Flirting with His Forbidden Lady--A Regency Family is Reunited by Laura Martin (good novels to read txt) 📕

wondered if she had ever told it before and instinctively knew she hadn’t. This was something very personal, very painful she was sharing with him.

‘I don’t even know what happened next. I had my doll with me and refused to let Annabelle share, instead turning my back to her. The next thing I knew she was halfway up the bookshelf, climbing like a monkey.’ Beth shuddered and he laid a hand over hers as they walked, squeezing it gently.

‘I shouted and Annabelle lost her grip, she came tumbling down but pulled half the contents of the bookshelf with her. Including a vase.’ She swallowed, her voice strained as she continued. ‘The vase smashed on her face and somehow she then managed to fall on top of it, pushing the shards even deeper in.’

Josh pictured Annabelle’s scars. The way the skin puckered around them showed the wounds must have been deep and he felt for the scared little girl who must have been in such pain all those years ago.

‘It took the doctor two hours to remove all the shards of ceramic. Annabelle had to be heavily medicated, of course, and wore bandages on her face for weeks. When the bandages came off Mother couldn’t look at her and Annabelle wasn’t the same afterwards. She lost some of her vitality, her spirit.’

Beth fell silent and Josh could see the tears glistening in her eyes. They’d walked a fair distance from the house now and were in a part of the garden that had been allowed to grow wild. The trees were taller here and the grass high on either side of the path. In the moonlight it looked as though they were in an enchanted forest with the pale beams of light streaming through the gaps between the leaves and illuminating sections of the ground below.

‘It’s tragic,’ Josh said slowly. ‘Absolutely awful. I feel for your sister, I can’t imagine having the course of your life changed by one small accident.’ He paused, stopping and waiting until Beth had turned to look at him. ‘But you do realise that none of it was your fault.’

‘Of course it was. I was meant to be looking after Annabelle and instead I was too busy playing with my doll.’

‘You were five years old. If anyone is to blame it is your mother, she left two very young children to their own devices, but actually I’m not sure it is even fair to blame her. It was an accident, a horrible accident with awful consequences, but an accident all the same.’

Beth shook her head stubbornly.

‘Do you blame your sister? Do you blame her for being so careless?’

‘Of course not.’ There was an edge of anger to Beth’s voice.

‘Then you can’t blame yourself. You were five years old.’

For a moment he thought he was getting through to her, but then she shook her head.

‘It is my fault,’ she said stubbornly.

With those words everything about Beth fell into place. The insistence that she had to be the one to save her family from destitution, the over-the-top protectiveness of her sister, the internal struggle between doing what she wanted and what she thought was expected of her.

‘You feel like you owe your sister a life,’ he murmured quietly.

Beth looked as though she might protest, but then nodded. The tears that had been brimming in her eyes fell onto her cheeks and Josh felt a surge of affection for her. He wanted to show her none of it was her fault, that she could love her sister, care for her sister, but she didn’t have to give up her whole life to make amends for something that was an accident and nothing more. Gently he reached out and wiped away the tears from her cheeks with the pad of his thumb, unapologetically letting his hand linger.

‘I do owe her a life. If I’d looked after her better...if I’d stopped her from climbing the bookcase, she wouldn’t have been injured, she wouldn’t have the scars. She would be out there finding a husband of her own, having a family of her own, having a life of her own. Instead she is shut up here with no prospects and no future.’

‘She could have all those things. Not every man is so shallow a few scars would prevent him from seeing the person underneath.’

Beth looked at him long and hard and then sighed. ‘I do try to persuade her to leave the house. I begged her to join us for this house party, but people are cruel, Josh. As a child the few times she did come into contact with someone outside the immediate family they would at best stare and at worst make hurtful comments. Not always to her face, she is still the daughter of an earl after all, but she heard them all the same.’

‘It can’t be much of a life for her, cooped up here.’

‘It’s not. Some people would say she’s lucky, that she has a comfortable house and plenty of space outdoors, but it is a prison of sorts, even if it is partially of her own making.’

‘And your mother?’ Josh had never warmed to Lady Hummingford but that mild dislike was turning into outright disgust at how she was treating her daughters.

Beth grimaced, looking off into the distance as if trying to find the words to explain the situation diplomatically.

‘She prefers Annabelle to stay here, to stay hidden.’

‘Why?’

‘I suppose she doesn’t want her to get hurt.’

Josh thought that was a charitable view on Lady Hummingford’s motivations but didn’t challenge Beth. Instead he took her hand, feeling the warmth of her skin on his. Her fingers were long and delicate, the skin wonderfully soft. She seemed to still as he took her hand in his, the restless energy departing and being replaced with a deep calm.

‘I know I haven’t seen the years of interactions between you and your mother and your sister, and your father when he was still alive, so perhaps I am not in a