All of the pent-up energy within him slowly began to slip away.
“What is it?” he asked her when she didn’t continue.
“You must understand, Your Grace. I wasn’t spying on Her Grace. I was lost in thought when I went to the library to serve her tea. We didn’t get the fish we desired at the market for this week, so we needed to change the menu,” she began to explain.
He nodded sharply. “Yes, yes, what is it about the fish?”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not about the fish.”
Exhaling, Owen asked, “Then what is this about?”
She took another deep breath. “It’s about a letter. She was sorting through her mail and found a letter that greatly upset her.”
He frowned. While he had seen Georgiana upset, she usually had a good reason for it. What sort of letter could have upset her? Who would write to her? Questions filled his mind, but the answers eluded him.
“What was in the letter?” he demanded. “Who was it from?”
“I didn’t see it.” Mrs. Helen wrung her hands anxiously. “But I did see how she reacted. Oh, it was terribly sad. She ripped the letter and put it in her pocket. I asked Thomas about it.”
Owen paused. He’d passed Thomas that morning with the mail. He’d sorted through the expected invitations, but he didn’t remember seeing anything that could have upset his wife. Rubbing his head, he tried to think. Could he have missed something? What had the footman taken to her?
“What did he have to say? Have you spoken to him? We have to find him at once and see who would do such a thing.”
“He doesn’t know, Your Grace. That’s just it. And Her Grace didn’t want to talk. I could see it in her eyes how hurt she was. And the way she questioned me after reading it…”
His spine stiffened. “What is it? What did she say?”
After audibly gulping, Mrs. Helen admitted, “She asked about you.”
That was when his stomach began to churn. “What do you mean?”
“She was devastated, Your Grace—you must understand. I don’t know happened. But she was anxious about where you have been. Today and the other days when you are out and about or when you are in your study. She didn’t think we could trust where you had been.”
A short laugh escaped him. “How could you not? I have no reason to lie. Is that it?”
“There was one other thing. I fear I shouldn’t speak of it, Your Grace.”
“Except that you shall. You must, Mrs. Helen. What is going on?”
Mrs. Helen glanced around the hall. They were alone. Wentworth was no longer by the door. It was just Owen and his housekeeper here. But this didn’t stop her from speaking in a low voice to explain what else Georgiana had spoken of.
“She talked about your cousin, Your Grace. She, er, believes something about how you knew he loved another woman. The letter was some sort of gossip, I fear, and… well, I don’t wish to make assumptions.”
Make assumptions about me knowing my cousin. That isn’t so awful. Benedict and I are family. Blast it, no. She could even mean that I knew about Florentia––knew about her before the wedding. Nor would she be wrong.
Swearing under his breath, Owen pieced it together.
Georgiana had learned that Benedict had loved another woman before their wedding day. That was bound to upset her, indeed. What she must think of Owen now, and his cousin, could not be very decent.
I should have told her. I should have said something. Why didn’t I? Blast it, why couldn’t I be honest with my wife?
“Your Grace?”
He turned sharply to Mrs. Helen. There would come no good in thinking about his mistakes and what could or should have been. He couldn’t change the past. That was a lesson he had long since learned. All he could do now was make his next choice a little more wisely.
There is no hiding from this––from the past, from myself, from my wife.
“I will speak with her at once,” Owen announced.
