More Than a Duke(31)
“What? Nothing to say, sweet?” he asked, his tone, harsher than she ever remembered.
In this very moment, Anne despised herself for having involved him in this scheme which had resurrected the pain of his past. “Perhaps she had her reasons,” she said softly, wishing she could spare him the agony of his lost love.
He shoved away from her chair. “Only a mercurial lady with,” he slashed his hand in the direction of her piles of ribbons, “a love of material possessions and a vain sense of her beauty to fear being a bespectacled miss would say as much.”
His words held her frozen. She stared blankly down at the stacks of ribbons upon the floor, seeing them the way he must surely see them; an endless pile of fripperies belonging to a self-indulgent young lady. He could never realize the irrational fear that still kept her awake at night, of a day when the creditors would come calling. The world was an unkind one to women. It was even more unkind to women left in Dun territory. Her collection of ribbons didn’t represent a love of the material. Rather, they represented her fear of living in a state of destitution once more. Yet…she couldn’t tell him this, for it would only serve to make her less desirable in his—or any man’s—eyes. “Is that what you see?” she asked softly. “A selfish creature living for material comforts?”
He scoffed. “How else should I see it?”
His condemnation, this same low-opinion he carried of her, shared by everyone, burned, and that which she’d buried long ago, boiled over. “How dare you?” she asked, feeding the faint stirrings of fury because it dulled the ache of knowing just how little Harry thought of her when he so revered dear Katherine. “My father was a wastrel.” She took a step toward him, suddenly wanting him to understand, needing him to understand. “A drunkard, Harry. A profligate gambler, a man who betrayed his wife.” Though Mama had never dared breathe the words aloud, Anne had heard the hushed rumors when she’d made her Come Out. “He had a mistress whom he loved and kept comfortable.” Her throat worked spasmodically. “Even while he wagered away his own family’s stability and security.”
“Anne, I didn’t—”
She took another step closer, her abrupt movement cut into his gruff words. “What? You didn’t know?” He’d merely assumed like everyone else that her life had been one way when in actuality it had been quite another. His expression grew shuttered. “You didn’t know that my family lost everything because of my father’s wagering?” Anne looked beyond his shoulder, her throat worked painfully. “The staff was the first to be let go.” Individuals who’d been with her family as long as Anne could remember. “Then the creditors took everything. They even took my ribbons.” Her voice broke and she hated the sign of weakness. Surely he mistook it as a love of her, as he’d called it, material possessions. Except, it had been easier to focus on the loss of ribbons, than the loss of servants who’d been more like family to the Adamson siblings over the years. She forced herself to look at him. “With the exception of one orange scrap, they claimed every last silly strip. It will forever remind me of the perils of giving my heart to a roguish scoundrel.” She would never make her mother’s mistake.
The harshness within the angular plains of Harry’s face softened. He held a hand out, his silence more powerful than any words he might have spoken.
She felt bare before him. Splayed open for him to see the secrets she carried, many secrets not even known by her family, and yet she wanted to turn over the burden of her past to another.
Nay, not just anyone. Harry. She needed to share this piece of herself with him, so mayhap he could understand she was not the vain creature he’d taken her for. “When I was a young girl I couldn’t fathom what value there was to be had in the silly scraps of fabric.” Anne bent down and retrieved the forgotten satin strips. She rubbed them in her hands. The glaringly bright, cheerful colors mocked her with the reminder of her past. A bitter laugh bubbled past her lips. “As though they could have managed to cover any of Father’s colossal debt.” Through the years, those inexpensive fripperies had come to represent more—the necessity of having a steadfast, unwavering husband who’d never betray his family in the manner her own father had. She folded her arms and hugged herself. “They took Katherine’s books and my brother’s toy soldiers, but for the handful I buried in the gardens.” She came to stand before him, so close the tips of their toes brushed. “The memory of that loss and fear didn’t die with my father as you might expect.”