Page 64 of A Troublesome Circumstance

“I doubt that.”

Her chin snapped up. Then, loudly enough for half the ballroom to hear, she announced, “You are a cad, Lord Pendryn! I am glad I learned who you truly were before it was too late.”

Immediately, a chorus of murmurs rippled through the guests. Fans fluttered. Several matrons looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns.

He ignored them all.

He had no time for Society’s nonsense. He needed Josephine. Needed to make her understand. Needed to fix what he’d broken before it shattered entirely.

Jude strode through the ballroom doors and out onto the veranda.

There she was.

Standing at the far edge, mask dangling from her fingers, her back straight, shoulders tight, moonlight gilding her hair. She looked heartbreakingly alone.

“Josie,” he said gently.

She didn’t turn. She only stilled, as if bracing herself.

“I’ve come to apologize,” he began. “I want you to understand why I pretended to be a gamekeeper.”

Slowly—far too slowly—she turned to face him, her eyes luminous with hurt.

“What reasoning could there be?” she asked, her voice trembling despite the steady lift of her chin. “You lied to me. You let me believe something that wasn’t true.”

He lifted his hand in a placating gesture. “If you will let me explain⁠—”

She stepped closer, her nearness silencing him more effectively than a shout. “You humiliated me,” she whispered. “Everyone in your household knew. Your brother, Charlotte—” She gasped. “They must have thought me a fool.”

“No one thought that,” he insisted.

Tears welled in her eyes, catching the silver glow of the lanterns. “How could I have been so foolish?” A tear slipped down her cheek. “And then I believed you tonight. That you came to keep me safe. That, too, was a lie.”

“That was no lie,” he said fiercely.

“Was anything the truth?”

He stepped forward, desperate. “Yes. Yes, it was. When I found you, I brought you into the cottage because you were injured. I feared that if you knew who I was, you’d be forced—forced by circumstance—into a marriage you didn’t want. I was trying to protect you.”

“So you thought the worst of me.”

“It is all I have known,” he admitted, ashamed.

Her tears fell freely now. “I would never have forced you into anything. You saved my life, and I…” Her voice cracked. “I trusted you.”

“Josie—”

“I don’t want to ever see you again.”

She moved to pass him, but he caught her arm, unable to bear the thought of letting her go.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words scraping out of his chest.

She stood frozen, her head bowed. At last, she whispered, “And I’m sorry, too.”

“For what?”

“For thinking you were different from any other gentleman of my acquaintance. But you are all the same. You lie when it is convenient.”