To Save a Love - Alexa Aston Page 0,53
tears.
She was old. Thirty. Over a decade had been taken from her. By her father. By Fiend and Matron. By all the cruel attendants. All for loving the man beside her and wanting to be with him.
Days had blended into weeks and months and finally years as she’d been imprisoned at Gollingham. She wondered how she could have lost track of time and then knew how easily it could occur. One day was much as the one before it and the one that followed. No dates were mentioned. No holidays celebrated. No visitors came to call with news of the outside world. Anna realized she had retreated so far within herself that time had been forgotten.
Just as she had.
A tear slid down her cheek again for the years which could never be replaced.
No wonder Dez looked so much older than she remembered. It wasn’t that he was old. Thirty was a prime age for a man. His face and body had matured. He had been at war the entire time she had been at the asylum. If Dez was thirty, though, so was she. For a woman, looks faded faster. She already saw how thin she was and could feel how short her hair was. She wondered if her face had lines etched into it. She feared seeing herself in a mirror.
“Anna?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice sounding a little rusty from disuse.
His thumb stroked her forearm. “Do you think you can talk?”
“About how my father robbed me of the best years of my life?” she said, bitterness laced in her words.
He brought a hand to stroke her hair and said, “I would hope the best years are yet to come.”
She turned so that she faced him. “My youth is gone. I missed my entire twenties, Dez. A time when I had thought to marry. Have children. Build a life—with you or a gentleman I would meet during my come-out. I will never be able to capture those years again.”
He cupped her cheek. “No. The same is true for me. I spent the last dozen years at war. I know it was an honorable thing. To fight for king and country. But every shot I fired that felled a man. Every time my bayonet gutted an enemy soldier. Each battle I went into, I lost a piece of me.” Tears welled in his eyes. “I was an excellent officer but I hated every minute of it, Anna. I hated killing strangers in the name of politics. I hated being away from England. Most of all, I hated that we had been separated. After I heard of your death, I longed for it myself on the battlefield.”
“What?” she gasped.
He brushed back the hair from her brow. “Your father put out word that you had died. Dalinda wrote to me of the news. That you loaded your pockets with stones and walked into our lake and drown.”
She laughed harshly. “That’s exactly what I told him I would do when he told me I would be forced to wed Viscount Needham.” She sniffed. “To think that he used that.”
“Dalinda told me that because of the circumstances of your death, you weren’t buried in the village churchyard. When I returned to claim the earldom, that was a huge regret. Not being able to visit your grave. I didn’t think your father would let me come to Shelton Park to do so.” Dez sighed. “And then Tom came to see me, bringing his wife and Jessa with him.”
He wiped his eyes. “Jessa and your mother were told of your death and were cautioned never to speak about you again. Jessa was young but she recalled the day you were taken away. She asked your butler about it when he was pensioned off.”
“Beauchamp?”
“Yes. She was about eleven and he, too, warned her about ever mentioning you. Lord Shelton had said you were dead and you were to stay dead.”
A chill caused Anna to shiver. Dez stroked her back.
“Your cousin and I went to visit Beauchamp. He confirmed you being taken away because you had been disobedient. He confirmed that you were placed in Gollingham and the general location of where it is located.”
“I never liked Beauchamp. He was firmly my father’s man.”
“Still, his words—and the fact Dr. Cheshire had sent a request for the next year’s payment—let us know you were alive. Though Cheshire never mentioned you by name, only initials.”
“I had forgotten his name,” she murmured.
“Didn’t you see him every day?” Dez asked.
“Some days. Matron and