The Duchess’s Secret. Elizabeth Beacon

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СКАЧАТЬ and pretend not to be me under yet another name.’

      ‘A tempting idea, but lies have a habit of catching up with a person, don’t they?’

      ‘That’s cruel and even a little bit mean of you, my lord Duke. I don’t think we need to descend to name calling when our divorce will be humiliating enough as far as I am concerned to satisfy even you.’

      ‘I am not that vindictive, but you are right. I apologise,’ he said and Rosalind did not quite know what to make of him now.

      ‘It will be appalling,’ she said with a shudder.

      ‘I suppose we could always employ someone desperate to pretend to be you,’ he almost offered and it was tempting, for a moment.

      ‘We would be a laughing stock when she sold her story to whoever offered the most money and you might not get your divorce.’

      ‘True,’ he said with a disgusted shake of the head for the very idea of being tied to her for the rest of his life and that was good. As long as he was being the opposite of her dashing, charming and funny lover of long ago she could face him with indifference. It was when he reminded her of the young Ash who had loved her that he was dangerous.

      ‘I don’t know why you are here. I have already offered to come to London and face the mob so you can pillory me for my imagined sins—and you will have to imagine them because I never ignored my marriage vows.’ Drat, why had she let that slip? He would know she was jealous of the idea of him lying in another woman’s arms if she wasn’t careful. But if she didn’t care, how could she be jealous? Good question, Rosalind, her inner schoolmistress observed.

      ‘I had to make sure it was you and not some actress my former lawyer set up here to take the money I intend to settle on you after the divorce. He took what little I had when I left the country and thought I was leaving it behind to support you.’

      ‘Did you do that? I had no idea.’

      ‘I was right then, he made no effort to find you before you disappeared and I cannot help but wonder why you did that, Rosalind?’

      Don’t wonder too hard, she silently urged and faced him with raised eyebrows, as if to say she thought it was too obvious to need explaining.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell the world about us?’ he ignored her sceptical stare to ask as if that puzzle had been plaguing him for years.

      ‘Hadn’t you made enough of a fool out of me without the rest of the world knowing?’ she parried. She wasn’t going to tell him she hadn’t cared about anything much at all after he left. When she had finally woken up to the new life they had made between them on their wedding night she had had good reason to slip away from the ton as if she had never existed and she definitely didn’t want him to know about that. Every time she needed or wanted to tell him about Jenny over the years she would remember him turning on her the day after their wedding and know it was impossible. Except now he was so close to their daughter panic goaded her heartbeat to a gallop again.

      ‘I thought the shoe was on the other foot,’ he said cynically and he would, wouldn’t he? The young man he once was had been dashing and handsome and entirely wonderful as far as young Rosalind knew, before they wed, but he was also hot-tempered and arrogantly convinced he was always right.

      ‘I cannot imagine how you intend to stay anonymous now I am home and you can hardly go unremarked even here looking as you do,’ he said.

      ‘Looks give no hint of a person’s inner life. You are handsome in a gruff sort of way on the surface, but you are not the man I fell in love with.’

      ‘Pah—love,’ he said with a revolted expression, as if she had said blasphemed.

      ‘Yes, love. It is vital to me, which is why I want a divorce every bit as fervently as you do. You have been away from me for eight years and I doubt very much you stuck to the marriage vows you thought you were deceived into making with me,’ she challenged him with a very straight look that defied him to lie. He avoided it for a moment, then met it defiantly and she knew she was right. As expected, Rosalind, as expected, she reminded herself and hoped she was managing to look scornful about it when confirmation he had been enjoying himself as if he had never married her made her want to scream and lash out at him, but that would never do, it would look as if she cared. ‘One of us has been unfaithful to our marriage promises, so that will have to do for both our consciences while you lie it was me who took lovers, since only a wife’s adultery can dissolve a marriage. Imagine that; me having to live a lie to cover up yours, after all you had to say about me being a liar when you left.’

      He looked offended and defensive and ducal so she must have caught him on the raw with that barb and she really must stop sniping at him. She wrapped her arms across her shivering body at the thought of what a disaster it would be if he ever found out about Jenny. However much he had wronged her, she could not sue him for divorce since the law did not recognise her as a sentient human being, merely as her husband’s chattel. And if he was furious with her for lying by omission when he left her, how would he feel if he found out she had borne his child? Somehow she must get him to leave.

      ‘I am ready to do what you want because it is what I want as well. So you can go away with my promise to turn up to be insulted and defamed, now you have satisfied yourself I am really me,’ she said lightly.

      She would leave Livesey first and make sure there was no trail for his bloodhound to follow this time. Then she could set out for London by an indirect route to act the adulteress for him, since that was the only way out of this prison they had made for each other all those years ago when they wed over the anvil.

      ‘You will bolt as soon as I turn my back,’ he said abruptly and that was annoyingly perceptive of him.

      ‘I agree to let you fabricate grounds for a divorce and I do not go back on my word.’

      ‘Hmm, we shall see about that.’

      Inside she was raging at him for pretending her failure to confide in him before marriage was a deliberate lie, but that paled to nothing besides her worry his former lawyer would tell Ash the truth even if she did manage to get away without him finding out he had a daughter. The lawyer must know about Jenny, so why had he kept her secret? Blackmail, she decided. If what Ash said was true he had made provision for her before he left and someone stole it. The lawyer must be venal and lazy and if he could make money out of her to pay back what Ash would demand he returned to him he would still win, wouldn’t he? Most of that settlement, the conscience money Ash had intended to settle on her, would have to go on paying the man to keep quiet but it would be worth it, she assured herself as she shot this hard-faced stranger a sideways look. The headache she had come up here to cure thundered in her temples now as a new hazard was added to her list and how she wished Ash would leave her in peace to try to work out a way around them.

      ‘They expect me at the inn in Livesey, by the way, before you try to tell me the place is full to the rafters with benighted travellers.’

      ‘Why? What more can you want from me than a promise to go quietly?’ she asked rather desperately.

      ‘Nothing, but I knew I would be cold and weary after riding from London as fast as my horse can carry me. My former lawyer told me the inn at Livesey is comfortable and clean and Peg needs a rest even more than I do.’

      ‘Peg?’ she echoed hollowly and shock could make the strangest things seem important. It sounded a very odd СКАЧАТЬ