Chapter 30

Brooke tried to put on a happy face, but her smile just wouldn’t stick. She knew Madison only to spend time with her before she set sail for New York. Unfortunately, her tangled mess of emotions regarding Andrew got in the way of her enjoying their day together.

Madison had convinced her to go to Andrew’s townhouse, demand an explanation, and see if they could work it out. But when they arrived, the snobbish man who answered the door informed them stiffly that ladies do not call on gentlemen under any circumstances, besides which, his lordship was not in.

Willing herself not to lose her composure, Brooke smiled and walked away. She decided to continue with their original plan and go to the garden to be harassed by vendors and watch men on stilts juggle dangerous objects.

They were just about to the entrance when Madison stopped walking and looked straight ahead. Brooke followed her gaze. Next to the entrance, leaning on a post and looking at his pocket watch, stood Andrew.

Now that the moment had arrived, she briefly entertained the idea of running away. However, that idea was soon dismissed when Madison softly touched her elbow. “You wanted to know, now is your chance.”

Brooke nodded. “What’s he doing here?” she asked numbly.

“I don’t know,” Madison replied. “But since he’s here, you can get your answers. Let’s go,” she prodded, “he’s looking in our direction. If he hasn’t noticed you already, he soon will.”

Brooke attached a bright smile on her face and started walking in his direction. Andrew had also started walking, or running if one wanted to be precise, toward her.

He closed the distance between them within seconds. “Brooke,” he said unevenly.

“Andrew,” she said in a stilted tone.

Andrew turned to look at Madison. “Good morning, Madison,” he said with a bow.

“How did you know we were coming here?” Brooke demanded.

Andrew gave her a little smile. “That's my little secret.”

“You seem to have a lot of those, don’t you?” Brooke shot back, her anger with him was quickly returning.

Andrew sobered.

“Well, I can see my presence here isn't needed,” Madison said airily, then pointed to an empty bench. “I’ll be right over there.”

“Thank you,” Andrew said with a surprisingly grateful look on his face. He waited for her to leave before he met Brooke’s eyes again. “I don’t know what to say,” he admitted.

“Starting from the beginning would be my strategy,” she replied tartly.

Andrew’s jaw clenched. Then with a nod, he released a pent up breath and words started tumbling out of his mouth. “I borrowed money from Gateway. I couldn’t pay and he repossessed my estate. In order to get it back I was asked to bring shame on your family. I refused at first, but then he twisted the words around and I got defensive. Then, before I knew what I was saying, I agreed to do it. That was the night before we met.”

“Wait,” she interrupted, putting up a hand to stop his rambling. “You just said you were to bring shame on my family. Why?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I asked, but he wouldn’t say. All I know is he wanted your family on the next ship bound for America.”

“So you’re saying it wasn’t me specifically?” she asked skeptically, her brow furrowing in confusion. What would anyone, especially Gateway, have to gain from her family returning home?

“No.”

“All right,” she said cautiously. “I don’t quite understand, but pray continue.” Maybe she’d understand better if she just let him keep talking.

“Gateway just wanted enough shame to fall on the family that you would all go home. He didn’t care who it fell on, just that it happened and your family left. I don’t know about in America, but here, a lady’s reputation is everything, so I assumed it would be the easiest avenue to pursue; Gateway knew that, too, and when he first approached me, he even suggested it.”

“From the day we met you’d set out to ruin me?” she asked quietly.

“Yes. No. Not exactly. At first, I wanted to try to find out some sort of family secret, expose that and be done with it; but there wasn’t one. Once I figured that out, I had to rely on ruining your reputation.”

“Why me?” she cried. “Is it so well known that I’ve been in the garden with a few gentlemen that you thought I’d be the easiest target? Is that it?” Tears were beginning to form in her eyes and her throat felt clogged.

“No,” he said fiercely. “I didn’t even know your penchant for kissing in the shrubs until later. I picked you because I liked you. From the moment you entered the room I liked you. Nobody had ever had the brass to just stare at me that way. Nobody had played such a prank on me before. I truly believed for the better part of a day you had indeed decorated that atrocious room. It wasn’t until I saw the initials on that mind-numbing painting that I realized you were having me on. I liked it. I liked you. That’s why I chose you.”

Andrew ran a hand through his hair. “Then we went on our ride in the park, I enjoyed teasing you then. I also enjoyed taking you to the museum. I had never enjoyed a kiss as much as I did that day. Before I knew what was happening, I was looking forward to our next meeting and being with you.”

“If that’s true, then why didn’t you just tell Gateway you could not go through with it?” she interrupted.

“Because he would have just found someone else to do it. I knew that if I just carried it out I could keep you protected. Someone else would have been completely heartless about the whole thing and would have caused you, or possibly one of your sisters, more pain and embarrassment than necessary.”

“Whereas you were just doing enough to send us away, is that it?” she asked flatly, belying the rage that was coursing through her.

“Yes,” he said solemnly, then he grabbed her hand and pulled her over to a bench in a somewhat secluded area. “This all sounds really bad, believe me, I know. But the truth is, the more I got to know you, the more I didn’t want to hurt you. I honestly thought once we married this would be taken care of without you ever finding out. I knew Gateway would confront me. I just didn’t know he would do it so soon, or in such a way. You were never supposed to know about this. I didn’t know how I was going to handle Gateway, but when I saw you walk out of that library that night at Alex’s, I realized you were more important to me than anything else.”

“Even the estate he held?” she asked shyly.

“Even the estate.” Andrew confirmed, interlacing their fingers. “When I saw you walk away from Alex’s library I realized what I knew all along: I couldn’t live without you. I didn’t want you to go back to America, nor could I stand it if you came back to London and I wasn’t allowed to see you. The only way to keep you in my life was to make you my wife. I wanted to marry you enough that I didn’t give a second thought to enduring whatever Gateway might do to destroy me. Having you is worth more than anything else.”

“If I understand correctly, you’re telling me that you realized that night that you enjoyed my company?” she asked uncertainly.

Andrew gave a harsh laugh. “Yes, I do enjoy your company. But what I mean to say is that I love you. I realized that night that I loved you enough not to care about my deal with Gateway to make an enemy of him or lose the estate. I rode through the rain for six hours getting my hands on that special license. I couldn’t wait another day to have you, all of you.”

“You love me,” she whispered, wondering if she had heard him correctly.

“Yes. I may not have been very good about showing it so far, but I will get better, I promise. How could I possibly get any worse?” he teased, coming to his knees in front of her. He leaned over and reached into a bag she hadn’t noticed he had with him and removed what looked like a yellow object resembling a rose. Handing it to her, he said sheepishly, “Because I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” He reached in again and withdrew a pink one. “Because I adore you,” he said, replacing the yellow one he had just given her with the pink. He reached down again and this time he pulled out a red one. “Because you’re my true love,” he said, handing her the paper rose. Then he moved his hands up to frame her face. Cupping her chin and tipping it down toward him, he said solemnly, “Brooke, you know I’m not a man of great means, so please know if I could afford to shower you with dozens of the real things, I would have bought every stem in every hothouse between my house and the Garden this morning rather than staying up all night trying to fold colored squares of paper to resemble roses.”

“Surely you’re not so poor you couldn’t have afforded three,” she teased, remembering their pitiful dinner at Rockhurst. But in her mind it was better this way. She was glad he hadn’t bought them. Money could be earned and spent, but time could only be spent. Him spending time folding silly little scraps of paper meant far more to her than one hundred bouquets of the real thing would have.

Andrew cracked a small smile. “I said I’d shower you with dozens if I could.” He tipped the bag so she could see inside where dozens of paper roses were resting. “I didn’t think you’d really appreciate it if I poured these out on you right here, but if you want…” he trailed off, his eyes dancing with amusement, letting her know just how much he’d enjoy dumping the bag over her head. “If you must know I had to fold all of these,” he looked down at the bag, “just to remember how to do it,” he said with a self-depreciating smile.

Setting the bag of paper roses aside, he came back to his knees in front of her. He cupped her face with his hands again, and tilted her head to look straight into his eyes that were full of concern, but she also recognized a glint of hope in them, too. “I know nothing changes what I’ve done. But I’m asking you to stay. Stay with me. Give me the chance to prove to you how much I love you, and perhaps earn your love in return.”

Brooke met his eyes and brought her hands up to where his hands were holding her chin. “You cannot earn my love, Andrew,” she said, her voice so quiet it was barely more than a whisper.

“Oh,” he said solemnly, clamping his mouth into a tight line. He nodded once and his hands loosened their grip on her face, but they didn’t move. He swallowed visibly, his face looked shuttered and his eyes looked watery.

Brooke let go of his hands and reached out, grabbing his face the way he was touching hers. Pulling him closer to her, she smiled sweetly and said, “The reason you cannot earn my love, is because you already have it.”

Andrew’s grip on her face tightened again and a broad grin split his handsome face before he closed the gap between them. Then, right there on a bench outside of Covent Garden in front of anyone who happened to be walking by, the Earl and Countess of Townson engaged in a scandalous kiss.