The Reluctant Duke (A Seabrook Family Saga)(82)

Tears fell like steady rain, threatening to drown Emma in her sorrow. Vise-like tightness in her chest threatened to crush her heart and soul to dust. Visions of her handsome father, smiling, swarmed through her mind. Memories of his infectious laughter and the scent of his cologne haunted her. What Emma would give to have him here so he could hold her in his arms and tell her everything would be fine. She wanted to wrap her arms around his wide girth and feel the solidity of him––but that wasn’t possible. It never would be.

“Damn you…you vile man,” Emma sobbed. Her throat was raw. “How could you?”

Wentworth made her fall in love with him, and now her heart was broken. It felt split down the middle, like the two halves would never be whole again. The agony of her life was unbearable. Emma lay down on the thick rug, curled up on her side, and allowed the cold emptiness to fill her.

***

Two days had gone by since Thomas witnessed Emma’s world collapse around her, and he knew all that was thanks to his lies. Well, not lies per se––more precisely, to untold truths. Explaining anything more to her turned out to be impossible as Emma barricaded herself in her suite of rooms, refusing to allow anyone in except her maid. Hour after hour the clock ticked on the wall, signaling time wasting away. Time he needed to beg his wife’s forgiveness and to explain.

Thomas forced his body to keep moving so his muscles didn’t tighten up. He paced his room with the aid of a cane, swearing at the pain it caused. He refused to acknowledge his body’s limitations brought on by his illness and surgery. Despite everything, he physically and mentally pushed forward. Bloody hell, Thomas had nowhere to go but forward.

Myles and Amesbury left that morning for London, promising to find the person responsible for the blackmail letter. They would go straight to the Bow Street Runners with the letter. Pay them whatever it would take to end this madness. But what good would that do now? Emma sent word, by way of Rosie, that she wanted out of the marriage and planned to set out for London, and then sail to Boston on the first passage available.

***

And now Thomas didn’t even give a fig about the money. All he cared about was the pain he caused Emma. The past two nights, as he listened to her cry in the next room, the horror of the pain he caused plagued his dreams to the point where he could not close his eyes and sleep.

He’d never forget the look on Emma’s face when she’d screamed at him. Her face had been pasty white as if in pain, her eyes wide with blue swirls of turmoil and shock. The memory was embedded in Thomas’s brain for all eternity. The fact that she admitted that she loved him tortured him even more. Oh, he loved her as well, but she did not know that. Something he would rectify if and when the time was right.

The sounds of her sobs continually hummed in his ears. How had he been such a fool to think her father’s secrets would never be revealed? The moment Thomas started falling for Emma he should have told her the truth about all of it…even though he’d made an oath to a dying man.

There was no longer a need to keep that oath. Emma knew some of the secrets, but not the reasons behind them. He needed to find a way to get Emma to listen…to explain what happened.

Nothing mattered to him now but Emma––and her happiness.

Thomas loved his family, and that love ran deep. It was something he took for granted. His family would always love him no matter what stupid things he did, just as he would always love them in return. Even after the incident with Sebastian, he still loved his brother. Blood love, as far as he was concerned, never dissolved.

He had never realized how loving a woman deeply, with every fiber of his being, would be different than the love he had for his family. The love he had for Emma consumed him. It was the kind of love that set his insides aquiver whenever she stepped into a room. And sent his brain away and replaced it with a man lost for words. He would do anything to make her smile. And knew he would lay down his life for her.

If she had any feelings left for him, it was worth risking everything to make this right. Pacing his room and wallowing in self-pity would not correct the wrong he did her.

What could he do?

Using up the last of his physical strength, he sat down at his desk and penned a letter.

My beloved Emma,

My heart is breaking because of the pain I caused you. I tried to protect you by keeping the truth about my association with your father from you. I see how wrong that was. Your father was a great man, and he loved you dearly. My coming to inherit his fortune did not come about the way you think. Yes. We did play cards and he lost, but that is not the end of the story.

I am not the heartless, unfeeling cad you think I am. Please, I beg of you, let me explain. Your father made me promise to keep the truth from you until you wed or turned five-and-twenty. I have a letter for you, written in your father’s hand. When we returned to Wentworth House I planned on giving it to you. I was not purposely keeping secrets from you, only carrying out a dying man’s wishes. After we get to London and you have the proof of all that transpired between your father and me, you can decide what you want to do. If you still want to go back to America I will send you with a large yearly sum so you will not want for anything. In my heart of hearts I hope you will stay and be my wife, in more than name only. Be my companion in life and love.