Hadhe?
Yes, she could well believe it. Her lips parted, ready to defend him, but she had no voice. There was no defence for a crime like that.
“Beaumont,” Nathanial said, his tone cutting. “A word outside, if you please.”
Henry gave her a disgusted look and left the room with Nathanial, and Annabelle tried to control her racing thoughts as she sank down onto the sofa. Theo took her hand, squeezing it.
“Whatever mistakes he made in the past, he is not making them now. Unless youwerein the garden being seduced,” she added dryly. “And even then, he is marrying you.”
“He never mentioned anything about this,” she said, her lips numb. “And no, Theo, he did not seduce me in the garden.” In fact, he had gone out of his way topreventher seduction, even though there had been a moment when she had thought she would not have minded.
And she had thoughthewould not have minded, either.
But to seduce his own brother’s betrothed and ruin her utterly?
“Henry should have known better than to spring this on you like this,” Theo said, rubbing her hand. “It’s an old scandal. Before either of our times. Do you really care for him so much, Anna?”
Annabelle shook her head, though she was not entirely sure it was the truth. At their engagement ball, she had told Jacob she would have married his brother.
I assure you, you would not be the first.
How much had she hurt him? What would he do to assuage that hurt?
Surely Henry could not have been correct.
She felt positively ill.
“Let’s return home,” Theo said bracingly, squeezing her hand. “Nate can find his own way home after he’s finished berating Henry.” Her expression darkened, but Annabelle couldn’t help but notice her lips looked a little too pale. “I don’t knowwhathe was thinking.”
Her mother sat on Annabelle’s other side. “He was just trying to look out for you, dear,” she said placatingly. “I’m sure he’ll come around and see sense.”
“Mama,” Theo said sharply. “Henry was out of line. You can’t defend him.”
Their mother fell silent, and Annabelle rose on shaky legs. “Yes,” she said, formulating a plan as she spoke. She needed to see Jacob—now. “Let’s return home.”
Chapter Eighteen
As Annabelle had hoped, Theo took to her bed for a nap, and Annabelle lingered only long enough to leave a note for Nathanial informing him that she had gone to Hatchards. Ever since discovering that Jacob lived opposite, she had avoided it in favour of smaller bookshops and circulating libraries, but for her purposes, Hatchards was necessary—she needed no one to doubt the veracity of her story.
She sneaked out of the side door, closing it softly behind her, and started down the road. She had never been on her own before, and especially not like this, but no one could know where she was going, or what her intentions were. After some deliberation, she’d decided to visit Lady Bolton; as one of Jacob’s oldest friends, she no doubt knew all about this young lady Jacob had ruined, and she would even perhaps be able to take Annabelle to see him.
She needed to see him.
Henry had been so angry, as though he had known a thousand things she didn’t. And perhaps he did. Perhaps this girl was only the beginning. After knowing Jacob better, she had dismissed most of the stories about him as being rumour, but perhaps she’d been wrong. All this time, even when she had hated him, she had assumed he was, in his heart, a good person. He had agreed to this engagement for her sake—if there was one thing she believed, it was that he did not care for his own reputation.
Ergo, he cared for hers.
But was that possible when he had done so much to hurt others?
His ownbrother’sbetrothed?
She dashed a hand across her eyes and tried to focus on what she knew for certain. He had stopped drinking for her sake, although he said something about needing to drink for ‘liquid courage’. At the time, she hadn’t thought too deeply into it, but now she stopped to analyse every moment, turning it over and examining it from all sides. Unspoken implications, the way he had touched her, the things he had said to her. The longer she had known him, the more she felt as though she had been peeling back the layers defending himself—the armour he wore to defend against the arrows of Society’s derision, as Lady Bolton had said. But what if she had been deceiving herself?
Perhaps he truly was as bad as everyone thought him to be, and she had seen what she hadwantedto see, because the attention had been pleasant.
If so, then she was a fool.
By the time she arrived at Lady Bolton’s house, she was in a state, sweaty hair sticking to the nape of her neck. It was a particularly warm May day, and her thoughts had made her increasingly heated. Her nerves were frayed, and when the butler led her into the drawing room where Lady Bolton was having her footmen place a new painting on the wall, she found herself alarmingly close to tears.
