Page 123 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

She nodded.

“Nicholas was betrothed to a woman whose father had been a great friend of the late duke. The two men had arranged the marriage when Mariah was in her cradle and Nick just a lad. When Nick died, they decided to pass Mariah along to Sylvester.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Men who wouldn’t loan out their horse had no problem trading away their children.” His lips twisted into an unhappy smile. “Chatham sold his commission and returned to England. You’ve seen Chatham’s scar—it’s…Well, it is savage even now, but eleven years ago, when it was fresh, it was—in all honesty—terrifying. Not just what it did to his face, but the pain he must have suffered—” Shelton broke off as he engaged in some sort of internal struggle.

After a few moments, he continued. “I came home on leave to attend my cousin’s wedding.” He sighed. “I will not beat about the bush. Mariah and I fell in love. I’d met her before, of course, but I’d been a boy when I went off to war and she was my age, so she’d been a girl.” He smiled, his gaze fond but vague. “The last time I saw her before going away we bickered like siblings when her parents brought her to spend Christmas at Chatham. She followed Sylvester and me around like a shadow, all coltish legs and scraped knees and wild beauty. But a child.” He paused, his eyes moving from Stacia to something over her shoulder—perhaps the past—as he thought. “And suddenly, when I returned, she was a woman. The most beautiful, vibrant, desirable woman I had ever seen.”

Stacia was grateful he was not looking at her at that moment because she was incapable of hiding her pain and jealousy at his words. Shame at experiencing such an unpleasant emotion about a dead woman did not lessen the feeling. Especially because she now knew the truth: the Duke of Chatham’s former wife might be dead, but Andrew Derrick was still deeply in love with her.

***

Andrew had regretted letting Stacia go after she had paid her forfeit. He had immediately missed her soft warm body which somehow managed to arouse and yet comfort him at the same time.

But now that he was getting to the ugly heart of his confession—for that is what it was—he was relieved that he did not have to face her shrewd gaze from mere inches away, no matter how much comfort he might have derived from holding her.

And no matter how willingly she had wanted to give herself to him.

Because Stacia’s desire for him had been painfully clear. Andrew could have taken her then and there and she would have come to him most willingly. But she was a woman who could not even kiss without guilt. She would hate herself after they’d laid together.

And she would hate him, too.

No, it was better to tell her the truth about the man she thought she wanted so badly.

The revolting, sordid truth.

Andrew had never talked about that time of his life with anyone, not even during these past months while he’d lived with Sylvester. He and his cousin had talked for hours—about the war, about their experiences and the aftermath—but they had wisely avoided the subject of Mariah, choosing to focus on their future friendship rather than their past enmity.

Recalling the details of the ancient, painful tale brought Mariah back in ways he’d never expected. For years all he had felt was an aching sense of loss that she wasn’t beside him, like the stories he’d heard men tell when they had lost a limb.

Only now that he was forcing himself to articulate the details of that brief time did he realize the appalling truth: he could barely remember her.

Not what her laugh sounded like.

Not her voice when she told him she loved him.

Not how it had felt when he’d been inside her.

And, worst of all, he could not even recall her face.

When had he forgotten those things? How could he forget?

He willed himself to remember so hard that beads of sweat broke out on his brow.

But when he tried to imagine Mariah, he saw a different face, heard a different laugh, and saw brown eyes, instead of blue.

Andrew looked up to find Stacia waiting, patient but pensive.

“We fell in love.” He held her gaze, forcing himself to meet the judgment in her eyes.

But there was none.

“You aren’t disgusted with me for falling in love with my best friend’s—no, my brother’s—betrothed?”

“It is not my place to—”

“I want to know your thoughts.”

Her throat flexed as she swallowed. “I am not sure it is possible to talk oneself out of love, no matter how hopeless or wrong or destructive the emotion might prove to be.”

Andrew was usually not the most of observant of men, but he was arrested by the intense pain in her eyes. A shocking insight followed immediately on the heels of that observation. Stacia Martin had been in love. Deeply in love. And, if her expression was anything to go by, heartbreakingly.