Garrett admired the man’s intelligence and kindness, but this was not easy to accept.
“It’s important for you to know something,” Adelaide said. “What happened between Dr. Thomas and me was not a brief, torrid affair. I was very young, to be sure, but I loved him and I still love him, though now it is a quieter sort of love.” She stood up and held out her hand. “Let us go for a walk outside in the fresh winter air. If I am going to tell you everything, Garrett, I must start at the beginning.”
He took hold of her hand and rose to his feet.
* * *
A short while before it was time to dress for dinner, Anne was resting in her bed, fighting to clear her mind of Garrett, when a knock sounded at her door.
She rose to answer it and found herself staring at the very face she was working so hard to forget.
He wore his heavy overcoat and was turning his hat over in his hands. His cheeks were flushed and vibrant from the chill of the outdoors. “May I come in?”
“Of course,” she replied without hesitating, and stepped aside.
He entered and set his hat down on a chair, removed his coat and wasted no time before beginning to explain the reason for his visit.
“I learned something today,” he said. “Something my brothers do not know—at least not yet—and since we are legally betrothed I feel you have a right to know.”
There was something rather alarming in his voice, as if it were an emergency of some sort. With a pang of concern, she gestured toward the chairs in front of the fire. He went to sit down and warmed his hands while Anne took a seat across from him. “Should I send for tea, or something stronger?”
He shook his head. Then he lounged back in the chair and ran a hand through his thick golden hair.
Heaven help her, it was not easy to focus on the matter at hand when he was sprawled in the chair looking like a beautiful lion and all she wanted to do was lunge forward and rip his waistcoat open, slide her hands up under his shirt, and press her lips to his chest.
Anne cleared her throat. “What happened?”
He let out a sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if there are certain things in life that one is better off not knowing.”
“What do you mean?”
He reached for both her hands and held them. “I just spoke to my mother and learned the identity of my real father.”
A log shifted on the grate and sparks flew up the chimney. Anne regarded him thoughtfully.
“That’s good news, isn’t it?” she said. “Or perhaps you’re trying to tell me it’s not. What happened between them? Who is it? Are you at liberty to tell me?”
“Believe it or not,” he replied, “it is someone you have met. Someone who knows my father quite intimately.” He paused, then shook his head again, as if he could not believe it himself.
“Is it Dr. Thomas?” she asked.
His eyes lifted. “Is it that obvious? Was I a fool not to see it sooner?”
“Of course not. He is the only person I have met who seems a likely candidate.” She waited for Garrett to say something more, but he continued to rub the pads of his thumbs over her palms.
“Are they together now?” she asked. “Are they lovers?”
“She assures me they are just friends, but she also confessed that she does still love him and that he was the man she wanted to marry from a very young age.”
“What else did she tell you about it?”
He inhaled deeply. “She explained that they were raised in the same county, and he was the son of a viscount. Her father seemed agreeable to the match until the illustrious Duke of Pembroke set eyes on her in a London ballroom and decided he had to have her as his duchess. He immediately made an offer and her father demanded that she accept. She felt duty-bound to obey, meanwhile Dr. Thomas was being strong-armed to join the army.” Garrett bowed his head. “It seems the whole world was against them. Dr. Thomas later defied his father and went to medical school instead, was disowned and disinherited, so any hopes my mother clung to—that her own father might change his mind and allow her to marry the great love of her life—were lost. They were separated for almost ten years, but she never quite got over him.”
“Then what happened?”
“After providing three heirs to the Pembroke dukedom, she was abandoned by her husband in all ways. He resided in London, took an endless string of mistresses, and she was left to endure the humiliation of his indiscretions and excessive drinking. Eventually there came a night when she couldn’t endure it any longer and she left him. Mother says she saddled a horse and rode hard to reach Dr. Thomas, who promised to help her escape the life that had been so cruelly forced upon her. She was going to ask the duke for a divorce, but it never came to that. After a week away from Pembroke, she missed her boys—my three older brothers—and knew the duke would never let her see them again if she divorced him. So she left Dr. Thomas and returned home. Nine months later she gave birth to Charlotte and me.”