“Annabel was not a member of theton.Her father had been a sailor and her mother a seamstress.But they were both dead, and she was living with an aunt in London.Not a fashionable part,” he recalled.“I only met the aunt once, but I was unconcerned by Annabel’s lack of social connections, deemed it to be unimportant when we were in love and wished to marry.Except I quickly learned that it was only I who felt that way.”
“Oh?”
His nostrils flared.“The ink was barely dry on the marriage certificate before Annabel informed me she was not in love with me, that she never had been.”
“Then why did she marry you?”
Julian stood up to restlessly pace the room.“For the Moreland fortune?The prestige of being a duchess?”He shook his head.“I have no idea.I only know that once she was officially my duchess, she wanted nothing to do with me.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened.“Such a thing had never occurred to me… Nothing at all?”
He stopped pacing to glare at her, his jaw clenched.“At all.”
“Does that mean…?”
Julian could no longer look at her but turned to stare sightlessly out of the window.“Perhaps I should not be revealing this to you.I have not done so to anyone else.Possibly because, initially, I tried to protect Annabel, and later because of my own humiliation over the situation.The servants possibly knew.As you said, they see much more than we are aware.”
“Whatever this was, I am sure they will have known,” Georgiana confirmed.“See much more of what, Julian?”she prompted softly.
He sighed heavily.“I had believed, because she was so young, that when Annabel barred me from her bedchamber on our wedding night that it was purely a case of nerves, and that we would come together another night.”His mouth twisted.“We did not.I tried for months, did everything I could to make her feel comfortable with the physical side of marriage, but Annabel remained adamant I was not welcome in her bed.”
* * *
It was perhaps selfish of Georgiana to feel so elated upon learning Julian’s marriage had been such a monumental failure.
Very selfish, she acknowledged self-reprovingly, when that failure had obviously hurt Julian so badly.Initially, his heart, and then his pride.
“You could have had the marriage annulled,” Georgiana pointed out.
Julian turned to face her.“I already felt ridiculous enough, without every member of thetonbeing made aware of my total humiliation.My closest friends, St.Albans and Hellsmere, had advised me before the elopement to stop and take a breath, to think the matter through before hastening into marriage.I refused, felt sure that their caution was unwarranted.I even felt a little indignant on Annabel’s behalf.I have paid a severe price for not heeding their warnings.”He sounded weighed down by this occurrence.
Which was perhaps why, Georgiana realized, St.Albans had been so hellbent on helping Julian by employing a secretary on his behalf.
Knowing the Duke of St.Albans as Georgiana now felt that she did, he might even have had more than that in mind, aware of Georgiana’s vow not to marry for anything less than love when he asked her to travel into Norfolk to work for his friend.
She stood to move out from behind the desk.“I am very sorry you had to go through that.”
Julian huffed out a self-derisive laugh.“It was a hell of my own making.”
Georgina crossed the room to stand in front of him before lifting one of her hands to cradle the side of his face.The fact that his cheek felt slightly rough to the touch came as no surprise.She had noticed that although Julian was newly shaved each morning, by the afternoon, that facial hair had grown long enough to cast a shadow over his jawline.
She smiled at him encouragingly.“You believed you were marrying for love, and no one should ever fault you for that.”
Julian lifted his hand and placed its warmth on top of hers.“Then why does even talking about that situation still make me feel such cringing humiliation and embarrassment?”
“Because, like the rest of humanity, you had only wanted to be loved and to love, but instead, you found yourself condemned to living with a woman who obviously did not, and never had, returned your affections.A woman, moreover, who it seems never had any intention of being your wife in more than name.”Which, Georgiana acknowledged, she found very strange when Julian was such a handsome man.
“I was a first-class fool and old enough to know better,” he growled.
“As you said, you had recently returned from war, and the innocence of her beauty bedazzled you,” she reminded.“Perhaps deliberately so,” she stated.
Julian frowned.“What do you mean?”
Georgiana was unsure, her thoughts still a little jumbled, but the underlying thought that persisted through all that she had learned today was that something about this situation did not add up.It was almost as if…
“Did her aunt come to live with you after the marriage?”It was the custom in many society marriages when an older relative would be left to live alone after a marriage took place.
Julian shook his head.“Annabel told me her aunt was perfectly happy staying where she was, and being a newly married man, I did not push the subject.”
