Chapter21
Drew woke with a start as someone called his name, and then again.
“Aurora?”
A man answered “no,” and Drew sagged back down.
Of course, it couldn’t be Aurora.
She’d gone weeks ago.
“Time to pull yourself together, my friend,” someone said very loudly.
Drew blinked rapidly, briefly wondering what had become of the sun, before he hauled himself upright and looked around the room he was sitting in. Windows were dark now. Night must have fallen outside, but the servants hadn’t lit any candles. Drew didn’t want the light, so he had told them not to. He was glad he had slept for a while, but it was only to face another night without Aurora in his life, or in his arms.
Drew looked down and reached for the bottle of gin wedged between his thighs, lifting it to his lips. He’d started with brandy, gone through all the whiskey. There was still Aurora’s sherry to go through after the gin was gone. He was leaving the best for last.
Drew drained the bottle, gulping it down. There was nothing he needed to be awake for anyway. The spirits wouldn’t make him forget that Aurora had left him, but it was something to do while he waited for the pain to lessen.
He could still hear her final words ringing in his ears.
Don’t follow me.
So, he hadn’t.
He’d let her go, knowing any further pursuit was pointless. She couldn’t love him. She expected him to move on, marry some supposedly perfect woman his father had picked out instead of her. Did she not know him at all? He was committed to her. To them.
But it had been weeks without her, and he had lost all hope.
He rubbed his eyes as a tall shape loomed over him in the dark library, and then light flared. He squinted as he recognized Scarsdale, in dark evening dress, as he lit a brace of candles on the mantle and brought it closer to Drew’s face. Drew held up his hands between them to protect his eyes from the unwelcome glare.
“I must say, I’m not entirely surprised to see you like this,” Scarsdale said, dropping into a chair opposite without so much as a by-your-leave. “Your father is also looking a little under the weather, too. It’s been weeks since the falling out.”
“Falling out? I think you mean attempted blackmail.” Drew scowled and looked past Scarsdale for a servant but saw none hovering in the shadows that Drew could order to throw Scarsdale out of his house. “I’m not in the mood to have you of all people lecture me on my failures. Go away,” Drew demanded before he slumped back into his chair.
Remembering the empty gin bottle in his lap, he tossed it over his shoulder carelessly and heard it break upon the others he’d discarded into the cold hearth hours ago. Then he hunted for a new one tucked under him on the floor, but with some difficulty.
Once retrieved, he removed the cork with his teeth but glared at his unwanted guest for a moment before he could sample it. He would probably have to offer the man a glass. He had gone out of his way to come and see him.
He waved the open bottle toward the younger man. “You want some?”
“I don’t drink,” Scarsdale confessed, crossing his legs.
“You will,” Drew vowed. “If you intend to stay, you will have a glass with me. Or you can run off to whatever amusement you’re dressed for. A dinner perhaps.”
“Actually, I was on my way home from one. It’s four in the morning, Sullivan.”
Drew blinked in surprise to hear that was the hour. The clock on the mantle had fallen silent weeks ago, but he wouldn’t let anyone wind it. The passing of the hours was just another unwelcome reminder that he was alone again.
Drew’s drinking had steadily increased the longer he was by himself. He knew he should stop soon, but why bother? Aurora’s departure from his life was final. She’d taken away everything she owned from the house. It had all disappeared by the second night. He hoped Sylvia and Eugenia had welcomed her back with open arms. He hoped they’d been kind to her, and blamed him for everything that had gone wrong.
If she was welcomed back into the family fold, he expected never to see her again. He wouldn’t even try.
She wouldn’t want to see him, anyway.
He took another drink directly from the bottle, willing the pain around his heart to subside. He’d once thought losing someone you loved through death was the worst. Knowing you could never be with the one you loved, or be loved by her in return, was infinitely harder to bear. But there was nothing more he could do. Aurora had not loved him even a little.
Scarsdale’s hand was suddenly in front of him, reaching for the bottle. Drew clutched it to his chest, but Scarsdale proved a persistent bastard and managed to remove it from his fingers. He took the bottle from him, corked it, and put it down on a side table far across the room. “Have you been drinking every day since she left?”