Forget the damned notebooks. He marched to the desk and snatched out a handful of letters from the exposed slotted wooden shelf, Danvers nipping at his heels like someirritating mama duck.
“You need clues, Major? You’re a fool if you can’t see why.”
“Oh, I’m a fool all right,” Teddy muttered and headed outside.
Of course, Danvers followed.
Teddy climbed aboard the carriage and reached to close the door, but Danvers held it ajar and leaned in.
“Ask yourself this: Did your family, your own flesh and blood, have your best interest in mind? Or did they, instead, choose to lock you up, to hide you away like so much rubbish? Someone like Georgina is a gift. Most people go their whole lives and never have someone willing to risk their own necks for the sake of someone they love.”
Teddy batted back a surge of pure longing. “You don’t know why she did what she did. Perhaps she merely wanted to exact revenge by weaving a web of lies around me. Or it could be as simple as seizing an opportunity to snag an earl. I won’t reward either behavior.”
Danvers gave him a rare smile. “I’m afraid it’s a bit too late for that, Major. I did ask if you were sure.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You are married, Major. There’s no getting around it.” He slipped his hand into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew what Ted could see was an official looking certificate. “This one’s no forgery. I still have connections. The paperwork’s all been filed.”
He handed it to Ted, who took it without bothering to read it.
“Nothing says I can’t burn the thing,” he said in a deliberately belligerent tone. But, he folded the parchment and slid it into his inside pocket.
Danvers only snorted. “It’s been recorded, sir.”
There was no use denying the small burst of relief the man’s words elicited, but he kept the shameful knowledge to himself.
Danvers slapped the side of the equipage, as if preparing to withdraw, and Teddy stayed him with a raised hand. “I don’t intend to make my way back here, Danvers. I want you to know…” A great many things. That he had Teddy’s respect and thanks. That he was a fine man, and one Ted considered more of a friend than a servant.
God, but he was a namby-pamby, just as his father claimed, wasn’t he?
“I know. I’m here, should you ever need me.”
He nodded. “If my so-called wife should return…”Damn. There was no message to convey. He would speak to her, himself. Confront her on her lies. And then they could go their separate ways. He closed his eyes, briefly. “Never mind. I’ll tell her myself.”
Danvers smiled. “I think that would be best, Major. Especially as I fear your wife might have need of you at this present juncture.”
As if Georgina ever needed anyone. Still, Danvers’s words caused an irritating frisson of alarm. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Just a feeling.”
A moment later, the carriage wheels bit into the gravel drive and started off.
He flicked open the drapes, allowing the late morning light to spill into the cab’s interior and picked up the first of Georgina’s letters on the short stack. A quick glance at the signature told him this one was from Georgina’s friend, Lady Amelia.
Nothing here, he realized after reading the missive, other than proof Georgina had, indeed, some very loyal friends in her fancy book club. Even in private correspondence between them, they spoke in code about her career in the off chance someone intercepted the letter, as Teddy had.
One thing gave him pause. The woman mentioned a nameless “friend” of Georgina’s. Who, he wondered, with an odd stab of…he couldn’t say. He didn’t precisely recognize the unpleasant feeling rising up in him. Some combination of possessiveness and ire that made no sense.
He set the letter aside, and started on the missive from Lady Gladstone, Georgina’s mother. After reading no more than two lines,affront on Georgina’s behalf had his blood boiling. How dare her parents lay the blame for Lord Gladstone’s irresponsible behavior, gambling away the family funds, at Georgina’s feet.
And who was this Mr. Mealy, whose name they’d so casually tossed at her, concluding with a vague reference to whatever favor he might seek. Teddy almost detected a subtle threat in Lady Gladstone’s words—aimed at manipulating Georgina into resuming taking on the family’s plight as she had done for many months.
The wonder was that she had ceased doing so, such was her tendency toward selflessness—if Danvers was to be believed, at any rate. According to him, Teddy’s fake wife was a bloody saint, intent on taking up his cause with no thought for herself.
Teddy tossed the letters aside and stared morosely out one of the cab’s small windowpanes, Danvers’s words replaying in his head.You’re a fool if you can’t see why she did it.
Whyhadshe come for him? Why claim him as her husband?
