An Unexpected Earl (Lords of the Armory #2) - Anna Harrington Page 0,117

near the open terrace door.

Startled, she wheeled around with a gasp.

Merritt Rivers stepped inside the house. Dressed all in black from head to boots, he blended eerily into the night and came fresh from horseback, right down to the scent of the stable that wafted around him and the half-dried mud on his boots.

“How long were you standing there?” Pearce demanded irritably.

“Long enough.” Merritt grinned at their expense and flamed the blush heating Amelia’s cheeks. “Sorry to interrupt, but I stumbled across something you might like to have.”

He reached up his sleeve and withdrew a rolled sheet of paper torn from a book, then held it out to her.

Frowning, she unrolled it and scanned over the page. Columns of signatures, dates, occasions, witnesses…her own signature next to Aaron’s a third of the way from the bottom of the page.

Her breath rushed from her lungs. She couldn’t believe… “The parish register?”

“My wedding gift,” Merritt corrected with a smile. “Your name is no longer in the church records.”

She didn’t know what to say. Except… “And now neither is anyone else’s on this page.” Shaking her head against the temptation of keeping it, she handed it back. “You have to return it.” She blinked rapidly to fight back the tears. To come so close to erasing everything—but she simply couldn’t. “Those other couples might need proof that they were legally wed. I could never destroy that for them.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Merritt’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “So I replaced that page with a copy that faithfully renders all the other signatures and conveniently skips over yours.”

“Faithfully rendered,” Pearce repeated. “Forged, you mean.”

Merritt fixed a meaningful look on Pearce. “Do you really care about the difference?”

“No,” Amelia replied, answering for both of them. She pressed the page against her bosom, unwilling to relinquish it. “Not at all.”

With a knowing grin, Merritt nodded at Amelia and slapped Pearce on the back as he turned to leave, heading back into the night. “Congratulations.”

Amelia stared down at the page. Could it be real? She could barely believe it. Now, after so many years, the thing that had cast such dread and agony over her life…the thing that was keeping her from the man she loved—the scrawl of her signature on a thin, weightless piece of paper.

“What are you going to do with it?” Pearce asked quietly.

The only official record of her marriage, the only proof that existed in the world that she’d stood in that church and pledged her life to a lie… She shook her head. “All those years,” she whispered, “I thought I was married…”

She raised her gaze to his. For the first time, there was no longer any shame, no humiliation, no secrets. Now, there was only Pearce.

“But there was never a marriage. Only vows that were lies, a love that was never shared…no honoring or obeying. Only years of punishment.” She stepped slowly over to the fireplace. “No one can argue that what I had was a true marriage, in the eyes of God or the Church. So no one can argue with this. This marriage gets no more of me.”

She cast the page into the flames. The sheet burned, and with every black curl of the paper, a spark of freedom lit in her heart.

Pearce came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, pulling her against him.

“It’s all over now,” he assured her, nuzzling her hair.

“No.” Her hand rose to her neck, to the little gold locket that hung there. And always would. “Our life together is just beginning.”

Order Anna Harrington’s next book in the Lords of the Armory series

An Extraordinary Lord

On sale June 2021

Author’s Note

I had a fabulous time writing this romance, one that proved to be a rollicking good time. As you might have guessed, I drew on several historical facts—and one literary—to bring you this adventure.

Let’s begin at the end…of marriage. It was nearly impossible in Regency England to end one, even a tragically cruel one. It took an act of Parliament to secure a divorce, which was seldom granted, always scandalous, and usually a humiliating experience for both parties who had to publicly disclose their evidence, no matter how degrading. For a husband, the only grounds for divorce was adultery. But to claim so was to admit that he’d not only been cuckolded but also wasn’t man enough to satisfy his wife’s carnal desires. No wonder, then, that most men only sought divorce after their wives had publicly left the marriage. A woman seeking divorce had