Chapter 8 #2
“A week,” he admitted grudgingly. “Annabel thought it would be romantic for us to run off to Gretna Green together.” Julian admitted to what he already knew had been beyond impetuous behavior on his part.
A week was barely enough time to know anyone. As he had learned to his cost!
“I had only recently returned on leave after we had defeated Napoleon.” He attempted to defend his actions.
“I was enjoying a stroll in Regent’s Park when I first saw Annabel.
The sun was shining, and she appeared to me as a golden-haired, blue-eyed angel of innocence and beauty.
Everything, in fact, I believed I had been fighting to protect.
I was instantly bedazzled and immediately engaged her in conversation. ”
“The two of you met while strolling in a park?” Georgiana eyed him incredulously.
“Yes.”
“And she simply allowed you to walk up to her and begin a conversation?”
“Well…yes.”
“Her chaperone allowed such familiarity?”
“Annabel was alone that day.”
“But— No unmarried lady of the ton would be allowed to go outside without a chaperone,” she pointed out. “As I no longer wish to be a part of London society, I do not include my own behavior in that statement.”
“Annabel was not a member of the ton. Her father had been a sailor and her mother a seamstress. But they were both dead, and she was living with an aunt in London. Not a fashionable part,” he recalled.
“I only met the aunt once, but I was unconcerned by Annabel’s lack of social connections, deemed it to be unimportant when we were in love and wished to marry.
Except I quickly learned that it was only I who felt that way. ”
“Oh?”
His nostrils flared. “The ink was barely dry on the marriage certificate before Annabel informed me she was not in love with me, that she never had been.”
“Then why did she marry you?”
Julian stood up to restlessly pace the room. “For the Moreland fortune? The prestige of being a duchess?” He shook his head. “I have no idea. I only know that once she was officially my duchess, she wanted nothing to do with me.”
Georgiana’s eyes widened. “Such a thing had never occurred to me… Nothing at all?”
He stopped pacing to glare at her, his jaw clenched. “At all.”
“Does that mean…?”
Julian could no longer look at her but turned to stare sightlessly out of the window.
“Perhaps I should not be revealing this to you. I have not done so to anyone else. Possibly because, initially, I tried to protect Annabel, and later because of my own humiliation over the situation. The servants possibly knew. As you said, they see much more than we are aware.”
“Whatever this was, I am sure they will have known,” Georgiana confirmed. “See much more of what, Julian?” she prompted softly.
He sighed heavily. “I had believed, because she was so young, that when Annabel barred me from her bedchamber on our wedding night that it was purely a case of nerves, and that we would come together another night.” His mouth twisted.
“We did not. I tried for months, did everything I could to make her feel comfortable with the physical side of marriage, but Annabel remained adamant I was not welcome in her bed.”
* * *
It was perhaps selfish of Georgiana to feel so elated upon learning Julian’s marriage had been such a monumental failure.
Very selfish, she acknowledged self-reprovingly, when that failure had obviously hurt Julian so badly. Initially, his heart, and then his pride.
“You could have had the marriage annulled,” Georgiana pointed out.
Julian turned to face her. “I already felt ridiculous enough, without every member of the ton being made aware of my total humiliation. My closest friends, St. Albans and Hellsmere, had advised me before the elopement to stop and take a breath, to think the matter through before hastening into marriage. I refused, felt sure that their caution was unwarranted. I even felt a little indignant on Annabel’s behalf.
I have paid a severe price for not heeding their warnings.
” He sounded weighed down by this occurrence.
Which was perhaps why, Georgiana realized, St. Albans had been so hellbent on helping Julian by employing a secretary on his behalf.
Knowing the Duke of St. Albans as Georgiana now felt that she did, he might even have had more than that in mind, aware of Georgiana’s vow not to marry for anything less than love when he asked her to travel into Norfolk to work for his friend.
She stood to move out from behind the desk. “I am very sorry you had to go through that.”
Julian huffed out a self-derisive laugh. “It was a hell of my own making.”
Georgina crossed the room to stand in front of him before lifting one of her hands to cradle the side of his face.
The fact that his cheek felt slightly rough to the touch came as no surprise.
She had noticed that although Julian was newly shaved each morning, by the afternoon, that facial hair had grown long enough to cast a shadow over his jawline.
She smiled at him encouragingly. “You believed you were marrying for love, and no one should ever fault you for that.”
Julian lifted his hand and placed its warmth on top of hers. “Then why does even talking about that situation still make me feel such cringing humiliation and embarrassment?”
“Because, like the rest of humanity, you had only wanted to be loved and to love, but instead, you found yourself condemned to living with a woman who obviously did not, and never had, returned your affections. A woman, moreover, who it seems never had any intention of being your wife in more than name.” Which, Georgiana acknowledged, she found very strange when Julian was such a handsome man.
“I was a first-class fool and old enough to know better,” he growled.
“As you said, you had recently returned from war, and the innocence of her beauty bedazzled you,” she reminded. “Perhaps deliberately so,” she stated.
Julian frowned. “What do you mean?”
Georgiana was unsure, her thoughts still a little jumbled, but the underlying thought that persisted through all that she had learned today was that something about this situation did not add up. It was almost as if…
“Did her aunt come to live with you after the marriage?” It was the custom in many society marriages when an older relative would be left to live alone after a marriage took place.
Julian shook his head. “Annabel told me her aunt was perfectly happy staying where she was, and being a newly married man, I did not push the subject.”
“Did the two of you spend that Season in London?”
“We did.”
“Did you see the aunt during that time?”
“Annabel said she preferred to visit her aunt alone.”
“How often?”
“Once a week when we resided in London.”
From the little Georgiana now knew of the other woman, she did not believe Annabel Sotherby would have banned Julian from accompanying her on those weekly visits out of a feeling of embarrassment for her humbler beginnings.
The duchess’s nature, from her treatment of Julian after the wedding, her rudeness to the servants and her disdain for Meggie, was not indicative of those softer emotions.
Georgiana’s eyes narrowed. “I know St. Albans and Hellsmere to be close friends of the Prince Regent. Can I assume you are also part of that inner circle?”
“I am, yes.”
“Hm.” An idea was starting to formulate in Georgiana’s thoughts, but she would need more information before she voiced any of those thoughts. “Did Annabel ever meet the Prince Regent?”
“Only when she was first presented to him, as is customary.”
“And…?”
Julian looked nonplussed for several seconds before his brow cleared. “And Prinny complimented me on the beauty of my duchess.”
“And your duchess?”
“I do not recall her saying anything of consequence.”
“She met the Prince Regent and voiced no strong opinion afterward?”
“Yes.”
“A young girl from a middle-class household is introduced to the Prince Regent as the Duchess of Moreland, and she had nothing to say about that meeting?” Georgiana repeated incredulously.
His mouth twisted. “I believe she might have said he was fatter than she’d imagined.”
Yes, well, a lot of people said that about their Prince Regent, but never within that gentleman’s hearing.
Luckily, Prinny also managed to maintain a royal bearing and could be more shrewdly intelligent than most people realized from the joviality of his outer appearance.
Indeed, a mind such as the Prince Regent’s might have been useful in untangling the suspicious events surrounding Julian’s marriage.
“Have you spoken to Annabel’s aunt since the duchess disappeared?” Georgiana changed the subject.
He gave a slow shake of his head. “I have not.”
“Why not?”
He winced. “Because when I attempted to do so, I discovered she had moved from her modest house in Bloomsbury almost immediately after Annabel and I were married. Nor had she left a forwarding address. No doubt Annabel was informed of one, but she did not pass that information on to me before she too…disappeared.”
“Then where did Annabel go every week when she said she was visiting her aunt?”
“I have no idea.” Julian sighed heavily. “I could find no record of her aunt’s whereabouts anywhere in Annabel’s rooms after she disappeared. In fact, I did not find any correspondence amongst the things she left behind, let alone letters from her aunt,” he added with a frown.
“Let me see if I have understood this situation correctly…” Georgiana spoke slowly, her thoughts still racing.
“You met your future duchess when you were both strolling in a public park. You learned she lived with her aunt, whom you met once and who was, at best, middle-class. The two of you were married at Gretna Green a mere week after that initial encounter. Her aunt seems to have left her house in London almost immediately, and you have no idea where she now resides, despite your duchess claiming to be visiting her every week?”
“Yes,” Julian confirmed through what sounded like gritted teeth.
“Is it only me, or do these circumstances seem strange to you too?”
“Now that you have so eloquently stated the sequence of those events, I can see that the whole situation is…questionable.” He winced. “But I fail to understand what the purpose could have been for any of it.”
Neither did Georgiana.
Not completely.
But she had several scenarios she was contemplating. Ones she did not as yet feel comfortable sharing with Julian. She needed more information before doing so.
Finding out what had happened to Annabel Sotherby’s aunt was part of that information and would require Georgiana to send another letter to Lily and Chloe, with that request.
And sooner rather than later, when this situation was the reason Julian refused to kiss her again.
Although, Georgiana was becoming more and more frustrated with that situation. So much so that she believed she might be forced to take matters into her own hands.
“I trust you will be joining me for dinner this evening?” she now prompted.
To her disappointment, despite working together in his study the past three days and eating a light luncheon together, Julian had still avoided her company in the evenings.
“We still have much to discuss,” she added as she sensed he was about to decline.
“If that is your wish,” he instantly conceded.
“It is,” Georgiana confirmed.
She had grown to hate that look of almost defeat in Julian’s beautiful green eyes. Indeed, she hated this whole situation for him.
But she was not willing to wait any longer to have Julian kiss her again.