Page 61 of Gambling with the Earl
Let it be nothing. Let her explain it away, he prayed silently.
She shook her head. “It isn’t what you think.”
Why then was she acting so strangely? Afraid of him, like a thief about to be found out.
His hands wrestled with the dress, encountering hard objects sewn into the lining. He looked more closely at the uneven hem, fingering the bulges inside it. Something sharp pricked against his finger.
“Damnation, Kitty.” His voice was low, his spirit broken. “Tell me it is not you who stole from me.”
She stood straighter now, her green eyes burning with conviction. “It was notIwho stole,” she shot back. “’Twasyouwho accepted something that did not belong to you.”
With trembling hands, he ripped open the hem. Out fell the Answick jewels, sparkling with rich, vibrant colours against the dull grey of the cobbles. They both looked silently down upon them. At their undeniable reality.
“It was you.” He said the words, but he still didn’t believe them. A shiver of shock pulsated through his veins, and hefolded his arms against the sudden chill. Time slowed down as he tried to fit this new detail into the complex tapestry of their burgeoning relationship.
She put a hand to her face and he saw, distantly, that tears were flowing down her cheeks. “I didn’t want you to find out like this,” she sobbed. “I was going to tell you.”
His hand clenched her torn dress so hard his knuckles turned white. “Was this your plan all along then?”
She looked him in the eye. “Yes.”
Her answer sliced him through like a knife. “Why?” he floundered. “What wrong did I ever do you, for you to repay me so?”
She hugged her arms around her chest. The blanket had long since dropped to the floor but neither of them cared. It lay on the stone cobbles next to the jewels. “It was not like that,” she said hesitantly. “Once I got to know you, everything changed.”
“Yet still, you stole.” Anger burned through his disbelief. He remembered his thoughts upon encountering her for the first time on the causeway. How Kitty conducted herself like a lady, not a servant. “Are you some bastard child of my uncle’s, come here to claim your inheritance?” Revulsion swirled in his stomach.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “Please, Guy, I can explain.” She took a step forwards, then retreated again when she saw the anger in his eyes.
Anger which he should rein in. But his loss was too great. Everything he had started to believe in had been built on lies. Everything he’d been daring to reach for, was but a mirage.
“You told me once that you were seeking the daughter of a man named Owain.” She clutched at her stomach as if her confession was causing her actual pain. For a moment, he wrestled with the urge to offer her comfort, but he chased it away.
You have been made a fool of already.
He ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, trying to keep his temper in check. “I was.”
“I am that daughter.” She stared at the floor, not at the jewels, but at a patch of hay. “I am the woman you were looking for.”
Her words made no sense to him. “Then why did you not say?”
She looked up in shock. “Is that not obvious? How could I stand the shame?”
“You lied to me about your past. I asked you several times.”
“Because I could not admit the truth.” She hung back in the shadows. “My own father gambled me away.”
It was a shock to hear her say the words out loud. So she had known of the sordid details of their wager all along? Just hours earlier, this realization would have rocked him, but now it changed nothing.
“We do not carry the sins of our fathers,” Guy growled. “We forge our own paths. And yours was forged with deceit.”
Something like anger blazed in her eyes. “That is easy enough for a man to say. Less so for a woman, who can be passed around like a mule.” She clasped her hands together. “Every day I longed to tell you the truth. But the jewels, you see, are truly mine.” Her voice shook with undeniable sincerity, but her words were like fine rain on the surface of a deep lake. They did not permeate.
“If you wanted jewels, I would have given you jewels.” Guy forced the words out, though the truth of it sickened him. He would have given her everything, all that he had and more besides.
“They are not for me, they are for my sister,” she cried.
Guy motioned her protests away. “At any point, you could have told me who you really were.” He spoke slowly, thinkingaloud. “I would have handed over the Answick jewels in a heartbeat. I didn’t even want them. I tried to return them twice.”
