Page 3 of The Beastly Earl

“Then end your mourning. It’s been more than two years now. It’s time to start living again—see old friends.”

“Society no longer holds any interest for me. I like my life as it is.”

“Of course you do,” Sebastian growled. “You hide yourself away in the abbey with only Aunt Matilda and the boys for company. That’s not living.”

“You know good and well that I have always loved staying at the abbey. How many times did you threaten to punish me by sending me there, only to realize it wouldn’t be a punishment at all?”

“You’re no longer a child.”

“True. I’m a grown woman who doesn’t need her oldest brother dictating to her as to how she should grieve for her dead husband.”

“It isn’t my intent to dictate how you grieve, Louisa, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there.”

Sebastian’s quiet words made her grow still as a hare sensing danger. She swallowed hard, uncertainty flooding through her as she met her brother’s steady gaze. Surely he couldn’t know the truth. If he did, she wasn’t sure she could bear to see the disappointment in his eyes at the way she’d sent Devin to his death. When she didn’t speak, Sebastian shook his head slightly.

“The night of the fire, I was unable to sleep and decided to retrieve a book from the library. It was difficult not to hear you and Devin fighting when I passed your door on my way downstairs.” Sebastian paused slightly as sorrow darkened his handsome features. “The irony of my timing is not lost on me. If I’d gone downstairs just an hour or so later, I might have been able to prevent the entire disaster.”

“You mustn’t say that. You said yourself it was an accident,” she exclaimed softly as she caught his hand in a gesture of comfort and reassurance.

“And it was an accident, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have regrets, just as I suspect you do.”

Louisa dropped her brother’s hand as if it were a hot iron. She refused to confess to him, or anyone, the terrible sin she’d committed that horrific night. Refused to share with anyone the words she’d flung at Devin shortly before he perished so terribly. Words she could never take back. Springing to her feet, she turned and walked toward the door without speaking.

Sebastian had always encouraged her to face her fears head on, and she knew his raising the question of regret was deliberate. It was time to face the pain and guilt rooted deep inside her. She’d accepted that fact months ago.

She just didn’t know how to face the pain of Devin’s betrayal or the disappointment of knowing he hadn’t loved her enough to tell her the truth. Worst of all, she didn’t know how to forgive herself for the last words she and Devin had exchanged the night of the fire.

“Devin wouldn’t want you to grieve like this, Louisa.” At Sebastian’s words, a wild, unconstrained anger surged through her. She whirled around to glare at him.

“How do you know what he would or wouldn’t want me to do?”

“I know because Devin was like a brother to me. He was just as much a part of this family before he married into it as he was after he married you.” Sorrow swept across his face. “I know Devin would not want you to stop living. He loved you too much for that.”

“I don’t think you knew Devin half as well as you think,” she said with a bitterness that mixed with her anger, pain, and guilt. “My husband had a child with another woman.”

“What the devil would make you think such a thing let alone say it, Louisa?” Sebastian’s harsh admonishment and stunned disbelief sent a jolt of irony through her. Clearly not even her brother had been privy to his best friend’s secrets. She laughed mirthlessly.

“Because he admitted it the night of the fire.”

“There has to be some other explanation, Louisa,” Sebastian protested in a bewildered tone. “Devin loved you. I’m sure of it.”

“Of course he did.” She didn’t bother to hide her humiliation in her scathing reply. “He loved me enough to hide the fact that he had a bastard son. A child he’d provided for since before we were married. Provided for the child’s mother.” She inhaled a deep breath as she remembered the letter from their solicitor she’d mistakenly opened. The same paper she’d thrown at Devin during their argument. The vivid memory stabbed at her heart with the strength of a physical blow that she almost bent over from the pain of it.

“I don’t believe it,” Sebastian ground out in an obvious struggle to deny the inevitable. “I can’t believe Devin would ever betray his vows to you.”

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. He says he didn’t, but how can I believe that when he kept the truth from me the entire time we were married?” Eyes closed she shook her head slightly. “He betrayed me by hiding the truth. He made me doubt him—doubt his love for me.”

“Devin was my best friend. I’m not surprised he would have kept such a matter to himself. He loved you, Louisa. He would have gone to great lengths to spare you the pain or gossip such news would cause.”

“Would you have tried to spare Helen from such news? Do you love her so little as to not trust her with all your secrets?” When he hesitated, she glared at him. “Answer me, Sebastian. Would you have hidden this sort of truth from Helen?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I would have told her everything.”

“And yet somehow I’m supposed to believe Devin didn’t tell me about his bastard because he loved me? Didn’t want to hurt me?”

“Think about it, Louisa. If he’d betrayed you with another woman, the Set would have gone out of their way to ensure you heard about it,” Sebastian said fiercely and with conviction. “They thrive on gossip, and the majority of them are filled with jealousy that all the Rockwoods have happy marriages. A rarity among the Marlborough set.”

Louisa met her brother’s gaze and winced. What Sebastian said was true. If Devin had really been keeping the mother of his bastard child as his mistress, the gossips would have gleefully ensured she knew about it. As the logic of her brother’s words sank in, she closed her eyes and swallowed hard at the possibility Sebastian was right. Tears welled up behind her eyelids, and she shuddered. The sudden touch of her brother’s hands on her shoulders made her open her eyes to meet his gaze.