The driver opened the carriage, and Thomas handed him some money. “Please park farther down and wait.”
The man nodded. Thomas stepped out of the carriage and felt frozen in place. He was about to declare his love for the woman who’d abandoned him years ago. Was he a fool? Hesmiled likely, but he found that he didn’t care. It was the only option he had. Thomas loved Lisbeth, and he wasn’t sure anything would ever change that. The carriage rumbled away.
Before he could cross the road and approach Lisbeth’s home, a woman opened the front door with two children in tow. He suspected they were Lisbeth’s. It was a girl and a boy. The girl appeared to be older. She turned towards him, smiling, and he gasped. Her green eyes darted around the street, perusing what was taking place. He didn’t seem to warrant any interest as her perusal moved quickly past him.
Yet, she held all his. His gaze roamed over her dark brown hair with reddish highlights, but what had him shocked was her green eyes. They were so much like his own. No. He shook his head, stumbling backward. Lisbeth had broken his heart all those years ago, but she would never do something so cruel.
The girl smirked, and Thomas realized that he was wrong. Lisbeth had been keeping a cruel, devastating secret from him. He spun away from Lisbeth’s home, deciding he couldn’t go there. Hurt and fury coursed through him. Was he making an incorrect assumption? He hoped so, but then the girl’s smirk flashed in his mind so much like his own.
He approached the carriage, and the driver’s brows shot up in surprise. “That was a fast trip, Mr. Easton.”
Thomas nodded and pulled an envelope from his jacket. “Please take me to the address on this paper.”
He stepped into the carriage and shut the door. Fury boiled in him. He had a daughter. One that had been alive for the last ten years. Rage made him want to scream and holler. Had he known she existed, he would have come to London sooner.
Lisbeth had kept this from him. All of the emotions he felt for her turned hard and cold. Plans swirled in his mind, none of them soft and tender, but fixated on making sure he had all that he wanted and deserved. Thomas never believed he could hateLisbeth, but today, he discovered he was wrong. She would pay for her actions.
Chapter Fifteen
Lisbeth paced backand forth, waiting for Justin. Her brother had been meeting with business associates when she arrived at his townhouse unplanned. The butler had shown her to the drawing room to wait. It was strange to be in this building as a guest. This was where she’d grown up with Thomas. His mother had been the housekeeper here.
Justin would be upset if she ever said she was a guest aloud, as he insisted that this place would always be her home. A petty part of her whispered,it should be; she’d given up enough for it. She sighed, pushing the thoughts away. Lisbeth had made peace with her decision to leave Thomas in Tuscany. She wouldn’t dwell on it.
Yet, it was the cause of all that was happening now. The door opened, and Justin strode in. Her brother epitomized what an earl should be. His bearing and dedication could never be questioned. Their father had passed a few years ago, and her mother spent most of her time, by choice, in the country.
Lisbeth wondered when he would marry. Justin seemed to have no interest. He spent most of his time involved in business deals to increase the earldom’s financial portfolio. She sometimes suspected that he felt working hard was his penance for having begged her to leave Thomas and marry Nicholas. Desperation had forced him to collect her in Tuscany. She suspected he never wanted to feel that way again.
The family had been so broke, and the only way they could fix it was by sticking to the arrangement their father had made with the Lusby family. Usually, ladies came with dowries, but Nicholas’s family had agreed to pay her father a large sum of money once she married their son. Lisbeth wasn’t aware that her family had been on the verge of losing everything when she ran off with Thomas.
“Has he arrived?” Justin asked, taking her away from her thoughts.
She shook her head. Lisbeth hadn’t spoken with Justin since before she departed on her trip to retrieve the tablets. She’d not wanted to endure any of his questions about Thomas. Justin blamed him for their running away. It didn’t matter that she’d explained it was her decision. He always insisted that Thomas should have felt obligated to make sure they were doing the right thing.
“Do you think he is here to see you?”
“I don’t know.”
Justin stalked to a side table and poured himself a drink. He held a glass up to her, but she shook her head. Sighing, he said, “The best we can hope for is he gets wrapped up in his admirers, and you are forgotten.”
She flinched at his words, and he frowned. “I’m sorry, Lisbeth. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”
Lisbeth shrugged. “I know why you are saying that. I think if he sees Alice, he will quickly deduce that she is his.”
“Damn it,” Thomas muttered.
“I plan to tell him about Alice as soon as he arrives.”
Justin’s eyes flared with alarm. “What good would that do?”
“Thomas deserves to know the truth.”
He took a sip of his drink. “He should not have been gallivanting across the world with a young lady.”
A sigh escaped her. “Justin, I’ve told you repeatedly that I was the one who planned everything. I wanted to find Benjamin Calvert and work with him. It wasn’t Thomas’s idea.”
“Would you have gone without him?”
She didn’t respond. Justin’s lips twisted in a smirk. “No, you wouldn’t have. You two were always bad for each other.”
