Chapter 35

Chapter Thirty-Five

A miracle had occurred.

The Duchess of Aldingbourne had been involved in a horrific accident but had miraculously escaped with nothing more than a bump on the head.

Now she sat in the morning room, wrapped in a blanket, the sun streaming through the windows. Her children had just left her. She'd been cosseted, reprimanded, hugged and kissed, and made to swear that she would never cross the street alone again.

After they had gone, Lena leaned her head against the sofa, savouring the warmth of the sun on her face.

"I'd like to have a moment with you, if you please." Julius's voice penetrated her thoughts.

She opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her, looking down at her with a soft expression in his eyes.

She smiled faintly. "I thought you'd already left."

"I postponed the meeting." He pulled up a chair and sat across from her .

"You've had to postpone a lot of meetings lately because of me," Lena said.

He waved a hand dismissively. "It is of no consequence. You are more important to me than any of that." His voice was rough.

Her eyes flew up to meet his, searching. "Am I?"

His face was a study in emotions. What had happened to the cold, emotionless, stiff Duke she'd always thought he was?

He leaned forwards and took her hands, opening and closing his mouth as he visibly searched for words. "Yes, you are. More than words can say." He took a deep, shaky breath. "I have been meaning to talk to you about us, about the truth of our past long before this latest accident."

She kept looking at him steadily and he continued.

"The truth is what happened back then was my fault. You were very young and lonely, and I was too absorbed in my own world to notice. I was oblivious to your feelings. I was a fool," he said bitterly. "You were unhappy, and I did not see it, and I did not try hard enough to understand what might have made you run away that day. The diary later helped me understand. There was nothing in it, no record about what had gone through your mind to make you decide on such a course of action. I questioned the servants, and eventually something came to light."

He looked tired and sad.

"They confirmed the loneliness, just as you'd written. They also told me that the day before your sudden departure, you'd received a visitor." He paused, as if he found it difficult for him to continue. "Violetta Allan." He swallowed. "She was an opera dancer…and my former mistress."

The silence in the room was so absolute that only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece could be heard. Lena did not move a muscle in her face but continued to look at him.

"She and I had been involved before our marriage," Julius continued, his voice heavy with remorse. "I ended the relationship before we wed. I set her up with a house and enough jewellery to live comfortably on the condition that our relationship was over. She didn't take it well. I must have been a cork-headed fool, as somehow she'd got it into her head that she would become the next Duchess of Aldingbourne. I learned too late that she'd done the unseemly thing and sought you out in public, and then again in Aldingbourne Hall. I can only imagine what she must have said. She admitted it when I confronted her much later, and she'd bragged about what she'd done.

"The servants confirmed that you were distraught. Understandably so. The next day you packed your things and left. We didn't immediately discover where you'd gone. You'd taken the public stagecoach to the North. By the time we caught up with it, we'd heard of the accident. Many bodies were not found, washed away by the river. Yours included. We had search troops—" His voice failed. He cleared his throat and started over again. "We had search troops scour the entire area. A week later we found a body that we mistook to be yours."

"Martha," Lena said mournfully. "Poor, loyal Martha. She hadn't wanted to come along. She'd tried so hard to talk me out of it. I bribed her by giving her one of my dresses, allowing her to wear it on the trip."

The Duke closed his eyes, as if seeing the horrific images of those days flash in front of him once again. "Martha was the same height and had the same hair colour as you. Since she wore your clothes, we mistook her for you."

Lena wept quietly. "It is my fault she is dead."

"No, Lena. The accident was not your fault. None of it was."

There was silence as she chewed on her lower lip, deep in thought.

"That is the whole truth," he said quietly. "I kept it from you, thinking it would spare you pain. I have decided that secrets only fester. I want us to have no more secrets."

Lena's voice was steady when she finally spoke. "Did you love her?" It was a question she hadn't intended to ask, but she knew it would haunt her if she didn't.

Julius rubbed his forehead, a stricken expression on his face. "I was young and foolish. There was a time when I thought I loved her. That was before I understood what love really was."

"Were you ever unfaithful to me while we were married?"

He shook his head firmly. "No, never. The thought of having a mistress while being married, as so many in our class do, is abhorrent to me. She lied to you that day. Our relationship had long been over by then. "

There was silence once more. Lena regarded him for a long moment.

"I believe you," she said softly.

He closed his eyes in anguish. "I should have done more for you. I should have been there. I should never have let you feel so alone. I have failed you in so many ways, Lena. I don't expect your forgiveness, but I wanted you to know the truth. I know this is eight years too late. I have loved you all along, even when I was too blind to see it myself. Every day I regretted the moments I let slip away without showing you how much you meant to me. I should have been shouting it from the rooftops and from every hill in England. Instead, I allowed fear to get the better of me and I retreated into my shell and abandoned you. I will never forgive myself for that."

Lena considered his words. Her voice trembling slightly when she finally spoke. "About that woman, Violetta Allan," she began carefully. "What happened before our marriage isn't something I can hold against you. We were both young then. Yes, I felt insecure and unworthy, especially after she came to me." She glanced down at her hands. "She told me you were still involved with her, that you loved her. And I believed her lies." She sighed softly. "But you ended things with her before we were married, and you were never unfaithful to me."

He nodded solemnly. "I swear on my life, that is the truth."

"What matters to me now is our marriage, not the relationships you had before. I could have done more too. Instead of reaching out to you, I withdrew into my own sadness. I could have accompanied you to London, or insisted we spend more time together. But I didn't. I buried myself in Aldingbourne Hall and wallowed. So when your former mistress crossed my path and couldn't resist bragging, all the insecurities of my youth came rushing back. I didn't know how to handle it. Instead of asking you the truth or fighting for us, I ran away."

He stared at her and his eyes widened as the truth dawned on him. "You remember?"

She nodded. "Yes. I've known for a while."

"Since when?"

"Since the day you spent in town on a meeting. I entered the room to sniff your cologne. It all came back to me then."

He shaded his eyes. "All this time you've known, and you've never said a word? Why?"

"Because I needed to hear it all from you. I was afraid of remembering, but I was even more afraid of losing what we have now." She reached for him. "But that is all in the past, Julius. I want us to move forwards. I want us to start again." She laid her hand on his wet cheek.

He grasped her hand tightly. "I don't deserve you. These last few weeks have been the happiest of my life. The thought of you remembering, of the past catching up, terrified me. I did not know what to do. Remind you of the past? Or let you forget it? I was torn. But never, not once, did I cease loving you."

"Hush," she whispered, drawing him closer. "No more regrets. No more torment. We have now. The present to focus on. A family to care for. A love to rediscover." She smiled warmly, her gaze locking with his as she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, deeply, passionately.

Julius's voice softly echoed against her skin. "A love to rediscover."