Free For All Eternity by Heather Cullman Page A

year and your fortune, we shall rub along quite famously.”
    Sophie froze for a beat, then looked away from his smiling face, her happiness dimmed at the mention of her fortune. Of course she had to tell him it was lost. And she fully intended to do so. It was just that she’d hoped to break the dismal news later, after she’d had an hour or so to bask in the euphoria of her upcoming nuptials.
    “Dearest? Did I say something to distress you?”
    “No. It’s just…” she trailed off, suddenly apprehensive. What if he refused to take a debt-ridden bride, despite their love? Men were ruled more by their heads than their hearts, she’d heard, though she’d personally seen no evidence to that fact.
    “Sophie?” He grasped her chin and tipped her face back up to his. After scrutinizing it for a moment, he frowned and murmured, “I was right. You are troubled. You’re not having second thoughts about marrying me are you?”
    “Oh, no! Never!” she exclaimed, aghast that he would even ask such a question.
    “Then what? What plagues you? You know you can trust me.”
    He looked so earnest, so genuinely sincere in his desire to help her, that her apprehension evaporated. Of course he wouldn’t put money before their love. He simply wasn’t that sort of a man. What a hen-wit she was to even imagine such a thing. Smiling with renewed confidence, she met his gaze and replied. “There’s something I must mention about my fortune.”
    He returned her smile, clearly relieved. “If you’re worried that your cousin will deny us your dowry for defying him, I can assure you that he can’t. We shall drag him before a magistrate should he try.”
    “No, it’s — it’s not that. It’s just that — well — ” she swallowed hard, then softly confessed ” — there is no dowry.” He recoiled as if she’d slapped him. “What?”
    “There is no dowry,” she repeated, this time more loudly. At the sight of his slack-jawed astonishment, she hastened to add, “I did have one — all that my cousin claimed — but he lost it.”
    Julian’s eyes widened to the point of bulging. “All of it?”
    She nodded. “Worse yet, we have debts. The debts are why I’m to marry Lyndhurst.”
    He couldn’t have looked more stunned had she confessed to being a highway robber. “Lyndhurst knows about your dowry?” he expelled, incredulously.
    “No. Oh, no! He knows nothing about any of this. No one in the ton does. Even I was ignorant of it until last night.” She shook her head, still a bit dumbfounded by the news herself. “I’ve been the pawn in Edgar’s scheme to save us from debtors prison.”
    “Scheme?” He pulled from her embrace, scowling. Certain he frowned at Edgar using her so, she briefly outlined the plan. When she was finished, Julian released a harsh snort of laughter and ground out, “In other words, you were going to dupe Lyndhurst. How very amusing that would have been, the high and mighty Earl of Lyndhurst played for a fool. That would have brought him down a notch or two, I daresay.”
    Sophie stared at him, utterly taken aback. This wasn’t how he was supposed to respond. He was supposed to tell her that he’d pay her debts and that they would live happily ever after. Desperate to hold on to her dream, she wrapped her arms around his waist and murmured, “None of that is either here nor there now. All that matters is us being together.”
    He grasped her upper arms and pushed her away. Holding her at arm’s length, he growled, “It is very much here and now. It just so happens that I, too, am financially embarrassed.”
    Sophie shook her head over and over again, unable to fathom the sudden harshness of his face. “We’ll scratch by somehow,” she reassured him, certain that his expression stemmed from shock. “With careful management of your income, we should be able to discharge our debts in a few years’ time. Of course, that means we shall probably have to live on your estate.”
    He