Justin met his eyes, raised his brows fleetingly, then capitulated. “I knew you and Letitia planned to marry, that she’d sworn to wait for you to return from the wars.”
He wasn’t surprised; Justin and Letitia had always been close.
“All was well until eight years ago. All just rolling along as it usually did, then suddenly-no warning whatever-m’father informed us, Letitia and me, that we-the Vaux, the family-were bankrupt.”
Christian blinked.
Justin saw and grimly nodded. “Indeed. Somehow, he’d run through the entire fortune, and it wasn’t a small amount.”
“How?”
“Investments.” Justin’s lips curled, and Christian knew what had turned him so conservative. “Somehow or other-it was never clear-the whole lot had gone. Worse, we were in debt, and sinking fast. There was no way back, no way out. Except…at just that time, Randall, who Letitia had met but only in passing, made an offer for her hand. The pater refused, of course-when Randall pressed, Papa intimated that the family weren’t flush with funds. Not long after, Randall came back-with a complete and accurate summation of the family’s finances, and a plan to resurrect them.”
“Let me guess-the plan included Letitia marrying him.” He heard himself ask the question, but part of his mind had already disengaged. Was already absorbed with another, quite different question.
“Not included-the plan was contingent upon their marriage. And not just that. There were conditions. Some of them I don’t know-once she’d decided she had to do it, Letitia took it upon herself to finalize those with Randall. I do know that part of the agreement was that there would be no hint whatever that Letitia had married to secure the money-that he’d bought her, as it were. He insisted, and she ultimately agreed, that to the ton and the world, the marriage had to appear to be a love match.”
“Was there any chance Randall was in any way connected with the bad investments your father made?” Again the words fell from his lips perfectly sanely; inside his skull, a chant of Why, why, why? was starting to pound.
Justin met his eyes. “There was no hint of it.” Then he added, “Not then.”
That recaptured his attention; he narrowed his eyes. “But now?”
“When Randall started proposing investments to me, I got suspicious. Knowing why he was doing it, there was just too much of an echo with the past. I started asking around. I haven’t found anything definite, but…the feeling’s still there. That if all those years ago we’d looked more carefully, we would have found a connection.”
“Is that what’s behind your rift with your father?” Some small part of his mind persisted in filling in the gaps. The rest was consumed with more pressing issues.
Justin sighed, closed his eyes. “Yes. I couldn’t-still can’t-forgive him for losing all that money. For putting all our futures at risk, for being the reason Letitia sacrificed herself-her happiness, the future she should have had-to secure ours.” He opened his eyes. “That’s what I can’t stand-it still rankles. Every time I see him.”
Christian nodded absently.
A moment ticked past. He was about to push back from the table-to pursue the urgent need building inside him-when Justin, who’d been broodingly studying him, said, “You know, I take it back. I can understand why Letitia hasn’t told you. You should have known how it was. She loved you. The only thing that might have swayed her was duty to the family-you had to have known that.”
The observation gave him pause. He hadn’t known that because…
Regardless, a lack of faith on his part didn’t excuse the oversight-the slight-implicit in Justin’s story. He dragged in a huge breath. “I…see.”
He could hardly speak-couldn’t think. The emotions churning inside him were so powerful he wasn’t even sure he could stand. He pushed up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me…I’ll see you in the morning.”
Puzzled, curious, but after one glance at his face not about to detain him, Justin nodded.
As he reached the door, Justin called, “You may as well bring Letitia with you tomorrow. She’ll be happier once she sees me.”
He raised a hand in acknowledgment but made no reply. He had no idea what state Letitia would be in come morning.
He might just have strangled her by then.
Leaving the lodge, he strode swiftly, increasingly quickly, back to the house.
Chapter 7
Letitia heard Christian’s footsteps an instant before he flung open the door to her room. Catching the door’s edge with one hand, his gaze pinned her where she sat swiveled around in surprise on the stool before her dressing table, then he stepped into the room-and slammed the door behind him.
He stalked toward her, glowering furiously. More angry than she’d ever seen him, angrier than she’d thought he could be. His face was pale, his nostrils pinched. As he drew near, his eyes reminded her of thunderheads, roiling and dangerous.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me why you married Randall?”
The words were uttered with such vehement force, a lesser woman would have quailed.
Unimpressed, she swung her legs around so she was facing him, and arched her brows. “And what good would that have done? Now, so long after the fact?” She realized the implication, and calmly continued, “From which question I take it you found Justin. Where is he?”
Halting before her, he glared down at her. “In the lodge in the park.”
She frowned. “Damn! I’d completely forgotten it existed. I thought it was derelict-Justin’s the only one of us who’s ever had any interest in it. Of course, over recent years he’s spent much more time here than I have. I’ve hardly-”
“Don’t change the subject.”
She looked up into his face. “I thought Justin was the subject. Or is that the object? Of our search, that is. Now we’ve found him-”
He grabbed her by the shoulders and hauled her up so they were face-to-face. “Why, why, why? Damn it, why didn’t you send for me? Why in all Hades did you marry that bounder instead?” His roar all but echoed through the room. “Why didn’t you give me a chance to fight for you-for us?”
She looked into the turbulent tumult of his gaze, saw his hurt fury, the accusation, sensed his rage through his grip on her arms.
Felt all the old rancor she’d suppressed for years rise up and swamp her.
She lifted her chin, perfectly evenly replied, “Why didn’t I tell you?” She widened her eyes at him. “But I did. At least, I tried. I wrote to you-sent for you. Begged you for help. My letters were returned unopened. They didn’t know of you at the Guards.”
Her last words sent a chill through Christian, effectively dousing his ire. He searched her eyes. Realizing how hard he was gripping her arms, he eased his hold. Simultaneously he ransacked his memories, confirming that all those years ago…he never had told her what he’d actually been doing on the Continent. Never told her that while he was a major in the Guards, he hadn’t been serving with any of the regiments.
“Justin even went to Horse Guards and asked.” Her voice remained studiously uninflected. “They admitted you’d once been a serving officer, but they said you were off their books and they didn’t know where you were.”
He looked into her eyes, melded gold and green, and sensed her banked fury. His mind was reeling, his mouth dry; he moistened his lips. “I-”
“So there I was.” She spoke over him, clinging to that same, terribly even tone, as if she weren’t speaking of an event that had critically, cataclysmically, affected her. “If I agreed to marry Randall and pretended it was a love match, I could save my family from certain ruin. If I didn’t agree…”