The Lady Who Saw Too Much (17 page)

Happiness.

* * * *

Later that night, Gia nestled into the warmth of her favorite place in the world. In the crook of Landen’s arm, she felt safe and protected. But more importantly, when he was with her, she knew he was safe. Deliriously spent by their lovemaking, she let her fingers play lazily over his chest, through the fine curls of hair, the taut plane of muscle and ribs.

“I have something for you,” she uttered.

His left brow rose in that wickedly seductive expression that made her quiver inside. “While I’m uncertain I’m up to it again so soon, I will do my utmost to rise to the occasion.”

She slapped at his chest, and he laughed, cowering from her playful assault. “I mean I have a birthday gift for you.” She leaned to the bedside table, then opened the drawer. “Here.”

His smile faded as he sat up to take the small box she held out to him. “This was unnecessary.” The surprising modesty in his voice was endearing.

“Of course it was necessary. I couldn’t let your birthday pass unnoticed.”

“Unnoticed? As though you and Alice haven’t been planning a celebration all along.”

She gaped at him. “Alice will be so disappointed that you know about the supper. You must pretend to be surprised.”

“I pretend to be surprised every year. I can manage to do the same this year.” He tilted his head. “It’s just us, correct? Just family?”

She nodded, thrilled he’d included her in his definition of family. “Yes, just the family. And Alex’s guests, of course. Alice mentioned you wouldn’t want us to fuss, so we’ve planned a simple evening.” She waggled her finger. “I will not, however, divulge what Florence is preparing for your birthday supper.”

“Will there be cake?”

“Of course there will be cake. A rich cake with creamy—” She narrowed her eyes at the grin on his face. “What?”

He shook his head. “Your mouth is watering from merely speaking of cake.”

She smiled too. “Obviously, you’ve noticed I possess a slight sweet tooth.”

“Slight?”

“All right,” she admitted as she fluffed her pillow. “An enormous sweet tooth.” She sprawled on her side to watch him open her gift.

With a grin, he reached toward her bare leg. “When something is good, it’s hard to resist.” He touched the box to her knee, slowly trailing it up to her thigh.

She inhaled at the contact, the simmering look in his eyes as his gaze followed the box to her hip. She felt her nipples harden, the tingling heat between her thighs.

He leaned toward her, but she halted him with a palm to the chest. “Stop it now and open the box.”

He drew back his hand in surrender. “All right, you win.” He opened the box, then lifted the silver chain from the velvet lining.

“It’s a medal,” she said, springing upright. “Saint Christopher.”

Cradling the medal in his hand, he inspected the engraved image closely. “Saint Christopher… The saint of safe travels.”

“Wearing it will protect you.” She tilted her head. “You will wear it, won’t you?”

He nodded, his humble gaze soft and warm. “Yes.” He slipped the chain over his head. It shimmered in the lamplight against his broad chest, and she smiled, liking the effect immensely.

“Thank you.” He regarded her with a tender affection she hadn’t thought possible. Her heart leapt in her chest.

“You’re welcome.”

His gaze slid down the length of her body, and his tone deepened. “Now come here. I have something for you.”

* * * *

Gia glanced to the clock on the mantel. “It’s almost midnight,” she said. “Almost your birthday.”

“Actually, I wasn’t born until two in the morning.”

Her thoughts wandered to her own birthday—the last one she or anyone else had ever acknowledged. She’d lost her brothers, and nearly died herself, on the very day—the very hour—of her birth. The eerie coincidence had always plagued her. From that horrible day forward, her birthday had become a day reserved for grieving the death of her brothers, nothing more.

She blinked away dark memories of the past and returned to the moment. “Two in the morning,” she said. “That was inconvenient.”

“I also was a large baby. Just shy of ten pounds.” He smiled proudly, as though claiming credit for the accomplishment.

“Oh, my,” she said, wide eyed. “Your poor mother.”

His smile dimmed as he averted his eyes.

The tension in his countenance should have kept her from pressing, but she longed to know more about the woman he’d never spoken of. “Tell me about her,” Gia said.

He turned to face her. “What have you heard?”

The memory of Clara’s grim words echoed through Gia’s ears
. God rest her pitiful soul.
Gia shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything, really,” she said truthfully. “That’s why I’d like you to tell me about her.”

“She was ill.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Mentally unstable.” He watched her closely, as though to gauge her reaction.

“Oh,” she uttered, unable to hide her surprise.

“For as long as I can remember, she behaved erratically. Calm and serene one moment, restless and aggressive the next.”

“That must have been difficult for you.”

Dark memories shadowed his face. “For my father, as well. I’m told they were happy for years before things started changing. Before she began hearing those damn voices.”

“Voices?”

“In her head,” he said with a tap to his temple. “Voices that told her to do things.”

Gia swallowed hard. “What kind of things?”

“Irrational things, inappropriate things. Violent things.”

“How awful.” Gia’s heart ached as she imagined his painful childhood and what it must have been like to grow up with an unstable parent. To grow up trying to make sense of something so difficult to understand. Something so scandalous. Society had little tolerance for the mentally disturbed, and for a brief moment, Gia almost pitied her parents for their frightening belief that their daughter was insane.

Her heart stilled. What might Landen think of her if he knew her secret? If she told him of her visions? Even worse than deeming her insane, he’d deem himself doomed to relive the misery of his past. The thought sent a chill of cold fear down her spine.

“Through it all, though, my father loved her. He never gave up hoping she’d wake up one day and be well.”

“That was admirable.”

“It was foolish.”

She flinched at his sudden hostility.

“He should have accepted her condition. Prepared for it.” He gave a thump to his chest. “Prepared me for it.” His dark eyes glazed with anger. “She hanged herself.”

Gia’s breath caught in her throat.

He shook his head. “My father never told me outright that she took her own life, but I overheard the help talking. I was nine years old at the time and didn’t want to believe it. I never asked him about it, but years later, Aunt Clara confirmed it.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“My mother ended her life with no thought to me and my father.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s untrue.”

“She left us. No warning, no good-bye. Nothing.”

Gia stared, not knowing what to say.

“I will never forgive her for that.”

“She was ill.”

“Yes. But somehow reminding myself of that fact does little to temper my anger.”

Gia blinked back her welling emotion.

“Some say mental illness is passed on through the bloodline.”

She glanced up in surprise. “Is that something you fear?”

“Wouldn’t you?” He took a deep breath, and his taut features softened. “I fear it not for myself.”

She assumed he referred to his siblings, but then she remembered they shared only a father. “For your children?”

“Yes.”

Although she dreaded hearing the answer, she asked anyway. “Is that why you avoided marriage for so long?”

“One of the reasons, yes. I didn’t learn the truth about my mother until after Isobel broke off our engagement,” he said. “But our situation, yours and mine, left no choice in the matter.” He shrugged. “Not that I gave a damn about sparing you from the truth at the time.”

She nodded, lowering her eyes in the face of his bitterness. Her shame.

“But I thought it fair to tell you now,” he said. “About the risk.”

His heartfelt fear for his children, his blunt honesty, touched her deeply. She swallowed hard, understanding suddenly how much she had forced upon him with her trickery.

“Thank you for telling me.” She placed her hand atop his. “The best things in life are often well worth the risk.”

She stared into his handsome face. While he might not ever trust her enough to believe this, beneath all the pain and resentment in his troubled eyes, she could see that he wanted to. His fingers splayed, entwining with hers. The simple move became the grandest of gestures. With the clasp of his hand, he’d accepted her comfort with no intent to seduce—no approach to his lust.

She glanced down at their interlocked hands, and she knew that she loved him.

* * * *

On her way to breakfast the next morning, Gia noticed a message addressed to Landen on the tray in the foyer. She stopped in her tracks, her mind coursing with more than simple curiosity. Could the note be from Mr. Whithers? Disregarding the prick of guilt she felt for snooping into Landen’s private correspondence, she snatched up the message. She opened the envelope carefully, then pulled out the page folded inside. She glanced around quickly, then scanned the bold print.

Dearest Denny,

I must see you at once. I’ll be walking at Sandy Cove this morning. Please meet me there.

Charlotte.

Gia’s heart sank to her feet. She’d rather the note be from Whithers than Charlotte. Angry at herself for the bitter thought, she returned the note to the envelope, then dropped it back onto the tray.

The memory of Landen and Charlotte together at the garden party scraped like thorns against her tattered pride. Jealousy bled from her pores. Was it Charlotte he thought of when he made love to Gia? Charlotte’s face he saw when his eyes closed in that moment of rapture—in that moment he clung to Gia’s body, unleashing everything inside him?

The thought sucked the air from her lungs, and she stiffened against her painful insecurities. Her fear she was merely a substitute for the woman whom Landen truly wanted. For the woman he could not have because of Gia’s interference.

Gia bit back a curse. Landen was her husband, and Charlotte had no right to make demands upon him. No matter what had transpired between the couple before Gia and Landen married, the fact remained, they were married now, and Charlotte had no claims to him.

Smoothing her skirts, she did her utmost to compose herself, then started down the hall. The sound of footsteps heading toward her quickened her heart as she hurried on to the dining room.

“Good morning, Mrs. Elmsworth,” Florence said as she rounded the corner.

“Good morning, Florence.” Exhaling a breath, Gia passed quickly, tossing a glance over her shoulder as Florence went about her daily task of collecting the messages.

Gia continued to the dining room, then took a seat at the empty table.

A few minutes later, Landen joined her. She poured him a cup of coffee as Florence entered the room, message in hand.

“You received a message, Mr. Elmsworth.”

“Thank you, Florence.” Landen read the message.

Gia sipped her coffee, doing her best to act nonchalant.

He stood. “I have to go into town.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” he said, stuffing the message into his coat pocket. “I have some business to attend to.”

She gazed at him, hoping he’d say more. Hoping he’d tell her where he was going. That this “business” with Charlotte was perfectly innocent.

He didn’t.

“I’ll be back soon.”

Gia nodded, swallowing a thick lump of disappointment. Charlotte had requested to see Landen, and he was all but running from the house to oblige.

Tears burned in Gia’s eyes, but she blinked them back. These past few weeks had led her to believe she and Landen were getting closer, and he was opening his heart to her. After last night, she’d felt sure he was beginning to care for her. She was a fool.

Lifting her chin, she staved off her tears as the man she loved turned his back on her, then hurried off to meet his mistress.

Landen rode toward town, fighting the urge to turn his horse around and go back to the house. He couldn’t imagine what was so urgent Charlotte had to see him immediately, but he was more consumed with thoughts of Gia.

The medal she’d given him had surprised him. A gift he’d wear every day, beneath his clothing, where no one but she knew it was there, no one but she would ever see it, was an intimate choice that roused intimate feelings.

He inhaled a long breath, but the crisp morning air failed to clear the intoxicating memories of last night from his head. The more time he spent with his wife, the more time he wanted to spend with her. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. They were bound together for eternity after all. But it was a confusing thing. He may not believe he could ever truly forgive her for forcing him into marriage, but over the past weeks, he’d discovered he could live with what she’d done. He could care for her.

How could he not? Everything about her aroused him. The feel of her skin, the scent of her hair, the sounds she made when he touched her—when he carried her over the edge. He’d never experienced such an insatiable desire for a woman. Never felt from another woman Gia’s insatiable desire for him.

And it wasn’t just in bed that she captivated him. She was compassionate and smart with a keen sense of humor. She made him laugh. Made him think. Made him feel.

Which led him to his current dilemma. He was sneaking off to meet his former mistress behind his wife’s back. Not only did Landen feel guilty for meeting Charlotte, but truth be told, he didn’t want to meet her. He’d barely given the woman a thought since he’d married Gia, and he couldn’t deny the reason for this.

His mind had been occupied with thoughts of Gia.

“Denny!” The man in front of the Lakeside Hotel waved his arms.