He cleared his throat. “Aaron Walters is dead, Lizzie,” he said, gently but firmly. As she lifted her hand to her mouth in shock, he continued, “He attacked Amelia, with the intention of killing her. Luckily the authorities came in and he was struck down. He cannot hurt you, hurtus, any longer.”
Lizzie staggered to the settee and sat down hard. She stared at the floor in front of her, shaking her head in silence. Amelia pushed aside her own upset and took the place beside her.
“What are you feeling?” she asked. “There is no wrong answer.”
“Sad,” Lizzie admitted. “And relieved.”
Amelia nodded as she took her hand. “I feel the same.”
“Why did he attack you?” Lizzie asked. “Because you confronted him about me? Is this my fault?”
Amelia glanced up at Hugh. His face was positively crumpled, broken. She understood why he wanted to protect Lizzie from the truth. Protect himself from the consequences. She met his stare and held it, hoping he would find strength.
He sighed and took a place in one of the chairs across from the settee. “I have lied to you, Lizzie,” he said after what felt like forever. “I’ve lied to you and I’ve lied to Amelia. And I need to be honest now.”
“Lied to me?” Lizzie sounded utterly confused. “No, Hugh. You are the most honorable man I know.”
He shut his eyes, and the pain that flowed over his expression was heartbreaking. “I am not, Elizabeth. Not in the slightest.”
“Just start at the beginning,” Amelia encouraged softly.
He opened his eyes and his dark gaze snared hers. “The beginning,” he repeated. “Yes. Lizzie, after I found you with Walters, I paid him to keep the secret of what had happened between you.”
“Yes,” she said. “He said you would have to and I thought you must have in the end. I’m so sorry.”
“No,” he said, leaning forward in his chair as if he could draw her closer. “No,I’msorry. I hated giving that bastard money for his silence. I wanted to call him out, destroy him in every way. Not provide for his comfort.”
“You could have if I hadn’t been so foolish,” Lizzie whispered.
Amelia squeezed her hand. “You are not to blame for a villain’s cruelty, Lizzie. You must let that guilt go. Hugh was trying to protect you as best he could. If you could protect him, you would have done the same.”
She nodded. “I would,” she said on a sigh.
Hugh glanced at Amelia, and she saw his gratitude for her interjection. The one that absolved both him and Lizzie of some of their pain. Then he shook his head and continued, “Letting him go, it didn’t just pain me. I knew the bastard might go back to his evil ways. I had men tracking him. Watching to see if he was going to do something wicked again.”
“And he did?” Lizzie asked.
“Yes,” Amelia said when Hugh seemed to struggle. “He did.”
“Lizzie, Aaron became engaged to…to Amelia,” Hugh said at last.
Lizzie jolted, jerking her hand from Amelia’s and getting up from the couch to back away. “What?”
“I didn’t know about what had happened with you, of course,” Amelia said. “Aaron made me a victim. Just like he did with you, he became the vision of what I wanted.” She glanced at Hugh. “What IthoughtI wanted.”
“Oh no,” Lizzie said, her whisper filled with the deepest pain.
Hugh nodded. “When I found out, I intervened, but I…I was still hesitant to give details as to why Amelia shouldn’t marry this man. So I…I lied to force her to marry me instead.”
Amelia caught her breath and focused only on her husband. “You told me that you owned my father’s debts,” she said. “Was that true? Did you buy them in order to manipulate me or were there ever any debts at all?”
“I lied,” he admitted softly. “Your father’s idea. He said you would protect him at any cost. He made up the story about the debts, knowing it would turn you against me but also force your hand. I went along with it, despite how distasteful I found it. I lied, Amelia.”
The gravity of all that had happened hit Amelia with the force of a tidal wave. She heard a sound in the air and realized with a start that it was her own moan of pain, of heartbreak. And in that moment, she felt like it would never stop hurting again.
Nausea washed over Hugh as he stared at Amelia, her body bent over, her shoulders shaking as she made a sound of anguish that felt like it shattered his very soul. He had done this to her. Not Walters, not her father…him. And he wanted to rush to her, to comfort her, to erase what he’d done.
But he couldn’t. The best he could do was sit with the consequences andfeelthem. He owed her that.
