Free A Dark Heart by Margaret Foxe Page B

break, but she was determined to do
so. According to her best friend Aline, she was "set in her ways"
– a kind way of saying she acted like a middle-aged prude.
    Which she was – a horrible realization she'd come to
recently. She was a forty-four year old virgin destined to remain one for
eternity. Literally. And she'd been in love with a man who'd loathed the very
air she breathed for what seemed half her life. One couldn't get much more
pathetic than that.
    Well, she'd had enough. Elijah couldn't make himself any clearer. He
wanted nothing to do with her. Every time he was around her, he acted like she
was going to throw herself at him, or make some horrifying confession of
undying devotion. Or worse, somehow manipulate him with her wiles. But she’d
never pursued him. She'd done that only once before – to save his life ,
not to seduce him – and it had ended in complete disaster. So she'd kept
her distance for nine long years, just as he'd practically ordered her to do.
    It had been nearly a year since they'd last seen each other, for heaven's
sake, and even then, it had not been because she’d sought him out. She’d
been shot by a madman who’d kidnapped her best friend , for heaven’s sake.
What should she have done? Bled out on the streets of Mayfair for all of the ton to see?
    Furthermore, she thought to herself indignantly, she lived here, so it
shouldn't be so shocking to him if they crossed paths when he visited. Good
Lord!
    A right bastard indeed.
    She paused at the door to Rowan's study as a sudden realization swept
over her. For the first time, Elijah's rejection hadn't laid her low. Usually
she felt so crushed by the confusing mélange of guilt, hurt and despair
following one of their encounters that she retreated to her room. “Took to her
bed,” as her mother would have called it, like the fragile, missish virgin she
was.
    But not this time. The hurt had been brutal but fleeting today, quickly
replaced by her frustration. And anger. A great deal of repressed anger that
she probably had no right to feel. But she did.
    And it felt good to let that anger burn through her unremitting guilt for
once.
    Her time away had been good for her. She'd spent the past two months in
Paris with the Romanovs, keeping Aline company through the lying-in and birth
of her twins, who were now a month old and healthy, despite their strange
conception. Living with Aline and her husband, who were both so unconventional
compared to the stiff-necked nobility who comprised her usual circle of
acquaintance, had been refreshing and liberating.
    Now that she had returned, she was determined more than ever to break out
of her old, familiar patterns. Which started with putting her pathetic
obsession with the Inspector firmly in the past.
    Though he had looked terrible ...
    Not her problem. He wouldn’t let it be her problem. And for
the first time in nearly a decade, she was determined that she wouldn’t care
that it wasn’t. She wouldn’t .
    She shook her head firmly and pushed the door open, pasting a smile on
her face, refusing to let her mind dwell on Elijah a moment longer.
    Rowan looked surprised to see her. "Tia, you're back early," he
said, rising from his desk.
    Her smile faltered just a little bit as he kissed her cheeks and squeezed
her hands in greeting. Rowan had started calling her Tia after he'd Bonded her.
It made sense for him to have a nickname for her, and for it to be different
from the one she'd answered to for the first seventeen years of her life. In
many ways, she had become a new person that day, leaving Ana behind
forever. And she'd never minded it – or at least, she'd never thought
she'd had the right to mind it, since he'd saved her life.
    But today...
    Everything seemed to be grating on her today, including the sight of
Brightlingsea brooding by the bay window. Not exactly a welcome sight. He chose
the most inopportune times to pop into their lives. Christiana didn’t think the
Duke capable of