An Unexpected Earl (Lords of the Armory #2) - Anna Harrington Page 0,39

much for her to find her voice.

“That was ten years ago,” he pressed gently. “Why didn’t you try to contact me then?”

The desolation of that time flashed over her with a vengeance, so strongly that she had to hide her face by turning her head away. To hide her shame of having to beg Frederick to help her find out what regiment Pearce was in, to beg him to help her write to him. “I did… I wrote you letters…” And letters and letters—Dear God, so many confessions of her love and pleas for him to return to her! Not one of them answered. In little more than an aching breath, she scratched out, “You never replied.”

He went deathly still, holding his breath as what she was revealing registered inside him.

“I never received them.” His voice was strained, suddenly hoarse. “The wars… Mail was sporadic. I didn’t even know that your father had died until last year.” A drawn and bleak expression darkened his features. “We were constantly marching across the Peninsula back then, from battle to battle. Supplies could barely keep up—”

“I know.” She cut him off gently, unable to bear the truth that swept through her like an icy wind. He hadn’t refused her letters, hadn’t simply thrown them away into the fire as she’d always believed. She pressed her fist against her bosom, to keep her heart from shattering anew. All these years…

He simply hadn’t known.

“I wish you had tried again,” he said quietly.

The agony of all she’d lost enveloped her until she could barely breathe, until she could barely force her numb lips to form the soft confession, “I would have, but…”

But by then, when she’d considered pressing Freddie a second time for help, she’d already met Aaron, and she would never tell Pearce what happened after that. The way he would look at her if she did, with such pity at her utter stupidity in trusting so blindly, at so desperately wanting the life she’d been denied with him that she’d allowed herself to be robbed and abandoned… She couldn’t have borne it.

“I’d moved on,” she whispered, those three words encapsulating the grandest mistake of her life. One that still punished her every day. Even now—especially now—it ate at her. “And so had you. You had a new life in the army, a wonderful future ahead of you. The last person you needed to be bothered with was me.”

Desperately needing to believe that so she wouldn’t break down in tears, she picked up a red paper poppy that one of the women had made to decorate a hat and tucked it into the first buttonhole of his waistcoat with a light pat of her trembling fingers. To dismiss the past and its mistakes. To make him believe that she’d been fine. And conveniently, so she didn’t have to look into his eyes.

She stepped around him, circling to the other side of the table to pick up a long wooden rolling pin. She laid the silk across the table and placed the roller on one end. Work—work had always gotten her through. It would help her survive this new pain, too. So she focused on the cloth and carefully began to wrap it around the roller so that it could be stored without being folded. If the silk were folded, then the paint would flake off and—

“That’s why you think I’m your enemy, isn’t it?”

His deep voice came from directly behind her and sent a hot shiver of remorse curling inside her. She stilled, except for her hands, which tightened on the rolling pin so hard that her knuckles turned white.

“Because I never returned your letters.”

She turned to look at him over her shoulder, only to find him standing behind her. Right behind her. His nearness tingled across her skin and raised goose bumps in its heated wake.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth, which lingered so close to hers that the warmth of his breath tickled her lips. She could kiss him simply by lifting onto her tiptoes. There would be solace there, she knew, an easing of the pain that made her long to simply lean back and bring herself into his arms. That’s all it would take, just a simple shift of her body. Not even turning around… And if she did, she would be lost.

“Because of the turnpike,” she corrected softly. “If you join Freddie in advocating for it, I’ll lose Bradenhill.”

She held her breath, waiting for him to assure her that he