Page 54 of Heartbreaker of the Ton
“It cannot be true,” he said.
“It’s to your credit that you refuse to think ill of her, vicar, but I saw him with my own eyes. As did Mrs. Lewis, if you have cause to doubtmyword.”
She arched an eyebrow and tilted her head to one side in the manner of a disappointed nanny on the brink of delivering a punishment.
“Of course I don’t doubt your word, Lady Fulford,” he said, “but perhaps there’s an explanation.”
“He arrived at the cottage on horseback, late in the afternoon,” she said. “Sir John passed him on the road. Very well turned out, he was—he looked a man of means. I happened to be passing Shore Cottage while out for an evening constitutional…”
“Happenedto be passing?” Andrew asked.
Her voice took on a sharp edge. “I am at liberty to take a stroll whenever and wherever I choose, vicar, and I often take the path by the sea. The air is beneficial for one’s health, as you’ve said in many a sermon. But that’s not the point. The point is, when I passed, I saw a horse at the cottage.”
“Mrs. Ward is entitled to receive visitors, Lady Fulford.”
“But a gentleman—when she’s alone in the house? We’re a respectable village, vicar. But that’s not the worst of it.” She shook her head. “I really don’t know whether I ought to tell you—you’d be quite shocked, and I don’t know if I’m able to voice the words.”
Who the devil did the woman think she was, trying to turn an innocent visit into a scandal? Most likely the gentleman was a physician for Gabriel.
In which case, why hadn’t Etty told him? In fact, she had remarked earlier that day that she’d had no visitors.
“I’m sure it was merely a passing visit,” Andrew said, ignoring the whispers of doubt in his mind. “A stranger asking for directions, perhaps.”
“Would she invite a stranger inside? When I passed the cottage, I saw the two of them in there…embracing.”
“You must be mistaken, Lady Fulford,” he said, “unless you were right outside the cottage with your nose pressed against the window.”
“Mistaken?” she said. “I assure you, I wasnotmistaken when I passed by the cottage the next morning and saw the same horse tethered outside.”
Andrew jerked back as his chest constricted as if an invisible fist had punched him in the heart.
“Y-you mean…”
She placed her hand over his. “You have no idea how much it pains me to be the one to tell you, vicar,” she said. “And I’ll not pain you further by speaking more overtly of what I saw. But any reasonable, respectable soul would draw the same conclusion that I have with regards to the status of Mrs. Ward—or whatever her name may be. It must be plain to even the meanest intelligence that the man who visited her was not her husband, but instead, he’s her”—she made a random gesture in the air—“protector, I believe, is the name for it.”
Andrew closed his eyes, willing his mind to deny what he’d heard. But everything Lady Fulford said made sense. Few women hid themselves away in obscurity if they were not running from something, some past sin. And Etty carried a secret—he had seen it in her eyes.
And had she ever said to him outright that her son’s father was no longer alive?
No—instead, she had said that Mr. Ward was “no more.” A rather strange turn of phrase that Andrew had paid little attention to at the time. Perhaps she had phrased her answer deliberately to avoid uttering a falsehood.
But was not deception a form of falsehood? Why had she not entrusted him with the truth?
And why had she been willing to lead him to believe that she cared for him? Or perhaps she hadn’t deliberately deceivedhim, believing him to be a man of experience, as she was clearly a woman of experience herself. But hewasinexperienced—untouched and unused to the wiles of women, and more easily deceived because of it.
But though Etty may be the sinner, Andrew couldn’t blame her. No, he blamedhim, whoever he was—the gentleman who had claimed her body in exchange for cash, and therefore believed he had ownership rights over her. The man who, no doubt, had a family living in London while he’d exiled his mistress to the countryside to indulge in conjugal visits when the fancy took him.
But Etty had made no promise to Andrew. Perhaps that was why she withdrew when he’d kissed her—because she had no wish to hurt him. After all, she was only playing the same game that men played when they toyed with the hearts of women.
Except he was not like most men. He was not his brother, a man responsible for a sackful of broken hearts who, when deceived by a woman, drank a toast to a worthy adversary before moving on to the next conquest. Neither was he the Duke of Whitcombe—or the lover Etty welcomed into her home.
How could I have been such a fool?
“You’ve not been a fool, vicar.”
He opened his eyes to see Lady Fulford staring at him, the sympathy in her eyes marred by the undertone of triumph.
“Some women are cunning,” she said, “but not all of us. And never fear—you have friends in Sandcombe, and we’ll do our utmost to ensure that you find a wife who deserves you.”
