Page 41 of When the Marquess Was Mine
“Sir?”
Rob jerked out of his tortured reverie to see Angus regarding him quizzically.
“Are you well, sir?” the manservant asked.
Rob swallowed hard. “Yes,” he croaked. Without conscious thought he decided to continue as he was, and not let on that he knew so much more than he had only minutes ago.
“Shall I help you up?” asked Angus; kind, simple Angus who had no idea who he was.
Rob nodded once. He let the fellow haul him up the stairs, but said he could manage the rest on his own. He limped into the bedroom and closed the door, sagging against it.
Why had she lied?Why why whythrobbed the question in his brain. He supposed it had something to do with Lady Winston’s dislike. Beyond that, his fractured memory offered no answers.
But there were many lies she could have told to spare him Lady Winston’s ire. She’d chosen the most lethal one. He closed his eyes and rubbed his fist across his chest. He was losing his heart to the woman, only to learn she’d kept something vital from him.
And the worst of it was, he still wanted her lies to be true.
Chapter 13
Kitty agreed that they could take a drive the next day. Adam hitched up the coach and Georgiana told him to drive toward Maryfield. “We’ll stop at the inn and take a respite,” she said brightly, “before the drive back. His Lordship may need to rest.” Rob grinned at that, and Georgiana smiled back, helpless to resist despite everything. She was going to miss this Rob. She rolled up the windows to let the breeze in and didn’t object when he tugged her across the carriage to sit beside him.
She put off the inevitable as long as possible. Rob took off his hat and put his head out the window, declaring that he ought to have insisted they ride, even though he still leaned on the cane to walk. He teased her that they should make Adam ride inside while they sat up on the box together. He wanted to stop and see the spot where he’d been beaten, which Georgiana told him was ghoulish but they did it anyway.
Finally she could delay no longer. Major Churchill-Gray was waiting, and she couldn’t send Rob in to see him unknowing and unprepared.
“I have to tell you something,” she began when they were well along the way, almost to Maryfield. “Something which may be...” She hesitated. Horrifying? Comforting? Infuriating? She had no idea how he would react. The man she knew—thoughtshe knew, after these several days with him—would probably be surprised but not angry. The Malicious Marquess, though, would be furious, and she still didn’t know who was the true Rob. “Rather surprising.”
“Good Lord. Ought I to apologize again?”
She flushed. “No, of course not.”
“It sounds as though you’re winding up a very grave speech. Whatever I did to make you so somber, I am sorry.”
“You won’t think so when you’ve heard what I have to say,” she muttered.
“No?” He laid his hand over hers. “Give me a chance.”
He was laughing now, but he was going to hate her. She drew a shallow, agonized breath and forged onward. “I haven’t told you the full truth about yourself.”
“I know,” he replied. “You won’t tell me what I did to hurt you.”
If only that were all. “You won’t care about that once I’ve told you the rest.” Her fingers tapped nervously on her knee.
“I could guess,” he offered as she hesitated. “Or play at charades.”
“I didn’t tell you your proper name,” she blurted out.
The carriage rocked back and forth a few times.
Rob drew a deep breath. “Am I really Ebenezer?”
“What?” A burst of hysterical laughter escaped her throat. “No! You’re Robert—”
“Thank God,” he declared.
“—Churchill-Gray,” she finished, her voice fading with each syllable. She braced herself for an explosion of shock and fury. “Marquess of Westmorland.”
He turned his head to look at her for an endless, fraught moment. “What do you mean?”
