Page 25 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

“No! I’m not at the party,” she added crossly as he continued to stare at her in obvious skepticism, “because I wasn’t allowed to go.”

“What?” He gave a laugh. “Kay, you’re not a child.

You’re not even the adolescent girl who was so sick at the idea of disappointing and disgracing her parents that she left me flat in a Birmingham inn.

You’re a woman of thirty-two,” he added, ducking his head to study her face when she looked away.

“Isn’t it time to cut the apron strings? ”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she shot back. “It was not my mother who forbade me to go to the party. It was—”

She stopped, sensing she was heading into deep waters, but when she saw his humor vanish once again, she knew she’d given the game away.

“Wait,” he ordered, holding up one hand, palm toward her, his expression one of disbelief. “You mean, it was Rycroft? He ordered you not to come?”

She didn’t reply, because, after all, what could she say?

“And you knuckled under?” Devlin went on in the wake of her silence, his voice low, vibrating with sudden anger. “To him ?”

“I didn’t knuckle under,” she denied, even as she knew that was precisely what she’d done. “I chose,” she went on, working to muster her dignity, “to honor his request that I not attend.”

The frown on his face deepened to an absolute scowl. “My God,” he muttered, shaking his head, “fourteen years, and nothing’s changed with you, has it? You’re still letting your life be dictated by what other people want and expect of you.”

That accusation touched on her already raw mood and ignited her temper, mainly because she knew there was some truth in it. “You don’t know anything about me,” she cried. “Or my situation, or what I’m forced to do—”

Again, she stopped, hand over her mouth, but it was too late. What was it about this man that always loosened her tongue? she wondered in aggravation. He could pull secrets out of a sphinx.

“Forced how?” The words out of his mouth were like a whip, cracking in the air.

She tried to turn away, but he put his hands on her arms to stop her. “What’s that bastard doing to you?”

“Nothing.” Kay took a deep breath, striving to regain a sense of discretion. “It’s not what you think.”

“No? Then what is it? The money? You just want to marry a millionaire, is that it? Is staying in the lap of luxury worth selling yourself?”

She jerked free. “That’s a laughable question, coming from you.”

“Are we now talking about my reasons for marrying Pam? Because,” he added as she pressed her lips together and didn’t answer, “last time we met, you practically accused me of marrying Pam for her money, so let me set you straight about that. Pam’s father is absolutely flat. She’s got no dowry to offer.”

“I’m not talking about her.” Kay drew a deep breath. “I’m talking about you and the money you took.”

“What money?”

“What money do you think? The money my father paid you to go away, of course!”

“What?” He blinked, looking utterly taken aback. “Is that what you think? That I allowed your father to buy me off?”

“Don’t bother denying it. I know what happened.”

“Apparently you don’t.”

“I saw the canceled bank draft, Devlin. Papa showed it to me about two years after you left, because he was tired of how I was still stupidly mooning over you. I saw your signature on the back, plain as plain.”

Her voice was shaking now, but she forced herself to continue. “Two thousand pounds was all it took for you to give me up.”

“Damn it, Kay, I didn’t give you up. That money was a loan.”

“Oh, please.”

“But it was! After you left me in Birmingham, I went to see my father, and I told him about us. I asked him if he would help me by giving me a bigger allowance so I could reassure your father that I could support you even if I stayed here, but of course, my father refused to help. So I went to Yorkshire to see you so that we could discuss what to do next, but your father said you’d gone to Wales.

He said the duke had told him about us and our attempt to elope, and that you were all muddled up about it, and he suggested that you go to Wales for a bit to think things through. ”

“I’m not sure it was really a suggestion.”

“You mean he forced you to go?”

“He didn’t tie my hands, shove me in a carriage, drag me to Wales, and lock me in a garret, if that’s what you mean.

” She sighed, lifting her hands in a helpless gesture, letting them fall.

“He said how disappointed he was in me. How the fact that I had gone behind his back in this clandestine manner had broken his heart.”

Strangely, Devlin smiled a little at that. “You always cared far more about your father’s opinion than I ever did about mine.”

Kay refused to be diverted. “And the money? What about the money he gave you?”

“I told your father we were in love and we still intended to marry, and I asked for his permission.”

“And he refused, of course. I told you he would. That’s why we decided to elope in the first place.”

“But that’s just it. He didn’t refuse. He admitted quite frankly that he didn’t approve of the match. How could he, he asked, given that I had no prospects? I explained why we’d decided to go to Africa, told him some of my ideas for what I could do there, and to my amazement, he listened.”

“He did?”

“Yes. He said that I seemed to know what I was doing, and that if I could make good on my plan, and if I had proven by the time you were twenty-one that I could take care of you, he’d give his blessing to our marriage and wouldn’t fight it.

He said he understood how hard it was for a younger son to get on in the world.

He’d been the younger son, too, before his brother’s death, so he appreciated the difficulties I was facing.

He said that for your sake, he was willing to give me a chance, and he offered to stake me. ”

“Did he?” Kay murmured faintly, a sick knot forming in her stomach.

“That’s what the two thousand pounds was for. It was a loan, Kay, a loan I paid back within three years. Every penny, with interest. And I don’t know why I’m even having to tell you all this again.”

“Again?” she echoed, bewildered. “What do you mean? You never told me any of this.”

“I damn well did. Before I left for Africa, I went to Wales to see you. Your mother said you didn’t want to see me, that you wanted time apart to think.

So, I wrote you a letter, explaining the arrangement I’d made with your father.

Then I caught the boat out of Liverpool.

I wrote again when I reached Cape Town, telling you where I was and how you could contact me.

I wandered a lot in those early days, but I always made sure to inform you of where I was—”

“Devlin,” she interrupted, her mind reeling at this news, “in three years, I never received a single letter from you. Not one. I wrote to you at Stonygates, but I never heard back. I only knew where you were because Delia came to visit me, and I asked her to find out where you’d gone.

That’s how I got your address in Cape Town.

I wrote you again and again, but you never answered me. Not… even once.”

“I moved on from Cape Town in less than a year, but as I said, I kept you informed. I wrote you every week.” He stopped abruptly, studying her face. “You never got any of my letters, did you?”

She shook her head. “No, but if you wrote, then my mother must have—” She broke off, unable to quite voice that suspicion out loud.

Devlin had no such compunction. “She suppressed them,” he said flatly.

“Oh, God.” Kay pressed a hand over her mouth, realizing in dismay what her mother must have done. “How could she—how could they,” she amended, knowing her mother would never have done this without orders from her father, “have done that to me? To us?”

“I wrote to you in Yorkshire as well as in Wales. I even sent cables. They must have suppressed those as well. Damn it all,” he added explosively.

“I should have known he would never allow you to marry me, but he sounded so sincere when he put it to me, insisting the money was only a loan as he handed me the bank draft. He even wrote a promissory note, detailing the terms and interest rate. I don’t suppose he showed you that. ”

“No. He told me he offered you money to go away. He said it was a test,” she added as he muttered an oath. “If you were honorable, you wouldn’t have taken it.”

“Borrowing that money seemed my only choice at that point. Having listened as the duke’s sisters pointed out to you how disappointed your family would be if we eloped, seeing you go wobbly and change your mind because of that, I feared the only way I’d ever have you at all was to get your father on my side. ”

“That was probably true,” she conceded. “Defying my father,” she added in whisper, “was never an easy thing for me.”

“I know that. I decided that the only chance I had was to prove I could support you. As I said, I tried my father first, but he wasn’t obliging. When your father offered to stake me a loan, I thought it was the perfect solution.”

“Oh, yes, perfect,” she murmured, sick at how skillfully her father had manipulated both of them.

“But when I didn’t receive any letters from you,” he continued, “I began to fear that your time to think had made you go off me altogether. I didn’t want to believe that, but given that you never replied to any of my letters, it was hard not to.

And then…” He paused and swallowed hard.

“Then I read you’d gotten engaged to Giles, and that confirmed all my worst fears.

It rather put finis to the whole thing.”