Page 111 of Crash Landing
“And when she died?” Trajan asked, his own voice racked with pain.
“I brought Florence home and struck a bargain with Celeste. I would never leave her. I would never look outside our marriage. But you were to be ours now, Celeste was to be your mother, and no one would know otherwise. It was easy. Our home at the time was in thecountryside, and Claire kept mostly to herself. For all her supposed devotion to our son, Matthew saw little of her. When she did pay attention to him, she spewed her poisonous words in his ear.”
Perhaps she was behaving like a coward, but Florence could not stomach to hear another word and ran out.
She had told Trajan she would wait for him in the barouche, but how could she? Why would he ever want to see her again?
She was the daughter of Claire and her father.
Claire.
She was a child born out of wedlock.
What had she done to Trajan? He was the Duke of Weymouth and had just married the offspring of an unmarried woman and a lord of little account.
She ran down the street, having no idea where she was going, just needing to get away from that suffocating house and all its secrets and lies.
Someone grabbed her by the arm and drew her into his muscled embrace.
Trajan.
“Love, where are you going?”
“Away. What have I done to you?” Her tears flowed uncontrollably. “You’ve married a bas—”
“Don’t you dare say it, Florence! Don’t you dare,” he said with a wealth of anger and frustration, but she knew it was not directed at her. Still, she felt such a wrenching ache because this was what she had brought to their marriage. “You are my wife. Do you think I care where or how or to whom you were born? Do you love me?”
She nodded. “With all my heart. Which is—”
“No! That’s all I want to hear. I love you too. You are the one who isfirstin my heart, and no one will ever replace you.”
“But Eden—”
“Did not love me. Did not choose me. And I got over my infatuation with her the moment I met you. I have been mad, demented,crazy in love with you since first meeting you. And here’s something I vowed never to tell you…”
She looked up at him through her veil of tears. “What weren’t you ever going to tell me?”
“Last year, at the Bromleigh house party…”
“Yes?”
He let out a heavy breath. “I took my binoculars, climbed a tree, and spent an entire night peering at you through your bedroom window.”
“What!”
“Not while you were undressing or anything sick like that. I thought you were a thief attempting to rob the Milbury house, and wanted to see if you had any tools designed to break into people’s homes. In my heart, I knew it was not possible. But what if my feelings for you had clouded my judgment? You ignored me, frustrated me to no end, and yet I could not stop looking at you or thinking about you. I resolved to stop you and make you reform your wicked ways.”
“Because you thought I was a thief?”
“You were acting strangely. Do you dare deny it? And how was I to know what you were doing? All I could think of was to save you from a life of crime. And you were so impossibly beautiful. I would have lied to give you an alibi had you turned out to be a thief. Of course, I would have made you give back everything you had stolen.”
Florence found herself laughing and crying at the same time.
“Gad, I should not have told you this. It is deranged, I know. I have never done anything insanely mad like that before. Nor will I ever again. But I was in love with you. My lovely, fake bird watcher who turned out not to be a jewel thief after all.”
He kissed her, and she did not resist.
“But you were a thief of hearts.Myheart. You had quite stolen it. Then you crash landed back in my life, and I knew I could not lose you. I love you, Florence.You.Because of your big heart. Yourstrength and your softness. You could have been born a bird and fallen out of your nest, for all I care. My love for you is without conditions. It is unbreakable. And it is forever.”
