A Marquis for Mary (11 page)

Crispin stood as well, and Gemma said, “Of course. Perhaps a good night’s sleep will make you feel better.”

Mary nodded, bid her goodnights and slipped from the room. She stumbled as she made her way up the stairs, tears welling up in her eyes. She had struggled with her decision for hours, trying to find a way to protect Edward, but also still be with him.

But there was none. Every choice she considered meant pain for someone. Every choice made one fact abundantly clear.

She loved this man. She wasn’t
falling
in love with him, she didn’t
think
she could love him at some future date—she loved him. Here and now. With all her heart. And that made the situation so much worse. Because she loved him, she wanted to be with him more than anything, because she loved him, she had to let him go.

And hope that the damage caused by the broken engagement would be enough for Isadora and Imogen.

She moved into her chamber on heavy feet and shut the door behind her, leaning against the barrier with a heavy, sobbing sigh.

“Is this truly what I am about to do?” she asked, flinching away from the words as they pierced the silence.

There was no answer from her silent room. Only the one in her heart. The one that could not save her from this path she had been thrust upon.

She was numb as she trod to the little escritoire that sat in the corner of her room. She could hardly see through her blurry vision as she drew out her pens and ink and a thick piece of paper. And she struggled for the words as she wrote and rewrote and rewrote a lie that would push Edward far away from her.

That would end her long-dreamed-of future and break her heart permanently.

Edward sat in his parlor, shifting uncomfortably on the settee as he forced a smile at his companions, his brothers Evan and Gabriel. What had possessed him to invite them to his home that night, he didn’t know. At the time, he had hoped that perhaps there could be some reconciliation between them after his long hermitage.

But Evan only watched him and Gabriel sipped his drink sullenly.

“I cannot believe this wedding is a week from Sunday,” Edward said.

Evan arched a brow. “I imagine that is true. After all, you hid from everything and everyone for so long. Then you burst back onto the scene and have a new bride within what, a month?”

“He’s always moved swiftly when someone mattered to him.” Gabriel said the words, but there was no kindness to them. “That is why our family concerns take so long.”

Edward pushed to his feet and set his drink aside. “Is there something you wish to say to me, Gabriel?”

His youngest brother was on his own feet in an instant and rushed toward him. Edward realized Gabriel was going to hit him just a split second before Evan hurtled himself between them, shoving the men apart.

“Stop, Gabriel,” Evan growled, holding their younger but very strong brother back with both hands.

“You let Claire run away, you didn’t even look for her,” Gabriel burst out, his own hands lowering from the fighting stance and going limp at his sides. “I know your wife died—I’m certain her accident must have been terrible for you. But why couldn’t you care about Claire instead of just yourself?”

Edward flinched. His brother was only saying the same words that sometimes echoed in his own head at night when he was alone in the dark. He stared at his two brothers now, thinking of how close they had once been. Until he chose to protect them from the truth…protect himself from having to say it out loud to people he loved.

“Alice didn’t have an accident,” he admitted. “She threw herself down the stairs. Worse yet, she was pregnant. We hadn’t yet told anyone, but she killed the baby, too.”

Both his brothers froze and Evan’s arms dropped from Gabriel’s chest in disbelief. “What?”

Edward swallowed. “Alice killed herself. In order to punish me for not being good enough. We told no one so that she would not be labeled a suicide.”

“No one,” Gabriel said, his eyes filled with pain, but this time some of it was for Edward rather than against him. “Not even your family.”

“You don’t know what she was like.” Edward sat down hard back in his place. He cleared his throat and softly told them the truth about her. About them. About that horrible night that he had hidden from almost everyone he cared about. Before Mary, he had only ever told everything to his man of affairs, Jude Samson. When Gemma Flynn came to him, he’d told her a little, enough to help her, but not everything.

But now he faced his brothers. They both sat down as he spoke, their faces twisting with horror and finally understanding.

“Oh God, Edward,” Evan whispered, his voice cracking. “That is a nightmare.”

Edward looked at Gabriel. “I
know
I let Claire down, Gabriel. I let you down. But I could hardly move, hardly think, hardly function. By the time it registered what was happening, Claire was gone. I did send Samson to look for her. I
still
have men looking for her. But that does not excuse my lack of protection. And I am sorry every damned day, if that helps.”

Gabriel seemed to struggle for an answer, his handsome face twisting as he fought between what was obvious empathy for Edward and desperate fear for their lost sister. But before he could respond, there was a light knock on the door and Edward’s butler, Morris, stepped into the room.

“I’m sorry to disturb, my lords, but you have received a missive, Lord Woodley.”

Edward managed to get to his feet and staggered to the door to take the message. He gave a half-hearted smile to his servant, then stepped back to his brothers as he looked at the note.

“It is from Mary,” he said as he tugged the paper open. A truer smile passed his lips. Her sweetness was just what he needed to wash away the bitterness of his family’s estrangement and his tale of Alice. Only as he read, the happiness he felt faded and he nearly dropped the message.

Evan got to his feet. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

Edward read the note a second time and then held it out to Evan. As his brother took it, he paced away to stand at the window, disbelief rocking him, holding him in his place as if he had been cast in stone.

“
Dear Lord Woodley
,” Evan began to read. He glanced up. “It is a bit formal of a start.”

“You’ll see why in a moment,” Edward croaked as he waved his hand for his brother to continue.

Which he did. “As we have grown to know each other, there are aspects to your person that I feel will not match well with me. To prevent our mutual unhappiness, I have no choice but to end our engagement, effective immediately. Please do not come see me, as I do not believe we have anything left to discuss. Mary Quinn.”

Gabriel had stood during the reading of Mary’s note and he moved forward to snatch it from Evan and silently read over it a second time.

“That makes no sense,” he said, shaking his head as he looked at Edward.

Edward couldn’t help but let his mind shift to another note he had found, this one from Alice. A note that laid out her hatred of him, her desire to hurt him by causing the death of their unborn child. He had been devastated by that night.

And yet Mary’s words cut almost as deep in this charged moment.

“
Why
would she say this?” Evan asked. “I admit, I only know the young woman a little, but I have watched you two together. And as recently as last night, Gabriel and I were discussing how happy you looked, how well-matched despite the circumstances of your engagement.”

Edward scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to think. It was so damned hard when everything hurt so much. It felt like he was on fire, staring with his heart, spreading to his entire person.

“We were happy,” he choked out, thinking of Mary’s sweet surrender in the little room near the ballroom at the Hartholm’s ball not twenty-four hours ago. He wrinkled his brow. “We
are
happy.”

Gabriel still held the note and read it a second time. “Could she have uncovered the truth about Alice somehow and it shocked her?”

He shook his head. “She knew the truth. I
had
to tell her because her brother-in-law, Crispin Flynn, shares a portion of the story.” When his brothers stared at him in confusion, he waved them off. “It’s a very long story and I swear to you I will tell you the whole sordid tale at some point. Right now I must focus on far more important things.”

He halted as he said the words.
Far more important things.
Up until recently, his tangled, bitter past with Alice had been the most important thing. It had colored his every move, his every thought. His first wife’s betrayal and her cruelty had defined him.

But now…now that was different. Because of Mary.

“I’m in love with her,” he said softly, testing out the words. They sounded like truth.

Evan moved toward him. “I see.”

Gabriel set the note down on the table and leaned over it. “Her hand is shaky,” he observed. “I saw her write something down for Mother a few days ago and it wasn’t so shaky as this.”

Edward stepped closer. His youngest brother had always had a head for details. “What else do you observe?”

Gabriel lifted the paper to the light. “Hmmm, there is a droplet of water here that dried. It could be a tear. She was obviously deeply upset when she wrote this.”

Edward frowned. “I suppose that could be because she felt guilty for breaking off the engagement. Or fearful of what her father would do next.”

“That is the oddest part, isn’t it?” Evan interjected as he leaned over the letter with his two brothers. “We’ve all met her father and he’s a lout. There is a sense of cruelty about him that I think proves true all her fears when it comes to her future if she’s returned to his care. If she knew about Alice already, had told you that it was not something that troubled her, why would she choose her father’s choices over her own? A man who could very well match her with someone far more terrible than you.”

Edward shook his head. “She
wouldn’t
.”

Gabriel straightened up and met his stare. “You are sure.”

“Absolutely. She’s terrified of her father’s influence, of being marched back into his home and used for whatever purpose he would desire. I cannot picture anything that would make her believe that was a better option than carrying on with our wedding.”

Gabriel frowned. “Then we must consider that Mary might have been coerced into writing this letter.”

Edward’s heart shot into his throat. “I’m going to her.”

Evan nodded. “You absolutely should do that. Great God, man, from what you described, you have already been through hell. And since you love this girl, I hope you’ll be willing to fight for her.”

Edward grabbed the letter from the table and shoved it into his pocket. “I’m willing to die for her,” he declared, before waving to his brothers and darting out the door to call for his horse.

For years he had accepted whatever version of fate life had laid out before him, too exhausted by his experiences to fight for something different or better. But now everything had changed. The past few weeks with Mary had shown him a path that was filled with light and joy.

And he wasn’t going to lose that—or her—without a fight worthy of David facing Goliath.

Mary lay in her bed, staring up at the canopy, but sleep would not come. She feared it might never come again, and that if it did, she would only be haunted by reminders of the living nightmare she currently inhabited.

Every word she had exchanged with Isadora and Imogen, every sentence she had written to Edward in her letter…they rang in her head, taunting her.

She slid the pillow from under her head and flopped it over her face, wishing that she could block out her thoughts as easily as she was able to block out the moonlight coming through the window or the sound of the crackling fire. She lay like that for a long few moments. Stifling in the quiet dark and yet her mind continued to race regardless.

“What did I do?” she wailed into the pillow at last. “What did I do?”

“You broke things off with me—quite foolishly, I might add.”