Counterfeit Countess by Lynne Connolly Read Free Book Online

do it. He suspected it had something to do with the way a person moved when they told a lie. Not the way they met his eyes. Liars were good at that, but not the rest. He watched her, forcing his mind into assessing her movements instead of just enjoying them, as his body urged him to do.
    In answer to his question, she nodded. “I needed time after Waterloo. I came home, and I had nothing.” She paused, glanced away. Was there more to her decision to pose as his widow? Not lying, but concealing something. “If you’d worked that out, why didn’t you repudiate me tonight?”
    “Did you expect it?”
    Of course she had. He owed her nothing. Why would he want her after that? The answer still eluded him, except her body was soft and welcoming and he wanted more.
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    “You’ve met the dowager, so you know what I had to face at home,” he said. “They wanted me to marry. When I was in the army the dowager kept writing me letters, and somehow most got to me.
    About her daughters and how charming they were. Then a demand to marry one of them.”
    “Marriage? Why would they want you to? You were a second cousin.”
    “The dowager likes to think everyone and everything is under her control. If she married me to one of her girls it tied up the inheritance neatly. She doesn’t consider people, she thinks dynasties and influence. My lack of the latter was made up for by the former.”
    He paused. “Her second son, Vivian, was married, but after two years there was no issue. And I believe she found out about her oldest son.”
    “What about him?”
    He traced a line from her throat to the dip between her breasts, savouring the smooth, soft skin. So lovely. “He preferred his own sex. You understand?”
    Meeting her shocked gaze, he saw she did. “I’ve seen it happen.
    Sometimes if a man cannot get a woman...”
    He shook his head gently. She had seen far too much. His desire to protect her never surprised him as it did now, with evidence of her deception so evident. “This was not expediency. His mother discovered his preference, and it led to a rift. She could not comprehend why he couldn’t have both. Some men can, some can’t.
    Stephen could not.” He watched her take that in, but his Faith was no sheltered maiden. She knew. “Even if he married there wouldn’t have been any issue.
    “Vivian’s wife never conceived,” she said. “Poor lady.” Vivian’s wife had died a year ago.
    “Vivian mourned his wife truly and wanted time before he remarried. It was why they came all the way to Canada to see me, once they discovered I was alive.”
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    “How did they find out?”
    “I wrote to Vivian after I’d established myself in Halifax as a man of substance. I did write to Stephen after I arrived in Canada, but I didn’t wait for a reply before I went into the depths of the forests, so I had no idea that letter went astray. The one to Vivian, to his posting in Vienna, arrived safely and both brothers came to Canada to entreat me to come home and do my duty by you. To get you with child for the family’s sake.” He paused. “I hadn’t realised I had a wife before then.”
    The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she were suppressing a wince. “I’m glad I wasn’t born into that kind of family. I’ve seen enough to know that.” Before he could ask her, she told him. “I’m the daughter of a country vicar. Barely genteel. Twelve children were a strain on the stipend and my father’s small independence.”
    “How did you come to marry a soldier?” He wanted to know more about her, to fill in the spaces, to give him a proper assessment of her.
    “John and I were from the same small town in Shropshire and when he returned on leave, he courted me. I believed he loved me, at least at first, and I saw I would be useful to him. My parents were only too happy to be rid of me. I’d thought I was destined to become a governess.” She paused. “Three girls in our