The Perfect Arrangement (The Not So Saintly Sisters #4) - Annabelle Anders Page 0,39
the person that she had imagined him to be—a good man, a kind man—a man whose dog loved him with unwavering loyalty.
His foot was jumping frantically on the floor of the carriage. He removed his spectacles and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I just know,” he ground out, almost as though he was in physical agony. It was not physical though, she realized. But something else. “I feel it. Inside.” He replaced his spectacles and looked over at her. It was as though those lovely blue eyes of his were begging her to understand something that he couldn’t put into words.
“Perhaps you’d best start at the beginning.” Upon hearing such pain in his voice, her anger all but disappeared. “Why would you believe this?” She placed her hands in her lap and, setting her own hurt aside, prepared to listen to whatever he had to tell her.
“It is my destiny. All the men in my family die tragically, at a young age—all of them.” His throat moved, as though swallowing unwanted emotions. “And I know this doesn’t sound rational to most people, but I cannot escape it.”
“It’s not rational, Christian. Please, do not lie to me.” Whatever the truth could possibly be, it must be horrible. Some villain must be after him. Perhaps this seemingly sweet man who was now her husband had, in fact, dallied with a married woman or swindled someone at the gambling tables.
He stared at her in earnest. “It is the truth.”
Sounds from the street penetrated her awareness as she sat in silence, trying to make sense of such a nonsensical claim as John steered them around Mayfair.
The pain on her husband’s face was real. She would hear him out.
If his belief made sense to him, then there must be a very good reason for it. He was an intelligent man, and until that morning, she’d considered him to be mostly sane.
“Can you explain it to me, then? Please?” Although she couldn’t imagine anything that would be convincing enough to make a rational person believe such a fatalistic concept.
He closed his eyes, his foot jumping again.
“I am the youngest of three boys. First born, was Abron. Three years later, my mother gave birth to Calvin, and then when Calvin was four, I came along. None of us ever fell ill. Each of us grew to be over six feet tall, and it was a family joke that I was the scrawniest of the Masterson brothers.”
At these words, Lillian rose her brows questioningly. Although he was not a hulking beast of a man, Christian was anything but scrawny. His shoulders were broad, and the muscles everywhere else, sinewy and apparent. She ought to know, she’d spent enough time over the past week ogling the strength of his thighs, wrapping her legs around them.
Her gaze settled on those very same thighs.
But she could not allow herself to be distracted.
“Go on.”
He exhaled loudly. “Our neighbors, and many of the people who lived in the nearby village invented something of a legend that the Duke of Warwick would never lack an heir. The succession had been secured, let the devil do his best to thwart it. I failed to see the arrogance of such boastfulness, initially. In fact, I quite believed the nonsense myself.”
Lillian dropped her hand onto his leg and the shaking stopped.
“And then came the day my father had to go to London to attend to Parliamentary business. He’d done this before but on this particular occasion decided to take along both of my brothers, Abron was seventeen at the time, and Calvin fourteen. I was told I was too young. It was up to me to watch out for my mother and sister. In addition to that, bringing me along would have been a waste of time, as I would never be called upon to perform ducal duties.”
Christian shook his head and frowned, almost as though he was confounded by the memory.
“You were ten at the time?” He’d been very young, and Lillian feared where this story might be going.
“As they drove away, I told them that they would be sorry when they all died and I was the only one left. They would be sorry that they never saw fit to bring me along.” He stared at the other wall of the carriage then, unseeing. “The horses spooked not a mile down the road and the carriage overturned, killing my father instantly.”