Read The Viscount Returns for Free Online

feet. She was now clean and refreshed, hoping to cast out the sour memories from the unexpected reunion that day.
    Why had he returned after all this time?
    Why had he not returned after only a year as he had promised?
    Why not when she had needed him the most many years ago when she was left to face motherhood alone and abandoned?
    These questions were going to push her over a cliff.
    Wrapped tightly in her dressing gown and her hair rolled up in linen, Fiona made her way quietly to her chamber. The house was silent as always, despite the interruption of her husband and his guest. His intrusion that day was unwelcome and with hope, short lived. Would he leave quickly, not to reemerge after another eight years? His abandonment stung deeper than she allowed herself to admit and despite what she had already known of her husband, Fiona had felt the pain of rejection when he had arrived with the lover she knew he had.
    Passing by his chamber door, Fiona reached out to click the door properly shut, but a flash of white linen got her attention. All propriety pushed aside, she skulked in the hallway and leaned in close to the gap between the door and the door frame and witnessed what no lady should be privy to under her own roof, but despite her position and title she could not remove herself from the sexual display.
    Lying wrapped in the arms of another man, Fiona watched as her husband fell apart in the embrace of a man. Entwined so tightly it was hard to tell where her husband’s limbs ended and his companion’s began. They rolled as one over the stuffed bedding. The sounds of the bed matched their own heated groans.
    Placing a hand on the doorframe, Fiona leaned in for a better look. She knew that she should have been filled with rage, but there was something in their embrace that excited a heat in her belly. Licking her hungry lips, she followed the motion of her husband’s hand as he ran his fingers over the man’s round and firm backside. His touch was not gentle but firm. There was nothing feminine in what they shared. They were all men.
    Reaching out for the door, Fiona silently sealed the chamber and left the lovers in peace.
    Walking the last few steps to her chamber, Fiona suddenly felt more alone than she had over the last eight years. Life always seemed livable alone, since there was no one else, but now realizingthat the man who had once promised to love and cherish her would rather take another to bed tha n greet her with less than a smile after so many years apart saddened her. Had he hoped that she would not have been here waiting? She envied that man Allen for what he shared with her husband. Having only shared his bed once, she knew the fire he could ignite and had spent the last eight years resenting him for giving her a taste of what she had craved every day since.
    Retreating into her chamber, Fiona walked through the sitting room quickly, passing the connecting door to her husband’s. Falling into her vanity seat, she looked into the face of a woman aged before her time. There were freckles and a copper tint to her face where she had once been an ivory beauty. All these years of isolation she never looked to see what her labors had taken from her. Suddenly she was no longer a woman or the Lady of the Manor, she was Fiona plain and simple.
    Images flashed back at her from the mirror, of two bodies writhing together in ecstasy and pleasure. All these years she had longed for such a connection from someone. Since her wedding night Fiona had longed to understand and have the life that her husband now shared in the next room.
    Catching her tears in her hands, Fiona held her face and her sorrows. This would not do, but there was no stopping it. Her heart was broken, but not for the man, only for the life she would never have.  Defeated and pained, she tried to wipe her eyes clean, but it would not do.
    There was still time, dinner was another hour away. Opening the drawer to her right, she pulled the blessed