When the Earl Met His Match (Wedded by Scandal #4) - Stacy Reid Page 0,13

Hugh’s ears. “But I’ve done you all a disservice…hiding you out here, in the middle of nowhere. Caroline…she is charming and quite ravishing, and she is my daughter.”

One with the darkest of red hair and ash gray eyes. There had been speculation that her father had been a footman.

The old earl cleared his throat. “You must return home to take your rightful place. Caroline will need to find a good family to marry into and a suitable living found for William when he returns to England. I’ve sent a letter to New York, and he will surely be home in a few months. Our family has always been powerful, a voice for the people in the House of Lords, wealthier than most dukes! You have estates and tenants waiting for you. You have a sister and a brother who rely on you. You must live, my boy, live a life rich and full of potential. To take your place in Society, you must return with a wife who will help you fulfill your duties. A wife with a proper reputation and connections!”

Hugh jolted and then faltered into stillness. The wind rolled down the mountains and plucked his hat from his head and tossed it below onto the sand. A wife…

Though his father had lovingly and harshly prepared him for the cruelty of the world he lived in, Hugh had still been caught unprepared for society’s derision when he had stepped into the limelight a few years ago in Edinburgh. Somehow because he was mute, they had inferred that to mean he was also deaf. All their harsh criticisms whispered behind fans and false smiles had reached his ears. There had been a young girl he’d thought would make him a lovely wife, for in their several walks and carriage rides she’d been good-natured and charming. It had all been a façade, and her words of derision were remembered with perfect clarity.

“I do not care if he will soon be in possession of the famed Winthrop wealth!”

“My dear sister, that wealth is rumored to be one hundred thousand pounds a year, with several estates in England, Scotland, and Greece. Why, imagine how lavish your life could be!”

“I’ll not marry a man as dumb as an ox! And I do mean that quite literally,” she’d said in her snotty English accent and had then descended into fits of horrified giggles with her sister as if she, too, had been astonished at her awareness.

The scathing words hadn’t hurt, but they had shown him a side of the young lady he hadn’t been exposed to before, and then he’d gained more clarity on why his father had been so ruthlessly exact in his upbringing.

“But he is so handsome, Emma!” the sister had exclaimed.

Emma had tossed her artfully coiffed blonde hair and pouted. “Yes, but can you imagine being in a marriage with a man who simply cannot talk back to you? Ghastly!” she’d said in an accent of loathing. “How will he ever be able to tell me how pretty I sing and dance, and do you suppose his laugh sounds like someone is choking?”

The sisters had giggled, and how it had grated to hear it.

“I daresay his silence could be a blessing…then you’ll have no complaints from him when he gets the shopping bills!”

Hugh had thought their gossip nonsensical—worse, though he stood only a short distance, they truly believed he could not hear. He’d turned away, and then he had seen her…his mother, one of the reigning beauties of Edinburgh society. All the longings and pain he’d thought left behind had surged into his heart with the ferocity of a battering storm. He’d taken a halting step toward her, and she had paled, her delicate hand fluttering to her chest, her lovely features creased with dismay…or perhaps abhorrence.

While he had battled with his hopeful expectations and the truth of his reality, his mother turned away and had made a concentrated effort to ignore his presence for the night. The knife had cut deeply, and a wound he had thought long healed had been dug into, and the old scars had been brutally tugged apart. It had infuriated him that seeing her, all the pain of her abandoning him returned.

Such weakness was abhorrent. She did not deserve his pain or the lingering affections inside his heart. The memories of how she would sing to him and kiss his bruised knees had twisted through Hugh. The sweet scent of her perfume, how they would laugh