Page 82 of If the Slipper Fits
To her utter disappointment, he released her, untwined her arms from around him, and took a full step back, putting distance between them for the second time in a span of minutes. In the meager light from the grate, his face was harder than she’d ever seen it.
“No, Anna. You don’t understand. He was right. And Zeke was right. I think I’ve always known it. I just didn’t allow myself to see it until now. Until you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Anna didn’t like his brutal assessment of himself, nor how he twisted her into his self recriminations. “All true? Until me? Rubbish.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me, Caden Thurgood. Your summation is utter nonsense. You are nothing like the man you just described. Unless you’re always in your altitudes and have somehow managed to hide that truth from me and the rest of the world?”
She began examining his face, jaw and neck.
“Allow me to point out—what in God’s name are you doing, Anna?”
She stopped her perusal and arched a brow. “I spent years helping my father treat men such as your father, dissipated from excessive drink. I’m sorry to refute your basis for self-loathing, but I don’t see the loose jowls, saggy neck, nor any other of the physical signs of long-practiced debauchery.”
He snorted, and Anna was encouraged to see a brief glint of humor in his eyes.
“I’m no drunkard.”
“Then you’re addicted to cards? Horse racing? To the disgusting practice of rooster fighting?”
“Rooster fighting?” He sounded appalled. “Of course not.”
“To laying outlandish wagers on fights or duels or any number of unknown outcomes, then?”
“No.” He drew out the word as if speaking to an ignorant child. “I do, however, play for sport, in spite of my family’s understandable views.”
“Finally we’re getting somewhere. You can’t resist the call of that unattainable, life-altering win. Is that it?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never heard any particular call.”
As she’d surmised. “Then what? Do you at least make a practice of wagering all you own and then some?”
She expected a ready,No.
Instead, he paused before replying. “It’s not a practice. But, there was a time I did just that.”
As if in emphasis, a glowing log in the grate snapped. Embers erupted up the chute.
She wrapped her arms around her midsection. “Go on then.”
“It was during my days at university. My last year. By then, Zeke already traveled almost constantly, seeking the elusive pot of gold at the rainbow’s end—for the family.”
Anna made a scoffing sound. “Another sort of gambling if you ask me.”
Caden slanted her a quelling glance. “I wanted to take some of the burden off him. Our father had squandered Claybourne’s resources ’til there was virtually nothing left to draw upon. Zeke and the earl hadto scrape together every shilling, call in every favor, to keep the estate running and undo the damage caused by father’s mismanagement and, as it happened, outright siphoning of resources.
"As if by miracle, Zeke kept food on our tables and all our servants employed. He kept the creditors off our backs and Chissington Hall from crumbling at our feet.”
“I gather your meaning,” she murmured. “You admire him greatly, do you not?”
Caden laughed softly, as if seeing the truth of her words and somewhat surprised by them.
“I suppose I do.” He cleared his throat. “I wanted to help. I had a year left before I graduated Oxford. I told him, thanks to my marks, I’d acquired a benefactor who’d agreed to pay my tuition, housing, expenses, for my last year.”
“I take it there was no benefactor?”
