Family Scandals by Denise Patrick

did. Possibly more. After all, she was the one who learned today that she was supposed to be dead.
     
    Oblivious to the light breeze, Marcus walked back through the topiary, headed for the house. His thoughts and emotions were in complete turmoil.
    What had possessed him to tell Corrie his deepest secret? As secrets went, it was innocuous. No one’s life hung on its revelation. A state secret it was not. No one else alive knew it. The world was not going to come to an end now that it had been revealed. So, why did it matter? Why was he suddenly so disturbed that he had, in a moment of weakness, told a nearly perfect stranger about something he had only shared with his closest friend?
    He had sensed her shock at his revelation. He’d never told anyone other than Colonel Bromley about Amy, and even then he had deliberately not told him she was dead. It had been for self-preservation at the time. Regardless of what he might have promised under the influence of opium, he wanted to ensure Anjeh would not have been able to force him into a marriage. But now…why had he told Corrie?
    Had he needed, without consciously recognizing it, sympathy for his loss? He had not been able to mourn Amy properly. He had already been mourning Douglas when word had reached him of her death. No one else knew, not even Barnes.
    Perhaps that was why he had taken Lord Mayo’s murder so hard. It had seemed as senseless as Douglas’s to him. No one had expected a model prisoner to turn violent. With his insistence that the prison not change its routine for his visit—Lord Mayo had wanted to see it as it appeared daily—the assassin had been handed the opportunity on a silver platter. He hadn’t even been Indian, but an Afghan. There had been no warning.
    Marcus had been in Calcutta for only two years, yet reminders of Douglas and Amy seemed to haunt him. And after Lord Mayo’s murder, he had not been able to shake his increasingly morbid thoughts. He’d needed Anjeh to help him forget, but it hadn’t worked. As Colonel Bromley had noted, five years was a long time to wait to confront someone, but he had been doing just that. He had been dodging Amy’s ghost for five long years.
    He refused to acknowledge the answer he knew was there. It was because he was drawn to Corrie. On some level, she reminded him of Amy. Perhaps it was that she resembled her. Gray eyes and dark hair. A faint resemblance at best.
    Or maybe it was because, had Amy lived, she might be in the same situation as Corrie. With no family, except him. He did not, for even a moment, consider that her brother would have willingly given her the season she deserved, or anything else. They were more likely to have turned her into a household drudge, forcing her into near servitude.
    He stopped and looked up at the house before him. The sun was nearly directly overhead, bathing the stark gray facade in light and warmth. What would it have been like to bring Amy here as his countess? Would she have loved it as he was beginning to? What would she have thought of Brand and Felicia? Of Michael and Caroline, and little John? Would she have wanted children of her own?
    When he married her, he had been a second son with no reasonable prospects. He had known he would be able to support himself, and a wife, if he needed to. His family would always be there for him.
    Now, he was an earl, a very wealthy earl. Not only had his father left him a sizeable annual income, but the estate supported itself quite handsomely with funds to spare. In addition, Brand had gifted him with an interest in his shipping company that brought in significant amounts.
    The sigh that escaped seemed to come from deep in his soul. He would give it all away to have Douglas and Amy back.
    Corrie’s face swam before his eyes. What was she thinking? Perhaps he had been too forward. Had he, in his quest to get to know her, given her the impression that he was interested in her? If he had, his refusal to marry and subsequent