He walked in, and despite the fact that she was still uncertain of his feelings, every fragment of her being sighed with relief. At least he was home.
He closed the door behind him and moved to stand at the foot of her bed. “I spoke to Gordon Tucker today.”
“Did he tell you what happened? Do you believe me now?”
Her husband circled the bed and stood over her. “He told me you received him in the drawing room.”
Clara glared at him with burning eyes. “He’s lying, and I won’t have it. It’s a conspiracy, Seger. If you don’t believe me, I will get to the bottom of it myself.” She slipped out of bed and reached for her wrap. She’d barely pushed her arms into the sleeves, when Seger laid a hand on her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To talk to your stepmother. She lied today, and if Gordon told the same lie, that means they are working together. Quintina wants to get rid of me. The only explanation I can see is that she must be doing this for Gillian.”
“Wait.” Seger turned her around to face him.
“Why should I wait? Despite what you think, I’m not being irrational, and I’m not making this up to hide an affair with my former fiancé. I have never been more serious about—”
Suddenly, her words were smothered by the intensity of her husband’s kiss. He crushed her mouth under his, as if he hadn’t seen her for a year. A tiny moan escaped her, and her knees turned to jelly. Clara wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him deeply in return, and could barely remember what she had been saying only seconds ago....
After he finished kissing her quite thoroughly, he drew back and looked into her eyes. Clara felt weak and dazed. She couldn’t think straight.
“Do you think I’ve lost my mind?” she asked.
“No,” he replied, “but I spent the entire night thinking that maybe I’d lost mine.”
Her anger slowly receded, and she took a deep, calming breath. “Why?”
“Because despite what Quintina and Gordon Tucker profess, I want to take your side in this.”
Clara was cautiously hopeful. “Does that mean you believe me? That Gordon stepped into my coach uninvited?”
“My gut is telling me yes, but three people have said one thing while you say another.”
She took his face in her hands. “But surely, you must know that I would never do anything to jeopardize our marriage. You know that I love you, even if you aren’t ready to love me back.”
He looked doubtful.
“Please, Seger. I cannot stay in this house and face adversaries if you do not trust me—or if there is no hope that you will ever love me.”
He turned away from her and moved to the opposite side of the bed. “This has been a trying day, Clara. I wanted to kill Tucker because I nearly went mad with jealousy. And I didn’t want to feel any of that. I wanted to go back to the way things were before I met you. When life was less complicated.”
Clara swallowed over a sudden lump in her throat. “You mustn’t believe any of what Gordon said. I tried to get rid of him in the coach, Seger. Honestly.” She heard the desperation in her voice. “I told him I never wanted to see him again.”
“I want to believe you,” Seger replied, “but that’s the problem, you see. I can’t help worrying that I’m inclined to take your side only because it’s what I want to believe.”
She knew she was grasping at straws. “Quintina and Gillian.... This is all their doing. They want me out of here, Seger. Think about that. It makes sense. If you can’t trust your heart, trust that. Ask them.”
He nodded, and she almost cried out in relief.
Seger moved around the bed to stand before her. He laid a hand on her cheek and kissed her tenderly. “I will, but not now. It’s late, and after what happened today, I want to make love to you. I need to know that you are mine.”
She thought about insisting that he go and ask them now, but the weary look in his eyes changed her mind. All that mattered was her husband’s confidence in her love for him, so she pulled off her wrap and began to unbutton his waistcoat.
When Clara woke the next morning, Seger was gone.
She took a deep breath, knowing this day would either turn out to be the dissolution of a family or the dissolution of a marriage. There would be a confrontation. Accusations. Someone was going to be ousted and maybe even sent away.
She prayed it would not be her.
Clara rose from bed and rang for her maid. A half hour later, she left her room to go and knock on Seger’s door. She wanted to go to the breakfast room on his arm. She wanted to present a united front.
When she reached his room, however, his door was wide open. She saw him standing in front of the window, handsome as ever in his dark morning jacket and waistcoat, so she entered without knocking.
He was holding a letter in his hands.
“Seger....”
He faced her. “A footman just brought this.”
His eyes were dark with concern. Clara took the letter and read it.
Dear Lord Rawdon,
I am the one who sent you the telegram on your wedding day. I have information about your wife.
Please meet me at ten o’clock at Hyde Park, under Marble Arch.
“Who sent this?” Clara asked, as panic welled up inside her.
“It doesn’t say.”
She swallowed nervously. “Have you talked to Quintina yet?”
“No, and there won’t be time. It’s almost ten now.”
Almost ten! Clara’s whole body tensed. “Will you go?”
“Yes. I want clarification.”
“What do you mean, clarification? I’ve told you everything, Seger. There is nothing you don’t know, nothing this person can possibly say that you haven’t already heard, unless what they say is a lie. Maybe Quintina has orchestrated this.”
He studied her face, then nodded. “It is quite possible, but I still have to go. I need to know who sent me that telegram, and why they felt the need to travel all the way here to explain themselves.”
“But do you still believe me about Gordon?” she asked.
His shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “I don’t know anything right now, Clara. I want to gather all the information before I form any decision. Surely you can understand that.”
She did understand. She always understood, didn’t she? But it didn’t make any of this easier to bear. “Seger, I want your trust and support. I did nothing wrong.”
“But you of all people should know how difficult it is to trust your spouse completely, when there are questions.”
Clara shifted uncomfortably. She supposed she deserved that. All she’d done was point her finger at her husband and assign blame, make him feel that he was never giving quite enough, without thinking about how it must have made him feel. No wonder he had not been able to hand over his heart to her. He felt she had no confidence in him. He didn’t believe that he had her trust.
“Take me with you,” she said.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Please, Seger. I’ll stay in the coach. I need to know who sent this, too, and I deserve a chance to defend myself if need be.”
He considered it a moment, then finally agreed. “All right, but I don’t want you to show your face. For all I know, this person might be dangerous.”
The Rawdon coach clattered over cobblestones at precisely ten a.m., causing a flock of sparrows to flutter noisily from the treetops over Marble Arch.
Clara sat across from Seger in the coach, feeling sick to her stomach, while her husband appeared completely in control. The vehicle came to a slow halt, and Seger reached for his hat.
“You’ll be careful?” Clara said, touching his arm.
“Of course.” He settled his hat on his head and leaned to open the curtain with one finger.
His eyes searched the area, then fixed on something or someone.
“What is it?” Clara asked.
She pushed her own curtain aside as well and peered out.
A woman stood under the arch.
Clara glanced back at Seger. He was still staring at the woman, then he let the curtain fall closed and sat back. He gazed with a frown at Clara’s knees.
“What is it? Do you know who she is?”
All the color had drained from his face. He was as white as a sheet.
“Who is it, Seger? What’s the matter?”
Finally, his eyes lifted. They were deathlike. “It’s Daphne.”
Chapter 22
Dear Clara,
My lovely English governess gave her notice the other day and has now left us for another situation. I am extremely disappointed as I liked her very much. In many ways, she reminded me of you....
Adele
Clara stared numbly at her husband, who sat unmoving across from her in the coach, his hands clasped together in front of him.
The whole world seemed to shift beneath her. All she could do was stare at him, waiting for a response.
A few seconds passed—seconds that seemed more like hours—then he peered out the window again, as if to ascertain that he had not imagined what he saw.
Clara slid across to the other side to sit next to him. “Are you sure it’s her?”
“Yes.” He covered his face with his hands. “My God. She’s alive.” He swept his hat off his head and raked his fingers through his hair.
Clara’s stomach pitched and rolled. What would this mean for them?
They sat stiffly in the coach until Seger finally met her gaze and stared at her with uncertainty. A vein pulsed at his temple. After a moment, he moved to exit the coach.
She grabbed for his arm. “Seger, wait!”
He paused and looked back, but she didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t either, apparently.
She let go of him, and he left her behind.
Seger had to force himself to put one foot in front of the other as he walked toward Daphne. Daphne! His heart was ramming against his ribcage, and his head was spinning with a dizzying mixture of shock and anger.
How could she be alive? How could she have let him think she was dead all these years?
He stopped a fair distance away, feeling suddenly paralyzed as their eyes met.
Standing in the shade beneath the arch, she looked the same. Older, yes, but still lovely. She no longer looked like a merchant’s daughter, however. She wore a deep purple silk gown of the highest fashion, and a matching plumed hat with black netting over her face.
Seger swallowed hard and forced his feet to carry him the rest of the way. When he reached her, he let his eyes roam over her face and saw the years that spanned between them. Tiny wrinkles framed the outside of her eyes. Within them, he saw the experience of a life apart from his. She was not the innocent, buoyant girl she had been when he’d first met her, all smiles and exuberant expressions. She seemed confident. Mature.
He had so many questions.
She took her time studying his face, too.
Slowly the shock of seeing her again abated. Seger took a deep breath and found the will to speak. “I thought you were dead.”
She lowered her gaze to the ground. “I know.”
Her voice hadn’t changed at all. Something deep within him trembled at the sound.
“Why didn’t you contact me?” he asked harshly. “Didn’t you know how deeply I would suffer?”
She moistened her lips and stared apologetically into his eyes. “I thought it was best. I thought it was the only way to get you to forget about me and move on.”
Seger clenched his jaw to try and stifle his anger—anger that stemmed from being lied to for all these years. By Daphne of all people. He needed to understand.
“Explain this to me, please. You were not on the ship that went down? What happened?”
“I was on another ship that left two days later. Your father was afraid that if you knew what ship I had boarded you would trace me to my destination in America.”
Seger let that sink in, then his mind groped for other questions. There were so many of them, questions that had haunted him and gnawed at him for eight painful years.
“Why didn’t you at least tell me you were leaving, and say goodbye?”
“Because you wouldn’t have let me go.”
“Damn right I wouldn’t have.”
She shook her head and met his eyes again. “I couldn’t let you defy your father, Seger. You would have been disinherited. You would have had no family. I didn’t want to drag you down.”
“You would have been my family.”
“But we would have been social outcasts. Penniless.”
His eyebrows drew together in dismay. “You knew that didn’t matter to me. I never cared about society’s approval. I ended up a social outcast anyway. By choice.”
She nodded.
He realized by her response that from a distance, she had been following his path through life. The knowledge gave him a chill. “You knew that?”
“Yes. It was one of my conditions when I accepted your father’s petition to see me leave England. I made Quintina promise to keep me abreast of your news.”
Seger tried to stay calm and focus on the questions still burning in his brain, not the fact that his stepmother had been secretly communicating with Daphne all along.
“My father told me you went to him and asked for money in exchange for leaving me.”
She shook her head. “No, he came to me with the proposition and the money.”
“Which you accepted.”
“Yes, and I will not apologize for that. I knew I would have to begin a new life, and believe me, it was a meager consolation.”
A meager consolation. Seger’s chest constricted. A panicky sensation moved through him, and he found himself breathing hard.
He wanted to hear her tell him that it had been devastating for her, too. He wanted to hear her say that had loved him, because that was the thing that had plagued him all these years and made him wary of trusting women’s affections. He’d always believed that his only love, Daphne, had not really loved him so deeply after all. That their years together had been a lie. He had not been able to trust any emotion since then because of that doubt.
His voice shook when he spoke. “Did you suffer?”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she took a few seconds before replying. “Yes, Seger, more than you will ever know. I did what I did because of how much I loved you.”
He blinked down at her and found himself at a loss for words. He could say nothing, do nothing, but stand there and stare at Daphne. Daphne.
Then something made him look back at the coach. He thought of Clara and how she must be feeling, watching this. She was probably wondering if he was about to leave her and return to the woman who she believed was his one and only true love.
He swallowed hard and faced Daphne again. “Why did you send that telegram on my wedding day? What were you trying to do?”
She nodded as if she had been waiting for that question but seemed reluctant to answer it. She turned and began to pace under the arch.
“For the past eight years, I’ve known what kind of life you were living, Seger, and a selfish part of me was glad—glad that you had never gotten over me. I liked knowing that I was the great love of your life, and that if things didn’t work out for me in America, you would always be there, willing to take me back. Then I read about your marriage in the papers, and suddenly you weren’t there for me anymore. Quintina wrote to me and told me that Clara was a terrible match for you, that she was a greedy, title-seeking vixen. I was more than happy to believe it and help her put a stop to the marriage.”
Daphne
stopped pacing. “But know this, Seger—I wasn’t doing it for Quintina. I despised her and I still despise her now for being the cause of our separation. I was doing it for me, because learning about your marriage made me want you back. I began to fantasize that when it did end, I would find the courage to return to you. I imagined being held in your arms again.”
Daphney paused, gazing intently at him. Seger made no move to take her into his arms now. He wanted only to hear the rest of her explanation.
“So I offered myself to the Wilson family,” she continued, lowering her gaze and pacing again, “as a governess for Adele, hoping I would be able to find something to make you reconsider your marriage to Clara. I took things from Adele’s room. I went through her letters and diaries, and the scandal with Gordon Tucker was more than I ever could have bargained for. It was like a gift from heaven, I thought. I was sure that would be enough to bring an end to your marriage.”
“But it didn’t,” he said.
“No, it didn’t. And then I...I started reading the letters that Clara wrote to Adele, and I realized that she was not what Quintina said she was, and when Clara wrote about Gillian, my heart actually went out to her. I remember Gillian, you see. She was only a young girl then, but she was hateful toward me, too.”
Seger nodded. Everything was becoming very clear.
Daphne approached him. “But those letters made me remember how it felt to be with you. I’ve never stopped loving you, Seger, and I have never married. My only excuse for doing what I did is that I was too young to understand how lucky I was to have the love of a man like you. I thought I would meet someone else one day, but no one ever compared to you. If only I had known that then.”
She stood a mere six inches away, her eyes wide and searching. His Daphne. Her face, her lips, they were so achingly familiar. How many nights had he dreamed of kissing those lips again and holding this woman in his arms?
Something wrenched his attention away, however. He looked back at the coach again.
“Seger.” Daphne reached up and laid a gloved hand on his cheek to turn his face back to her. “What we had was rare and extraordinary, and if you wanted me back today, I would come. I would marry you if it could be so, but even if it couldn’t, I would be yours regardless. There are ways.”
Falling for the Marquess (American Heiress Trilogy Book 2) Page 26
