An Unexpected Earl (Lords of the Armory #2) - Anna Harrington Page 0,76
wanted was answers.
“Where is he?” he demanded as gently as possible given the anger seething inside him. “Why does no one know about him?” Why the hell didn’t I know?
“Somewhere in America.” She shook her head. “And no one knows about him because marrying him was the greatest mistake of my life. One that ruined us financially and would have destroyed us socially if not for Freddie taking charge to hide it all.”
For once, she wasn’t lying or keeping secrets. The grief on her face was too real to be pretense. “What happened?”
“His name is Aaron Northam, and I was almost twenty-one when I met him,” she began quietly, “only weeks until my majority.”
She took a few steps away, to pick up his jacket and waistcoat from the floor where he’d dropped them earlier when they’d first come into the room and carry them over to the fire. He watched her lay the waistcoat over the chair beside his drying shirt and said nothing, knowing she had to fuss with them the way she’d done with the prints at the shop. To have someplace to focus her attention other than on him while she explained.
“Papa had died two years earlier, leaving Freddie as my guardian and me an unexpected heiress.” She picked up the jacket and gently shook it out, but the motion did nothing to eliminate the wrinkles puckering the kerseymere. It was completely unsalvageable. “As my guardian, Freddie controlled not only my money, but also the men who were allowed to court me. Although there hadn’t been any.”
“A beautiful heiress? I find that hard to believe.” Pearce set the unwanted whiskey onto the fireplace mantel. “If not true gentlemen, then at least an army of fortune hunters pounding down your door to get to you.”
She smiled sadly at that notion as she draped the jacket over the seat of the wooden chair. “Freddie kept the fortune hunters away, and I rejected the others.”
“Because they weren’t good enough?”
She slowly brushed her hand over his jacket, focusing on smoothing out the fabric and not raising her eyes to look at him. “Because they weren’t you.”
Her confession pierced him like a blade.
“Even then, I was still in love with you.” She paused, her fingers stilling on the ruined kerseymere. “I think a part of me was still hoping you’d find your way back to me, despite the wars.” Then, impossibly softer, “Somehow.”
With that, the blade twisted and nearly killed him.
She picked up the waistcoat next and fussed over spreading it across the mantel, but she couldn’t hide the shaking of her hands. “Freddie wasn’t a bad guardian, you know. He looked after me quite well for someone so young.” Her fingers brushed futilely at the wrinkles. “He was always concerned about my reputation, insisted that he look after my finances and spoke to all the accountants and bankers himself. And after the wedding, he protected me then, too.”
“Why did he have to protect you?” Something about the way she said that gnawed at his gut in warning. “That was your husband’s responsibility.”
“And who protects a woman from her husband?” she challenged softly.
His blood turned cold, despite the murderously hot anger that flared into his fists. “The bastard hurt you?”
“No.” She visibly steeled herself and admitted, “The bastard stole my fortune and left me.”
As that information rattled inside him, she moved toward the desk and bent down to pick up one of the tankards that they’d spilled onto the floor in their earlier passion.
“I had been out walking in the park… I hadn’t been feeling well, and Freddie insisted that I take some fresh air. As I walked past a little copse of trees, a young boy leapt out, grabbed my reticule, and ran. The next thing I knew, a man on horseback was galloping across the lawn in chase. The boy got away, but the man saved my reticule and brought it back to me. That was how I met Aaron.” Her voice grew quiet. “He was so dashing and heroic that I was simply captivated by him. I thought he was my rescuer.” She paused, bitterness filling the silence. “He proved to be anything but that.”
I don’t need to be rescued… Her words from the night of the masquerade came tumbling back to him. Now he knew why she’d bristled when she’d heard them, and he felt like a damned fool for not discovering sooner why she had.
She set down the tankard and slowly wiped her hands over her skirt