He looked tired and sad.
“They confirmed the loneliness, just as you’d written. They also told me that the day before your sudden departure, you’d received a visitor.” He paused, as if he found itdifficult for him to continue. “Violetta Allan.” He swallowed. “She was an opera dancer…and my former mistress.”
The silence in the room was so absolute that only the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece could be heard. Lena did not move a muscle in her face but continued to look at him.
“She and I had been involved before our marriage,” Julius continued, his voice heavy with remorse. “I ended the relationship before we wed. I set her up with a house and enough jewellery to live comfortably on the condition that our relationship was over. She didn’t take it well. I must have been a cork-headed fool, as somehow she’d got it into her head that she would become the next Duchess of Aldingbourne. I learned too late that she’d done the unseemly thing and sought you out in public, and then again in Aldingbourne Hall. I can only imagine what she must have said. She admitted it when I confronted her much later, and she’d bragged about what she’d done.
“The servants confirmed that you were distraught. Understandably so. The next day you packed your things and left. We didn’t immediately discover where you’d gone. You’d taken the public stagecoach to the North. By the time we caught up with it, we’d heard of the accident. Many bodies were not found, washed away by the river. Yours included. We had search troops—” His voice failed. He cleared his throat and started over again. “We had search troops scour the entire area. A week later we found a body that we mistook to be yours.”
“Martha,” Lena said mournfully. “Poor, loyal Martha.She hadn’t wanted to come along. She’d tried so hard to talk me out of it. I bribed her by giving her one of my dresses, allowing her to wear it on the trip.”
The Duke closed his eyes, as if seeing the horrific images of those days flash in front of him once again. “Martha was the same height and had the same hair colour as you. Since she wore your clothes, we mistook her for you.”
Lena wept quietly. “It is my fault she is dead.”
“No, Lena. The accident was not your fault. None of it was.”
There was silence as she chewed on her lower lip, deep in thought.
“That is the whole truth,” he said quietly. “I kept it from you, thinking it would spare you pain. I have decided that secrets only fester. I want us to have no more secrets.”
Lena’s voice was steady when she finally spoke. “Did you love her?” It was a question she hadn’t intended to ask, but she knew it would haunt her if she didn’t.
Julius rubbed his forehead, a stricken expression on his face. “I was young and foolish. There was a time when I thought I loved her. That was before I understood what love really was.”
“Were you ever unfaithful to me while we were married?”
He shook his head firmly. “No, never. The thought of having a mistress while being married, as so many in our class do, is abhorrent to me. She lied to you that day. Our relationship had long been over by then.”
There was silence once more. Lena regarded him for a long moment.
“I believe you,” she said softly.
He closed his eyes in anguish. “I should have done more for you. I should have been there. I should never have let you feel so alone. I have failed you in so many ways, Lena. I don’t expect your forgiveness, but I wanted you to know the truth. I know this is eight years too late. I have loved you all along, even when I was too blind to see it myself. Every day I regretted the moments I let slip away without showing you how much you meant to me. I should have been shouting it from the rooftops and from every hill in England. Instead, I allowed fear to get the better of me and I retreated into my shell and abandoned you. I will never forgive myself for that.”
Lena considered his words. Her voice trembling slightly when she finally spoke. “About that woman, Violetta Allan,” she began carefully. “What happened before our marriage isn’t something I can hold against you. We were both young then. Yes, I felt insecure and unworthy, especially after she came to me.” She glanced down at her hands. “She told me you were still involved with her, that you loved her. And I believed her lies.” She sighed softly. “But you ended things with her before we were married, and you were never unfaithful to me.”
He nodded solemnly. “I swear on my life, that is the truth.”
“What matters to me now is our marriage, not the relationships you had before. I could have done more too. Instead of reaching out to you, I withdrew into my ownsadness. I could have accompanied you to London, or insisted we spend more time together. But I didn’t. I buried myself in Aldingbourne Hall and wallowed. So when your former mistress crossed my path and couldn’t resist bragging, all the insecurities of my youth came rushing back. I didn’t know how to handle it. Instead of asking you the truth or fighting for us, I ran away.”
He stared at her and his eyes widened as the truth dawned on him. “You remember?”
She nodded. “Yes. I’ve known for a while.”
“Since when?”
“Since the day you spent in town on a meeting. I entered the room to sniff your cologne. It all came back to me then.”
He shaded his eyes. “All this time you’ve known, and you’ve never said a word? Why?”
“Because I needed to hear it all from you. I was afraid of remembering, but I was even more afraid of losing what we have now.” She reached for him. “But that is all in the past, Julius. I want us to move forwards. I want us to start again.” She laid her hand on his wet cheek.
He grasped her hand tightly. “I don’t deserve you. These last few weeks have been the happiest of my life. The thought of you remembering, of the past catching up, terrified me. I did not know what to do. Remind you of the past? Or let you forget it? I was torn. But never, not once, did I cease loving you.”
“Hush,” she whispered, drawing him closer. “No more regrets. No more torment. We have now. The present to focus on. A family to care for. A love torediscover.” She smiled warmly, her gaze locking with his as she pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, deeply, passionately.
Julius’s voice softly echoed against her skin. “A love to rediscover.”
