Page 61 of The Earl Takes All
She stood unmoving.
Right. She wasn’t of a mind to make any allowances or do him any favors. Already this discussion did not bode well for a favorable ending. He strode toward the threshold, walked past her and shut the door. What they had to say to each other needed to be said without servants overhearing anything. Earlier he’d sent the footman who usually saw to the opening and closing of doors on his way. Edward swung around.
“Why?” she demanded, firing the first volley of what was bound to be a combative exchange. “Why did you do it?”
“Albert asked me to.”
“He asked you to deceive me?”
“He asked me to ensure that you did not lose the babe. ‘Be me,’ he said. ‘Take care of her.’ He feared, as did I, that the grief over his death would cause you to miscarry. So I pretended to be him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
And he had no way to convince her except with words. “Why would I do this if not for his asking? Why would I pretend all these weeks to be Albert?”
“Because you feared I was carrying a son. You wanted the title, the estates, the power, the prestige. That’s the reason you weren’t disappointed I gave birth to a girl.”
“I did not want the title.”
She shook her head vigorously. “And then to carry on with the farce. There can be only one reason for that: to humiliate me, to make sport of me, to gain what you’d been denied in the garden, to make me pay for that slap.”
“You think me that petty? To take advantage of my brother’s death in such a vile manner?”
“What else am I to think when you had ample opportunity to tell me, and yet you carried on with the pretense. The things I said to you, thethingsI did to you. Oh, you must have had a jolly good laugh.”
She wasn’t listening, wasn’t hearing what he was saying. “I swear to you, Julia, I laughed during none of this.”
She placed her hand over her mouth. “The things you did to me. How could you?”
“I was trying to mimic your husband. I could see no good coming from turning you away. I feared you becoming melancholy, causing the very outcome I was trying to prevent.”
She pounded her fist into his shoulder, nearly causing him to stumble back. In righteous anger, she possessed quite the wallop.
“What rot! You enjoyed it. You enjoyed deceiving me.”
“No.”
“You’ve always been jealous of Albert. You wanted the title. If I gave birth to a boy, you would never have it, so you took preemptive measures to ensure your position.”
“No. It’s as I said. Albert asked—”
“Liar. It was your plan all along to take everything. His title, his estates, even his wife, his child—”
“No! I never planned to take any of it. It was my intent to tell you everything as soon as the babe was born.”
“As soon as the babe was born? It’s been six weeks! What the devil were you waiting for?”
“To fall out of love with you.”
Chapter 15
Reelingfrom his declaration, Julia took a staggering step back and gawked in disbelief at Edward. She expected him to burst out laughing any minute now, but he remained solemn, stoic. He had to be striving to trick her, to gain sympathy or forgiveness or something nefarious that she couldn’t identify. “But you’ve never even liked me.”
“Dear God, if only that were true.”
Striving to make sense of him, she continued to stare as he walked past her to the sideboard, poured scotch into a glass, brandy into another, and held the one containing brandy toward her. Another way in which the brothers were so vastly different. Albert never would have offered her spirits. Why had she thought a journey to Africa would change his basic philosophies?
But she couldn’t take it, couldn’t seem to force her feet to move. Nothing was making any sense.
