Hidden Affections (29 page)

Shivering, he turned and walked briskly back to the hack. As sympathetic as he might be to Annabelle’s situation, he was furious with Eric Bradley. Setting aside the man’s treatment of Annabelle, his audacity was appalling. It suddenly occurred to Harrison that Bradley’s interest in visiting the Refuge or making a donation to the facility may have been nothing more than a ploy to keep in contact with Annabelle.

If that was true, he wondered why. The only possible reason he could think of was that Bradley might be worried about his own reputation if Annabelle told anyone of their previous relationship and his status as a once-divorced man.

Fearful that Bradley might have bullied Annabelle in some way, he took little comfort knowing that his instincts about the man had been proven right and hurried his steps. If Bradley had threatened her in any way, Harrison would make him wish he had never come to Philadelphia at all and send him packing back to New York City, where he belonged.

When he finally reached the hack, he was panting and his throat was raw as he hailed the driver’s attention. “Can you take me to Graymoor Gardens?”

“Yes, sir. I know the way.”

“Make it in half the usual time, and I’ll double your fare,” he offered and climbed into the coach. Without bothering to stop and try to understand why he cared what happened to Annabelle at all, he had one decision to make before he reached Graymoor Gardens: Should he tell Annabelle about their divorce before or after he told her about the investigator’s report?

She had run out of time.

Annabelle finally faced the truth the moment she walked back into the house at Graymoor Gardens. She had no reason to doubt that Harrison would return home and inform her that his petition for divorce had been granted. Even though some might argue she had no reason to tell Harrison the truth about her former marriage and divorce at this point, she still felt a moral obligation to tell him. Even if he had been wrong and his lawyer had summoned him into the city for another purpose, the burden of guilt she bore for keeping the truth from him was too heavy to endure any longer.

She carried the food and broth she had brought back with her out to the cottage, only to find the kitchen silent and deserted. She assumed Irene was taking a much-needed nap and stored away the foodstuffs before returning to the main house.

Since she expected Harrison to return home soon, she went up to her room. Once she had quickly stored away the gift she had bought for him as well as her knitting bag, after removing Eric’s note, she returned to the door and left it ajar. She glanced at the chairs in front of the fire where they had sat together in the evenings before the warming stove had been installed in the library and moved them a little farther apart before adding a few logs to the fire to keep it burning for the rest of the afternoon.

She was satisfied with the arrangement of the room, but Annabelle grew uneasy now that the moment she dreaded had finally arrived. She was too nervous to knit while she waited for him, so instead she sat down at the writing desk and looked over the list of things to remember when she left. She blinked back tears, for she did not know what had inspired her to include her heart on that list. She quickly crossed it off and braced herself instead to see rejection and scorn in his eyes whenever he looked at her.

She had just put the list back into the drawer when she heard heavy footsteps coming up the staircase. She bowed her head to say a quick prayer for courage before she slipped Eric’s note into her pocket and waited for Harrison.

Her heart was beating so fast at this point, she was afraid he would be able to hear it. Her hands were shaking so hard she had to fold them together to keep them still, and she swallowed to clear the lump that had lodged in her throat.

Although the door was half open, he paused to knock on the doorframe. “May I come in?”

“Please,” she murmured, not missing the aura of sadness that surrounded him as he joined her. “Did the lawyer have the news you expected?”

“He had rather unexpected news, which I can tell you about later,” he replied before sitting down and staring into the fire.

She dropped her gaze, but rejected the idea that she had been given a reprieve. “I’m sorry. I know how convinced you were he would give you the news that your petition for divorce had been granted.”

He sighed but did not meet her gaze. “How did your meeting go with Eric Bradley?” he asked, and his voice sounded as weary as he looked.

Annabelle found the gumption that Irene claimed she had and drew a deep breath. “He left rather abruptly. I’m sorry, but Philip seems to think that Eric won’t be making a donation after all.”

He looked at her and furrowed his brow. “Eric?”

“There’s much I need to tell you, that I should have told you weeks ago, but . . . but I never had the courage. At one time, Eric and I were married. Very briefly,” she added as she saw his eyes darken. Speaking slowly, she carefully explained Eric’s whirlwind courtship and their extremely short marriage. She tried her best not to sound bitter when she told him how Eric had secretly divorced her and taken the money that would have been her inheritance and used it to court the heiress he eventually married, but her shame was too deep and her voice was too shallow to her own ears to tell if she succeeded.

“I know I should have told you the truth weeks ago,” she offered, “but I . . . I didn’t know how. Then, when I saw Eric and realized he was going to be staying in the city for some time, I was petrified that he would see me, too. I never meant for my past to hurt anyone other than myself, especially you.” She paused to blink back tears. “You once told me that the only thing worse for your reputation after you were divorced would be to marry a divorced woman. I can’t bear to think of the damage I’ll have done to your reputation if anyone were to find out that you actually did. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I would hope one day you’ll understand why I waited so long to be honest with you.”

When she finally had the courage to look into his eyes again, he was studying her, as if he could not quite believe what she had told him. “If you doubt what I’m telling you, I still have my first marriage certificate and my divorce papers,” she offered, rather surprised that his gaze had not been condemning. “Do you . . . do you want to see them?”

He shook his head. “No, I believe you, but after all you said in the past about being honest with each other and trusting each other, you were neither. At this point, I’m not particularly interested in knowing why you held this back from me, but I have to admit that I’m curious as to why you’re telling me now.”

Stung by his well-deserved criticism, she trembled. “I’m afraid I . . . I had no other choice,” she managed, but lost her courage as well as her voice.

He cocked a brow. “Why not?”

She drew a long breath and pressed her hands together so hard the bones in her fingers ached. “Do you remember the gossip we both heard about my being seen with another man in the city?”

He simply stared at her.

“It wasn’t exactly gossip that was based on a misunderstanding. It was true. I left the Refuge and met with Eric two weeks ago, but it wasn’t because I wanted to see him. He was at the soiree on New Year’s Eve, and he followed me downstairs right before you did. He demanded that I meet with him two weeks later at a hotel where he’d taken a room under another name.”

“For what purpose?” he gritted.

She felt her cheeks grow so hot, she thought they might have caught on fire. “Eric has no interest in me in that way, but I . . . I still couldn’t make myself actually walk into that hotel to meet one man when I was married to another, even if I was his wife in name only. I changed into some used clothing I bought at a shop nearby and sent him a note telling him to meet me at a basement eatery where I didn’t think anyone would see us. Obviously, I wasn’t as clever as I thought I was. Someone must have seen us.”

Harrison snorted. “Obviously. What did he want?”

She took out the paper he had given to her today and handed it to him, which he held in a clenched fist without reading. “Before I met with him, I had no idea. He’d already admitted that his wife did not know she had married a divorced man, and he was just as concerned about hiding the truth from her as I was from you. He’d also made it perfectly clear he had no interest in me, and I foolishly assumed he had access to his wife’s abundant funds—so I dismissed the idea that he might want any money from me. I was wrong.”

“How so?”

“When I finally met with him, he told me that his wife doesn’t allow him much, if any, access to her fortune. He plans to take the money he expects to receive from me and leave her, just as he left me. If I fail to pay him, he’s threatened to confront you and tell you that you married a divorced woman. He didn’t have a sum in mind, but I had to agree to meet again today so he could tell me how much he wanted. He had no idea of our
arrangement
, and I certainly couldn’t tell him, so I just went along with him.”

Harrison leaned forward in his chair. His gaze was riveting, and he did not look away from her to open the note. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have done something to stop him.”

“I thought you’d get word that we were divorced before I had to meet him again. When you and Philip made arrangements for me to give Eric a tour of the Refuge today, I hoped to postpone the meeting beyond this afternoon and gain even more time. Instead, Eric arrived even earlier than Philip, gave me that note, and told me to deposit the funds in a bank where he’d established an account some time ago under the same alias that he used to take a room in that hotel. He’s expecting the funds to be there by the second of February.”

Harrison opened the note and read it, but his gaze was so shuttered she could not tell whether or not he was shocked by the amount. “Is William Tyler any relation to you?” he whispered.

Her eyes welled with tears she had to blink away. “He was my father.”

His jaw tightened. “What did Bradley say he would do if the funds weren’t there by the date he put on the note?”

“He said he would meet with you later that day. I was so hopeful that your lawyer had good news for you today about our divorce, which would undermine his blackmail attempt entirely, but now . . .”

“Now it’s time for me to step in,” he said and got to his feet. “I’m disappointed that you didn’t come to me earlier about this, but rest assured. Eric Bradley won’t be bothering either one of us again.”

When he started to walk away, she followed him. “What are you going to do?”

He stopped and turned to face her. “If you must know, I’m going back into the city to confront him. If he fails to see that his effort to extort money from me is not in his best interests, I’ll speak directly to his wife.”

She rushed over to him and grabbed his arm. “No. Please. You can’t tell her.”

He snorted. “Why not?”

“Because it’s not her fault that she married such a horrid man. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt or to have her name associated with scandal. She has an infant son. He’ll be hurt, as well. I don’t care whether you confront Eric or not, but you can’t tell her. Please.”

He held her gaze for a very long time before he looked away. “I’ll wait for now. If I can think of a way to stop Bradley without telling his wife that she’s married to a lying, scheming louse, then I won’t.”

She swallowed hard and dropped her hand. “Thank you.”

He did not answer her and started for the door.

“Did your lawyer have any news at all about how much longer it will take before you get word that we’re divorced?”

He stopped but did not turn around to face her. “I should be able to tell you in just a matter of days that we’re divorced, and I’ll make arrangements for you to leave.” He then walked out of her room.

She stood in the middle of the room and stayed there until she heard him enter the library and close the door behind him. She was still standing there long after the echo of his footsteps had faded away, unable to do more than take one shaky breath at a time.

When she had imagined his reaction to being told about her previous marriage and divorce, she had expected him to be angry or to raise his voice to her, which is exactly what Eric would have done. Harrison’s disappointment in her, however, hurt much more than even his scorn would have, and she could not help but compare the two very different men who had married her.

Both men were quite good-looking, but Eric’s looks were also a source of vanity she had never seen Harrison exhibit. Eric was self-centered and motivated by greed. To be fair, Harrison was also quite self-absorbed when she first met him, but he had changed. He was becoming much more generous with both his time and his wealth, and using it less for his own interests and more to help others.

Eric’s character was so deplorable she gave up trying to think of one redeeming quality he possessed. Harrison was a man who was trustworthy, dependable, and kind to a fault.

Not that long ago, when Eric had first proposed to her, she thought she was truly in love with him. She realized now that what she had felt for Eric was not love, but merely a foolish infatuation that had blinded her to his faults. And if she were completely honest with herself, she had to admit that when her mother became so very ill, she leaped at the chance to marry Eric to secure her future because she did not trust God enough to do that for her.

She eased her door closed before she let her tears fall free and climbed into bed. Pain unlike any she had ever known filled every corner of her heart and soul. Once she pulled the bedcovers around her, she buried her face in her pillow and cried until she had no more strength . . . and then she cried some more for being such a fool.

She had been humiliated and distraught when Eric divorced her, but she was beyond devastated now. Not simply because Harrison had helped her to discover the miracle of true and abiding love. But because she knew she had just lost any hope that one day he might have loved her, too.

When her tears were spent and her body was nearly numb with exhaustion, she used what little strength she had left to sit up and make an entry in her diary before she was too mired in self-pity to remember to record today’s treasure in her diary:

Today I was blessed to realize that I have fallen in love with a good and decent man. And though I have lost him forever, I will treasure the precious days we shared together.

She stared at the entry until her tears began to fall again. Sighing, she closed her diary and prayed she might one day remember the joy of loving him instead of feeling only the pain of knowing he would never forgive her or be able to love her in return.