Elizabeth Beacon - The Duchess’s Secret

‘Then we have nothing to worry about,’ he told her with an only-for-her smile on his slightly stubbly face and a gleam in his eyes she simply had to resist until she had confided her silly story and got the last obstacle to their happiness out of the way.

* * *

‘What did you say?’

‘I should have told you before, but—’

‘No,’ Ash roared and leapt out of bed, ‘there is no “but” in the world important enough to stop you telling me until you had my ring on your finger. You lied; you used me,’ he added and the revulsion in his voice was straight out of her worst nightmares, but at the same time too real to hope she would wake up and find she had dreamt it.

Rosalind watched her husband throw on his clothes as if it felt wrong to be naked with her now and shock held her frozen, like an abandoned houri after a night of unimaginable sin. Her mother had been right then; she should never have told her husband what a fool she was at sixteen. She should have kept it to herself that young and silly Rosalind Feldon had let a handsome young rogue convince her she was the love of his life before she found the touchstone of true love the moment she saw Ash. She had been so blinded by the grown-up glow and glamour of her first love affair she had let that rogue convince her the punch at her first grown-up party was made with spices and lemon juice and honey and wouldn’t harm a baby. Later he told her a man like him couldn’t help himself in the company of such a beautiful girl. Rosalind had been so intoxicated with rum and dreams he had managed to seduce her while she was so dazed and loose-limbed she had hardly known her own name and thought it a strange and oddly uncomfortable dream. Waking to an appalling headache and the terrible realisation it had truly happened, Rosalind had discovered the furtive rogue had left at daybreak for his new posting at the Russian court without even a note to say sorry.

‘No, I never actually lied and I do love you. I was a fool to believe a word that man said, but I refuse to let a careless rake ruin my life, then or now. It cost a great deal of heartache to put my life back together, but I know the difference between real love and pretend—I know you love me as he never could. He was too selfish to ever love like you do, with every bit of your heart and soul. My mother was dying when he did what he did,’ Rosalind added and paused for a moment to find enough strength to carry on talking with the memory of that terrible, precious time clogging her throat with tears. Mama had urged her to be strong and not tell anyone else, ever, and she was so right. ‘She made me promise not to let him ruin my life,’ she whispered sadly now.

‘Yet he has managed it anyway,’ her Ash said bleakly and he hadn’t been listening after she told him her dark secret, had he? He had made up his own story about her fall from grace, but that would not stop her fighting for her marriage and this new, true lovers’ life they were so eager to begin.

‘No, that makes him the winner. I refuse to be used and ruined because of one foolish action when I was little more than a child, Ash. He was a cold-hearted rogue who took advantage of me, then left.’ She got out of bed at last to face his stony gaze bravely as she reached for her hastily discarded clothes and began to scramble into them.

‘So you say. That’s your version of what happened and how can I ever trust that again? You have had a lover and you didn’t tell me. This so-called rogue of yours didn’t sit by my side all the way to Scotland so we could marry in haste and repent at leisure. You were ready, willing and eager to elope with a lovesick fool. Who else was going to marry a soiled dove, Rosalind? I really thought you were an angel in human form and you look like one, on the outside.’ He must have seen her flinch at that tired description of her golden looks and his stare turned cynical. ‘You gave an exquisitely polished performance. Your unspoilt grace and sweetly hesitant manner were masterly. I suppose you already have a lover waiting to keep you in style.’

‘No. I am still the person you married. The same woman you swore you loved to the edge of madness last night.’

‘You are not a woman, but a silly little girl dressed up in fine clothes. You are a liar, though. I cannot live with one of those for the rest of my life.’

‘That means you cannot endure yourself, since you swore you loved me only a few minutes ago and it must have been a bare-faced lie.’ Even to her own ears Rosalind sounded childish. It seemed to confirm everything Ash said about her, but it was either that or sob and plead for forgiveness—miserable defiance it was then.

‘I loved someone who does not exist,’ he said stiffly, as if his pride was offended. ‘How can I love a woman who is a liar? Three whole months have passed since we met and you have never managed to find a single moment to tell me you are not what you seem? Oh, no, you made sure we were well and truly married before you told me the truth, when it was too late to escape your clutches.’

‘If that was my plan, I did not need to tell you at all. You can trust me, Ash, I swear you can. It wasn’t my fault.’ She heard her own defensive and, yes, childish response to his fury and despaired, but it was defend herself against his bitter fury or weep and she refused to when he was glaring at her as if she was his enemy.

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he parodied cruelly. ‘That’s what she said,’ he burst out as if it hurt him to talk about the reason he felt so betrayed by her failure to tell him of her sad misadventure until now.

Wild jealousy rocked Rosalind as well as an echo of his pain. Despite sobs tearing at her throat she was too proud to let out, and a sense of injustice burning inside her, she still loved him. His hurt felt like hers. Maybe he had never cared about her as he swore he did from the moment he first laid eyes on her. Maybe he was the true liar out of the two of them, but this accusation belonged to a guiltier woman. ‘Who said it?’ she said bleakly. ‘Who was she?’

‘My mother.’

‘Your mother ? I thought you must have been betrayed by a lover. I almost felt sorry for you, but, no, you turned on me because of your mother. I never expected to trail in her footsteps,’ she said, fury so strong it buoyed her up even as her world fell apart. ‘What did she do, drop you on your head as a baby?’

‘She told us she was going to be at a house party in the next county, although she was really flitting off to join her latest lover.’

‘And that’s all?’

‘Of course not, but she made it impossible to find her when our little sister was taken ill. Our mother came back a week after the funeral in her mourning weeds, telling anyone it wasn’t her fault .’

Ash’s voice sounded as if he was reliving his agony and even after all the terrible things he had said to her Rosalind pitied him. ‘Maybe it wasn’t,’ she said. ‘She might not have been able to save your sister even if she had sat at her bedside the whole time.’

‘Maybe not, but my brother Jas took it so hard you would think he had killed her himself. I hated my mother for lying over and over again and believing it. I did not go to her funeral; I did not owe her enough love.’

And there were the bleak, unsaid words between them: I would not bother to turn up for yours either .

‘I am truly sorry you lost your sister so tragically, Ash, but I promise I am not lying when I say I love you,’ Rosalind said, but felt the faith she had been clinging to until now began to fail as the dogged reason he was so angry ate it up and spat out the bones.

‘Not enough to tell me the truth,’ he said bleakly and left the room as if she was a stranger he did not care for.