In the Barrister's Bed. Tina Gabrielle

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      Chapter 7

      “I know very little about you other than the fact that you are a widow. Were you born in Hertfordshire?” Blackwood asked.

      Bella leaned back on her hands in the soft grass. “No. I was born in London, but my father moved to the country when I was seven. We settled in Plymouth when I was sixteen, and I was married a year later.”

      “Did you remain in Plymouth after your marriage?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’m an admirer of the architect John Rennie’s work on the mile-long Breakwater in Plymouth Sound. Did your husband work on the project or on the dockyards?”

      Her heart skipped a beat. How much to tell? Blackwood was proving to be intelligent and intuitive. Years of experience hiding her inner thoughts from her husband had taught Bella to be forthright with the basics while concealing the heart of the matter. Bella dare not reveal the extent of Roger’s greed.

      Treason, her inner voice cried out. When Roger’s business ventures had failed to produce a lucrative profit, he had turned to illicit, illegal activities.

      Making a show of arranging the wildflowers on her lap, she chose her words carefully. “Roger was a merchant; his livelihood was import and export. Mostly timber, coal, barley, and grain.”

      “How long were you married?”

      “Seven years.”

      “Do you miss him then?”

      She stayed silent, again uncertain what answer to give. Miss Roger? She gave thanks for every day that his shadow failed to cross the threshold of her bedchamber.

      “I’ve come to accept his passing,” she finally answered.

      Blackwood picked up another flat stone and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger.

      “Are your parents alive?”

      She knew he was prying for information. He wanted to know if she had family she could reside with should he succeed in his plans of eviction. “No,” she said. “My mother died when I was an infant, and I am an only child. My father died in a carriage accident soon after I was married.”

      “You must have been distraught. I’m sorry for your loss.”

      The sincerity in his tone made her speak. “Father was a wonderful, loving parent, and I am grateful that God gifted me with him for as long as he did.”

      Blackwood threw the stone in his hand and it skipped across the water’s surface four times. She turned to look at him then and was surprised to see some unfathomable emotion—pain? Regret?—in his eyes.

      “You must have fond memories of your parents,” she said. “You had mentioned that Wyndmoor Manor reminded you of your family.”

      “I never knew my mother. She was a parlor maid who caught the eye of my father, the old duke, when she was in service to the family. She died when I was born. I grew up believing I was illegitimate, and I was never officially acknowledged by my father,” he said coolly. “I have a half brother who, until weeks ago, believed he was the heir and treated me with as much brotherly love as one does a stray dog, and a grandmother who is a rigid dowager duchess whose only redeeming quality was to pay for my boarding school as a boy and my education at Eton years later.”

      He plucked another stone from the ground. His fingers, long and tapered, caressed the smooth surface.

      She was as stunned by his speech as the light bitterness in his tone. She had not expected such a story from him. He appeared so confident, so sure of his rightful place in the world.

      One question plagued her: If he was illegitimate, then how on earth could he have inherited a dukedom?

      As if reading her thoughts, he said, “It turned out that I was not the illegitimate son but the proper heir all along. Too bad I spent a lifetime ostracized by my family as the bastard.”

      A frisson of pity rose in her breast. Bella didn’t know why she felt sorry for him. James Devlin was now a duke, with great wealth and power at his fingertips. Yet he had never known a mother’s love or a father’s loyalty. Bella’s father had loved her unconditionally and it was those treasured memories that had allowed her to survive the horrors of her marriage.

      She didn’t want to know more about James Devlin, truly she didn’t. She did not want him to become a person to her, rather than a demanding, spoiled aristocrat. But the truth was, he wasn’t spoiled and had known true hardship. There was an air of isolation about him that tugged at the core of compassion inside her.

      He was rejected, just like me. Only I was betrayed by a brutish, selfish husband, and he was betrayed by his family.

      “How did you become a barrister?” she found herself asking.

      “I could not fathom a life of begging for every СКАЧАТЬ