His grin was wide as he noticed her. “What are you doing milling about out here, Miss Hillcrest? The party is inside.”
“Yes,” she said shortly, eager to avoid any prolonged conversation with him and looking for an approaching carriage to take her away as fast as possible.
The footman returned, apologizing for the delay. As a carriage drew up in front of her, Aurora realized she carried no coin to pay for the journey home. She winced and turned to Scarsdale. “I need money.”
He immediately dug in his pocket and held out a careless handful of notes, far in excess of her needs. Aurora snatched up what she required, promised to repay him tomorrow, and shouted out directions as she dived inside. She barely noticed the odor of stale beer and cheap gin permeating the carriage until they were well underway, and Scarsdale was left behind gaping after her on the pavement outside Lord and Lady Rothwell’s town house.
The she put her head in her hands, feeling sick to her stomach.
Aurora was completely unsettled by the idea that she was soon to be replaced in Sullivan’s life, and troubled by her own reaction to the news. Of course, she’d anticipated being replaced. Planned for it, too. Meant for it to happen. One day soon. But she had been so caught up in the excitement of their secret affair that it had slipped her mind for a short while. Obviously she couldn’t go on meeting Sullivan forever and he knew that, too.
He wanted marriage, and he should have it.
But with someone else. Someone who wanted to be a wife to him.
That was not Aurora.
The trip flew by, and when she was deposited at Wharton House, she was more or less ready to face the servants.
On her arrival, Aurora dutifully followed the night footman from the carriage and inside without her customary chatter to him about their respective evenings. She was glad when he left her side, after ascertaining she wanted nothing. To be somewhere as much home as anywhere she’d ever lived. She should have a message sent to her cousins at the ball she’d just escaped though, explaining why she’d gone in such an abrupt manner. A vile headache, or sudden stomach upset was a useful excuse to come home early, and might be easily believed by the duke and duchess. She had no great faith Eugenia would believe that tall tale, but at least she would know where she’d gone and that she was safe.
Tomorrow, Aurora would have some explaining to do.
She went to a desk where she’d find writing paper in the library and scratched out a note for her cousin. Once she’d summoned a servant to deliver it, she’d go up to bed.
However, she was not at all tired. She was too cross with herself to imagine sleep would come easily tonight.
She remained in the library, and Aurora even filled a glass from one of Wharton’s hidden bottles in a bookshelf and sank herself down in a comfortable chair to ponder her foolish reaction to the news that Drew would wed.
Drew owed her no explanations. She’d always known best what he needed.
And it wasn’t ever her in his life.
She looked about her and grimaced. Wharton House and those who lived here didn’t need her, either. Even without the master and mistress of the house, the servants went about their duties with silent precision. None needed Aurora to lift a finger to direct them, which was why she’d decided she needed a profession that could occupy her days, and her nights too.
Her affair with Drew, while thrilling, had distracted her from her purpose—to make herself a career that gave her days some greater meaning. But that distraction had to end tonight. She could not possibly go to him tomorrow as arranged. She couldn’t even tell him why which might reveal how the news of his upcoming marriage had affected her.
Aurora thought about it for only a moment and then sat down at the writing desk again. Sullivan didn’t really need her to make a match, but someone else could.
Even though her stomach still churned with misplaced jealousy, Aurora made plans for pursuing her own interests that would mean she was too busy to see him for a while. She could not give up on her dream to run a thriving, financially sound business and support herself at last.
It was time to think of her future and what she needed most out of her life. For one, a new first client. Someone she didn’t find the least bit appealing.