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“Please sit down,” she said finally. “The story is a long one.”
He obliged her.
“The afternoon before our wedding, I went out fishing, with Becky’s approval and encouragement.”
“What the devil does Becky Petersham have to say to anything?”
“You will know, shortly. Do you recall the beautiful yacht you and I saw from the promontory the day before?” He nodded. “It appeared again. It drew quite close, and I saw it was named The Cassandra. In short, Edward, the sailors threw ropes about the mast of my sailboat. The owner and captain of The Cassandra was the Earl of Clare. He abducted me.”
“Anthony Welles?” Edward pictured the earl, a virile and dashing nobleman, and felt a wrenching tightness in his belly. “But why?”
“He told me he intended to make me his wife. He had planned on my spending a season in London and was going to court me there. Your return to England ruined his plans. Rather than let us marry, he abducted me and crashed my sailboat into the rocks, knowing that everyone would believe me drowned.”
For a long moment, Edward was too stunned to speak. “I don’t understand, Cass. Anthony Welles has known you since you were a child. I am not aware that you ever offered him any encouragement.”
“No, of course I did not. He loved my mother, Edward, before I was born. Perhaps he is still drawn to her, through me.” Even as she spoke the words, she did not believe them.
“That filthy bastard.” Edward smote his thigh with his fisted hand and winced. “He—he forced you?”
“Yes. I told him that he was insane and that I would never wed him. But he would not listen.” She saw the pulse in Edward’s temple pounding furiously. “I am sorry, Edward, to distress you, but you must know the truth.”
“Of course I must, Cass. He took you to Genoa?”
“I tried to escape him once, near Gibraltar, but I could not.” There was no point in telling him of the pirate, Khar El-Din, and her shooting of the earl. “As you know, Lord Welles’s mother was Italian. He took me to his villa, just west of Genoa. That is where I have been until two months ago.” Nor would she ever tell him of her miscarriage. What a miserably brief tale it was, like a person stripped down to a skeleton.
“How did you escape him?”
I escaped him because he did not believe that I wanted to. “He left the city and I was able to slip away. If The York and Captain Crowley had not been in the harbor, it is likely I would have been caught.”
Edward was suddenly struck by a coincidence. “You speak Italian, Cass.”
“Aye, Edward. And that is due, as you know, to Becky Petersham. I had always wondered at her disapproval of you. She is related to him, Edward. In her eyes, I was intended for the earl and none other.”
Edward’s thoughts returned to that afternoon on the beach two days before they were to be married. Cassie would have given her virginity to him then, had it not been for Becky Petersham’s interference. “She appeared distraught at your supposed death. It was a sham, all a sham.”
“She corresponded with the earl. Quite by chance I found her letters. That is how I knew where you were.”
“Eliott still believes you dead?”
“Yes. I have written to him, but the letter will not arrive in England for two months.”
“Did you tell him what had happened to you?”
Cassie thought of the phrases she had penned to her brother, reassuring phrases that expressed little of her feelings, of her uncertainty with herself. She had written less to him than she had told Edward. “A little. I told him I was coming here, to you, and that I was well. I did not mention Becky’s part in all of it. That must wait until I return.”
Edward nodded, but Cassie sensed he was not really attending her words. He turned suddenly, his voice harsh with anger.
“How could that bastard have forced you to live with him all this time?”
“Because he always believed that I would change.” At least he hadn’t asked her if the earl had forced himself upon her all those months. She did not know if she could lie to him.
Edward’s hand foolishly went to his side, but his saber was on the table and the earl was in Genoa. He looked again at Cassie’s face and saw a lone tear streaking down her cheek.
He felt stricken with remorse at his own fury. She needed him as she never had before in their lives. He clasped her arms and drew her to her feet. “Oh, God, Cass, please do not cry.” He nuzzled his cheek against hers and stroked his hands down her back. “It is all right now, my love. I will help you to forget, I promise you. All of it will pass like a bad dream, you will see.”
She sobbed quietly, her tension easing at his gentleness. But she knew it would not pass like a dream.
He spoke quietly, sensing her pain. “I will make it up to you, Cass. We will wed and return together to England. Believe me, I have no wish to remain here now.” He thought of Jenny and felt a shock of guilt that made him go numb. “Oh, God,” he whispered. He gazed down at the beautiful girl he had cherished most of his life. She had miraculously been returned to him. “All can be as it was, Cass,” he said.
