Only Beloved (The Survivor's Club , #7)

by Mary Balogh

fighting my terror over the ordeal ahead of you,” he said, “and feeling my joy.” He added something he had had no intention of saying aloud. “And feeling grief over Brendan.”

George has always been such a melancholy figure—until recently. The transformation in him has been quite remarkable.

One could not change the past anyway. Why let it blight the present and the future?

Dora had been able to avoid all but a nodding acquaintance with Mrs. Parkinson since that dreadful afternoon at Mrs. Yarby’s.

the arrival of another guest, whose appearance so took both Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Parkinson by surprise that Dora did not believe for one moment that it was unexpected. “My lord!” Mrs. Clark exclaimed, leaping to her feet

and smiling and curtsying as the Earl of Eastham was announced. “I could be knocked right off my feet with a feather, I do declare.”

“Pray do not upset yourself, ma’am,” the earl said, making his bow to Dora and looking at her, concern in his face. “Duchess,

allow me to apologize now for any pain I caused you during our last encounter. I do assure you I meant you no harm whatsoever. Indeed, the whole of my behavior on that occasion was ill-considered. I am your servant to command. I will immediately

withdraw from this house and from this neighborhood if...

I suppose in a sense he still is part of your family. People do not stop being your in-laws just because the person who formed

the link between them has died, do they?

Perhaps there was still a chance that she might persuade George that people often hurt themselves more than anyone else when they cling to old hatreds and resentments even after an olive branch had been

extended. Perhaps it was an olive branch the earl was extending today.

He had stopped beside her and regarded her with a peculiar half smile on his lips. The path was narrow here, she noticed, and it was impossible to put more of an acceptable distance

between them.

“Brendan was not Stanbrook’s son.”

“He was mine,”

OK, I GUESSED AS MUCH

“Why, Duchess,” the earl asked her, his face close to hers,

“should Stanbrook be allowed to have a child of his own when he took mine away from me? And why should he be allowed to have a woman to comfort him when he deprived me of mine?”

“It is in the nature of an eye for an eye, you see, Duchess. A woman and a child for a woman and a child—and

“Dora!” There was a universe of pain in his voice.

“He is going to push her over,” George said. “He is going to kill her. Eastham!”

He surely wouldn’t push her over. It would be madness. He has three witnesses.” “That will not deter him,”

“Ah, Dora,” he whispered against her lips. “My belovèd. My only belovèd.”

She remembered a voice from the depths—Ah,

Dora. My belovèd. My only belovèd. George’s voice.

The almost perpetual kindness in his eyes also held a tinge of sadness.

“I almost lost you,” he said. “Oh,” she said, “I am not so easily misplaced.”

And she was wearing the duchess’s diamond tiara that had

been his grandmother’s and his mother’s but never Miriam’s.

It was perhaps at that moment that he realized fully how much he cared for her. How much he loved her. He loved her more than the air he breathed. He loved her with all the youthful passion he had packed away in some hidden inner vault

immediately after his first marriage. He had long since thought he had lost the key. But somehow she had found it and fitted it into the lock and turned it.

And as for your mother—well, I suppose I loved

her even before she was unjustly shamed and forced to flee her home. I would never have admitted it, even to myself, if circumstances had not presented me with the greatest gift of my life. I love her, my dear. Remaining at her side has never

been any sacrifice. Quite the...

of course he had sacrificed a great deal when he had stood by an older woman with whom he had been enjoying...

than a light flirtation. She had been ostracized by society when she had left Papa and he had divorced her. And though the man in such situations usually fared rather better, nevertheless his own ...

chances of making a more advantageous marriage totally lost. It was clear that although he was not impoverished, neither was he a wealthy man. But he was a loyal and affectiona...

disloyally, more worthy of her regard than her...

There was so much to celebrate—her marriage, her pregnancy, her reconciliation with her mother, friendship. Life itself.

One could not always protect what was one’s own.

He could see from her eyes that she knew the truth. But she spoke the truth too. Brendan was his son.

There had been such tenderness in his hands as he

had folded back the linen that covered the picture, and such tenderness in his eyes as he had looked briefly at the painting before handing it to her. And tenderness had been in his voice when he spoke. My son, yes. I loved him.

She did not believe he felt any great romantic passion for her, but she did know he was dearly fond of her and content with his marriage.

Ah, Dora. My belovèd. My only belovèd. Had she really heard those words? Or had it been part of some dream into which she had sunk when she lost consciousness?

“I do love him, you know. And it is very clear that yours is a love match.”

Dora loved George with all her heart, but did he love her with all his? Sometimes she believed it.

Brendan was my son from the moment I saw him.

But life is as it is. We never know what twists and turns it will take