A Secret Love (30 page)

He continued to study her, his face unreadable.

“Come here.”

Alathea considered, but she felt the tug, the compulsion. The threat. She forced her feet to carry her forward.

It was the most difficult thing she'd done in her life—crossing the wide parlor under his eye. She kept her head up, her spine rigid, but by the time she reached his side and the light fell full on her face, she was inwardly shaking, her reserves of strength, of resolution, seriously depleted. As she stopped beside him and met his hard gaze, she realized that was precisely as he'd intended.

He searched her face, his gaze sharp, acute, his features warrior-hard. “Now,” he said, “
what the devil's going on?
”

Barely leashed anger vibrated behind the words. Drawing her gaze from his, she fixed it on the lawn and the enclosing trees. “You know most of it.” She drew in a breath, to gain time, to gain control. “All that I told you as the countess is true, except—”

“That your supposed late husband is in fact your father, that the youthful Charles is Charlie, Maria is Mary, Alicia is Alice, and Seraphina is Serena. That much I'd guessed.”

“Well, then.” She shrugged. “That's it.”

When he said nothing more, she risked a quick glance. He was waiting—he caught her gaze and held it.

A moment passed.

“Try again.”

His temper reached her clearly. There would be no escape. “What do you want to know?” If she could cling to the straightforward, the matter-of-fact, she might just survive his inquisition.

“Is the earldom in as dire straits as you portrayed?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you create the countess?”

Straightforward. Matter-of-fact. She returned her gaze to the vista outside. “If I'd written to you or visited you with the story of a suspect note
without
telling you of the family's financial plight, would you have undertaken the investigation yourself or handed it to Montague?”

“If you'd told me the whole story—”

“Put yourself in my shoes. Would you have told you the whole story? How close to ruin we stood? Still stand.”

After a moment, he inclined his head. “Very well—I accept that you would have avoided telling me that. But the countess . . . ?”

She lifted her chin. “It worked.”

He waited, but she was too used to silence, to being silent with him, for the ploy to have any effect. His realization rang in his tone. “I take it your father and Serena are not aware of your masquerade.”

“No.”

“Who does know?”

“No one—well, only the senior servants.”

“Your coachman . . . that was
Jacobs
?” She nodded.

“Who of the others?”

“Nellie. Figgs. Miss Helm. Connor. Crisp, of course. And Folwell.” She paused, then nodded. “That's all.”

He swore under his breath. “
All?
”

She shot him a frown. “They're devoted to me. There's no need to imagine anything will come of it. They always do precisely as I say.”

He looked at her, then one brow quirked higher. “Oh?” His tone had dropped to a whisper. Signaling her to silence, he crossed to the door, then flipped the lock and hauled it open in one movement, revealing Nellie, Crisp, Figgs, Miss Helm . . .

Alathea simply stared. Then she stiffened and glared. “Go
away
!”

“Well, m'lady.” Nellie cast a wary glance at Gabriel. “We were just wondering—”

“I'm perfectly all right. Now
go
!”

They shuffled off. Gabriel closed the door, relocked it, then returned to the window.

“All right. So much for your masquerade.” He stopped beside her; shoulder to shoulder, they looked out at the trees cloaked in dull shadow. “You can now tell me why you took it upon yourself to rescue your family.”

“Well—” Alathea stopped, seeing the trap. “It seemed most sensible.”

“Indeed? Let's see. A maid found the promissory note, which your father signed but somehow forgot about, and then you, your father, and Serena put your heads together, and they decided and agreed to let you pursue the matter—a matter that might destroy their lives—by yourself. Is that how it went?”

She regarded the trees stonily. “No.”

“Well?”

The word hung in the air, insistent, persistent . . . “I usually handle all the business affairs.”

“Why?”

She hesitated. “Papa . . . isn't very good with money. You know how . . . well,
gentle
he is. He really has no idea—none at all.” She met his gaze. “My mother managed the estate until her death. My grandmother managed it before her.”

He frowned. After a moment, he asked, “And so you now handle all the estate business?”

“Yes.”

His eyes narrowed. “Since when?”

When she looked back at the trees and didn't answer, he stepped between her and the window, leaving them all but nose to nose. His eyes bored into hers. “When did your father cede his authority to you?”

Still she said nothing. He searched her eyes. “Would you rather I asked him?” If it had been any other man, she'd have called his bluff. “Years ago.”

“Eleven years ago?” She didn't reply.

“That's what it was, wasn't it? That was the reason you left town. Not chicken pox—I never did believe that—but money. Your father had brought the earldom to
point non plus;
somehow, you found out and took up the reins. You cut short your first Season before it had begun and went home.” He paused. “Is that what happened?”

Her expression set, she shifted her gaze, staring out over his shoulder.

“Tell me the details. I want to know.”

He wouldn't rest until he knew. She drew in a tight breath. “Wiggs came to the house one afternoon. He looked . . . desperate. Papa saw him in the library. I went to ask if Papa wanted tea brought in. The library door was ajar. I overheard Wiggs pleading with Papa, explaining how deeply in debt the estate was, and how the expense of giving me my Season would quite literally run us aground. Papa didn't understand. He kept insisting that all would be well, that far from ruining us, my Season would be the earldom's salvation.”

“He was counting on you making a good marriage?”

“Yes. Foolishly so.”

“It might have worked.”

She shook her head. “You haven't considered. I would have had no dowry—quite the opposite. Any successful suitor would have had to rescue the earldom, and the debts were mountainous. I had nothing at all to recommend me except my lineage.”

“There are more than a few who would disagree.”

She glanced at him, then looked back at the trees. “You forget—this was eleven years ago. Do you remember what I looked like at eighteen? I was painfully thin, even gawky. There was absolutely no chance I would make the sort of match required to save my family.”

When she said nothing more, he prompted, “So?”

“When Wiggs left in despair, I went in and talked to Papa. I spent the night going over the estate records Wiggs had brought.” She paused, then added, “The next morning, we packed and left London.”

“You've been protecting your family—saving them—ever since?”

“Yes.”

“Even though it cost you your life—the life you should have had.”

“Don't be melodramatic.”

“
Me?
” He laughed harshly. “That's the pot calling the kettle black. But if the shoe fits . . .” He caught her eye. “And it fits you.” He stood directly before her, his gaze locked on her face. “You knew what it would mean from the very first—eleven years ago. If you'd shut your ears to your family's plight and seen out your Season, it's more than likely you would have married well—not, I grant you, well enough to save the earldom, but well enough to save yourself. You would have had a home, a title, a position—a chance to have your own family. All the things you'd been raised to expect. Your own future was there for the taking. You knew that, yet you chose to return to the country and struggle to resurrect the family fortunes, even if it meant you'd become an old maid. After your aborted Season, your family couldn't afford to have you come up again—couldn't afford to let anyone even guess. They certainly couldn't afford a respectable dowry, a point in itself too revealing, but you knew how it would be. So it all fell to you. You sacrificed your life—all of it—for them.”

He sounded angry. Alathea set her chin. “You're making too much of it.”

He held her gaze mercilously. “Am I?”

She couldn't avoid his eyes, the understanding lighting the hazel depths. The sacrifice of the years swept over her, the loneliness, the pain borne alone in the depths of the country. The mourning for a life she'd never had a chance to live. Dragging in a too-shallow breath, she fought to keep her gaze steady. When she was sure she had her voice under control, she said, “Don't you
dare
pity me.”

His brow quirked in that way that was quintessentially his. “It hadn't occurred to me. I'm sure you made the decision yourself—you set out to do precisely what you've done. I see nothing to pity in that.”

The dry comment gave her sensitivity, her vulnerability, the shield she needed. After a moment, she looked away. “So now you know it all.”

Gabriel studied her face and wished that were true. In the hours since he'd learned the truth, he'd been buffeted, shaken, rocked to his soul by a tempest of emotions. Anger, raw fury, a desperate hurt, quenched pride; those were easily identified. Other passions, darker, more turbulent, much harder to define, had swelled the tumult to an ungovernable tide that had scored and ripped its way through him.

Now, in the aftermath, he felt, not empty, but cleared, as if the inner temple he'd built to house his soul had been smashed by the torrent, swept from its foundations and the bricks left scattered by the subsiding flood. Now he faced the task of building his inner house again. He could choose a simpler structure, one without the posturing, the false glamor, the boredom of which he'd grown so tired in recent months. Which bricks he chose to fashion his future was up to him, but the fact that he had a choice to make was due to her.

Only she could have caused such an upheaval.

His life from now on depended on what he did next, what he chose next. He'd come here, his anger still raging, fully intending to ring a peal over her. Now that he'd learned the whole story and finally understood what she'd been doing all along, his anger had resolved into something quite different, something intensely protective.

“What's the current state of the earldom's finances?”

She shot him a glance, then grudgingly offered a figure. “That's the underlying security. The income from the farms adds to that.”

“What's that amount to per year?”

Bit by bit he drew the details from her, enough to confirm that not even his genius, not even Devil's touch with management, Vane and Richard's experience, not even Catriona's power could have done more to bail out the Morwellans.

I wish you had come to me earlier—all those years ago.

Thus spake his heart; he knew better than to utter the words.

“So there's nothing more that can be done there. Your family's as secure as it can be in the circumstances.” He ignored her offended stare. “What about this man of yours—Wiggs? Is he reliable?”

“I've always found him so.” Stiffly, she added, “If it hadn't been for his intercession with the banks, we would have sunk long ago.”

That had to be true. “What's he think of your masquerade—or haven't you told him?”

She didn't meet his eye. “He was very relieved when I told him I'd consulted you.”

“So he doesn't know you've been consulting in disguise.” He caught the look she threw him. “I need to know—I'm bound to meet the man sometime over this.”

She blinked, arrested; at first, he didn't understand, then he did.

His jaw set. He felt like throttling her. “I am not going to walk away and leave you to deal with this alone.”

Her relief was obvious, even though, sensing his reaction, she tried to hide it. The look in her eyes as they searched his made it clear she didn't understand his response.

Neither did he—not entirely. It was one of the long, vital list of things he didn't yet know, along with what he felt for her. Even now, standing no more than a foot from her, he had no idea what his feelings truly were. He had no intention of touching her—not yet. He couldn't yet contemplate dealing with the force that he knew would be unleashed when next he did, when next he took her in his arms. The time would come, but not yet, not until he'd realigned his mind and his senses to the new reality. The reality where he could stand so close to her and sense nothing beyond her warmth, a sensual, womanly, highly tempting warmth. No overtense, flickering nerves, no prickling uncomfortableness disturbed him. Their decades-old affliction had died last night when he'd hauled her into his arms and waltzed her down Lady Arbuthnot's ballroom.

While he hadn't yet got a firm hold on what he felt, he had even less idea of what she felt about it all.

Some hint of what was in his mind must have shown in his eyes. Hers widened; sudden uncertainty flared.

He held her gaze ruthlessly; he made no attempt to hide his thoughts. She'd given herself to him, albeit in disguise. She was going to have to cope with the outcome.

“What are you thinking?”

Deliberately, he raised a brow.

She actually blushed. Her eyes widened even more, frantically searching his.

“I suggest,” he said, the words clipped and precise, “that given the seriousness of the threat the Central East Africa Gold Company poses we set aside further discussion of the ramifications of your masquerade until we've successfully dealt with the company.”