Captive by Joan Johnston

Author:Joan Johnston [Johnston, Joan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5291-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

9

If Charlotte could have found Braddock, she would have confronted him with the truth of what had happened between Lord James and Denbigh. But a note Charlotte penned to his London address early the next morning was returned unopened with a second note saying the duke had left London. All Charlotte’s efforts to locate Braddock over the next few days were futile. It was as though he had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Livy was disconsolate.

Lion felt vindicated.

Charlotte bided her time, waiting for Braddock to show his face in company. Unless he had gone back to India, and gossip did not suggest it, the man would have to turn up sooner or later. When he did, Charlotte would be waiting for him.

Meanwhile, the idea that there was more to Lady Alice’s story than she, or even Denbigh knew, niggled at her. She could not imagine how a woman who loved one man could end up in bed with another. Unless … unless Lord James had blackmailed Alice somehow. Or had got her drunk at a house party and taken advantage of her. Or made a bet with one of his cronies that he could have her and forced himself on her.

There were infinite possibilities, if one only had the imagination to think of them. Charlotte had a wonderfully vivid imagination … but absolutely no way of proving anything, since both of the parties involved were dead.

She was desperate to know the truth. Her whole life depended on it. And all because she was falling in love with a man who barely tolerated her. A man who was determined to change her into someone he could admire, as though Charlotte Edgerton, lately from America, was not an admirable person. She did not understand how it could have happened. It scared her to think she had no choice in the matter. The love was there. She could not seem to extinguish it.

The problem was, her heart had settled on someone incapable of loving her in return. The blasted man was convinced he could not trust himself to know real love when he saw it. After all, Denbigh believed he had been badly mistaken with Lady Alice. That betrayal made him chary of trusting another woman. Clearly, something had to be done to change his mind, or her love was doomed.

The simplest solution was to prove Lady Alice had loved Denbigh all along, and that some other provocation had resulted in her coupling with Lord James. Then, and only then, Denbigh might be willing to take the chance of loving someone else … of loving her. Then, and only then, could they have a chance of living happily ever after.

Of course, Denbigh had a few shortcomings that needed to be corrected in order to make him the perfect husband. Not that Charlotte needed a perfect husband, but Denbigh was so far from perfect, he had long way to go. He tended to be dictatorial at times. And stubborn as a mule. And set in his ways.

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