“Dead?” Annabelle jerked back out of his hands and his shoulders went stiff. “She’sdead?”
Jacob ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back. “It’s not what you think, little bird.” All of a sudden, he looked exhausted, the lines on his face deepening. Although he was still only in his twenties—a young man by anyone’s standard—he looked as though he had seen the dawn of time and everything that came after.
“Then tell me,” she urged. “I want to know everything. The truth.”
“The truth?” His lip curled. “No one wants that.”
“It’s part of you. I want to know.”
For a long moment, he just looked at her. Then he raked another hand through his hair, his shoulders sagging with the weight of his decision. “Very well. You may sit if you like. It’s not a pretty story.”
Annabelle perched on the edge of the low couch that had been placed there, and Jacob sat on the other side. He played with his cuffs, eyes cast down as he visibly gathered himself.
“I have no excuse for how the affair began. I hated my brother and everything he stood for, and I hated that he had everything he wanted. So I took the one thing from him I could—the woman he was going to marry. I’ll admit, it was an act of spite, at first, and I had enough experience in the bedchamber to think myself capable of it. But the more I got to know her, the more I understood she never wanted the match and her heart was not engaged. We fell in love.” There was a mocking edge to his voice. “Or so I thought in my youth and naivety. I offered her everything I had. I said we could elope, I told her I would take a position in politics or the law to support her the best I could. It wouldn’t have been the life she was accustomed to, but we would be together and I thought that would be enough.”
Annabelle’s nose stung. Jacob’s voice was flat but she could hear the echoes of hurt behind it. An empty room that had once held screams of pain.
“Of course, what she had truly wanted from my brother was his position, his wealth, his title. I had none of that. So she turned me down, but like a fool I kept coming back to her for more. The affair went on for months, and by the end of it, I’d forgotten why it had ever begun.” He shook his head, a humourless smile curling the corner of his mouth. “To this day, I don’t know how her father discovered we were together. A rumour, I suppose. Mindless gossip that reached his ears. He believed it enough to throw his daughter onto the street. I offered her marriage, a home, anything she wanted, but she ran to my brother instead.”
Annabelle bit her lip in sympathy. “But he no longer wanted her as his bride?”
“He broke the engagement. One of the few times gentlemen can without social repercussions. Everyone thought her a whore and me a low-born bastard.” He shrugged, but his eyes were opaque, no emotion seeping through. “My understanding is, after he rejected her, she came to me again. But she never made it. Her body was discovered a few days later, and . . . I never saw the body, but I understand she was strangled after . . .” He broke off, shaking his head.
Annabelle leant forward and placed her hand on his leg. “That wasn’t your fault,” she said forcefully. “You can hardly hold yourself accountable.”
He looked down at the contact, and she curled her fingers, pulling her hand away again, but he caught her wrist. “Annabelle,” he said, his voice low. His thumb swept over her pulse-point.
Annabelle was not prone to disliking other women where she could help it, but she detested this Madeline. For existing, for making Jacob love her, and for breaking his heart so thoroughly he had never been able to put the pieces back together.
“She should have loved you,” she said.
Jacob’s eyes were dark, so dark, when he looked at her. “I fear that would have been impossible.”
“Why? Because you didn’t have a title?”
“Because in all my life, no one has ever loved me, and why should a girl hoping for a rich husband be any different?” His smile twisted, bitter enough to impale her heart. “What did I have to offer her, little bird? I was the younger brother of a marquess, and considering I was hardly suited for the church, I would have had to find some other occupation. Not the life she had envisaged for herself.”
“Then she should have considered what would matter more—a husband who adored her or a man who was marrying her for convenience only.”
“My love would not have made us rich,” he said, toying with her fingers absently in a way that made heat steal through her body. “A noblewoman learning to darn socks and make do? Imagine, Annabelle.”
“It doesn’t sound so terrible to me.”
“I hadn’t thought you were so much of a romantic,” he said, a gleam ofsomethingin his eye. Unfathomable and dark—there was such darkness in him, but it called to her, begged her to soothe its edges. “But if you recall, she is not the only one to prefer my brother.”
“That’s why I came here,” she said, looking up and meeting his gaze with all the seriousness she could muster. “I wanted to apologise for saying I would marry Cecil over you. When I said it, I was thinking about the books, but—” But he had sent her the sonnets and she had felt seen and heard, and even his tale of Madeline hadn’t taken that from him. “If it came down to it, I would far rather marry you than your brother. Even if you were not a marquess and I had to darn my own socks.”
His sumptuous mouth pressed into a hard line. “That is not the life you would want.”
Better to live with a man who touched her like she was something precious, and kissed her breathless, than a man who married her for her money and convenience. Cecil had wanted her because of her reading, she knew, but he didn’t like her. He didn’tknowher.
There was no point arguing with him, but she wanted to offer him something he might accept. They had gone into their agreement as reluctant allies, but things had changed now.
They may never be husband and wife, but at least they could have this.
“I want to start anew,” she said, holding out her hand. “As . . . friends.” On the patio at the ball, they had been friends, and she had liked it. Friends enjoyed each other’s company and looked out for one another, did they not? And if she sometimes got distracted by the way his shirt indecently hugged his body, then that was notsobad.
He eyed her hand. “Friends?”
