Lady Rosabella's Ruse - By Ann Lethbridge Page 0,97
would care to explain?’ She gestured to a chair. ‘Pray be seated.’
With much twitching of skirts to achieve just the right drape, the lady proceeded to settle herself.
Warily, Rosa watched her. ‘May I offer you some refreshment? Tea, perhaps?’
‘Thank you, no. My carriage is waiting.’
She frowned. ‘Are you here on Lord Stanford’s behalf?’
The widow patted the blond ringlets touching her cheek and glanced around the room. ‘Certainly not. Garth is nothing but trouble. His father was the same. A rake and a seducer.’
Rosa gasped. ‘Lord Stanford?’
She fluttered a dismissive handkerchief. ‘Silly girl. Garth isn’t an Evernden. You have only to look at my younger son to see it. He married a Duke’s daughter, you know.’
Rosa furrowed her brow. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘He will try to cozen and charm you like his dreadful father did to me. He ruined my life.’
‘Garth’s father?’
‘No, Garth. The child of a man who was not my betrothed. What was I to do? I was set for a brilliant match and quickening with child. All my hopes were about to be shattered.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘My father wouldn’t hear of calling off the marriage. The settlements had been signed. He got Evernden so drunk on our wedding night, he never knew a thing.’
‘You passed off another man’s child on your husband?’
‘What else was I to do? My father would have cast me off. If only he’d been a girl. My husband realised the moment Garth was born he was no son of his. In time, he forgave me, knew I had been taken advantage of, but he could never bear the sight of Garth. Thank God for Christopher. It broke my dear husband’s heart that his true son would never inherit.’
How cold she sounded. How uncaring. Rosa couldn’t believe a mother could be so lacking in warmth for her own child. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
The widow pursed her lips. ‘I just wanted you to know what sort of man he is, that is all. Nature will out, they say. He ran wild as a boy. We sent him away to school. It did no good. I half expected him to kill himself before he came of age.’
A chill breeze ran through the room. Did she mean she hoped Garth wouldn’t survive his boyhood?
‘Be warned, Lady Rosabella. Garth is just like his father. Do not be taken in by his charm. He will ruin your life as he ruins everything he touches. Even his brother left the country to get away from him.’
The woman despised her own son. What kind of childhood would Garth have had with parents who hated him? Was it any wonder he knew nothing of love?
Anger like nothing Rosa had ever felt before coursed through her veins. Anger for a child left out in the cold, unloved and unwanted. Mixed in with the anger was the terrible knowledge of how much she’d wronged Garth. The bleakness she’d seen in his gaze was not born of cynicism, it was born of this woman’s cruelty, her selfishness.
How could he know how to love when he clearly had never been loved? It was a miracle he could express any kind of affection. And she’d scorned him when he told her he loved her.
Anger as cold as ice and sharp as steel took control of her tongue. She rose to her feet with all the dignity of an earl’s daughter. ‘Please leave.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘Go. Now. You are not welcome here. Garth is right. You are a cruel unfeeling woman.’
‘You go too far, young lady.’
Not nearly far enough.
Lady Stanford got up with a huff. ‘Take heed, Lady Rosabella. Don’t make my mistakes.’ Head high, she left the room.
The warning came too late. Rosabella had made exactly the same mistake when she’d judged Garth and found him wanting.
She wasn’t sure she could put it right.
Armed with a taper, the butler entered Garth’s study to light the candles. Garth raised his chin from his chest and studied the window. Nightfall. Where had the day gone?
The man finished with the candles on the mantel and proceeded to the wall sconces.
‘That’ll do.’ He didn’t need any more light. The images in his head were perfectly clear without candles.
The butler crept away. All the servants had been creeping around since Rosabella left.
He chuckled grimly.
Poets spoke of love as if it was something to be desired. In his experience, it was a knife in the back. A blow to the kidneys. A flogging with fishhooks would be easier