Much Ado About You(87)

I flinched, remembering that drunken night. Or at least some of it.

“I never meant to lie to you, Evie . . .” His tone was pleading. “I just . . . I wanted you to give me a chance without my age or money clouding your judgment. I never lied . . . I just omitted things.”

Oh my God.

It was true.

It was really true.

Nausea rolled through my stomach.

“And the entire village was in on this? Lying to me . . . making me the village fool?”

“No.” He gripped my arm.

“Don’t touch me!” I yanked it out of his hold and jerked up off the couch. “Don’t touch me.”

“Fuck, Evie.” Roane’s voice shook. “Please . . . it wasn’t like that. I tried to tell you so many times over the last month but—”

“The last month!” I spun around to face him, my rage and hurt and disappointment building into something I didn’t know if I could control. It was breaking me. “You should have told me from the start!”

“I know.” He stood, holding his hands up defensively. “I know. It’s just . . . I loved you from the start, and I was afraid you wouldn’t give me a chance.”

I didn’t want to hear his excuses. “How old are you?”

Roane exhaled slowly. “I’m just about to turn twenty-seven.”

“You’re twenty-six?” Oh my God, he was almost seven years younger than me.

“Aye.”

Seven years. How could I not have realized that? When I was forty, he would just be turning the age I was now.

“Oh my God.”

“But age doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter.”

“But lying does.” I cut him a dark look. “Sir Roane Robson.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, pained. When he opened them, remorse filled them. “Not yet. My father is the baronet . . .” He took a step toward me and stopped when I glared. “The twelfth baronet. It’s not like it sounds. I don’t know how much you know about British aristocracy, but that’s not what a baronetcy is. We’re not peerage. It comes somewhere between a baron and a knighthood. It’s—”

“Is it a title? Is it a historical rank? Does everyone in Northumberland know who you are? Do you come from money?”

“Evie . . .”

“Well?”

He nodded slowly. “Aye. But my mum doesn’t come from money, Evie. She grew up here in Alnster, the daughter of a fisherman. I didn’t want to go to Harrow, so my mum convinced Dad not to send me, and when I started talking like Mum instead of Dad, he never corrected it. My parents wanted me to be who I am, not shape me into something else because of some legacy I would inherit. And I love the farm. I work hard, not because I have to, but because I want to, and they don’t expect or want anything from me. What you’ve seen of me is the truth. This is my life. Nothing about me or what you know about me has changed.”

Confused, I thought of the small farmhouse. “Your home . . .”

He flinched. “Evie . . . the farmhouse once belonged to the estate manager. That’s Bobby now and he didn’t want it. So I took it over. My parents’ home is significantly larger. It’s on the land where we do our arable farming. And our farm is larger than I let on. We’re quite a substantial commercial farm with many employees.”

Realization dawned. That’s why he didn’t take me to that part of the estate.

“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked, my bitterness clear.

“The maintenance on the holiday homes . . . it’s a much larger company than I let on. We cover all of Northumberland. Thousands of holiday home owners pay us to maintain their properties, and the revenue for that accounts for a good portion of our income. Moreover, we own properties we let out, as well.”

All the business conversations he’d had on the phone, the ones he disappeared downstairs to take, came back to me. I’d thought he was being considerate. He wasn’t. He just didn’t want me to guess there was more to his business than I’d thought.

Then there was the guy whom Roane had pulled us away from at the Alnwick Garden. Not because he was chatty, no. It was probably because he wasn’t a villager in on the deception, and Roane was afraid he’d mention something about the truth.

Not to mention those times when permits and visas got pushed through quicker than I’d expected. Possibly because Roane had political connections?

And then Erin today.

What a catch. I mean, of course, you are too, but he is easy on the eyes and you’ll never want for anything.

I stared down at the blinding diamond engagement ring.

“You’ve got money,” I surmised.

Roane crossed the room toward me, and I tensed. “Evie.” He reached out to me but halted at my warning glare. “Evie, I’m still the same man.”

A sob burst forth before I could stop it, unexpected and forceful, and I stumbled away from his attempts to comfort me. Once I could speak, I stared at him through blurry vision. “Don’t you get it? It’s not what you lied about, Roane . . . it’s that you lied at all. You lied, not omitted, lied. And you didn’t trust me! You think I would have cared about your age or that you had money based on some reckless drunken comment I made about my past relationships? Do you think because I had a couple of bad experiences dating younger men and because of Chace, I would have held that against you once I got to know you? Do you know me at all?