The Bride (The Wedding Series) - By Christine Dorsey Page 0,21
did it, John?”
“Ellie, I—”
“It couldn’t have. For when you decided to marry me, you didn’t even know me. Did you?”
His silence was answer enough. Eleanor pressed her lids shut, trying to erase the expression of guilt she saw on his face. A tear squeezed through her lashes and she quickly, impatiently, brushed it away. “How could you?” She stood, pushing past him and marched to the railing. Before, when she tried to tell herself that her mother was lying, she was weak with worry. Now that she knew the truth, her anger gave her strength.
“It’s not the way it seems, Ellie.”
“It’s not?” Her voice was thick with sarcasm. “Then pray tell me what detail of your scheme I have wrong.” She turned to face him, fire in her eyes. “And don’t call me Ellie.”
John stood. “What do you want to know?”
Why, she wanted to scream. Why did you do this to me? When I love you so. No, loved, she thought. She couldn’t love him now. Instead she folded her arms. “Did you buy me from my father?”
John swallowed. “I paid your father a sum of money, yes.”
Even now she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Or maybe she didn’t want to believe it. “Why me? Why did you pay some paltry amount of money for me?”
“First of all, it wasn’t a paltry amount.” John’s grin flashed but her expression remained stormy. He glanced out toward the sea. “You seem to have all the answers. Why do you think I did it?”
“My mother said—”
“Your mother? That’s who told you this?”
“Yes.” Eleanor raised her chin. “She told me for my own good.”
John’s snort was heartfelt. “If you believe that...”
“My mother’s motives are not in question here. Yours are.”
“True enough.”
His admission gave her pause.
“You were buying yourself a place in New York society.”
He said nothing, just continued to stare out over the water. Twilight was falling, and he could hear the first chorus of evening insects warming up.
“Isn’t there any society in Montana? Why did you have to come here?” Eleanor felt the tears threatening again and forced them back.
“There’s nothing like this, Ellie.”
She noticed he continued to use her nickname but ignored it. Her gaze arched back over the house he rarely entered except to sleep. “And having this...” Her hand followed the sweep of her eyes. “This ‘cottage’ is so important to you?”
“Not the building, Ellie. I can buy all the mansions I want.”
Then she really didn’t understand. Eleanor shook her head.
“It’s easy for you to stand there and look bewildered. You were born without a care in the world. You have money, acceptance... a place. You winter in New York, go to the best balls, and spend your summers idling in Newport.”
“You needn’t say it with such scorn. What you just described is what you were willing to buy a wife to achieve.”
“What about you with your fancy baronet? Are you trying to tell me you weren’t excited about marrying a peer of the realm? Of becoming Lady Farnsworth?”
“I had my chance to become Lady Farnsworth, and turned it down.” All of a sudden Eleanor felt drained of energy. “I foolishly chose you instead. Chose you because I thought there was love. Thought you loved me for myself.” The tears were coming again and she didn’t have the strength to stop them. Instead she turned on her heel and headed toward the house.
“Ellie.” It took John a moment to move but when he did, he rushed forward, placing himself between the French doors and Eleanor. “You don’t know what it was like Ellie, growing up in New Orleans.”
“I realize it must have been hard on you. Your father dying so tragically and your mother never getting over her grief. And I’m sorry, but—what is it?”
John let out his breath. “My father didn’t die. Leastways if he did I don’t know about it.” He hurried on before he lost his nerve to tell her what he never told another human being. “And my mother was too drunk or crazy from the pox to care, even if she had known who he was.”
“I... I don’t understand.”
“You wouldn’t. The life you lead has spared you this...” John looked down into her sweet face. “And I’m glad of it. My mother was a prostitute, my father, unknown.”
Eleanor didn’t know how to respond to what he was telling her. Her first reaction was to reach out and touch him. But she knew better than that. In the end she simply said, “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t