The Earl with the Secret Past
Janice Preston
Janice Preston grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. In the past she has worked as a farmer, a police call handler and a university administrator. She now lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats and has a part-time job as a weight-management counselor—vainly trying to control her own weight despite her love of chocolate!
Books by Janice Preston
Harlequin Historical
Regency Christmas Wishes
“Awakening His Sleeping Beauty”
The Earl with the Secret Past
The Lochmore Legacy
His Convenient Highland Wedding
The Beauchamp Heirs
Lady Olivia and the Infamous Rake
Daring to Love the Duke’s Heir
Christmas with His Wallflower Wife
The Beauchamp Betrothals
Cinderella and the Duke
Scandal and Miss Markham
Lady Cecily and the Mysterious Mr. Gray
Visit the Author Profile page
at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To Kim Deabill and Irina Wolpers, and all the other followers of my Facebook author page who rose to the challenge of naming two of the characters in heroine Kitty’s novel.
The names I picked were Kim’s suggestion of Sidney, for the villainous uncle, and Irina’s suggestion of Minerva, for Sidney’s flighty and mercenary betrothed!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
PROLOGUE
Hertfordshire
‘You said you loved me!’
Adam Monroe gazed into huge grey eyes drowning in tears. His throat thickened as he thrust his emotions down.
‘I do, Kitty. I… I care for you. Very much. But it’s impossible…ye must see it.’
She clutched his hands, her nails digging urgently into his skin. He wrenched his gaze from hers and concentrated on her hands: the slender fingers, the soft white skin, the neatly shaped nails.
It’s impossible! She doesna understand the world as I do.
‘Kitty… I canna… I can never give ye the kind of life ye’re accustomed to.’
Too late to regret his weakness in succumbing to that instant attraction that had flared between them the very first time they met. Too late to realise the risk he had run in their clandestine meetings. Those meetings…they had been innocent: walking hand in hand in the woods where they would not be seen, talking and laughing, a few shared kisses, murmured endearments. He’d been naive, not deliberately cruel. He hadn’t understood how the heart could so quickly become engaged, how a lonely girl like Kitty might read more into their meetings than he ever intended. Not that he wouldn’t elope with her given half a chance. But he had not one tenth of a chance! Not one hundredth! He, an architect’s apprentice, she, an earl’s daughter.
‘Your father…never would he consent to such a lowly match for his daughter and ye know it.’
Adam had never even set eyes on the man, who was away from home, in London, leaving his only daughter alone with just the servants and an elderly great-aunt for company. It was no life for a young lady who craved excitement and company in her life.
‘We could run away. We could elope. In Scotland, there is a place…’
Adam laid his fingers against Kitty’s lips.
‘We canna. Ye would not do that to your father.’
Her head jerked back, away from his touch. ‘I would!’ Her eyes burned into his. ‘I must get away before he comes back. You don’t understand. Please, Adam. Take me with you.’
‘Ye would come to resent me. I’m still apprenticed tae Sir Angus for another year, so I canna marry even if I wanted to. I’ve no income until I build my reputation as an architect. And that could take years.’
And before he could begin to establish his own name as an architect, Sir Angus McAvoy had promised to fund a trip for him to Italy, to study the architecture in Florence and Rome and Sienna. If he searched deep in his heart, he knew he couldn’t pass up on such an opportunity; it could be the making of him and of his career. Neither would he betray Sir Angus McAvoy’s trust in him, not after the man had been such a good employer and friend to Adam’s widowed mother, who had worked as Sir Angus’s housekeeper since the death of Adam’s soldier father when Adam was barely out of leading strings.
‘I would not mind, Adam. I…we could live as man and wife until you finish your apprenticeship. And I can be thrifty. I know I can.’
Adam’s heart clenched at the sound of her voice, small and defeated; at the sight of hope dying in her eyes. He closed his own eyes and summoned his strength. Would that he’d had the foresight to avoid this—he should never have indulged himself in meeting with her, but that realisation came too late. He loved her and the thought of never seeing her again tore him apart. But she was only seventeen. Four years younger than he. And it was up to him to be the man. To be strong.
Better she hate him and believe him a scoundrel than she grieve over what might have been.
‘Marriage is no part of my plans; not for many years. I’m fond of ye, Kitty, but this was never more than a pleasant way to pass the time when I had an hour to spare. I thought ye understood that.’
She swallowed, her long, slim throat moving. Adam clenched his hands into fists to stop himself reaching for her, comforting her…
‘You do not know what I must endure at my father’s hands.’
He frowned. Was this some kind of ruse to persuade him to change his mind? She had never before hinted at trouble at home. Loneliness, yes…how could she not be lonely at times, with just herself, her father and her father’s aunt rattling around in that huge house? He understood the loneliness of an only child with just one parent. And the natural wariness of a daughter under the control of a strict father.
‘Tell me.’
The words left his mouth even as he realised that, whatever her reasons, they could change nothing. He and Kitty still came from, and lived in, two separate worlds and, all at once, he was afraid of what she might reveal—afraid that what he learned might render it impossible for him to leave her. Afraid…selfishly…that, if he felt compelled to act, both of their lives would eventually spiral down into regret, blame and destitution.
He raised his hand, palm facing her, silencing her reply. ‘No. On second thoughts, say nothing. It can make no difference. I will still be an architect’s apprentice and ye will still be an earl’s daughter.’
She was clean, well dressed, well fed. She showed no signs of neglect and he had never seen a bruise marring her white skin. She spoke of endurance…but he had seen the state of the people who lived crammed into the tenements in Edinburgh’s old town. There could be no comparison.
He hardened his heart again, knowing he must break hers.
‘Return to your father’s house and, in time, ye’ll see I was right. What ye feel for me isna love. It’s infatuation. And, even were we equals, I am but one-and-twenty and in no mind to marry for a verra long time.’
He succ
umbed to the urge to touch her once again. He cupped her face and looked deep into those tragic grey eyes, the eyelashes spiky from her tears. ‘When you meet the man who will be your husband—a man who is your equal in society—ye will look back and ye will see I was right, and ye will be grateful to me.’ His hands dropped to rest briefly on her shoulders before sliding down to clasp her upper arms. He squeezed gently before releasing her and then stepping away. ‘I have to go. We leave at first light. God bless ye, Kitty.’
He spun on his heel before she could reply; before her pleas could wring a promise from him that he could not honour. A clean break. It was for the best…he must do the right thing for Kitty even though it tore his heart into shreds.
He strode off through the woods, the fallen leaves crunching beneath his boots, his throat aching as he tried, unsuccessfully, to hold back his tears.
He did not look back.
CHAPTER ONE
Edinburgh—fifteen years later
‘I lied to you. I’ve been lying to you for a long time.’
Adam Monroe’s mother stood gazing out of the window of the Edinburgh town house where she had lived and worked for as long as he could remember—the home in which he’d grown up. Ma’s back and shoulders were rigid, but Adam didn’t miss the tremble of her hand as she tucked a straying lock of hair away under her cap.
‘So you are ill?’
Adam’s gut churned…he couldn’t bear to lose Ma. It had always been just the two of them. Well, them and Sir Angus McAvoy, who employed Ma as his housekeeper and had long stood as Adam’s benefactor.
Adam crossed the room in two strides, gently took hold of her shoulders and turned her to face him.
‘Tell me.’ His voice rasped. ‘Anything is better than leaving the worst to my imagination. What is wrong with ye? We can fight it together.’
She jerked away from him. ‘I’m not ill!’
Adam studied her face: her pallor; the quiver of her mouth; the tear-washed eyes. She looked sick, to his inexpert eyes. ‘What have ye lied about? What happened while I was away?’
He’d been to Lincolnshire, to oversee the completion of his first-ever commission south of the border. He’d travelled home, excited and full of pride at the success of the new stables and carriage house he had designed for a William and Mary country mansion, and with the praise and the grateful thanks of the owner—a Member of Parliament—ringing in his ears. This could be the breakthrough he’d been working for. The chance to attract a better—that was, wealthier—clientele. The chance to get his name known among men of influence. He’d arrived home to find his mother, pale and frail, her eyes haunted, her hands wringing at waist level.
Now, she sucked in a breath and straightened her back, her chin up.
‘Sit down, Adam. I have something to tell you.’
He obeyed, sitting at the small circular table in the housekeeper’s room, and Ma perched on the edge of the opposite chair. There were only two chairs…there had only ever been two chairs…there had never been any visitors. Ma had always kept herself to herself, even after Sir Angus took Adam on as his apprentice and they were away on jobs for weeks and months at a time.
He waited.
‘Your father… I’ve been lying to you all along. He didn’t die. I left him. Ran away and took you with me.’
The air left his lungs in a rush, leaving him to struggle to draw another breath. Ma stayed silent, her expression a mask. No shame. No remorse. No apology.
He ignored the flare of anger that fired his gut. His quickness to anger was now ingrained in him, fuelled by his bitterness at a society that—despite his honesty and his hard-working ethic—deemed him unworthy of an earl’s daughter and had cost him his first love, Kitty.
First love? Only love, for he’d never forgotten her and he still had regrets.
He’d learned to control his anger over the years; learned that it was more productive to allow his emotions to subside and his head to clear rather than to launch angry tirades in which words spoken could not be unspoken, even if subsequently regretted.
‘He’s alive?’
His soldier father…a rifleman…decorated for his bravery. A true hero. Alive?
Adam shoved back his chair and surged to his feet. ‘I want to meet him.’
All his life he had regretted never having the chance to know his father…the heroic soldier. And now…and now…
‘You cannot. He died six months ago. I’m only telling you now because they’re searching for you. Again. But this time…’ Ma slumped, her shoulders drooping, her shaking hands lifting to cover her face. ‘You deserve to know the truth. He was never a soldier. He was never the man…the father… I told you about. I made it all up.’
Adam frowned, scrambling to make sense of her words. His father was not…? ‘Then who was he?’
‘An earl.’ She looked up at him, her face drawn. ‘And you were his only son. I have written to the trustees of his estate and one of them is coming here to meet you and to confirm your identity before escorting you to London to register you as his successor.
‘Congratulations, Son.’ Her upper lip curled, as though she tasted something nasty. ‘You are now the Earl of Kelridge.’
* * *
How can I ever forgive her?
His mother had sobbed bitterly after her confession, saying only that she had done it for Adam’s own good. But he had only been two years of age when she’d spirited him away from his Hertfordshire home and his father. How could that possibly have been for his own good? And although he could understand why she had not told him the truth as a child, he was now six-and-thirty. There could be no excuse: her silence over all those years had robbed Adam of any chance of ever knowing his father.
Now his imagination was bursting with all kinds of lurid speculation about the father he had never met as Ma stubbornly refused to answer any of his questions about the man, or about why she had snatched Adam away.
‘It is only right ye should learn for yourself what sort of a man your father was,’ she eventually said, when Adam tried yet again to wring an answer from her.
His temper—sorely tried and brimming close to the surface—erupted. ‘And so might I have done had ye told me about him before he died!’
He wrestled his anger back under control. Ma buried her head in her hands yet again.
‘I did what I thought best at the time, Son. Now, though, I am thinking maybe it was a mistake to keep this all a secret and I will not now compound my error by painting his character for ye using the palette of my distant memories and experience. You will find out more about him from those who knew him better than I. It’s been thirty-four years, and he might have changed since I last set eyes on him. I cannae know the truth of that.’
She lifted her head then, to pierce him with the same blue eyes he saw every time he looked in the mirror. He caught a glimpse of her usual steely determination emerging from the depths of her distress and guessed he was unlikely to get any more from her.
‘I willna whine and make excuses for what I did,’ she said. ‘I acted as I thought best and we were happier without him.’
She might have been happier. But what about him?
* * *
More bitter resentment, aggravated by a deep sense of betrayal, settled in Adam’s gut over the following few days as he awaited the arrival of his father’s trustee. His rage and hurt stopped him from any further attempt to coax the truth from Ma, for to do that he must soothe her, cajole her and tell her he understood.
But he didn’t damn well understand.
As the initial shock of the news about his father—and the huge change in his own circumstances—subsided, Adam’s thoughts returned often to the past. To Hertfordshire. Remembering the time he had spent there fifteen years before.
Remembering Kitty.
His gut churned with angry regrets
, made infinitely worse by the slowly emerging realisation of what might have been.
He and Sir Angus had spent several weeks at Fenton Hall, overseeing the restoration of a wing destroyed in a fire that had also stolen the life of Lady Fenton, the mother of four young children. It had been a tragic story…and when he was not working Adam had taken himself away from the grief as much as possible by going for long walks in the grounds and surrounding woodland, straying beyond the Fenton boundary on to the neighbouring estate, Whitlock Manor. And that was where he’d met Kitty, only daughter of Lord Whitlock.
And Adam had lost his heart to a girl who was so far beyond his reach she might as well have been an angel descended from the heavens.
But now…the truth was that he and Kitty should have grown up as equals and as neighbours. He’d consulted a map and Whitlock Manor was less than seven miles as the crow flies from Adam’s new home, Kelridge Place.
What might have been possible, had he occupied his rightful place in this world? He’d broken Kitty’s heart and guilt had plagued him ever since, even though he’d done it to protect her. Had his mother not snatched him from his father, he and Kitty could have met on equal terms. Their love could have blossomed, instead of withering under the blast of practicality and principle.
If I had known…if only I had known.
And, at first, he’d wished Sir Angus was home, for Adam longed to be able to talk this through with his mentor. But he was working on a project far to the north and wasn’t expected home for weeks. Then the second blow fell, when Adam happened to mention Sir Angus to his mother one day.
‘I need to tell ye the truth about Angus, too.’
‘What truth?’
‘He is my cousin, on my mother’s side. We were always close as children and, when I came here to build a new life for you and me, he took us in.’ She then felled him with another blow. ‘Did ye never wonder why a man would take on a woman with a young child as housekeeper? Or make that young child his apprentice?’
He had believed Sir Angus had seen Adam’s talent and recognised his hard work and found him worthy of taking on as his apprentice. Adam had been proud of those achievements which, it now seemed, owed nothing to Adam’s abilities. It had been sheer nepotism. His sense of betrayal was complete. Sir Angus—his father figure and, as Adam had grown up, his friend—had been complicit in her lies all this time.
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