Page 5 of Heartbreaker of the Ton
Sweet Lord—she was going to jump!
Before he could cry out a warning, her body stiffened. Then she turned and retreated, disappearing over the horizon.
Rather than take the longer path that wound through the sand dunes, Andrew sprinted toward the steps carved out of the cliffs and climbed them, pausing halfway to catch his breath. But by the time he reached the top, there was no sign of her.The landscape stretched before him—flat and empty save for the solitary cottage that had lain empty for almost a year since Eleanor left—and beyond it, the village, with its collection of red-bricked dwellings, overshadowed by the church spire.
Perhaps the woman on the cliff was a figment of his imagination, the archetypal lost soul he’d entered his profession to save.
As if to remind him of his duty, the church bell rang out seven times. Breakfast would be waiting for him at the rectory—as would those members of his flock he’d promised to call on today. There was no time to dwell on the apparition, no matter how lovely she was, or how much she’d touched his heart. In all likelihood, he’d never see her again.
Chapter Three
There was nothingso visceral—soreal—as a mother’s reaction to the cry of her child.
As soon as she heard it, Etty’s gut twisted with the twin sensations of fear and the desperate desire to protect.
Did every mother experience the same? Almost from the moment Etty’s child had left her body, the instinct to nurture had torn through the haze of pain and humiliation, and she had changed forever. She was no longer the disgraced, humiliated harlot who’d attempted—and failed—to entrap a duke, ruining herself in the process. She had become a tigress, driven by the feral instinct to protect her young.
Because, for the first time in her spoiled and pampered life, she had someone to love. Not the superficial desire for gratification that most of her acquaintance attempted to pass as love—but the raw, selfless desire to place the wellbeing of another at the forefront of her very existence.
Love had struck her with the force of a giant wave dashing her against a rock, smashing her former self, then reshaping her into a creature with a purpose. Not the purpose of the debutante desperate to outshine her rivals, but a woman destined to care for another living soul.
What a selfish creature she had been before! And not only selfish. She blushed with shame at the memory of how she’d treated others—her rivals on the dance floors of London’sballrooms, the servants who worked hard to maintain her coddled lifestyle, and…
Moisture pricked her eyes as she fought, and lost, against her mind, which drifted toward the one person who might have loved her had she given her a chance.
Eleanor. The sister with a heart as big as the sky that stretched toward the horizon, the gentle soul whom Etty had tormented merely for being different—a misfit.
Which is what I am now. A misfit.
But she had no right to complain about her lot. She was only reaping the rewards of her own spite—ruination, disgrace, and the bitter disappointment of her parents.
But there was one consequence of her sin that she never wished to be without. Her son—her beautiful, precious Gabriel. He may not have come from an act of love—his father might despise him, if he’d even deign to acknowledge his existence. But Etty loved him. More than life.
“I’m coming!” she cried as she ran toward the cottage.
As if in answer, his screams rose in pitch, and as she crossed the threshold, she saw him, his little body tangled among the blankets in the crib, his face contorted and red with anger.
“I’m sorry, my love—I didn’t mean to leave you. I only wanted to look at the sea.”
But, unlike an adult who outwardly accepted an apology with a polite nod, no matter their inner feelings, her child had yet to learn the dishonesty born of diplomacy. He merely screamed even louder.
She lifted him from the crib and pulled him to her breast. His cries lessened as his baby fingers curled around the muslin of her gown.
“Mama’s here.”
“Ma-ma…”
She smiled and kissed the top of his head, his soft, downy hair tickling her nose. “That’s it, my love.”
“Da-da…”
Moisture stung her eyes, and she blinked. “No, darling,” she whispered. “Only Mama. But she loves you more than enough for two.”
She approached the window and looked out across the landscape. The grassland stretched before her, falling away in a gentle incline toward the cliff edge and beyond, the expanse of the sea extending toward the horizon.
To think—her own father was, even now, beyond that horizon, enjoying the freedom that was the exclusive province of the male sex, on a quest to procure another shipment of the brightly colored silks that had made his fortune and rendered Etty the envy of her rivals during her first, and only, Season. She had always wanted to travel with him, but Mother had forbidden it, saying that a young lady’s place was in London, dazzling Society with her beauty.
But beauty—though it had made her the envy of the world—was a curse. Perhaps if she’d been less beautiful, Papa might have loved her more.
