Georgiana had no intention of doing so.Not because she felt in the least fearful of St.Albans’s wrath if she did, but because she preferred to form her own opinions of people and not be told by others what to think of them.
As such, she would decide for herself, once she had met the Duke of Moreland, whether he was innocent or guilty of any wrongdoing in his wife’s disappearance.
CHAPTERTWO
Last day of May, 1817,
Moreland Park Estate, Norfolk.
The crescent moon above was only fleetingly visible as the dark and rain-filled clouds scuttered heavily across the midnight sky, the storm they brought with them raging down onto the sandy beach below.Occasional streaks of lightning forked down to the churning sea, briefly lighting up the night sky.
Julian leaned low over the mane of his stallion as he urged that powerful beast to gallop faster still through the churning sea-foam.But they still weren’t fast enough to outrun the incoming tide as it crashed dramatically onto the mile-long stretch of beach that signified the western border of Julian’s estate.
Julian had lost his hat within minutes of leaving the stables and cantering down onto the dunes.A hat that had been tossed up in the air and then carried out to sea on one of those fierce and relentless waves.Within seconds, his dark hair had become soaking wet, and the rain was pelting against his face in stinging blows before cascading in a cold torrent to soak uncomfortably into his clothing.
Despite that discomfort, the wildness of the storm perfectly suited Julian’s mood.
Even if inwardly, he also cursed the reason for this turmoil of emotions.
Bloody secretaries.
He had no idea why he had thought this new one would be any different from the ones who’d come before.He had perhaps made that assumption because this person came with the personal recommendation of Julian’s friend Gabriel Lord, the Duke of St.Albans.
But it seemed, as that secretary had not arrived ‘by the end of the month,’ as St.Albans had informed Julian would be the case in the letter he had received from his friend two weeks ago, that even that forceful gentleman was incapable of ensuring a secretary would travel to Norfolk with the intention of taking up employment with Julian.
And why should he have thought it would be any different this time, when there had been a constant flow of such secretaries wafting through Moreland Park these past two years.Wafting, because all of them had lasted only a matter of days or weeks once they realized he wasthatJulian Sotherby, the Duke of Moreland.The same man everyone, both locally and in England’s capital, believed was responsible for killing his own wife.
Bloody Annabel.
When they met three years ago, the war with Napoleon was newly over, and, no longer needed to fight in Wellington’s army, Julian had returned to England.To a country not untouched by the war, because so many young men had been killed during the years of warfare.But it was a country, and a people, who represented the beauty of the England Julian had been fighting to protect.
Annabel had seemed especially so.She had been thirteen years younger than his own age of three and thirty, her golden hair and innocent beauty representing everything Julian had fought to protect.He had also believed his immediate attraction to her to be reciprocated.
Until the two of them were married, and Annabel, even on their wedding night, had spurned even the slightest of intimacies Julian attempted to initiate.
Because she had been so much younger than him, Julian had believed her to simply be nervous at the idea of a physical union.He had determined to be a patient and loving husband, believing only time and familiarity were needed to ease Annabella’s reservations.
Ha!
Time and familiarity had only seen the increased deterioration of their relationship.To a degree that, after only six months of that sterile marriage, they could barely stand to be in the same room together, let alone share a bed.
By their first anniversary, Julian knew that an annulment was the only answer to the intolerable situation he now found himself living in.Annabel was willing to be neither companion nor lover, and as a result, Julian felt neither married nor unmarried.Instead, he was caught in a torturous limbo between the two.
He had also been forced to accept that Annabel’s sole reason for marrying him had to be because of the Moreland name and fortune.The former was prestigious, the latter extensive, and Annabel obviously enjoyed both while doing nothing to fulfill her side of the marriage.
Julian felt not only used but also deeply foolish for ever having allowed himself to be blinded by Annabel’s beauty and an innocent warmth that was now sadly lacking.
It was not only a miserable existence but an unacceptable one.
One answer might have been for Julian to take a mistress, for both companionship and sexual release.But Julian had an aversion to doing so when his own father’s history of having numerous mistresses over the years had repeatedly belittled and hurt Julian’s mother.
Julian might have felt no hope for the continuation of his marriage as it was, but he had still not wanted to hurt Annabel.He simply saw no way forward with their marriage when she had made it clear she did not want anything to do withhim.
Which was why he had suggested they separate and eventually bring a formal end to the marriage.
Annabel had refused to even discuss the subject.Repeatedly.Indeed, the two of them had argued about it again the morning Annabel disappeared, her last words as she left the house being that she intended to take a long walk, alone, along the beach.
She never returned from that walk, and after extensive searches, both near and far, Julian was eventually forced to accept that his wife must have somehow been swept away and drowned in the fierceness of the North Sea.
