“No,” he told her gently. “I merely said Viscount Aldridge and I have been friends since childhood. You surmised the rest.”
“But—”
“I also said that you’d made a lot of assumptions about me.”
She frowned. “Yes, but it never would have occurred to me that they’d all been so utterly wrong. And don’t you dare try suggesting it’s my fault I did not see through your theatrics when you obviously came here with every intention of pulling the wool over all of our eyes.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked at Cassandra, including her in the apology before returning his attention to Mary. “But if I had been honest, I never would have gotten to know you. And that would have been a terrible shame.”
She knew he was right. If he’d introduced himself as any kind of aristocrat, they would never have agreed to let him live in that tiny cottage and work on their roof. She cringed just thinking about it while acknowledging that she would have judged him on the basis of his title alone and his relation to the man who’d hurt her.
However… “You encouraged certain liberties between us after discovering the man who rejected me, the man who led to my family’s banishment of me, was your very own brother.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, unable to stop the sudden outpouring of distress. “How could you do that? How could you possibly think things would end well between us when you chose to keep that from me? Did you think you’d just leave, and I’d never find out?” She realized then that this was the part of his betrayal that hurt the most. It wasn’t just that he’d made her fall in love with a man who did not exist, but that he’d imagined he’d get away with it.
Rising, she clenched her hands until her nails dug against her palms. Caleb and Griffin stood as well, as was polite.
“I never wanted to cause you pain,” Caleb said.
He sounded sincere, but perhaps that was due to his wonderful acting skills. She no longer knew what to believe, except that she could not trust him. “It’s too late for that.” She started toward the door.
“Mary. Please.” His voice beseeched her, forcing her to look back.
Realizing her mistake, she squeezed her eyes shut and fought for strength. “I’m sorry,” she said as she opened her eyes with renewed resolve, “but if you’ve proven anything to me at all, Your Grace, it is that I was correct to believe the worst of the aristocracy. Or at the very least, one particular branch of it. Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to put as much distance between you and myself as possible.” She nodded toward Caleb’s brother. “It has been enlightening, sir. I thank you for giving me the facts your brother failed to provide.” And to Cassandra, “The tea was excellent as always. I’m sorry I cannot stay.”
She quit the room to the sound of Cassandra telling Caleb not to pursue her, for which she was truly grateful. Because lord help her, as crushed as she was at the moment, she feared she’d forget about every reason she had to resent him if he touched her. And if he kissed her…Well, she’d melt in his arms, and her heart would break just a little bit more. So she marched into the kitchen and grabbed a heavy wool shawl from the back of a chair. It was Emily’s, but Mary knew her friend wouldn’t mind her borrowing it.
Opening the door, she stepped into the brusque afternoon air. Gone was the morning sun, replaced by a light drizzle and a thin, ghostly mist. Ignoring it, Mary, wrapped the shawl tightly around her shoulders and walked out onto the grass. She passed the birch trees and rhododendron bushes, putting them all between herself and the house as she crossed toward the lake. The ground was soggy beneath her feet and water hung from every plant leaf, dragging them down in a droopy effect.
Mary drew a quivering breath and stepped closer to the water’s edge where the raindrops were forming rings on the surface. Helplessly, her gaze fell on a thin piece of wood, half-hidden in the grass. Moving nearer, her lips began to tremble as soon as she saw what it was: a fishing rod Caleb had made, forgotten by one of the boys. She bent to retrieve it and felt the first tears spill onto her cheeks. How could he do this to her? The cruelty, whether intentional or not, was beyond compare, for she loved the man who’d taken the time to help a boy no one else had managed to reach. But the man who’d lied to her was someone else altogether. She could not equate one with the other, and because of that painful dilemma, she felt her throat close on a sob even as her heart broke in two.
12
“Will she ever forgive me?” Caleb asked Lady Cassandra. He’d wanted to go after Mary and make her listen. But her friend had warned against it, and he had reluctantly agreed to take her advice.
“I don’t know,” Lady Cassandra said. “More tea, Lord Griffin?”
Griffin resumed his seat and held his cup toward Cassandra. Resuming his own seat, Caleb leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t prone to getting headaches, but one was definitely coming on right now.
“There has to be something I can do,” he muttered, voicing his most desperate thought in spite of its futility. “If I can only make her see that all I wanted was to be an ordinary man again.”
“But you’re not ordinary, and you never will be,” Lady Cassandra said. “And while I will admit that you owed us nothing when we were just three women who happen to own the house on which you are working, you should have told Mary when you decided to pursue her in earnest.”
“I tried to but then she kissed me and I got carried away and then we argued and well…here we are,” Caleb said without even bothering to hide the miserable state he was in.
“Oh Christ,” Griffin murmured. “You’ve been romancing Miss Clemens.” He shook his head and laughed even though there was nothing amusing to be found in this awful situation. “No wonder she’s so upset.”
“She wouldn’t be if you’d kept your mouth shut, Griffin.” Caleb gave his brother a meaningful look. “Did Aldridge not tell you I left London for the sole purpose of seeking anonymity?”
“Well, yes. But I don’t think either of us expected you to keep your true identity secret from his sister or her friends when all have a similar situation to yours.”
Caleb stared at his brother and saw Lady Cassandra doing the same. “I beg your pardon?”
Griffin looked at them each in turn. His expression grew increasingly befuddled. “Am I the only one here who has noticed that each of you has sought to escape the aristocratic world for one reason or other. My point is these women are of your social class, Caleb. The idea of you hiding your identity from them just seems kind of pointless.”
“They wouldn’t have let me stay if they’d know who I really was.” In the years that had passed since his last encounter with Griffin, Caleb had forgotten how dense his brother could be.
“Really?” Griffin didn’t sound convinced. He looked to Lady Cassandra. “Would you really have turned away Aldridge’s friend?”
“Of course not,” Lady Cassandra said. “This house belongs to my brother. My friends and I live here at his discretion, so if he were to let any friend of his stay here, we would hardly have been in a position to deny the request.”
