Why Earls Fall in Love by Manda Collins Page B

of subjects and he was just the man to figure out if there was a member of the Mowbray family with the means and motive to stalk Georgina.
    His mind occupied with the problem Con had presented to him, Archer nodded absently. “I’ll see what I can come up with by the end of the week.”
    “Excellent,” Con said, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “You’re a good man.
    “I don’t suppose,” he continued, “you’ve made any progress with Perdita since we last spoke?”
    “I’d prefer not to talk about it,” Archer said, his normally sunny disposition turning cloudy. “Let’s just say that I have not yet found the right moment to press the issue.”
    “If it makes any difference,” Con said sympathetically, “I do not doubt that she holds you in great affection.”
    “Aye,” Archer said glumly. “It’s just removing the cloud that bastard she married left hanging over her that I worry about. She won’t see me as anything more than a friend until the bloody Duke of Ormond can be exorcised from her life like a demon.”
    “It appears, my friend,” Con said, lifting his tankard, “that we are both beset by the ghosts of husbands past. I propose that we drink to their quick dispatch to whatever hell they both deserve.”
    “I’ll drink to that,” Archer said, clinking his own glass against Con’s. “And also to the high-and-mighty Lord Coniston’s succumbing to Cupid’s arrow—”
    Before Archer could finish, however, Con broke in. “Dammit, Archer, stop that.”
    The other man’s eyes widened as he tried and failed to look innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You, sir, are an ass,” Con said with feeling, frowning into his ale.
    “I’ve been called worse,” Archer said with a shrug.

 
    Six
    Once she was safely ensconced in her bedchamber, Georgie took a seat at her desk cum dressing table and, inhaling deeply, broke the seal on the letter and unfolded it.
    My dear Georgina,
    I go into battle soon, so there is not much time. I have not been the best of husbands. Forgive me for the times I was too harsh. And for the ways I betrayed you—especially with those whom you called friend. It was a mistake—I see that now, but at the time I needed loving arms and yours were closed to me. If I had been a better man, or you a better wife, we might have made a happy match, but it was not to be.
    I have loved you in my way,
    Col. Robert Alan Mowbray
    How utterly like Robert to couch his apologies in an accusation, Georgie fumed, despite the tears sliding down her cheeks.
    “I needed loving arms and yours were closed to me.” She thought of the times she had denied him her bed—usually when she was recovering from some injury he’d done her. For all of his faults, Robert had at least been a gentleman about that. He had never forced her. But learning he’d broken their vows with another woman removed all approbation she’d heaped upon him for his consideration.
    “Especially with those whom you called friend.” That one—or more—of her friends had betrayed her was almost as painful as knowing her husband had done so. And given that Georgie had called most of the women in their camp friend, the guilty party could be any one of some hundred women.
    Pressing her fist against her mouth, Georgie bit back a sob. Just when she thought she’d finally come to terms with the hell Robert had put her through, he came back from the dead to punish her again. And this time it was no ghostly apparition, no look-alike playing at frightening her. No, this was Robert himself, and knowing he still had the power to upend her carefully ordered life like this was almost worse than the real thing. Because an expected pain was one thing, and surprised pain was another.
    She’d never been fond of surprises.
    *   *   *
    Con knew there was something profoundly wrong as soon as he saw Georgina listening attentively to his cousin Ernestine recount the details of her performance at the