Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Carlyle swerved roughly to avoid a bus crawling along like a grub and let out a hollow laugh.

He was on his way to pick up his wife. To be precise, he was on his way to catch his “temporary wife,” who had attended a “petting party.”

“Exactly as it sounds. A necking party is only above the neck, while a petting party goes below that. Young men and women change partners, kiss, fondle each other, and so on. The world has changed a great deal, hasn’t it? Personally, I find those parties dull, but I hear they are quite popular among flappers these days.”

Kansas, the madam of Eldorado, still rang clearly in his ears.

But she only said that because she did not know what kind of woman his wife was.

Cornelia Mabel de Rochere, praised as this year’s debutante of New York society, was an innocent and modest young lady. She had probably never even heard of something like a petting party.

Carlyle remembered Mabel on their wedding night, trembling in fear with tears in her eyes. When he told her he would wait until both her body and heart were ready, she had looked as relieved as if she had just escaped death.

There was no way a woman like that would have gone to a petting party of her own will.

Unless someone had deceived her into going.

Damn Leslie Winthrop. The son of the Darlington family physician, the man Mabel had described as being “like an older brother” to her.

That bastard must have known what kind of party this was.

Carlyle ground his teeth.

Should he turn him into a headless cadaver and throw him into the anatomy lab at Columbia Medical School?

Still gripping the steering wheel as if he might crush it, Carlyle loosened the stiff muscles in his neck. Perhaps Mabel had already returned home.

The moment she realized it was a petting party, she must have been horrified and tried to leave. By now, she might be in her room, complaining that she could not sleep while drinking a cup of warm milk.

Carlyle let out a long sigh.

Mabel was nothing more than a hostage. Once everything ended smoothly, he had decided to let her go without harming so much as a single hair on her head. Until the divorce, however, he had a duty to keep her safe from every other man, himself included.

He had once considered Leslie Winthrop as a possible candidate for Mabel’s next husband. But after this incident, he had removed him from consideration forever.

How could he trust a sly bastard who would take a woman like Mabel to a vulgar petting party?

“What a joke. Who does he think he is?”

Massimo snorted in mockery.

Carlyle turned his stiff neck and glared at him. Had he just said that out loud?

“Those West Side bastards have been getting on my nerves lately, sir.”

“……”

Carlyle took a sharp turn at the corner of 113th Street on Riverside Drive.

Massimo’s head struck the window hard.

Carlyle glanced sideways with satisfaction as Massimo swallowed a groan. Then he spotted Mabel’s town car and swallowed a filthy curse.

Fergus, her bodyguard, was pacing beneath the townhouse window.

It seemed she was still inside.

Carlyle slammed on the brakes and stopped the car. The moment he stepped out from the driver’s seat, Fergus turned around and brightened at the sight of him.

“You’re here, sir. I knew we shouldn’t have left that fool alone, the one who had tea with the baroness at the tea room in front of the school last time. You told me never to interfere in her private affairs, so I only watched, but he’s been clinging to her and whispering in her ear for a while now. Ah, look at that bastard!”

Carlyle’s sharp gaze followed Fergus’s line of sight through the window.

Beneath the chandelier light, men and women in their early twenties were dancing the Charleston, mingling together as they kicked up their legs and shook their chests with careless frivolity. The lively sound of jazz and unrestrained laughter spilled out through the window.

At the shadowed edge of the room, on a bench, a man and woman were caught in an intimate display. The man was leaning far too close to a woman, one hand cradling the back of her head as if he had trapped her beneath him.

Between his fingers, familiar caramel-colored hair spilled down like syrup.

Mabel.

For an instant, Carlyle’s heart skipped a beat.

He took the eight steps leading to the front door in only two strides. The doorman guarding the entrance looked him over and blocked his way.

“Whose invitation are you here on?”

“Open it.”

“Those without an invitation cannot enter, aagh!”

Carlyle grabbed him by the collar and flung him aside. As soon as the doorman rolled down the steps, Fergus caught him by the neck and dragged him off toward Riverside Drive.

Carlyle kicked the door open and entered, while Massimo ran up behind him and stood guard at the entrance.

Inside the party hall, the reek of cheap bathtub gin, cigarette smoke, and the sound of jazz were tangled together in a dizzying haze. Carlyle walked straight toward the bench.

“I was just telling you that a fraudulent marriage is grounds for divorce…”

The man raised his upper body and continued babbling at Mabel. Before he could finish speaking, Carlyle seized him by the nape and threw him to the floor.

“Ugh!”

A commotion broke out behind him, but Carlyle did not look back.

“B-Baron? How did you…”

Mabel hurriedly stood and looked up at Carlyle. A flash of guilt crossed her violet eyes.

He was dumbfounded.

‘Don’t tell me you knew what kind of party this was and came anyway.’

The heart that had been burning in a pit of fire felt as if it were being crushed by an ice-cold stone.

Carlyle looked over her as she lowered her gaze with a flushed face. Perhaps someone had spilled liquor on her, because the front of her dress was wet, clearly revealing the curve of her chest.

Chewing back a vicious curse, he unbuttoned his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

“My work ended earlier than expected, so I came to pick you up.”

He cast a glance at Leslie, who was gathering himself with a bewildered expression.

“It seems you were… enjoying yourself.”

Mabel’s gaze rested on Leslie for a moment before returning to Carlyle.

With a cold sneer on his lips, Carlyle spoke sarcastically.

“Shall I give you a little more time to enjoy yourself?”

In an instant, all color drained from that detestably lovely face.