Charlotte bolted to her feet, her moiré silk skirt sweeping the low center table of knotted pine. She simply couldn’t bear to hear anymore. The pain inside her was excruciating and blinding. “I see. You needn’t tell me anymore,” she said, trying not to choke on her words. She failed utterly.
Katie arose, treating her to a look of concern. “It is difficult to hear is it not? It was even more difficult to watch, and I didn’t witness the half of it. You have no idea how many years James and Thomas spent beside themselves trying to save Alex from himself.”
Charlotte closed her eyes, willing away the images of Alex lost in the stupor of drink as he caroused about town in quest of a warm willing female. And he’d no doubt found them to be had by the droves. But the images persisted with unforgiving relentlessness. She bit back a wave of nausea.
“Darling, you look pea green. Are you all right?”
Determinedly, Charlotte mentally shook it off, opening her eyes to take in the worried expression on her sister’s face. “You did warn me it would be hard to hear.” Agonizing, excruciating were more apt terms.
“Alex loved you. He took it exceptionally bad.”
“And now? How is he now?” Silly as it was, what she really wanted to ask was did he ever talk about her? When had he stopped missing her? Within weeks, months, years?
Her sister gave a sad smile. “Well, he doesn’t drink anymore. Not one drop. Gave it up entirely.”
Thank God! Her guilt was suffocating enough. “Has he married?” Charlotte hadn’t meant to ask, in her heart was afraid to know. But there it was, her insatiable need to know everything about him exerting its control.
“Would it assuage your guilt and make you feel better to know he’s married with a brood of children?” Katie asked, compassion in her eyes.
God no. It would destroy her. But she had no claims on him. She was the last person who should begrudge him happiness, even in the arms of another woman.
Turning from her sister, Charlotte advanced to the bay window. “Perhaps a little.” This time she couldn’t look her sister in the eye when she voiced the lie. Anyway, it was how her sister would expect her to feel given she’d just admitted she hadn’t truly been in love with him.
“Then you’ll be disappointed to hear he remains single. But all signs indicate it won’t be for much longer as it appears he intends to ask Lady Mary, the Earl of Cranford’s daughter, for her hand. The ton is expecting a betrothal announcement before the end of the Season.”
Charlotte couldn’t see the beauty in the profusion of budding daisies and violets landscaping the front lawn for the pain and grief swelling her heart. Ready to send her to her knees. But truly, it was a small miracle he wasn’t already wed with several children by now.
“I see.” Charlotte paused. “Well I wish him well.” And she did. She sincerely did. It would be utterly selfish of her to begrudge him happiness with someone else. And by God she wasn’t selfish. Her absence from his life attested to the fact. Marrying him would have been selfish.
“Charlotte, do you know what I believe?” Katie said softly from behind. She hadn’t even heard her approach.
Charlotte turned. Her sister took her cold hand in hers and looked her in the eye. “I don’t for a moment believe there was ever another man—this husband. And I don’t believe you left because you didn’t love Alex.”
Stunned, Charlotte went stiff, her spine ramrod straight, feeling vulnerable and exposed. “What?”
Katie’s mouth curved into a sad smile. “My dear, do give me some credit. I’ve known you all your life. Perhaps, the story you most convincingly spoon-fed me would have fooled strangers, acquaintances, and perhaps even James and Missy. But this is me. We occupied the same womb for nine months and bedchambers for fifteen years. You would have walked barefoot across the desert for Alex. And as for finding someone else? You had eyes for only him, which would have made that impossible. You loved him then and I’m quite convinced the years apart haven’t changed that one little bit.”
It should have been a diatribe, for Charlotte had lied to her, but it was not. Katie had exposed her web of well-rehearsed lies in calm, gentle tones, her only proof being her twin’s intimate knowledge of her.
Charlotte briefly thought of issuing an emphatic denial but the lure of understanding in her sister’s eyes had her head dropping as if her neck could no longer support its weight. Her admission conveyed the truth without a single spoken word.
Chapter Three
Alex returned home and executed a swift change of clothes. His waistcoat suffered the loss of three of its four shanked, brass buttons. His rage ripped his linen shirt near the seam of the arm. He savaged the button closure of his trousers with his impatience. His drawers were the lone garment to survive the ordeal unscathed. He tamped down his anger long enough to ensure donning his riding clothes was a much less destructive affair.
He made good time getting to the stables, his long strides clashing with hard earth. Minutes later he sat bent over Shalais, his favorite Arabian mare, his gloved hands closed tight about the reins, flying across Reading’s flat grassy terrain with the wind at his back.
With his every labored breath and every stretch of dirt kicked up by Shalais’s hooves, he tried not to think about her. Since the moment he’d left, he had successfully pushed her image and memories of her as far back into the dark recess of his mind as they would go. But her image and the memories would not go willingly, refusing to be bowed by the strength of his will.
Little by little, they seeped back into the forefront of his thoughts as his gray-stoned manor house shrank against the backdrop of a deceptively cloudless, sunlit sky. She had returned bringing with her ugly and unforgiveable lies, effectively darkening the skies like a swarm of locusts.
Dusty rose lips, just as soft and full as he remembered from countless dreams, looked too tempting to be the vehicle of such egregious lies. But those same lips had lied to him before. I love you. Yes Alex, I’ll marry you. I can’t imagine my life without you.
With a squeeze of his thighs, Alex urged Shalais into a full out gallop, trying to expend himself physically to quell the lure of oblivion a glass of alcohol could bring. He needed exhaustion enough to prevent him from the insanity of barreling a path through heavily wooded trees and underbrush to return to Rutherford Manor and force the truth from those same lying lips.
For years his feelings for her had drifted on the plane of indifference. He ceased to care where she was, what she did, and he never allowed himself to even venture near thoughts of with whom. Her return upended his long dormant emotions. His hatred now pulsed with new life, a new reason for its existence. Alex had never thought he could—would—ever despise anyone more than he did his father. Today he discovered he was wrong.
He returned to the house two hours later sweaty and hot. He was greeted by his rather anxious looking butler, Alfred, who approached him the moment Alex stepped a dusty booted foot in the corridor leading to the main part of the house.
Alfred’s powdered wig and severe black garb should have demanded a mien of stoicism, instead of the wringing-of-the-hands look on his face.
“My lord, Lord Cranford is awaiting you in the withdrawing room.” Alfred had a tendency to speak as if he’d lived a century ago.
Alex quirked a brow. “Pardon?” he asked sharply, taking a moment to digest his shock. What the hell is he doing here? He almost blurted out the question, but good manners—at least the vestiges of those he still ascribed to—prevented him from doing so.
“My lord, he was quite insistent on awaiting your return.”
The Earl of Cranford, Lady Mary’s father, was definitely one of the last persons Alex wished to see today of all days.