The Countess by Catherine Coulter

late. He was waiting for me, his bully boys with him. Now, I believe that is

your father lying on that bed?”

“Yes.” George began to bark wildly. “No,” I said,

“John cannot hold you now. Remember Brantley’s training. Just be patient, George.”

Lawrence said, “If it makes your life mean a bit more, John, let me tell you

that the little bitch here loves you. As much as you love her? That I don’t know.

But she tried to kill me when she heard I had taken you. Just look at what she

did to my face.”

“I wish she had managed to do more than just scratch you,” John said. He looked

at me, smiling very widely now. “Do you love me more than I love you, Andy? Do

you think that is possible?”

I just stood there, frantically petting George’s topknot.

“No,” I said. “It is not possible.”

He gave me a blazing smile then, but said nothing.

“She is only a small girl,” Lawrence said, frowning at me, sounding a bit

bewildered. “She managed to tear my skin with her fingernails. Ah, you can be

certain that she will pay fully for that.”

And I thought yet again of my derringer, pressed against my stomach. I wanted to

shoot him so badly, I was shaking with it. I said to my husband, “You have

gathered all your players. You used me as bait to get to my father. You now have

both of us. You have even brought your own flesh and blood here. Don’t John and

I have a right to know what this is all about now?” Surely Lawrence wouldn’t

kill his own nephew, his heir? Would he? No, it was too monstrous. That left my

father and me.

“Well? Won’t one of you tell me? Tell John?”

My father winced at the pain in his shoulder, then looked down at his hands.

When he finally lifted his head, he looked directly at me, and I would have had

to be blind not to see the absolute despair in his eyes.

He looked just beyond me, into the past, I thought. He said, “It was such a long

time ago?” He broke off, shaken by a spasm of coughing. The room was still

except for his racking cough.

He wiped his sleeve across his mouth, and then, slowly, he said, “I met Lady

Caroline in Paris. She was at the time Lyndhurst’s second wife.”

Of course. Caroline. I suppose that I should have figured it out, but I hadn’t.

So obvious, really. My father liked women, they probably flocked to him, and he

used them. Why not Caroline? My mouth was dry, so dry that I could hardly

breathe. I petted George and felt John standing not three feet behind me, silent,

but I knew he was thinking, trying to assess what he could do to save us.

“We became lovers. Andrea, listen to me. I loved her, and she loved me. Never

have I loved a woman as I loved Caroline. You must try to understand that I

could not help myself, nor could she. You must try to forgive me.”

“Continue, Jameson,” Lawrence said. “It is time she knew the whole truth about

her father.”

“I already know the whole truth,” I said, but they both ignored me.

“Very well,” my father said. “You shall hear it all. Lady Caroline became with

child. I, of course, was married to your mother. Finally, both of us realized

there was no choice. She would simply have to pass the child off as Lyndhurst’s.

It was then that she told me she had been traveling?without her husband?for

nearly a month. She wasn’t certain she could pass the child off as his, but she

knew she had to try.

What was a month, after all? Babes were born before their times quite often. But,

still, we had to part. Both of us felt great despair.”

I said, “Ah, yes, that sounds vastly romantic, Father. You killed Lady Caroline,

just as you killed my mother, just as you killed Molly, the maid. Your excuses

are pathetic, sir. Your lust is unspeakable.”

“Who is Molly?”

I closed my eyes. “Dear God, you don’t even remember her, do you? She was a maid

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