Chapter Twenty-Three
Edward could not bring himself to say another word to Angelica as they rode back together with her perched side-saddle on his lap.
A week ago, he would have cursed himself for his silence, believing that sparkling wit was the only way to win Angelica's trust. A month ago, he would have revelled in it, knowing that it only added to the fearsome persona that kept the ton from his door.
Now, he felt strangely comfortable. He had no need to impress Angelica with pretty words. She knew he was not ready to speak, and she did not mind it.
The sense of comfort was at once new and familiar. He had not felt so at ease in another's presence since...
Well, not for many years.
Angelica, he knew, was not able to enjoy the silence as he was. Curse those blackguards, Reginald Thorne and Oliver Barnet! What poison they had dripped into her ear.
Yet, even as he blamed his enemies, he knew that the chief blame lay at his door. He had not been honest with his betrothed. He had never revealed the darkness of his heart to her.
When Edward first decided to woo Angelica, he imagined the best way would be to conceal his faults from her. To act the perfect gentleman. To become, somehow, a man made of tenderness and light.
That was not who he was. And Angelica had seen it, had touched the darkness, had recoiled...and had let him bring her back.
It was almost enough to make Edward lower the guards he'd kept in place all these years. Almost.
Angelica's reunion with her father was a little too teary and emotional for Edward's taste. He himself had never been truly worried for her. Perhaps he credited her with more sense than her father did. In his defence, Mr Stirling had raised her from a babe. She must have seemed half a child in his mind.
How very different was Edward's opinion of her powers and capabilities!
The moment it was seemly, Edward retired to his chambers. He called for ink and paper and sat at the desk in his room, wondering how to begin.
The weight of all his years of anguish pressed down on his hand, touching the nib of his quill pen to the page.
Once he began, he could hardly stop.
My dearest Angelica,
We made a bargain. Your return for my story. Let it never be said that I am not a man of his word.
All the same, the telling of this sorry tale is not an easy one. You will understand when you have read it why I was not honest with you from the first. I only ask you not to blame me too harshly for leaving you vulnerable to the lies told by cruel men. I am a man who has made more enemies than friends in his time. It is only right that you should understand everything before you decide whether to continue with our engagement.
To answer the first charge to my name: that I arranged to marry with the sole intention of preventing Reginald Thorne from ever inheriting the dukedom of Redhaven. This I admit freely.
I have had the misfortune of knowing Reginald since we were children. As a young boy, his favoured activities including upsetting bird's nests and pulling the wings from trapped flies. As he grew older and stronger, his attentions turned to other vulnerable parties.
The first time I knew his character to be truly irredeemable was when I discovered him in the stables at Redhaven Castle on one of his summer visits, alone with a young housemaid. The girl was terrified, and both her eyes had been blacked by his fists. I shudder to think what might have happened to her if I had not been able to wrestle Reginald to the ground.
The name of Thorne is an ancient and powerful one, and Reginald has ever used it to his advantage. A man of less stature would by this time have spent endless hours in jail as a result of his contempt for his fellow man. Reginald is a card cheat, a brawler, a betrayer of women, a braggart, a drunk, and penniless. Both his father and my own settled ample funds on him, and eagerly encouraged him to enter some suitable profession, but Reginald would have none of it. His life's work is resolutely to occupy himself with dissolute entertainments and to pray for my death.
I am sorry to hear that your friend has married such a man, but I beg you to consider the wisdom of continuing a friendship with a woman who has displayed such poor judgement.
The final straw for me came when I received word that Reginald had beaten a servant half to death and bribed his way out of punishment. The thought of his temper being inflicted on my tenants and servants at Redhaven Castle was too much to bear. I departed immediately for London with the aim of finding myself a bride and producing an heir.
To my good fortune, the woman I settled upon was you. But more of that later. In recompense for his interference in our happiness, I have challenged Reginald to a duel. Given my history, you may think this reckless, and perhaps you would be right. But I cannot allow his numerous insults to me to go unaddressed.
Now I find I cannot write any more without addressing the most grievous of the sins of which I am accused. That I wilfully and deliberately destroyed the happiness of a beloved sister!
You did not have the pleasure of knowing Addy. Time and fate have robbed me of the power to make an introduction. You must simply take my word for it that Addy was everything I am not. She was the sweetest, cleverest, gentlest girl in England. She had a kind word for everybody and, if she had a fault, it was that she never thought ill of those who deserved it. Hers was a trusting nature.
Lord Oliver Barnet saw her as I did, I have no doubt. He saw a handsome, clever girl, with a heart too open and too full of love.
He took full advantage of the opportunity my loving sister presented him.
You will forgive me for not entering into the details. I will simply say that one summer, ten years ago, Addy came to me to confess that her lover had left her abruptly, with no hope of reconciliation, on hearing the news that she was with child.
You may think that I called him out immediately. I believe I would have been justified in doing so. But I gave him a chance. I approached Lord Oliver and demanded that he make an honest woman of my sister.
I will never forget the way he laughed.
The duel came about as you can imagine. We both shot; his bullet missed; mine struck home.
My only regret is that I left him alive to cause further pain to anyone. But you, Angelica, even in my wildest imaginings I did not predict that he would strike at you!
I concealed Addy in a pauper's house in London. As her condition became more apparent, it was impossible for her to remain in society. Our actions were necessarily shrouded in mystery.
She died giving birth to her son, two months too early. The child did not survive.
They are buried together in a quiet graveyard in central London, and the true circumstances of her death were never made known to anyone.
I do not know from where precisely the rumours sprung that I had killed her. I might blame Lord Oliver, or any of his friends. Perhaps it is simply the natural way of a gossiping ton to fabricate these cruel lies. I have no proof of anything.
I did not help my own reputation after Addy's death. The world held no meaning for me anymore. I retreated to Redhaven Castle, the place where we had grown up, and the place where I fully intended to die of grief.
But I did not die, though in time my bereaved parents did. I became Duke of Redhaven, and the responsibility for the wellbeing of the people of the dukedom fell to me.
There you have it: my whole history is laid before you. In reading over what I have written, I cannot find that I acted wrongly at any point. Only in concealing the facts from you did I err.
Which brings me, Angelica, to an explanation of that most unfortunate letter I happened to write to Lathkill shortly after meeting you for the first time.
When I proposed to you, I cannot admit to having a single thought for your own feelings. I thought only of myself and my duty to the people of Redhaven. It was, at the time, my firm intention to use you for the purposes of getting an heir and then promptly return you to your family.
I do not blame you for running, Angelica, when you read of my motives. They were true, then.
They could not be further from my feelings now.
These past weeks in your company have wrought a material change on my very character the like of which I could never have predicted. Under your tutelage I have learned to feel again, Angelica, to think once more of a happy life I thought forever out of my reach.
You are too good to toy with me and I am too uncultured to dress the thing up in fine language. The fact is that I have fallen in love with you.
I understand if you are unable to return my feelings. I have never presented myself as the ideal husband. I ask only that you give me the chance to prove myself to you and, in loving you with all the fullness of my heart, to someday kindle the same feelings in your own.
Yours in hope,
Edward
He folded the letter and sealed it before he could second guess himself.
At least the pain in his chest which memories of Adelaide caused him had finally ceased. He felt lightheaded, free, almost peaceful.
He also felt such a dreadful anxiety that it embarrassed him to admit it even to himself. He had no idea how Angelica would receive his declaration of love. He hoped – no, he truly believed – that she wanted it, that she might even return it – but he was a novice in matters of the heart. It was all too possible that his own desires had deluded him.
So it was that Edward passed a sleepless night and, in the morning, entered the breakfast room only to thrust the letter into the hands of the astonished Angelica. Once the deed was done he left immediately to ride his horse across the Loxwell estate at a wind-whipped gallop.
He told himself that he was simply giving Angelica space and time to process the contents of his letter. In reality, he felt as though an executioner's axe was poised in the air above the doorway to Loxwell House. To return would be to walk the final steps to the block.
But the sun crept upwards across the sky, and when it reached its zenith, Edward found himself atop a tired horse and unable to wait any longer. He clicked his tongue to the animal and guided it back towards the house.
He was glad the Duke of Loxwell did not keep his home too formal, for Edward would have been very out of place in his mud-spattered riding boots and his half-undone shirt otherwise. He took himself quickly up to his rooms to wash and change before the ladies caught sight of him.
Angelica was waiting for him at his writing desk and ran to him the moment he stepped inside.
"Hold off!" he warned her. "I'm half-drenched with mud, as you see!"
"Do you think I care about that?" she demanded. To Edward's astonishment, she rose up on her tiptoes and planted a sweet, gentle kiss on his lips.
"I have read your letter," she said, actually blushing.
He took her hand, not caring that his soiled riding gloves would mark the perfect white cotton. "Am I to take it that...that I have some hope?"
"Did you truly doubt it?"
"No," he admitted, peeling the glove back from her hand and bringing her bare skin to his lips. Angelica's fingers trembled at his touch, but she snatched her hand away. "I am left with no option other than to beg your forgiveness," she said. "I should have trusted in you. I should have had faith in my own heart. I was simply so afraid, Edward, so terribly afraid that I would be trapped in a marriage with love on only one side!"
He looked at her questioningly, not daring to voice his hopes.
"It is true, and a wonder you did not see it earlier! I have never been able to dissemble. My feelings are worn on my sleeve." Angelica smiled. "It must have been plain to everyone that I love you – everyone but you, to whom it mattered most!"
"But I know now," said Edward, and took her in his arms with rough eagerness, but kissed her as tenderly as he knew how. "I know now!"
As he kissed her, he felt his heartbeat calm and steady. It had not beaten quietly since Angelica had first left London.
"You must promise me one thing," she said, eventually pulling away and pressing a finger to his yearning lips. "I cannot endure the thought of you fighting another duel. You must learn to forgive, my darling, as best as you can. Your cousin has not succeeded in keeping us apart. For my sake, withdraw your challenge. Do not risk my happiness by fighting him."
"I can no longer find it within me to be angry with any man," said Edward, gazing into her grey-green eyes. "I am the happiest, most peaceful man alive, and I intend to remain so for all my days."
"Then let us be married without delay," said Angelica. "We have waited long enough!"
He answered her with another kiss, lingering and passionate, and this time, she did not push him away.