“I promise I will tell you everything I know,” he told her. He tugged on her hand, and she rose to standing, his other arm coming across her back. It was a gesture of support, she told herself. There was nothing overly important about him standing this close, where the hem of her gown brushed the toes of his boots. There was simply nothing to the warmth he brought her or the sense of eternal safety she felt in his presence. It was all friendly and relaxed, so she should be unaffected. She should remain levelheaded and not let herself get swept away in the fantasy she saw in the haven of his arms.
“Della?” he asked.
Oh, right. He’d been speaking. She managed to interrupt her own focus while he was mid-sentence, drifting off into the haze of her over-complicated thoughts and feelings.
“Could you repeat that?” she responded. He was still holding her, their collective posture almost like they were dancing.
“I said I would tell you everything I know.” He suddenly looked much more serious, and she didn’t welcome the shift in his expression.It didn’t align with the wonderful fantasy she’d been building as they stood here so intertwined. “Everything,” he emphasized. “And then there’s somewhere I have to go. Would you come with me?”
“Of course,” she answered instinctively.
He tugged on her hand again, leading her out of the room. She didn’t care where they were going. Finally,finally,someone was going to tell her what was going on.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Andrew had toldher everything. Big or small, he spilled every detail he’d come to know since he’d returned to London. He hadn’t been sure how she’d react. It was so much information, and it must be an overwhelming rush of emotion. He thought there might be tears, whether they were an expression of hurt or sadness or rage. He’d stood close by the entire time in case she’d swooned. He told himself that was why, at least. Whether she raised her voice or tore at her hair or collapsed to the floor, he thought he’d been prepared for everything.
He hadn’t expected the silence.
Even now, as they stood in the grand hall of Morley House, she was eerily quiet. She’d said hardly a word as they left his home for what used to be hers. The carriage ride had been uncomfortable, and he hadn’t thought it possible to feel so tense around her. She was such a calming presence, a balm to his soul, and he hardly knew what to do in the absence of that comfort, especially as she’d been sitting right in front of him. It was as if her entire spirit had disappeared and left nothing but her physical form behind.
“Everything will be all right,” he whispered. They were pitiful words, nothing but verbal fluff in comparison to the seriousness of the moment, but they were all he had.
Della looked up at him, and there was a hint of sparkle in her eyes.A twinkle. Just a flash, but enough to make him think the rest of her was still in there somewhere. Perhaps trapped beneath a landslide of emotions, but still there nonetheless.
There was a commotion, something that sounded like a gasp and an angry hiss of unintelligible words. Andrew didn’t despair, he could tell by the tone that those sentiments likely weren’t for repeating in polite company, anyway.
As he felt the tension in the grand manor home rise to a crescendo, Andrew once again questioned whether he should have brought Della with him. The last thing he wanted was for her to feel more of her family’s ire, but she’d been cast aside and looked over far too much in her life. If there was one thing Andrew could do, it was give her a choice. She’d chosen to come with him. To stand at his side as he either secured her future or tore both of their worlds apart.
Andrew realized that this could very well be the last time he stood here at Morley House. The thought made him oddly sad, as the place held such nostalgia for him. Memories of his childhood and his father and the woman standing next to him—the girl he’d grown up with here. Beyond that nostalgia, there was a sense of peace.
If he walked out of here today with her by his side, he’d be more than happy to never see this house again.
“Adelaide!” a voice hissed. Andrew knew who it was. No one else would attempt such dramatics. It wasn’t traditionally how a viscountess greeted guests in her home, but they weren’t guests, and she wasn’t a traditional viscountess.
“Hello, Mother,” Della uttered. Her voice was soft. Almost kind, even though quite possibly no one in the world had ever hurt her the way the woman standing in front of her had.
Andrew had always found it strange how much Della and her mother looked alike. When he’d learned she was actually Della’s stepmother, he’d struggled to believe it. They possessed the same features. Thick, dark hair. Strong brows. Long lashes.
He’d never trulyseenEsther in Della, though. Della’s beauty was so much more than her features. It was the light in her eyes and the innate kindness that seemed to radiate from her smile. Esther’s face held nothing but misery. Even now, standing in front of a daughter she rarely had the opportunity to see, there was nothing but hostility in her gaze.
“I cannot believe you,” the viscountess hissed again. Andrew had come across a rattlesnake once in his travels through America. He’d never forget the danger he’d heard in the noise it made. That sound seemed to echo in the vitriol Lady Morley was so casually spitting. “Showing up here uninvited with this boy. Unchaperoned in a carriage like a common doxy.”
“That’s enough.” Andrew stood up straighter as he spoke. Lady Morley could call him whatever she wanted—he’d been called worse by better people—but he took issue with the way she spoke to her own daughter.
The viscountess stepped forward, poised to spear Andrew with a scathing retort, but she was quickly silenced. By Della.
“We’ve come to speak with you,” she told her mother. Now that she’d resumed speaking, her tone felt almost eerily calm. Though he’d been deeply unsettled by her silence, he almost preferred it to this artificial serenity. “You and Father. David as well.”
“And what could you possibly have to speak to us about?” Lady Morley crossed her arms over her chest. This wasn’t happening as Andrew thought it might. How he’d hoped, anyway. He wanted a private, proper conversation where they could speak reasonably. In hindsight, that was far too much to ask of them. Still, shouting at each other in the hall seemed so uncivil. They were the aristocrats, though. Not him. He supposed he should defer to their sense of etiquette.
He felt Della’s eyes on him. Perhaps she was looking to him for strength or to recommend he answer the burning question in the air. Andrew couldn’t take his eyes off of her mother. He’d never trulyloathed someone before, and he was having trouble with the feeling. His eyes began to squint, trying to find something redeemable in her vicious gaze. There was no part of him that could imagine behaving this way. Della had just come home for the first time in eight years, and to what? An anger she’d done nothing to deserve.
Silence continued to reign, and Lady Morley’s arrogant indignation floated about the room like a child’s toy boat on water. Andrew wanted nothing more than to watch it sink. So, he started throwing stones.
“We’re here to discuss your daughter’s inheritance,” he said simply. He could play the role of her solicitor if that’s what it took. He could pretend this was a matter of business for him, not something that had the potential to be the most devastating kind of personal.
Lady Morley gasped, of course. The fanfare of her extravagant, overplayed emotions was beginning to get old. Through Della, Andrew had seen what real emotion looked like on a face like that. This wasn’t it. This was manufactured. A display that served a manipulative purpose.
