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“Benteen’s father passed away shortly before we left, but both my parents live there,” Lorna explained
“How sad for your husband,” Lady Elaine murmured She lowered her lashes to conceal any hint that the neas of significance to her The last potential proble but relief Always keen in her observations of sh and reddened hands of the young Calder wife She experienced a rare surge of cohts had briefly turned back to her own harsh years “I hope you won’t be offended, Mrs Calder, but in the short ti this climate can be to a woman’s skin”
Lorna reddened and tried to conceal her hands in the folds of her dress She ell aware of the contrast between her skin and the woman’s creamy smooth complexion
“I have a lotion that my chemist prepared specially forsome to your room It does wonders, I assure you”
“It’s very generous of you,” Lorna murmured
“Women need to look out for each other Actually, we do a ain there was that faint smile “I’ll send my maid to your rooantly dressed gentlee Ito you, Mrs Calder”
“Good day to you, your ladyship” Again Lorna racious nod before the wolided across the lobby
Lorna had expected the lady’s husband to be soreeted was much older than Lorna believed the woman to be He wasn’t at all handsome Except for his clothes, he looked dull and ordinary He ruined Lorna’s fantasy that Lady Elaine edded to a Prince Char
She was so engrossed in the titled couple that she alantly dressed wo away frolance from him to ascertain it wasn’t Lorna as he walked by A second later he spied his wife across the lobby At first he thought the rapt look on her face was for him, and his stride quickened, but it vanished when she saw him
Benteen didn’t realize how ranted Like the way she used to turn to him when he touched her, the special excitement in her eyes when he looked at her, and the way she alatched for him But not anymore He tried to steel himself not to feel the loss
Lorna hadn’t turned out to be the loving, aht she would be At tiree with him, and too critical of his actions He blamed Mary Stanton’s influence for the way Lorna had started talking back to hiely adth of will, and her unbending pride When she angered him, he wanted to break her—as he had nearly done when he’d raped her Yet Benteen had the uneasy feeling that if he ever succeeded inher kneel to him, he would cease to care It was an odd contradiction that he didn’t understand
He was trying not to care for her so much, so he wouldn’t be scarred if she left him If he couldn’t hold her, he wanted to be able to turn his back on her and block her existence from his mind That’s what his father should have done
“I didn’t expect to see you in the lobby,” he reht you’d be in the room”
“I was just on my way there,” Lorna replied
“Who is the young woman?” Con Dunshill asked of his wife She usually expressed no interest in those of her own sex, so he had been surprised and curious to see Elaine in conversation with a young woman, especially one not of her class