And just like that, all the tension disappeared and she smiled. All concerns were gone, all worries forgotten.

  “In you get,” said Timothy in a hoarse voice. “Sleep, now.”

  He crept out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaning against it and closing his eyes. It could have been so much worse. It wasn’t. But it could have been.

  He needed to take a deep breath and calm himself if he wasn’t going to lose his temper––though this was worth losing his temper over. His daughter. His heir. A child, wandering about the place, anything could have happened to her!

  He had to keep her safe. He had almost failed at that once before. Never again.

  The corridor was deserted, and when Timothy opened his eyes, he swiftly paced back to Anne’s bedchamber.

  He wrenched the door open. As he saw Anne, all the passion he felt and the fear for his child became tangled.

  “Can’t you keep control of one child?” he said, eyes blazing. “One child!”

  “Any child can choose to get out of bed and wander,” Anne protested.

  She was standing by her desk as though about to begin her letter again. Why? Did the fate of his daughter not concern her?

  Blood rocketed through his veins, heart racing, pulse throbbing in his ears. Timothy had tried to calm down but he could not. Not when it came to Frances.

  “I need to know I can trust you,” he said, harshly. “Can I trust you, Anne?”

  “Trust me? How can I trust you?” she shot back, knuckles white as she gripped the back of her chair. “You married my Louise, my cousin, and now she is dead!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Her very nerves were stretched tight like wire, but Anne could not take back the words she had spoken––and neither would she.

  “You married my Louise, my cousin, and now she is dead!”

  The words echoed around the spacious room, or was that just her? Was she hearing them over again because she had thought them so many times, forced to confront the thought that he, the man she loved, could have in some way harmed her own flesh and blood?

  “You married my Louise, my cousin, and now she is dead!”

  The burden to hold the statement inside had been too much. Now the words were out in the ether, and Timothy was looking at her as though…

  Anne gripped the back of the chair tightly, the only thing keeping her affixed to the ground. How could she continue to live in this house, this castle, grand as it was, with the burden of this suspicion on her heart?

  She could not continue living here, loving him, thinking she knew him, when in the back of her mind was the poisonous whisper she could not ignore.

  Did Timothy murder his wife? Did Louise, her own cousin, her flesh and blood, come to a dark end at the hands of this man? A man she has already given herself to?

  Was it possible the whole thing was a slip of Fate? Anne tried to recall the exact likeness of the woman in the portrait she had stumbled upon. In her mind’s eye, the woman had been supplanted with her own memory of Louise.

  She should have asked him in a calm, quiet manner whether he could explain any of this to her, but she had been unable to hold back. Not after such accusations; she had to defend herself––and to her shame, her first instinct was not to defend but to attack.

  “Your cousin.” Timothy repeated the words in a dull voice, with no fire, no spark.

  Anne’s stomach twisted. Did he not have anything to say against the very serious accusation which she had levelled at him?

  “How can you accuse me of being a bad governess,” she said, her voice shaking, “if you yourself have allowed someone to come to harm?”

  She could not say the darkest thoughts. The idea that the man before her, that Timothy could have…

  No, it was an accident, wasn’t it?

  “I would never allow anything to harm Frances,” Anne continued, compelled to fill the silence. “The thought that I would––it is outrageous for you to think so! You should know me better than that!”

  Her words were as heightened as her blood, but there was no escaping the conversation now. It had begun, and if Timothy would speak, they could have it out, one way or the other.

  Either she would love him far more than she had ever thought possible, or…

  Timothy stared. “Your cousin, Louise. She was your cousin, then?”

  Anne nodded mutely. Why did he not just tell her what happened? After that fright with Frances which must have lasted––what, all of five minutes?––she was entitled to know the truth to her enquiries.

  She had been asking about his wife, after all, from the very moment they had met. After all she had done for him; the care she had taken of his child; the lengths she had gone to preparing to feign to be his wife, lying to all who knew him…

  Pretending to be the Countess of Clarcton could have gone very badly for him, it was true, but he was not the only one who risked their neck. What would have happened to her if the truth had been discovered?

  “I should have bedded you just as I bedded her.” [Holt doesn’t say this until pg. 193; she doesn’t know this yet]

  Anne swallowed. Was it possible that everyone knew? That she was the only person in the Clarcton household who did not know the truth of Louise?

  And then, only then, did Timothy’s response jar.

  “Your cousin, Louise. She was your cousin, then?”

  He knew. Timothy had known she was related to his late wife, if Louise really was dead. Why had he not said anything?

  “Yes, I married your cousin,” said Timothy heavily.

  Anne blinked. No words were possible.

  “What a rather strange situation we find ourselves in,” he said briskly. “A situation I do not think either of us expected.”

  The words individually made sense, but Anne’s mind could not make sense of them. She had expected him to be astonished, to be amazed there was any connection between her and the countess, but by his response this was not new information.

  Had he known from the beginning?

  “Y-You knew?” she spluttered?

  Timothy shook his head. “Only when you mentioned her. It was too much of a coincidence that your Louise and my Louise were different people. Though I admit, I did think there was a strange resemblance when we first met.”

  Anne had thought nothing of mentioning her cousin; it had not even occurred to her to keep any information secret. What a fool she had been.

  “And was that,” she asked stiffly, “why you hid the painting?”

  A frown appeared on Timothy’s face. “Painting?”

  Anne took a deep breath. “The portrait of Louise. In the pink dress, in the gold frame.”

  Understanding dawned on his face and Timothy turned away for a moment before facing her once again. “No, that was nothing to do with you. I moved it when she died.”

  “Moved it?”

  He nodded. “The blasted thing was in my bedchamber, and I had looked on that face too long. I could not bear to look at it––or look at her at all, by the time she…she died.”

  There was a bitterness in his voice Anne had never heard before. He had been flippant, irritable, and downright rude at times. But the fury pouring from his eyes…it was not the Timothy she knew. His gaze was pointed directly at her. As though it was not just Louise who had angered him, but that in some way she was tainted by association.

  As though she had in some way betrayed him.

  “I couldn’t look at her at all, by the time she…she died.”

  Anne shivered. Louise was dead, then. A part of her had wondered if she was elsewhere, hidden, preferred to be considered dead by her husband.

  Her heart cracked. Louise was dead.

  The question was, how had the terrible event occurred? Louise had always been a healthy child, a healthy woman. Anne could not recall her enduring much sickness at all, other than the coughs and colds everyone suffered.

  Anne’s gaze met Timothy’s eyes, and the terrible question she knew she must have answered flickered across her mind again.

  Could Timothy have been involved in her death?

  She shook her head as though that would dislodge the question. She could not think that way. She had no wish to believe such a thing, sensational as it was.

  Timothy…she loved him. Imperfect though he was, irascible though he sometimes could be, there was a kernel [there’s a lot more than a kernel!] of goodness in him that she loved.

  But how small was it? How could you love someone if you did not really know them?

  She had to know, for if she left this place with the question unanswered, her heart would be partially broken for the rest of her life.

  “How did Louise die?”

  “None of your damned business,” snapped Timothy. “And if you knew what was good for you, you’d keep out of it!”

  Anne saw his fists clench, his knuckles almost as white as her own against the chair.

  This was all going wrong. Here they were, arguing over the death of a woman who had meant so much to them at such different times of their lives.

  “It is precisely my business,” she returned, keeping her voice as tranquil as possible. “Not purely because Louise was my cousin and therefore a blood relative, which any rational person would think is sufficient cause to be told the truth, but because I…because we…”

  Her cheeks colored and heat rushed through her chest to her neck. Was he really going to make her spell it to him? How could she articulate her love? Love now accompanied by two other conflicting emotions.

  Desire, a longing to be by his side both in life and through his day.

  But also fear. Here was a man she could not understand, a riddle she had never understood, and now it was vital she did. Her very soul, nay, her very life could be at stake.

  Timothy’s eyes met hers, and seemed to see her internal struggle. He looked wretched, moving about the room with noises of impatience, until finally he stopped and stared.

  “’Tis a sorry tale, and sorry I am for the telling of it,” Timothy said bleakly. “It will be sufficient to say I was taken in, entirely. Your cousin, and now I know the connection I cannot believe I did not further question the resemblance––well, let us say that she had a predilection for pretending she was well born and no desire to tell the truth.”

  Anne swallowed. “We are ladies, my lord, though we were certainly not as high born as you.”

  “Ladies?” Timothy said scornfully.

  “Yes, ladies,” said Anne fiercely. “Daughters of gentlemen, that is what ladies means.”

  Timothy did not seem appeased. Waving aside her words, he said, “You know very well what I mean. I thought her the cousin of a duchess, or the Right Honorable daughter of a gentleman––it never occurred to me to ask for particulars. One usually did not have to request proof of one’s nobility.”

  Anger flared in Anne’s soul but she attempted to let it pass. This was not the time to lose her temper. Finally, after months in his house, Timothy was about to tell her the truth.

  “By the time I married her, it was too late,” said Timothy bitterly, rubbing his temple. “Only later did I see her for what she truly was. By then she had what she wanted. She had me and my purse and the title that permitted her to do whatever she willed.”

  Anne swallowed. No one was perfect, and Louise had always been rather certain of what she wanted. She could almost remember those conversations from over a decade ago…

  “Only a duke will do for me,” Louise had giggled as they had walked to church one sunny morning. “Oh, to be a duchess!”

  “But you might not meet any dukes that you like, Lou,” Anne had said reasonably. “And what will you do then?”

  And in the shimmering sunlight of her memory, Louise had winked and giggled. “Why, find one I can endure, and then mold him to my tastes, of course!”

  Timothy waited for a response, but Anne was not sure she trusted her voice. How could she say, with any honesty, that Timothy was wrong about her cousin?

  Louise had changed so rapidly in the last few years Anne had known her. The softness had gone, the gentleness. All that had been left was a delicate viciousness that almost guaranteed she would receive what she wanted.

  “Louise was a sweet child,” Anne said hesitantly, knowing she had to fill the silence. “But…but when she was older––”

  “Spare me the lecture on her faults, I am all too aware of them,” interrupted Timothy with a scowl. “Christ alive, I had to suffer through them for two years!”

  And it was then Anne lost her temper. It was madness, and someone would hear raised voices, but in that moment Anne did not care.

  “It is not as though you are perfect, either,” she said, leaving the safety of the chair and taking a step towards him, fury racing through her lungs. “I would go as far to say that you are no more perfect than anyone, yet you sit in judgement!”

  “Yes, I sit in judgement,” said Timothy, taking a step forward in turn. “How else should I treat my wife when she betrayed me so bitterly, time and time again? She was no wife to me, Anne, and though I am a poor husband to her memory, I am a better spouse to her in death than she ever was to me in life!”

  Anne gaped. How could she refute such words when they were spoken with such passion and yet such painful candor?

  She could see on his face the cost that these words drew from him. He had no wish to speak yet she was demanding the truth––even if it pained them both.

  “I-I do not see what Louise could possibly have done,” she began.

  Timothy sighed heavily. “She took lovers, Anne. Many of them.”

  Anne halted. Lovers? Louise had Timothy in her arms, and she was willing to sacrifice the trust they had together by allowing herself to be seduced by other men?

  “I…” she said, voice trailing away. Was there any response to such a statement?

  “So many,” continued Timothy darkly, “that I was never sure whether Frances was mine. I am still not sure, though I treat her like my own.”

  It was this, perhaps more than anything else, that made Anne’s legs tremble. She took a step to the right and sank onto the bed, its soft comfortable weight supporting her in a way her limbs could not.

  Frances. The girl Timothy clearly doted on, the child he had just berated her about for in a mistaken moment…

  The idea that Frances might be more her kin than his was shocking.

  Frances was perhaps not a true Clarcton. It was madness. It was impossible. But why would he lie? The truth, if that was what it was, evidently pained him. There were lines of anguish across his face and a dullness in his eyes that told her Timothy was telling no falsehoods.

  “You…you do well not to blame her,” Anne said lamely.

  Timothy laughed bitterly and strode across the room to the windows. The sun had set hours ago, the lamps throwing dark shadows and crimson light across the room.

  “Who would blame a child for the circumstances of their birth? No, I do not blame Frances. If anyone, I blame you!”

  “Me?” Anne spluttered. “What––what could you possibly blame me for?”

  Timothy turned, crimson seared across his face. “My…damn. My apologies. I did not mean you. I meant Louise.”

  Anne had never liked being compared to her cousin even when a child, but to be mistaken by the man she loved in an argument such as this…

  “I am not her,” she said coldly.

  “Yes, yes,” said Timothy, waving aside the words again. “Yet you can understand why the confusion is––”

  “I understand no such thing!” Anne did not remember rising to her feet but she was standing now. “I would never betray you like that! Every action I have taken has demonstrated my desire to support you, to care for you!”

  How could she pour out her heart to him when he looked at her so coldly? Anne examined him carefully, desperate to see the kindness she had once enjoyed there.

  It was gone. There was nothing there but distrust.

  “How could I possibly know that?” Timothy asked bitterly. “Admit it, Anne, in some ways we are nothing but strangers to each other.”

  Those words cut far deep. The idea he could look at her and see an acquaintance…

  “I have served you,” she said quietly. “I have performed a great favor for you, been trotted out as your wife, and you have taken me to your bed. We are strangers to each other?”

  Timothy had the good grace to look uncomfortable before he turned back to the window. “I met you but two months ago. That is all.”

  “Something your kind, if you consider us so very different, is quite accustomed to!” shot back Anne with fire. “How many dukes or earls marry a girl after dancing twice in public and enjoying a private dinner with her parents?”

  “This is not the same.”

  Anne laughed darkly. “Though we are strangers, my lord, since we are reach not even the rank of acquaintances, I would say we have established I am no liar. Can you say the same?”

  She had expected a raging reply at her words, which had coursed through her, desperate to spill from her mouth in a way she could not prevent.

  But when Timothy turned to face her, there was a sad smile on his face. “I thought I knew Louise. I thought I knew when she was lying. And yet right at the end, she lied to my face, and I had no idea. No clue at all. And then she was dead.”

  Anne swallowed. It was now or never. “How did she die?”

  For a moment, Anne did not believe Timothy would answer. He stepped away from the window and around the bed, finally throwing himself onto the armchair that matched the embroidery on the bed hangings.

  “A riding accident.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Anne found herself saying. “Louise was a good rider. A great one, perhaps.”

  Images flashed through her mind: wild summers and freezing winters during which Louise would go out on horseback and Anne, if there were no other horses to spare from her cousin’s stables, was forced to follow on foot.

  “No one is a good rider when going out at night, unprepared, in a gale,” snapped Timothy, blue eyes blazing. “No one is a good ride when running away with one’s lover.”

  Anne gasped. The thought was so scandalous she could barely countenance it––but there was no hint of a lie in Timothy’s face. Finally, he was telling the entire truth.