Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) by Mary Balogh

Author:Mary Balogh [Balogh, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-07-11T21:00:00+00:00

* * *

KENNETH had found just the medicine he needed—or so he persuaded himself. He got quickly caught up in someone else’s problems. Viscount Rawleigh was at Stratton with his bride the morning his three friends arrived from Cornwall. In fact, he was outdoors with her and standing on a bridge the earl’s carriage must drive over. Kenneth leaned forward and rapped on the front panel to signal the driver to stop, and then he sat back while Lord Pelham and Mr. Gascoigne jumped out to a great deal of loud talk and laughter and excited barking from a small dog. He was eager to see Rex again and to meet his bride.

But he made an immediate and horrible mistake. He jumped out of the carriage, hugged Rex, greeted him, clapped a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see the bride, who was laughing with Nat and Eden. But as soon as his eyes alighted on her, he recognized her. He had seen her in London six years before when he had been sent home to recuperate from his wounds. He had even danced with her once or twice at ton balls. She was Paxton’s daughter—the Earl of Paxton.

“Why, Lady Catherine,” he said before he could notice the dawning shock and dismay in her eyes. Half a second later, he saw shock also in the eyes of his three friends—a look that was quickly veiled in Rex’s. And he remembered. Eden and Nat had called her Mrs. Winters, a widow. They had said nothing about her being Paxton’s daughter, Lady Catherine Winsmore. Winters, Winsmore—very similar. Had she been married? Had she been a widow? What had she been doing in Derbyshire? Had she been living there incognito? Did his friends—and even Rex—not know her true identity?

The noise, the hearty laughter resumed, but Kenneth knew that damage had been done. And his fears were confirmed when he was finally alone with Nat and Eden some time later. No, indeed they had not known, they assured him, and it seemed a reasonable assumption, given his quickly controlled reaction, that Rex had not known either. He had married a woman without knowing her true identity? He had married her without knowing that six years ago she had been totally disgraced in an association with London’s worst blackguard and rake? Gossip had even had it that she had been with child and certain it was that she had suddenly disappeared. Kenneth had by now remembered those facts—far too late.

“Rex heard what I called her, I suppose?” he asked half hopefully.

“He heard,” Lord Pelham told him.

“And it came as a surprise to him.” He did not have to frame the words as a question.

“Rex could never tread the boards,” Mr. Gascoigne said. “He is not a good enough actor.”

And yet he acted well enough for the rest of the day, smiling and welcoming and solicitous of his wife’s comfort. She was a beauty, too, as his friends had told Kenneth and as he remembered himself from six years ago.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.