“She is gone,” Althea spoke. “What did you wish to tell me?”
“I love you.”
There was a gasp from the other side of the curtain. Oh, how he wished he could see her face and gauge her reactions. It was very hard to pour one’s heart out to a curtain.
“I started falling in London, I believe. Except, I’ll be honest, it was far more lust at that time than love.” He couldn’t lie to her. “The desire had been present the moment I spied you in the ballroom and grew each time I saw you. Why else do you think I offered you the position of governess without experience?”
“You were desperate with five little girls to raise.”
“Why do you think I offered to marry you?”
“You didn’t.”
The worst part of his deception would now see light. Althea might reject him on that alone, but he had to tell her the truth.
“The offer of marriage you received…”
“How did you know?” she asked in alarm and Preston was reminded that Althea had kept secrets as well, though he understood why she had.
“The proposal was not from my uncle, but from me,” he finally said quietly and waited.
There was only silence on the other side of the curtain. Perhaps she didn’t understand.
“I am the one who asked my uncle to speak with yours and negotiate a marriage contract.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bloody hell.
“Let me tell you the whole of it, please.”
“Very well.”
“Uncle Gerald was persistent in me taking a bride. Alec was also plying me with brandy and the only woman who had been on my mind since I’d left London was you. I may have divulged too much of my desire for you and then he advised that you were not yet spoken for. I still can’t believe you hadn’t married. The lords in London must truly be fools….” He was moving from the topic. “In the end, I instructed him to deliver my offer.”
“They never mentioned your name,” she said quietly.
Preston then told her of the letter that had arrived the same day she did.
“I had already anticipated that you’d reject me when my uncle’s letter arrived. Then you were here, and the girls wished for you to be their governess…I thought that…if you came to know me…if I could court you…” he trailed off, afraid of what her response would be. There was nothing but silence on the other side of the curtain.
“I came to truly love you, Althea. I just didn’t fully recognize it in London. However, I recognized lust in a manner in which I’d never experienced, though that was not a reason to marry.”
“After your uncle left?” she said. “You claimed he hadn’t visited in years.”
Preston’s face heated. “I knew why you’d run away, remember. I feared that if you believed that he might visit at any time that you might flee my home, and I couldn’t have you leaving. Not until I had a chance to express…what I’m expressing now.”
“You’ve lied to me from the beginning.” Her voice was quiet.
He’d lost her. Preston realized it in that moment because he’d not been truthful with her from the beginning, and he lost all hope of her ever being his wife.
“I didn’t want to lose you, nor face the humiliation when you learned the truth. Although there were several times I tried to tell you, but couldn’t manage to say the words.”
His heart ached and there was complete silence on the other side of the curtain.
Althea’s heart had soared when she heard his words of love, then plummeted at the revelation of his deception.
He’d known since she arrived that she’d run away and her reason but had remained silent.
