Page 84 of An Earl Like You
“You want to have a happy marriage with him.”
“Yes.” She’d never wanted anything else.
“Then you must trust him,” said Sophie gently. “At least until he proves he’s unworthy. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“That was different!” Eliza was uncomfortably shocked to hear her own words turned back on her. Before Sophie married her duke, she’d kept many closely guarded secrets from him, uncertain of his affection. Eliza had been sure Ware loved her—who could not fall in love with Sophie, so beautiful and clever and daring?—but Sophie hadn’t been as confident. Eliza had assured her that if she only trusted him with the truth, the duke would love her even more. “The duke was madly in love with you—”
“You thought so,” Sophie pointed out, “and I hoped so. But I didn’t know until I confided the whole, ugly truth. I thought he might exclaim in disgust and walk out the door without a word, never wanting to see me again.”
Eliza sat with her mouth open. That sounded almost like what she’d done to Hugh.
“Sophie, he pretended to love her when he did not!” interjected Georgiana. “Surely that deserves some punishment.”
“Did he pretend?” Sophie was watching Eliza. “He told her he never said he loved her until he truly did.”
Georgiana waved one hand. “He let her believe!”
I believed it because I wanted it to be true, Eliza thought with a pang.
“The way you let Lady Sidlow believe you’re sending Nadine out to buy the gossip papers instead of the latest Minerva Press novel?” Sophie and Georgiana were still arguing.
“She also buys the gossip papers,” Georgiana retorted. “I know how to sneak, Sophie. But no one is harmed by a few novels, while Hastings—”
“He didn’t break my heart,” said Eliza softly. “Hugh is not to blame for that.”
That silenced her friends. Sophie and Georgiana exchanged somber glances. They knew she meant her father, who had been almost like a father to both of them.
But Hugh hadn’t lied to her. He had held his tongue because he knew the truth would hurt her, but he hadn’t deliberately set out to deceive her. Her father had. Hugh felt he had no choice but to call on her—and he only married her because he thought they could be happy together. That suggested that if he’d not thought so, he wouldn’t have gone through with proposing and marrying her.
Perhaps she should have thought things through before she stormed out on him.
Even as she began to fear she’d made a terrible mistake, there was a knock on the door, just before Mrs. Upton came in. “I beg your pardon, my ladies, Your Grace, but you have another visitor. Lord Hastings is below, pleading to see you.”
Her heart leapt and swelled with longing, and Eliza nodded before she could think better of it.
She could tell from the echo of his footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs that he ran up them. Mrs. Upton had left the door open, and he lurched into the doorway, catching himself with both hands on the frame. “Eliza,” he said, his voice throbbing with relief. “Thank God.”
“Have you come to grovel, sir?” asked Georgiana coolly.
Eliza flushed. Hugh’s eyes never left her. “Yes.” His voice was rough, edged with exhaustion.
“Well,” began Georgiana, but Sophie cut her off.
“Come with me to see how Ware is getting on.” She took hold of Georgiana’s arm and pulled her out of the room.
Hugh stepped over the threshold and closed the door. He looked frightful, unshaven and with dark shadows under his eyes. She recognized the clothes he had worn the evening before. “Eliza. Are you... Are you well?”
She wanted to run to him and kiss him, comfort him and fuss over him, even after all that had happened. “Yes.” She cleared her throat. “You look dreadful.”
A faint smile crossed his face. He glanced down at himself. “I should have taken time to shave. Edith said so, but I could not wait.”
It pricked her heart. “How did you know to come here?” she asked instead.
“Henrietta.” His smile grew a little wider, a little rueful at her start of surprise. “You spoke so fondly of the place to her, and it made me recall our picnic, when you told me about it. You were not at your father’s house in Greenwich, so it was worth trying.”
“You went to Greenwich?” She tried to ask calmly, but her voice shook. What had Papa told him? What had he said to Papa?
“This morning.” He rubbed one hand over his jaw. “Your father and I will never be friendly.”
