The Society Wife by India Grey Read Free Book Online Page B

destroyed in the process. And he was as cold and ruthless as the rest of them. He never allowed himself to forget that or to believe any different, whatever he did by way of atonement. His blue-tinged blood ran thick with the sin and corruption of his forefathers. Of his father. The only way in which he differed from them was that he was honest about it.
    Honest.
    Honest enough to admit that he was beyond redemption. Honest enough to know that he was best alone.
    He gave a short, harsh exhalation of laughter. OK, so while he was being so unswervingly truthful he might as well admit to himself the real reason that he was so reluctant to go to Tom’s party. Back to Stowell. Because, he thought in self-disgust, she would be there.
    Lily Alexander.
    The girl with the skin that smelled like almonds, and felt like velvet.
    The girl who had caught him at a low ebb, and got past his defences in a way that had never happened before.
    And wouldn’t happen again, he thought, steeling himself. What did it matter if she was there or not? He would treat her in exactly the same way he treated every other woman he had slept with and discarded. With distant courtesy. And then he would walk away.
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    Lily’s throat was tight and her fingers nervously pleated the rose-coloured silk of her dress. ‘A small dinner party to celebrate your engagement,’ she whispered. ‘That’s what you said on the phone. Scarlet, just look at all this…’
    She looked anxiously around Stowell’s grand hall, where a steady stream of people in evening dress were drifting in through the vast doorway and indulging in an orgy of air-kissing. ‘It’s like a scene from Georgette Heyer.’
    Scarlet laughed and tucked her arm through Lily’s, drawing her close. ‘I know, I know. Ridiculous, isn’t it? We were supposed to be keeping it really small, but in the end I just couldn’t bear to leave anyone out, so we’ve ended up inviting virtually everyone we know.’
    Lily felt her heart perform an agonising twist-and-plummet motion inside her chest.
    â€˜Everyone?’ She slicked her tongue over lips that were suddenly dry and stinging. ‘Tom’s friends too?’
    â€˜Oh, yes, he’s worse than me. He’s invited just about everyone he ever went to school with, and his entire family.’ Scarlet dropped her voice. ‘My poor parents are completely out of their depth. You will look after them, won’t you, Lily?’
    Lily nodded, for a moment unable to speak due to the huge lump of cement that seemed to have lodged in her chest. ‘Of course,’ she managed at last. ‘It’ll be lovely to see them.’
    That much was true. When Lily was growing up Scarlet’s parents had provided her with everything from home-cooked meals to help with schoolwork and advice about boyfriends, and numerous other things that her own mother had been utterly ill equipped to give her. As Scarlet gave her arm a squeeze Lily found herself wondering what Mr and Mrs Thomas would make of her current predicament.
    â€˜God, I’ve missed you,’ Scarlet was saying. ‘You can’t imagine how much I’ve missed you.’ In spite of the diamonds that glittered at her throat and her very sophisticated swept-up hairstyle, she suddenly looked very uncertain, and Lily was reminded of when they were teenagers, worrying about whether anyone would ever kiss them. ‘Just because I’m getting married, things between us won’t change, will they? We’ll still be best friends? Still tell each other everything?’
    Lily hesitated, swallowing back the guilt that choked her. ‘Of course.’
    Sliding her arm free of Lily’s, Scarlet grabbed a couple of glasses of champagne from the tray of a hovering waitress. She thrust one into Lily’s hand and clinked her own against the rim. ‘Here’s to us…to friendship that nothing can