Page 16 of The Matrimonial Advertisement

He shrugged one shoulder. “I have done it.”

“You?” She turned to look at him, her lips half-parted in astonishment.

Had they been conversing on any other subject, Justin might have been amused by her reaction. As it was, he couldn’t even muster a smile. “When I was a boy,” he said, “no more than nine or ten years of age, my friends and I must have made the climb once a week at least.”

“What in heaven’s name for?”

Justin looked up at the clifftops, his face a mask of carefully cultivated indifference. In his long quest to purchase the Abbey, he’d never once considered what it would be like to see the cliffs at Abbot’s Holcombe every day for the rest of his life. He’d never thought of how it would feel to be reminded. No. He’d been too consumed with thoughts of justice. Too intent on revenge.

He turned back to Helena. “Boys often do foolish things. When have any of them ever needed a reason?”

She shook her head. “I can’t believe your parents allowed it.”

“We had no parents.”

“No parents?” Her brow furrowed. “Do you mean to say that you…that you and your friends—”

“We were parish orphans,” Justin said with brutal frankness.

He hadn’t meant to tell her. Not yet. But there was no taking it back now. Nor why should he want to? It was who he was. An orphan. A bastard. Had Helena Reynolds been the plain working-class spinster he’d expected, he would have had no qualms about confessing it.

Instead she was a lady. A lovely, impeccably mannered lady. And despite Finchley’s assurances that the circumstances of his birth wouldn’t matter to her, Justin knew full well that there were not many ladies who would rejoice at the chance to marry a man of dubious parentage. Not unless that man were in possession of a suitably large fortune—which he most assuredly was not.

He watched Helena’s face, waiting for the first flicker of revulsion to make its inevitable appearance.

“In Abbott’s Holcombe?” she asked.

He nodded, still waiting.

She gave him a long, searching look. “Is that why we loathe the place?”

We.

Justin’s chest expanded on an almost painful surge of emotion. He couldn’t tell if it was relief or—worse—if it was gratitude. All she’d said was we. It was hardly a declaration of undying affection, but to him, in that moment, it was everything. “Yes. That’s the reason.”

Helena turned her attention back toward the cliff face. “I’m amazed no one was ever hurt.”

He followed her gaze, frowning. “Someone was once. Another boy—a childhood friend of mine—slipped on the rocks and fell into the sea. He hit his head on the way down.”

“How awful.” Her eyes filled with ready sympathy. “Was he injured badly?”

“Yes. Quite badly. He’s not been himself since.” Justin cleared his throat. “Which is my fault, really. Everyone always said he’d follow me anywhere. And it was I who insisted on making the climb.”

“Oh, my dear,” she murmured.

His heart gave a desperate, pathetic lurch, believing for a single, fleeting instant that she had addressed him as my dear. That her soft, caressing undertone was meant for him. But she was merely lamenting the unhappy fate of some unknown boy.

Or perhaps not so unknown.

“Was it Neville?” she asked.

He nodded stiffly.

Helena looked away from him, turning her face back toward the sea. In the distance, white-capped waves rose to crash in the water, leaving nothing but foam to lap up against the sand. It came within an inch of wetting her boots.

Justin reached for her arm to guide her back onto dry ground, but there was no need. She sidestepped the water without his assistance. His hand fell, useless, back to his side.

“How very kind you are,” she said.