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Really, she could drown herself in scones right now. Crumbly blueberry ones…rich raisin ones…decadent chocolate-chip ones—
No, not decadent. Definitely not decadent. It came too close to mimicking the behavior that had gotten her into her current fix with Colin.
She was decidedly not into decadent behavior, she told herself firmly.
Nevertheless, an image flashed into her mind of lounging on a king-size bed with Colin Granville, sharing champagne and strawberries high above the flashing lights of Las Vegas.
Her face heated.
“… a youthful indiscretion?”
She fumbled in the process of pouring hot water into a cup.
She jerked her head up. “What?”
Her uncle raised his eyebrows. “I was merely inquiring whether this unfortunate situation came about due to a youthful indiscretion?”
She knew she must look guilty. “Can I claim so even though I was thirty at the time?”
Uncle Hugh regarded her with a thoughtful but forbearing expression. “I’m not so old that I don’t remember how much partying and club-hopping can go on in one’s twenties or beyond.”
“Yes,” Belinda said, more than ready to accept the proffered excuse. “That must be it.”
Her uncle accepted a teacup and saucer from her.
“And, yet, I’m surprised at you, Belinda,” he went on as he took a sip of his tea. “You were never one for rebellion. You were sent to a proper boarding school and then to Oxford. No one expected this scenario.”
She should have guessed that she would not be let off the hook so easily.
Belinda stifled a grimace. Marlborough College’s most famous graduate these days was the former Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, who would mostly likely be queen one day. She, by startling contrast, had failed miserably on the matrimonial front. She now had the wreckage of not one but two wedding ceremonies behind her.
She hated to disappoint Uncle Hugh. He had been a father figure to her since her own father’s death after a yearlong battle with cancer when she’d been thirteen. As her father’s older brother, and the head of the Wentworth family, her uncle had fallen naturally into the paternal role. A longtime widower, Uncle Hugh had been unable to have children with his wife and had remained single and childless since then.
On her part, Belinda had tried to be a good surrogate daughter. She’d grown up on Uncle Hugh’s estates—learning to swim and ride a bicycle during her summers there. She’d gotten good grades, she hadn’t acted out as a teenager and she’d kept her name out of the gossip columns—until now.
Uncle Hugh sighed and shook his grayed head. “Nearly three centuries of feuding and now this. Do you know your ancestor Emma was seduced by a Granville scoundrel? Fortunately, the family was able to hush up matters and arrange a respectable marriage for the poor girl to the younger son of a baronet.” His eyebrows knitted. “On the other hand, our nineteenth-century land dispute with the Granvilles dragged on for years. Fortunately, the courts were finally able to vindicate us on the matter of the proper property line between our estate and the Granvilles’.”
Belinda had heard both stories many times before. She opened her mouth to say something—anything—about how her situation with Colin was different.
“Ah! I see I’ve finally run you to ground.”
Belinda turned in time to watch her mother sail into the room. She abruptly clamped her mouth shut to prevent herself from groaning out loud. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Her mother handed her purse and chiffon scarf to a servant who hastened in from the doorway before turning for a discreet retreat. As usual, she looked impeccably turned out—as if she’d just come from lunch at Annabelle’s or one of her other customary jaunts. Her hair was coiffed, her dress was timelessly chic and probably St. John and her jewels were heirlooms.
Belinda thought that the contrast between her and her mother could hardly be more pronounced. She was casually dressed in chain-store chinos and a fluttery short-sleeved blouse that were paired with a couple of Tamara’s affordable jewelry pieces.
Even aside from the accoutrements, however, Belinda knew she did not physically resemble her mother. Her mother was a fragile blonde, while she herself was a statuesque brunette. She took after the Wentworth side of the family in that regard.
“Mother,” Belinda tried, “we spoke right after the wedding.”
Her mother glanced at her and widened her eyes. “Yes, darling, but you gave me only the vaguest and most rudimentary of answers.”
Belinda flushed. “I told you what I knew.”
Her mother waved a hand airily. “Yes, yes, I know. The marquess’ appearance was unexpected, his claims outlandish. Still, it all begs the question as to how precisely you’ve been married two odd years with no one being the wiser.”
“I told you the marquess claims that an annulment was never finalized. I am in the process of confirming that claim and rectifying matters.”
She had not hired a divorce lawyer yet, but she had phoned an attorney in Las Vegas, Nevada, and requested that Colin’s claim be verified—namely, she and Colin were still married.
Her mother glanced at Uncle Hugh and then back at her. “This scandal is the talk of London and New York. How do you plan to rectify that matter?”
Belinda bit her lip. Obviously, her mother, having met with resistance to her first line of inquiry, had moved on to another.
It was ironic, really, that she was being subjected to questioning by her mother. She had turned a deaf ear to her mother’s personal affairs over the years, though they had been the subject of gossip and cocktail-party innuendo. She hadn’t wanted to know more about affaires de coeur, as her mother was fond of referring to them.
Her mother looked fretful. “How will we ever resolve this with the Dillinghams? It’s disastrous.”
“Now, now, Clarissa,” her uncle said, leaning forward to set down his teacup. “Histrionics will not do a bit of good here.”
Belinda silently seconded the sentiment and then heaved an inward sigh. She and her mother had never had an easy relationship. They were too different in personality and character. As an adult, she’d been pained when her mother’s behavior had been shallow, selfish or self-centered, and often all three.
As if on cue, her mother slid onto a nearby chair, managing somehow to be graceful about it while still giving the impression that her legs would no longer support her during this ordeal. “Belinda, Belinda, how could you be so reckless, so irresponsible?”
Belinda felt rising annoyance even as she acknowledged she’d been asking herself the same question again and again. She had acted uncharacteristically.
“You were expected to marry well,” her mother went on. “The family was counting on it. Why, most of your classmates have already secured advantageous matches.”
Belinda wanted to respond that she had married well. Most people would say that a rich and titled husband qualified as good enough. And yet, Colin was a detested Granville and thus one who was not to be trusted under any circumstances.
“We spent a long time cultivating the Dillinghams,” her mother continued. “They were prepared to renovate Downlands so you and Tod might entertain there in style once you were married.”
Belinda didn’t need to be reminded of the plan, contingent on her marriage to Tod, to update the Wentworths’ main ancestral estate in Berkshire. She knew the family finances were, if not precarious, less than robust.
Truth be told, neither she nor Tod had been swept away by passion. Instead, their engagement had been based more on practicalities. She and Tod had known each other forever and had always gotten along well enough. She was in the prime of her friends’ matrimonial season, if not toward the end of it, at thirty-two. Likewise, she knew Tod was looking for and expected to marry a suitable woman from his highborn social set.
Tod had said he would wait for her to resolve the situation. He had not said how long he would wait, however.
Her mother tilted her head. “I don’t suppose you could lay claim to part of Easterbridge’s estate for being accidentally married for the past two years?”
Belinda was appalled. “Mother!”
Her mother widened her eyes. “What? There have been plenty of real marriages that have endured for less time.”
“I’d have more leverage if Easterbridge were divorcing me!”
Belinda recalled the marquess’ jesting offer to remain married. It was clear she’d have to be the one to initiate proceedings to dissolve their marriage.
“You didn’t have time to sign a prenuptial agreement at that wedding chapel in Las Vegas, did you?” her mother persisted and then sniffed—ready to answer her own question. “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if Easterbridge carried a standard contract in his back pocket.”
“Mother!”
Uncle Hugh shook his head. “A man as sharp as Easterbridge would have seen to it that his property was not vulnerable. On the other hand, we wouldn’t want the marquess to make any claim to Wentworth property.”
Her mother turned back to her. “It’s a good thing that none of the Wentworth estates are in your name.”
“Yes,” Uncle Hugh acknowledged, “but Belinda is an heiress. She stands to inherit the Wentworth wealth. If she remains Easterbridge’s wife, her property may eventually become his to share, particularly if the assets are not kept separate.”
“Intolerable,” her mother declared.
For her part, Belinda didn’t feel like an heiress. In fact, from all of her family’s focus on making a good match, she felt more stifled than liberated by the Wentworth wealth. True, she was the beneficiary of a small trust fund, but those resources only made it bearable for her to live in Manhattan’s high-rent market on her skimpy art specialist’s salary.
She’d been reminded time and again that her task was to carry the Wentworth standard forward for another generation. She was never unaware of her position as an only child. So far, however, she could not have made a bigger mash of things.
“I’ll deal with the marquess,” Belinda said grimly, stopping herself from her nervous habit of chewing her lip.
Somehow, she had to untangle herself from her marriage.
Three
“Thank you for meeting me today,” she said, somewhat incongruously, as she stepped into a conference room in Colin’s business offices at the Time Warner Center.
She was hoping to keep matters on a polite and productive footing. Or at least to start that way.
Colin gave a quick nod of his head. “You’re welcome.”
Belinda watched as Colin’s gaze went unerringly to her now ring-free hand.
Her heart beat loudly in her chest.
She’d wanted a meeting place that was private but not too private. She knew Colin owned a spectacular penthouse high above them in the same complex—it was one of the unavoidable pieces of information that she’d come across about him in the news in the past couple of years—but she’d shied away from facing him there. And her own apartment farther uptown was too small.
It would have been hard enough to confront Colin under any circumstances. He was wealthy, titled and imposing—not to mention savvy and calculating. But he was also her former lover and could lay claim to knowing her intimately. Their night together would always be between them. She’d seen what they could do with a hotel room…What they could do in his apartment didn’t bear thinking about. At all. Ever.
Belinda scanned him warily.
He wore a business suit and held himself with the easy and self-assured charm of a sleek panther ready to toy with a kitty. He carried the blood of generations of conquerors in his veins, and it showed.
Belinda felt awareness skate over her skin, a good deal of which was exposed. She was dressed in a V-neck belted dress and strappy sandals, having arranged to have this meeting during her lunch break at Lansing’s.
Colin gestured to the sideboard. “Coffee or tea?”
She set down her handbag on the long conference table. “No, thank you.”
He perused her too thoroughly. “You are rather even-keeled, in sharp contrast to last week.”
“I’ve chosen to remain the calm in the storm,” she replied. “The rumors have run amok, the groom has decamped for the other side of the Atlantic and the wedding gifts are being returned.”
“Ah.” He sat on a corner of the conference table.
“I hope you’re satisfied.”
“It’s a good start.”
She quelled her ire and looked at him straight on. “I am here to make you see reason.”
He was ill-mannered enough to chuckle.
“I know you’re busy—” too busy to have obtained an annulment, obviously “—so I’ll go straight to the point. How is it possible that we’re still married?”
Colin shrugged. “The annulment was never finalized with the court.”
“That’s what you said.” She smelled a rat—or more precisely, a cunning aristocrat. “I hope you fired your lawyer for the matter.”
She took a steadying breath. The lawyer she had recently consulted had confirmed that, as far as state records showed, she and Colin were still married because there was no record of an annulment or even of papers being filed.
One way or the other, she had to deal with matters as they unfortunately stood.
“It’s futile to look back,” Colin remarked, as if reading her mind. “The issue is what do we do now.”
Belinda widened her eyes. “Now? We obtain an annulment or divorce, of course. New York recently did me the enormous favor of introducing no-fault divorce, so I’ll no longer have to prove that you committed adultery or abandoned me. I know that much from some simple research.”
Colin looked unperturbed. “Ah, for the good old days when marriage meant coverture and only a husband could own property or prove adultery.”
She didn’t appreciate his humor. “Yes, how unfortunate for you.”
He lifted his lips. “There’s only one problem.”
“Oh? Only one?” She was helpless to stop the sarcasm.
Colin nodded. “Yes. A no-fault divorce can still be contested, starting with the service of divorce papers.”
She stared at him dumbly. What was he saying?
She narrowed her eyes. “So you’re saying …”
“I’m not granting you an easy divorce, in New York or anywhere else.”
“You ruined my wedding, and now you’re going to ruin my divorce?” she asked, unable to keep disbelief from her voice.
“Your wedding was already ruined because we were still married,” Colin countered. “Even if I hadn’t interrupted the ceremony, your marriage to Dillingham would have been considered void ab initio due to bigamy. It would have been as if the marriage ceremony had never occurred.”
Belinda pressed her lips together.
Colin raised an eyebrow. “I know. It’s rather inconvenient that your marriage to Dillingham would have been the one to have been declared legally nonexistent.”
“You ruined my wedding,” she accused. “You chose the precise wrong moment to make your big announcement. Why crash the ceremony?”
