Page 84 of Lord of Fortune
Chapter 15
The tightnessin her throat was almost unbearable as Amelia worked to keep the tears at bay. She’d been so glad to see him, then he’d kissed her, and she’d been lost. But she couldn’t allow them to continue as if her husband hadn’t reentered her life today.
“Yes, I suppose we should.” He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it to a terribly attractive degree. He smelled of late summer berries carried on the wind and tasted of sharp whiskey. He was a feast for her senses, and she nearly lost the battle to keep her emotions in check.
His face was grim. “I didn’t find the vicar. But Egg is after him, and I expect he’ll find him tomorrow or the next day.”
He thought she wanted to hear about the earldom, about what had happened downstairs after she’d left. Good, perhaps that would give her a moment to settle her nerves. “How is Kersey?”
Penn shook his head, blinking with disbelief. “It’s the damnedest thing, his reaction wasn’t nearly what I would’ve expected. I daresay he took it better than I did, which I never would have guessed.”
“Perhaps he didn’t want you to see how deeply he’s affected.”
“I suspect that may be it. Egg is going to stop the vicar—and I’m going to ensure Gideon is the earl.”
He sounded so confident. She almost believed that he could do anything by sheer force of will. But of course, not everything could be fixed. “Why didn’t you go with him?”
He cocked his head to the side, his lips tilting into a half smile. “I should think that would be obvious. Because I prefer to be here with you, to continue our quest.”
If only it was just the quest. But it was more than that. And it was more than just wanting him, though she did—desperately. She was in love with him. The realization burned and brought the tears back up her throat.
She swallowed convulsively and took a deep breath. “I have to tell you about the man we met today.”
His eyes lit with interest. “Yes! I forgot entirely. I want to hear all about that.” He stepped forward, reclaiming the space they’d shared a few moments ago. “After. First, I want to take you in my arms.”
He leaned forward, and her heart fairly beat from her chest as she slid to the side, evading his touch. “He’s my husband.”
She wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep from crumpling into a terrible mess.
He pivoted toward her, his thigh pressed against the bed. He blinked, his long, dark lashes, briefly masking the intensity of his cobalt gaze. “Pardon me?”
Amelia took another deep breath, but it didn’t really help. Her heart seemed to crash even harder against her rib cage. “The man we met today was my husband.”
“I thought your husband was dead.” His voice was low and full of gravel.
“He left five years ago. I never thought to see him again.”
“Hesent you that note?”
“He must have, though I didn’t recognize the hand.”
Penn’s tone was even and sure, giving her no clue what was going on in his head. “So he knew we had the heart.”
She nodded slowly. “Somehow. I don’t know. He’s a member of the Camelot group.”
Penn bent and retrieved his shirt. When he’d pulled it over his head, he perched at the end of the bed, far away from her. “Tell me everything. How you met, why you married, why he left.”
Now he sounded coldly angry, but she didn’t blame him. “We met at an assembly in Bath. It was a rather short courtship—just a few weeks.” He was the first man who’d paid her attention, and he was handsome and charming and in possession of a decent income. “My father endorsed the union, and we wed.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “That’s it?”
“What do you want to hear, that I fell madly in love with him? I thought I had. Now I know—” She’d been about to say she knew the difference. But she wouldn’t burden him with her feelings. “Now I know better. It was infatuation. I was young and foolish.”
“Yet your father allowed you to wed, so he must have had something to recommend him. You say he left you because of debt?”
“That’s what I thought. He gave me the impression today that wasn’t true. Or perhaps he went into debt on purpose. I know there were creditors—they took everything.”
“Or they weren’t really creditors, and they simply took his things to wherever he went.”
