eyes away from her, were far
more alarming and he would not willingly put a name to them, even
if he could.

Nash
ground his teeth, making himself face the truth. He had acted like
an impetuous fool because, when he had looked at Rachel for the
first time in years, he had experienced a curious sense that, at
last, he had come home. Rachel’s face had not dimmed at all in the
passing years no matter how he might convince himself otherwise and
seeing her once more, it had felt as if a missing piece of himself
had fallen into place.

It had scared
the hell out of him.

How had he not anticipated something like this?
H
e had
confused being removed from her presence with recovery. There was
no two ways about the matter; this little jaunt into Northumberland
was a bloody disaster and he had only just arrived!

Letting
out a sigh that he had not realized he had been holding in, Nash
walked across the room to fall into a chair, staring at the fire
that was burning cheerfully in the grate. Every comfort had been
extended for the Sheridans’ guests and he had been provided a
cheerful blaze to warm the room. Excellent. More flames to stare at
while he pondered the disastrous turn his life had taken. No matter
that Adam was his best friend, he should never have agreed to
this.

It was not as
if he had not experienced warning signs.

The twist in the gut when he had listened to how
far his former love
had fallen.

His inability to shake of
f the sensation of unfinished business. He
had thought that returning to his family’s estate in Warwickshire
would alleviate the peculiar itch he could not seem to scratch but
that had done nothing to ease whatever ailed him.

And the way he
had controlled his waking thoughts, never letting them stray in a
direction that might be considered dangerous.

Even before he
had encountered Adam, Nash knew himself to be afflicted with some
mysterious malaise. Listening to his friend say the Sheridan name,
a kind of inevitability had afflicted him. He had been trying to
shake the feeling off ever since, with little effect.

Nash, who
firmly believed that men made their own destiny, now wondered if
other forces had been at work to bring him face to face with Rachel
Sheridan. All of the casual insouciance that he had thought he
possessed had evaporated the moment he had walked into that parlor
and had laid eyes on that glorious, wretched creature and now he
was struggling to know what to do.

Why the devil couldn’t the intervening years have weathered
her? Scarred her? Taken the damn shine off her?
I do not believe myself to
still be in love with the woman, by God I do not. Damn it all, I do
not even believe in the blasted emotion and I am certainly not
going to spend the next five days acting like the lovelorn
simpleton that I was three years ago!

No, instead he was going to insult her. Nash felt a little
sick, remembering how the
color had drained from Rachel’s face as he had
thrown words as hard as stones at her, leaving it milky white. Her
hand had crept up to the base of her throat where a small pulse had
raced, indicating how much he had perturbed her. It might be true,
what he had said but even now he could not believe he had uttered
them. It was as if the violence of his emotions had forced him to
find a release and he had suddenly been determined to strike out,
as if by wounding her he could push her away.

It had
been an ill-considered thing to do and he found himself regretting
every word spoken. ‘The story of my life,’ he muttered. ‘Regretting
my mistakes. This time, I do believe I have surpassed
myself.’

He really
wanted a drink!

Taking a few more deep breaths,
Nash tried to take his wayward
emotions in hand. He needed to convince himself that this was
nothing more than the past continuing to hold him in its grip; he
had battled these demons before.

‘
And won, damn it,’ he growled. ‘This – she – means nothing to
me anymore.’

But the words were as hollow as the sentiment behind it for
he had just proven how much she had meant to him
. If his reaction to Rachel
Sheridan was any indication, it seemed that he had royally
bollocked up the entire thing, placing them both in an extremely
awkward situation. His manners had been execrable and she had every
right to recoil from his verbal attack.

But good God, h
ow could he have misunderstood his own emotional
state so completely?

Was he really
so deluded?

Apparently so. He had convinced
himself that it would be entertaining
to see her again, if they ever did happen to encounter each other,
especially as her circumstances had changed so profoundly. How
would the woman who had been adored by so many find her life now?
It was hard to conceive, that the beautiful, popular Rachel
Sheridan might no longer be welcome in drawing rooms across London,
that those who had once feted her now rejected her. When he had
lived abroad he had not elected to inquire too closely as to what
lay behind the hints his friends had given him regarding the girl;
there was no need to learn more of her situation, not when he put
in so much effort reconstructing himself. He was no longer
interested in what was happening in her life. He refused to be
interested.