Hidden Affections (28 page)

Harrison had been anticipating the summons to his lawyer’s office for weeks, but he had still been caught off guard when Marshall’s messenger had arrived unexpectedly this morning.

He reached Marshall’s office precisely at nine o’clock, which was the time he had specified in his response, but his lawyer was in a meeting with another client for nearly an hour before Harrison finally was able to see him. “Please tell me you have good news for me about the divorce,” he said as he took a seat in front of the man’s desk.

Marshall shook his head as he cleared all but two of the files that littered his desk, then placed them directly in front of Harrison. “I don’t remember handling more than a handful of other divorces since I opened my practice nearly forty years ago, but I’ve never regarded the end of any marriage as ‘good news.’ ” He opened one of the files and pulled out two long sheaves of papers, which he handed to Harrison.

“As of the seventh of January, you were legally divorced from your wife. Although I have the original court decree from Indiana, you have a copy in your hands, as well as one I prepared for Annabelle. You should keep yours in a safe place, where no one is likely to find it.”

Harrison folded the papers together and set them on the desk in front of him, but he was surprised that he was not as excited as he expected he would be now that the nightmare that had begun almost two months ago was nearly over. All that remained to be done was to get Annabelle settled safely somewhere other than in Philadelphia, and he would finally be free to resume the life he had before he left on that fateful holiday in the fall. “Did Fennimore mention if he had any particular problems?”

His lawyer chuckled. “The poor man must have been traveling day and night to get this done so quickly. He was so tired when he arrived here late yesterday that I doubt the man could remember more than his own name. He did turn over another document that I’ll hold for safekeeping unless you want to take it home. It’s a deed to one hundred acres of land in Indiana you now own.”

“You have all of my other important documents. You may as well keep it here. And see that Fennimore is well rewarded,” he added before he checked his pocket watch. “It’s just after ten thirty. Unless there’s something else we need to discuss today, I can still keep another appointment if I leave now,” he suggested, anxious to get to the Refuge while Bradley was still there.

“Don’t rush off. There’s something rather important I need to share with you,” Marshall insisted. “Before I do, you should know that I’ve drawn the funds for Annabelle’s settlement. Do you want to give it to her, or would you rather send her to my office to collect it?”

“I’ll take it with me,” he replied, and his lawyer set an envelope on top of the divorce papers Harrison was going to take with him. Curious to know what else the lawyer had to say, he left everything sitting on the desk and nodded. “Whatever it is you need to say, be brief. I really do need to leave for my other appointment.”

Marshall leaned forward in his chair and rested both palms on the top of his desk. “When you first came to me to ask me to arrange for your divorce, you told me to do whatever I thought necessary to make that happen. Do you recall saying that?”

“Not really, but I have no reason to think that I didn’t. We both know you always have full rein to act on my behalf.” He cocked his head. “Why?

“I hired an investigator to look into your wife’s background, and I have a copy of his report I want you to read.”

Harrison shook his head as if he had misheard the lawyer. “You did what?”

“I hired an investigator to look into your wife’s background,” Marshall repeated a bit more firmly. “You may have been quite satisfied that you knew all there was to know about the woman you were forced to marry, but I’m your lawyer. You pay me well to protect your interests, and I felt it was necessary to have her investigated.”

“You were hired to protect my business and financial interests, not my personal affairs,” Harrison spat, furious with the man’s audacity.

Marshall matched his client’s hard glare with his own. “In this case, I don’t see how you could separate one interest from the other. Did it ever occur to you that Annabelle might have played a less-than-innocent role in that robbery and your subsequent forced marriage, or that the real profit would not have come from the robbery itself but from a divorce settlement she planned to share with the other conspirators? You may have dismissed that possibility, assuming you even thought of it in the first place, but I didn’t have that luxury.”

Harrison pointed to the file containing the investigator’s report and shook his finger at it. “If you don’t remember, then let me remind you that Annabelle was extremely reluctant to even sign the settlement agreement, let alone accept it, which she still asserts she won’t do. She could never be part of any scheme or conspiracy to do anything wrong. It’s simply not in her nature. If that’s what your investigator claims in his report, then you need to burn it, because it’s more than worthless. It’s a slanderous attack on her character that I have no intention of reading,” he hissed, prepared to fire this lawyer and hire a new one before he left the city today.

Marshall lifted both hands in mock surrender. “That’s not what the report contains at all, but it could have. If I may be bold enough to remind you, you’ve misjudged more than one woman in the past, including Vienna Biddle, who has used your rejection as an excuse to malign you as well as Annabelle. I could also mention Jane—”

“I wasn’t married to her or any of those other women,” Harrison retorted, reluctant to discuss the few but costly mistakes he had made with other women. “I know Annabelle better than I’ve ever known any woman. I’ve lived with her for nearly two months now, and I know her heart better than I know my own. She’s absolutely incapable of guile.”

“On one level, perhaps she is. But it’s often difficult for a man to accept there are any flaws in a woman as lovely as Annabelle, especially when he doesn’t even realize that he truly loves her. Or that the woman he was forced to marry might have come to hold him in high regard or even fallen in love with him, as incredible as that might seem to be.”

Harrison dismissed his lawyer’s words. His affection for Annabelle might have grown, but that was the extent of it. He also rejected the possibility that Annabelle had any feelings for him beyond a genuine concern for his character.

He had detected a few glances from her that spoke of an affection that went beyond the friendship they now shared. But he was certain they were nothing more than an effort to keep others from guessing the true nature of their relationship. “You’re either daft or addled, and I don’t like the fact that you said Annabelle might be capable of guile on any level. She’s told me all about her past. I know she was trained and has worked as a teacher, but gave up her position after her father died. I know she cared for her ailing mother until she died, too, and she was coming here to Philadelphia in search of a new position. But she’ll never be able to teach again—not with being divorced. So as you can see, there’s nothing you can tell me that I don’t already know. Nothing. Destroy the report,” he insisted. He got to his feet and snatched up the papers, as well as her settlement.

His lawyer stood up to face him eye to eye. “Life won’t be easier for either of you if anyone else finds out what this report contains, but I can assure you that the investigator has been paid rather handsomely to hold his counsel. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how close you and Annabelle had become. I just assumed that she hadn’t told you about her previous divorce.”

Harrison flinched, as if he had been punched square in the gut. His heart pounded hard with denial, and his hands tightened on the papers he was holding. In fact, he was actually weak in the knees for the first time in his life, and he eased back down into his seat.

“You didn’t know,” his lawyer murmured and sat down, as well.

Harrison shook his head, but his thoughts were so jumbled he could not trust himself to say anything beyond one word: “No.”

With a deep sigh, Marshall opened the report. “I assume you’ll want to take this with you and read it carefully, but I can tell you what it contains about her previous marriage and divorce, if you like.”

Harrison felt as if he had been plunged into madness, but managed a nod.

“Annabelle married for the first time on May 28, 1829. Apparently her husband only remained with her for one week before returning to New York City, where he practiced law and presented himself as a single man. Without her knowledge, apparently, he quietly obtained a divorce some time later, also in Indiana oddly enough, and subsequently remarried. It appears he returned to western Pennsylvania to inform her he had divorced her some months ago, which is what likely prompted her to leave the area around the same time that you left your country estate near there. You know the rest,” he murmured.

Stunned, Harrison had only one question to ask before he left and confronted her with the secret she had kept from him. “Was Tyler her maiden name or her married name?” he asked, if only to know if she had lied about that, too.

“That was her maiden name, I believe,” the lawyer replied. He opened the report and skimmed through to the third page before he stopped and nodded. “Yes, Tyler was her maiden name, which she apparently took to using again after her divorce. Her married name was . . . here it is. Bradley. If you’re even interested, her husband’s name was Eric. Eric Bradley,” he noted and furrowed his brow. “That’s interesting. It just occurs to me now that I met a man with the same name only last week when I went to a dinner affair at the Wilshires’,” he noted and closed the report. “It’s not an uncommon name, I suppose. Just an odd coincidence.”

“It’s more than odd, and I don’t believe in coincidences,” Harrison said, sure that his instincts about Bradley had been right.

“If you like, I can have the investigator look into it.”

“Don’t bother. I’ll take care of it. Just hold on to that report. I’ll read it another time,” he insisted and left without saying another word.

However improbable it might be, he instinctively knew that the Eric Bradley he had met and had entertained in his own home was the same Eric Bradley who had married Annabelle, then set her aside. He was also the very same man who was at the Refuge with her right now, and he abruptly took his leave, determined to confront the two of them while they were still together.

He was outside before he remembered that his driver had taken his coach for a few minor repairs. By the time he hailed down a hack and arrived at the Refuge, it was after noon and everyone he expected to find there had already gone.

Fully frustrated, he left, but he had no desire to go back to Graymoor Gardens and confront Annabelle until he was confident he was able to come to grips with what he had learned about her past. Returning to his city home made little sense, because he did not want to see anyone, including Philip, until he had better control of his emotions.

He hailed yet another hack and went to the deserted docks that lined the Delaware River. He knew he would not likely encounter anyone here, let alone someone he knew. He paid the driver to wait for him and started walking along the docks, where he found a most unusual sight. The current in the river was frozen absolutely still, and half a dozen ships were locked midriver in ice while over a hundred others were waiting for the spring thaw to leave the port.

Overhead, thick gray skies obscured the sun, and the wind along the river whipped at his body and numbed his face. Other than the pain of her deception, however, he felt nothing and walked slowly past the docks without seeing another human being.

On one hand, he felt bitterly betrayed. Annabelle had lured him into a friendship that was based on trust and honesty, yet she had not trusted him with the truth that she had been married and divorced before they even met. Not that it made any real difference now that they were divorced from each other.

Still, he had shared thoughts and feelings with her that he had never shared with anyone before, and it hurt him deeply to think she had not been able to do the same. Her betrayal also reinforced his vow never to become close with anyone, if only to avoid the hurt he was experiencing now.

He stopped for a moment to stare at a lone bird perched atop a mast on one of the ice-locked ships, as if it had been exiled from the rest of the flock and had nowhere else to go. He could not find fault with Annabelle for not telling him the truth any more than he could even try to comprehend the pain she must be enduring after not one husband, but two had rejected her.

He had no doubt that she had been subjected to gossip in her hometown after Bradley divorced her, which made the gossip that was swirling around her name now even worse for her to tolerate. If anyone here ever found out she had been divorced a second time, she would be a pariah, exiled as surely as that lonely bird had been. He had no knowledge of what had happened during their weeklong marriage that had led Bradley to divorce her, but he was positive she had done nothing to deserve his rejection.