Wicked Earl Seeks Proper Heiress (The Husband Hunters Club 5)

A gleam of laughter came into Rufus’s eyes but he snuffed it out. “Averil,” he warned, “this isn’t the time to argue about who seduced whom.”

James was looking from one to the other in amazed delight.

“Well, that should soothe your scruples, nephew,” he declared, sounding like an overexcited schoolboy. “If she seduced you, you can’t be accused of pursuing her for her money, can you?”

The silence was absolute.

“What do you mean? Pursuing me for my money?” Averil asked, her voice sounding sharp and unfamiliar. But she knew already the answer to her question. The grave expression on the earl’s face, the guilty expression on his uncle’s, and Beth clearly fighting the urge to cry, they all told the story. Suddenly she remembered that moment during the storm, when she’d felt something in Rufus change, that sense that he was taking an irrevocable step, as if he was setting something irreversible in motion.

She’d trusted him, but he’d been lying to her all along.

“Averil,” he said, and there was an urgency in his voice as he moved closer to her. She let him take her hands in his, but did not return his grasp. Her heart felt suspended, broken. She was like the garden outside, battered and bruised by the storm.

“Averil,” he tried again. “I love you. I meant what I said. I want to marry you. The money . . . it was always secondary.”

“So you’re not in need of an heiress then?”

He gave a b

itter laugh. “I won’t pretend I’m not in need of a wealthy wife. I won’t lie to you.”

“No?” Her temper was rising.

“Averil,” he said softly, but not as if he was expecting her to listen.

“My dear girl,” James burst out, “it was all my fault. I put the idea in his head and really he didn’t want to do it.”

“But somehow he swallowed his disgust?”

“The Southbrooks always marry money,” James explained in what he thought was a kind voice. “To marry for love . . . it isn’t done in our world, Averil.”

“James, shut up,” his nephew said furiously.

“And to think I imagined your attempts to hide your poverty from me were endearing. I thought you were too proud to admit it. But it was really to hoodwink me, wasn’t it? Pretend you didn’t need my money when, in fact, that was the one thing, the only thing, you wanted.” There were tears spilling from her eyes and down her cheeks, but this time she didn’t care that she was crying in front of Rufus. “How could you? How could you use me like this? I’m leaving and I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Averil,” he said, but she didn’t hear the pain in his voice, only his regret at losing the Heiress.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she threw at him. “You’ll find someone else. Another rich, foolish woman to love you. Only this time my advice is to be honest with her. At least then there can be no unreal expectations.”

He was pale, his eyes burning coals, his hands clenched at his sides. Now he was sorry, she thought, but she wouldn’t let herself soften toward him. It was too late. He’d broken her heart and made her feel like a fool, and all she wanted to do was to get far away from him, but in her hurt and despair there was one more thing she wanted to say.

Her voice was husky with emotion. “I would have married you, penniless as you are. I would have mended your crumbling castle for you. If you had only told me the truth. That you were marrying me for my money. Rufus, I would have married you.”

And with that she whirled about and ran up the stairs, her eyes blinded by tears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

* * *

“You should have told me, James.”

James swallowed and tried to smile. He felt as if he were sinking in a quagmire and just wished it could be over soon. “Told you what, my love?”

Beth had followed him into the billiard room and was now glaring at him over the moth-eaten table. “About your plans to use my Averil in your schemes to save Southbrook Castle. I suspected but you should have been honest with me.”

He poured himself a drink. “Is she really your Averil?” he said weakly. “She’s a grown woman, Beth, who certainly seems to know her own mind. In fact she has rather a nasty temper. Rufus is probably well out of it.”

“James.”