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“Yes, it is in ruins. Evidently. I have never seen it. I understand now what great care he took to keep me away.” Pretending to be considerate, she recalled, the bitterness almost choking her, when all the time he was keeping the truth from her. “I feel so foolish,” she admitted.
Monkstead pondered a moment more and then he seemed to make up his mind. “I need to be blunt, Mrs Maclean. I understand the facts. That you will not come into your fortune until your father allows it, and you married your husband because you fell in love with him. In the circumstances it would not have been difficult for him to persuade you to change your father’s mind and dip into your inheritance. Answer me this: Has your husband asked you for money? And if he has, could he have spent it on opera singers or at the gaming tables, or horseflesh? Has he been to the best tailors and bookmakers in the city? In my experience these are the sorts of things that fortune hunters do. Once they have access to funds they cannot help but spend it on what gives them pleasure.”
Olivia shot him a withering look—she didn’t even think twice about hiding her true feelings because Monkstead seemed to invite honesty rather than politeness. “No, he hasn’t. He wants my money for his castle, for Invermar, not those things you mentioned. He wouldn’t . . . I mean . . . Rory isn’t like that.”
“So he is a fortune hunter with scruples,” Monkstead murmured, with a smile.
“He did take you to the opera,” Margaret spoke up. “Remember, Livy?”
Now Margaret decided to take Rory’s part, Olivia thought, irritably. She didn’t want to remember that night, but despite her resolve the images slid into her mind. Rory had gone to a great deal of trouble, arranging the night out, and afterwards taking a suite at a plush hotel, where they had lain together, kissing and making love in the most rapturous way. He had told her that only the best would do where she was concerned.
All lies.
She blinked away more tears. She couldn’t seem to stop them.
“It was very wrong of him to deceive you as he did.” Monkstead carried on, his fingers steepled under his chin. “And yet he has been a faithful and attentive husband. Perhaps he married you for love after all. Have you asked him to tell you the whole story in his own words, Mrs Maclean?”
Her chin went up. “I have too much pride,” she said, the pronouncement only slightly spoiled by the trembling of her lips.
“Forgive me, but pride can be very destructive when it comes to happiness. I know that what he has done is very wrong but there is one very important question you must answer: Do you still love your husband?”
She stared back at him blindly.
“I ask,” the earl had lowered his voice, and the sound of it was like a purr or a caress. “I ask because I have seen your husband walking in the square and he has the appearance of a man who has suffered the worst kind of grief. He is in mourning. Surely if he had married you for your fortune, he would know that your father would be only too happy to pay him another fortune to disentangle you from this marriage? He wouldn’t be begging your forgiveness, Mrs Maclean. He’d be over the moon.”
Another tear ran down her cheek. “He seems as miserable as me,” she admitted. “He comes to my door in the evening and says he is sorry, but I can’t bear to speak to him. I don’t know if I still love him. How can I love a man who has treated me so appallingly?”
But she did and she knew that Monkstead saw it in her anguished expression.
The earl turned a heavy ring on his little finger. “I think you must open your door to your husband, Mrs Maclean. I think you must speak with him plainly.”
Olivia shook her head and Margaret passed her another handkerchief. “It’s too late,” she declared. “I am going home and I will never see him again.”
“No!”
They hadn’t heard Rory come into the room but now there he was, standing before them, his dark hair windblown and his face wild with emotion. Olivia gasped and put a hand to her throat, as if she could not breathe.
“Rory . . .”
“I have decided,” he said now, his gaze fixed on hers. “I will leave for Scotland in the morning. This house is yours, Olivia. Everything is yours.”
“What do you mean?” She stood up, trembling, her hands twisting in her muslin skirt. “What of your castle, Rory? The castle that means so much to you that you would trick me into marrying you. What of that?”
He reached out and for a moment Olivia thought he was going to touch her cheek, kiss her even, and then he sighed and turned away. “Goodbye, Olivia,” he said.
She stared after him as if frozen to the spot.
Her cousin’s hand closed on hers. “Isn’t this what you want, Livy?”
Was it what she wanted? She didn’t know any more, only that her heart was breaking all over again. “He doesn’t love me,” she said stonily. “He never loved me.”
“But you love him,” Margaret replied.
At last Olivia turned. Her cousin’s green eyes were full of sympathy but also a large dose of exasperation.
“Do you know how lucky you are to have married a man you love? Not many women of our class are able to do that, Livy. We marry for duty . . . for bloodlines . . . for fortune. And to please our families. That will be my fate, if I marry at all. I envy you.”
Olivia stared back at her. She must be more self-centred than she knew, she told herself, because such a thing had not occurred to her. Margaret was right. She had married Rory for love, and to throw such a treasure away without at least trying to resolve the rift between them, would be cowardly of her. And Olivia was no coward.
