Page 36 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue
“Hmm,” he replied.
It was quickly becoming a very different marriage from the one she’d shared with Jacob Berry. She could breathe freely now. Nothing could disrupt such domestic happiness.
Susan arrived at the dowager house in midmorning the next day.
Chapter Fourteen
Angela was so glad to see Susan that she had run to greet her and hugged her. But her friend had accepted this expression of affection with a guarded manner. Now she sat with her head down, studying her folded hands in her lap. The steaming cup of tea she’d accepted remained undrunk on the tea table.
“I am so sorry that you missed the ceremony. It was so beautiful. It was something I will never forget. Lady Wyndam made everything so wonderfully perfect for us. She is an amazing woman.”
“I almost didn’t come here at all.” Susan kept her eyes downcast, hanging her head.
“What’s wrong?” Angela asked, making her voice softer. She reached across the tea tray and touched Susan’s arm lightly.
“Oh, don’t be kind to me!” Susan cried as she spun away from her. “You don’t know what I have done.”
Angela shivered with the sudden chill that overtook her. “What are you saying?”
“The way you met your husband. The deception.” Susan made a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh. She looked up, her eyes wide and wild. “It was all deception!”
“Deception?”
“Don’t you see? I helped him deceive you.”
“I don’t understand.” She didn’t want to understand.
“He came to me at my parents’ house. It was during one of your long walks.” Susan had always thought Angela’s desire to be alone and explore the countryside strange and had never tried to hide her feelings. But now there was almost a note of blame towards Angela. “You weren’t there, and he knew so much about you. He told me that you might be a spy! A spy, Angela!”
Again, there was a note of blame, as though Angela was responsible for the suspicion against her.
“He knew so much. He knew how Jacob had died. He asked me to help him. He said I would be a great heroine to Britain, me a commoner. He said I would protect British industry against Americans who wanted to use our vast experience as a shortcut to industrial greatness. He said that-”
Angela held her hand up. “Enough.” Dizziness made her sway, and she grasped the edge of her chair arm. “Enough.”
Bile rose in her throat, hot and bitter. She clapped her hand to her mouth and attempted to swallow the bitterness back down, but she gagged and coughed.
Susan leaped to her feet and rushed to her side, offering her the tea. “Take a drink, Angela.”
Angela opened her eyes and looked up at her former friend incredulously. “This must be a lie.” She croaked the words past her burning throat. “Please say you are lying.”
Susan sat the teacup down and shook her head. “I am not lying.”
Angela stared at her, still only half comprehending. “But why would you tell me such a lie? Do you want to hurt me that badly? But why?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. But you don’t understand. My late husband’s family won’t let me see my little boy.”
“You gave him up. You said he was an impossible child. You said he was better off with your father-in-law, a stern but fair man who could give your son the strong discipline that you thought he needed.”
Susan made a wry expression. “And you believed that?”
“I used to believe whatever you told me. You were my friend, and I believed you.”
Susan winced. “So, you did. And you remember that I told you that you are too gullible. Do you think me so unfeeling that I didn’t want my child with me?”
Again, Susan seemed to think it was Angela’s fault that she had trusted her.
“I didn’t know your husband, Ashington, was an earl. He just told me that he worked for the Home Office.”
