She’d missed him.She could admit it to herself, if not to him.But the realization brought with it the memory of the last time they’d been together, and the harsh words that had been spoken.
“What did you mean?”she asked him, unconsciously tilting her head back to give him better access to her throat.“When you said I was just like all the rest of them.All the rest of whom?”
He stiffened against her, his whole body going rigid for a moment before he lifted his head to stare down into her eyes.“All the rest of the aristocratic world, I suppose.Although really, I was talking about…the family that owns these lands, the Montrose family.”
When she gazed at him searchingly, he settled at her side, the length of their bodies pressed together in a way that was comforting rather than stimulating, but just as satisfying.
“Your impressions of the last duke were correct,” Hal told her.“He was not a good man.He came by it honestly, though, descending from a long line of not very good men.”
“Perhaps the current duke, your friend, will be better,” Gemma said optimistically.“You never did say where he’s gone off to.”
“He’s abroad,” Hal answered shortly.“Indefinitely.”
Gemma sighed.It seemed a shame not to get a crack at seducing the resident duke into marrying her.But then she frowned.“I still don’t understand why that was such an insult, to compare me to a duke’s family.You clearly did not mean it as a compliment.”
“No.”Hal tipped his forehead down to rest it against her temple, and the moment of closeness and shared warmth and breath melted Gemma’s bones into the mattress.“I shouldn’t have said it; it was unfair to you.”
“What did you mean by it, though?”
He laughed a little, shaking the mattress.“You are relentless.”
“When I want something?Yes.”
“Well, that is one way you are different from the Montroses.Not one of them had the fortitude to pursue a goal loftier than to attend a ball every evening of their pointless, silly lives.”
Taken aback by the genuine venom in his tone, Gemma sat up a bit, using her elbows to prop herself upright.“Goodness.You truly did not respect them, did you?”
Hal struggled with that for a moment, but finally shrugged.“I suppose not.We certainly didn’t have much in common.They did nothing but throw parties, spend money that should’ve gone to improving the lives of the their dependents, and sleep the day away idly.”
Gemma shifted uncomfortably.“If I’m honest, that description does not sound entirely unlike me.Or at least, it sounds like the life I used to lead, in London.”
“Perhaps, although I have seen a different side of you emerge since you started fixing up Five Mile House,” Hal pointed out.His voice grew rough.“And I cannot believe you would ever display the callousness of the Montrose family, who regularly came face to face with the poverty, deprivations and suffering they caused by neglecting their duty to their tenants, and ignored it all.Worse; they laughed about it.Even within their own family, when confronted with the misery they caused…well.They were truly heartless.You, Gemma—I know you have a heart.”
That heart had started thumping, hard enough to shake Gemma’s ribcage.She worked to keep her mind clear.
“You’ve given yourself away,” she said softly, studying the lines of his face.“No mere friend of the younger son would feel so strongly about the family’s wrongdoings.No, I have divined the truth.”
Hal turned to steel against her, cold and unyielding and defensive.“What truth?”
“You didn’t meet the Duke of Havilocke at university.You knew him from a much younger age.”
He went impossibly stiffer at her side.It was like lying in bed with a statue.
A little bewildered by his reaction, Gemma nevertheless triumphantly delivered her coup de grâce.“You grew up in the village here, didn’t you?It’s your home, your family’s home.”
Abruptly relaxing, Hal huffed out a laugh that almost sounded giddy.Looming over her, he held himself up with one hand and used the other to brush her curls away from her face.“You have discovered my secret.I was, in fact, born here.”
“I know your mother is gone.Does the rest of your family still live here?”
He sobered, his forehead creasing.“All of my family is dead.I am the only one left.But even before that, they were not what you could consider loving.For all intents and purposes, they abandoned me when I was young.If it wasn’t for the kindness and generosity of the people here in Little Kissington, I would have been very alone.The Pickfords practically raised me alongside their own brood.”
“I see,” Gemma said around the lump in her throat.No wonder he and Bess were so close, they’d grown up like brother and sister.And Gemma saw, too, why Hal was so protective of this place and these people.They had taken him in when his own family, the people who should have cared for him, left him alone.Of course he loved and defended this community, which had shown him the only care he’d ever known.
Her heart ached for the little motherless boy he had been.
“I see, too,” Hal said quietly.“It may shock you to know that I spent some portion of the last few days thinking, and I’ve realized something.Your reasons for carrying on with this scheme run deeper than all three of you missing a life of luxury and entertainments in London.Don’t they?”
The question pierced straight through Gemma.“I have several reasons, each compelling in its own way.”
