Dell might still find the woman he would have chosen had he been given a choice. It was long past time to free her husband from his bonds.
Regina sat down to wait.
The minute Dell walked through the door of the tasteful mansion where he’d lived his whole life, he knew that something was different. And it wasn’t the ghosts of old O’Ryan aristocrats that were raising the hair on the back of his neck.
Regina was perched in the hallway on a Victorian settee that had been in his family for generations and was just as uncomfortable as it looked. That in itself set off warning bells. Regina was never waiting for him when he got home. She rose to meet him now.
He looked into her concerned brown eyes. She was holding a sheath of papers.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“We need to talk.” Her soft voice came out unevenly.
“We need to talk now,” she repeated, clearing her throat and managing to sound firm and determined though she was clearly on edge.
“I see.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t, but I do. Finally.”
Regina held out her hand and he saw that the top sheet was a page torn out of a local magazine. “Have you seen this?” she asked.
He hadn’t. The publication masqueraded as an event guide for the city of Boston, but the real draw was the bits of gossip sprinkled throughout its pages.
Dell lifted a brow. “Not my usual cup of tea.”
She blushed slightly, and Dell realized that he’d rarely seen her blush. But then, he didn’t really know Regina all that well. Their brief marriage had been entered into hastily for the sake of convenience, and they had spent very little time together. Like his parents had, they occupied this house as virtual strangers. But the delicate pink that tinted Regina’s cheeks and dipped into the shadows at the vee of her pale yellow blouse definitely made him aware of her in ways he hadn’t been when he’d entered the room. That was a surprise. It was also obviously bad timing.
Regina nodded, and for a moment Dell wondered if she had read his mind. “No, I suppose this wouldn’t be the kind of thing a man like you might read,” she said, “but I’ve verified the facts. They’re true.”
She turned away, her voice muffled, but she held her head high, her straight brown hair brushing her shoulders. Regina was a woman with generous curves, but she seemed thinner than he remembered her being when she’d fallen into his world just over a year ago. Was it any wonder? She’d been through a lot these past few months.
Dell rubbed a hand over his jaw. If Regina had suffered unhappiness, the blame was partly because of events that he had unintentionally set in motion. “You’ve verified the facts? So, tell me what they are, Regina.” His voice came out too rough, and she turned to face him again.
“You were well on your way to marrying Elise Allenby when you—when we—”
“When we wed,” he offered.
“Yes, but you did that to help me. You were supposed to marry Elise. Everyone was expecting an engagement announcement from the two of you. I didn’t know. If I had, I wouldn’t have—at least I hope I wouldn’t have said yes.” Distress filled her voice.
“Don’t do that, Regina,” he commanded. “You didn’t destroy my love life if that’s what you’re thinking, and Elise and I hadn’t even discussed marriage. I’m not a heartbroken man.” But she was right in a way. Before the events of the past year had changed everything, he had wondered if he should deepen his relationship with Elise. It had been a purely practical consideration. Dell had never been a romantic man. His life revolved around the O’Ryan empire, and Elise came from a highly respected family and was an intelligent and beautiful woman. She knew how to conduct herself at events and would have graced his table admirably when he had to entertain. He hadn’t done any entertaining since his marriage to Regina.
But that had been his choice and not Regina’s fault. He hadn’t wanted to make demands given the circumstances. He hadn’t felt he’d had the right to demand anything of her.
“Is she a heartbroken woman?” Regina asked, lifting her chin.
He blinked. “I don’t know.” What he didn’t tell her was that Elise had come to his office the day after he’d married Regina in a private ceremony. It was the most emotional he had ever seen Elise. It was, in fact, the only time he’d seen Elise give vent to her emotions. But that had been almost a year ago. Still, it rankled that in trying to keep from hurting one woman he might have inadvertently hurt another.
Dell grimaced. “Why is this rag writing that kind of story now?” he demanded, taking a different tack. “It’s old news.”
“It’s not old news to me. I don’t want to think that I might have been the cause of another woman’s pain.”
“You weren’t. It wasn’t like that.” Dell took a step toward her. “Elise might have thought we would eventually marry—others might have thought that as well—but I never suggested that to her. And if there had been reason…if I had made promises or if she’d been pregnant, I would have done what was right, Regina.”
Regina sank back down on the hard mahogany of the settee, her breath whooshing out on an audible sigh. “I know you would have. You’re…you believe in duty. You rescued me.”
But it hadn’t helped, Dell realized. Regina was no longer a woman in sudden desperate need, as she had been when they had wed. She had security and work that she enjoyed. But her eyes didn’t light up the way they had when she’d shown up on his doorstep with some of his mail that had mistakenly been delivered to her house almost eighteen months ago. Unfortunate things had happened to her since that day, and he had been the unwitting author of some of those things.
“You know I haven’t always done the right thing where you’re concerned.”
Regina’s soft brown hair slid against the pale yellow of her blouse as she shook her head. “I haven’t always done the right thing where you’re concerned, either. Last week—” She frowned and began to pace.
Dell walked toward her, blocking her progress. He tilted his head, trying to see her expression, hidden as she refused to look at him. “What happened last week?” he asked.
Crossing her arms, Regina blew out a deep breath. “I was shooting a wedding when one of the guests, an older woman named Adele Tidings, noticed my name tag. She wanted to know if I was related to you, and once she knew that we were married, she wondered why she hadn’t seen me around when she’d been at several functions lately which you had attended, alone. I realized how awful the truth would sound, and I didn’t know what to say, so I just…lied. I told her that I’d been horribly ill for a long time.”
“Regina, Adele is nice but nosy. She had no business asking you personal questions. Don’t worry about it.” But Regina shook her head.
“No, you and I both know that I wasn’t sick. You helped me out when we wed, but I never even considered accompanying you to any of your social functions, even though I knew they were a part of your business. I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.”
“We didn’t make a bargain, Regina. We got married for good if unconventional reasons, and this year hasn’t been your happiest. You have nothing to apologize for.”
But the look in her eyes told him that she wasn’t buying his argument.
“You never mentioned anything,” she said, “but this article was written because there’s a rumor that you’ve been approached to open a new store in Chicago. I assume it’s true that one of your wealthiest customers is petitioning you to expand into her area and that she’s started a campaign with her friends to entice you into moving. They’re