“Your private life is no concern of mine.”
“But you are shocked by what you think I have been doing,” the Earl insisted, “just as you were shocked by your mother.”
As if he goaded her into a reply, Prunella said,
“Of course I was shocked, shocked, horrified and disgusted! How could any woman leave her husband and her – family?”
“Her family,” the Earl replied softly. “That is the operative word, is it not? You minded her leaving you.”
He saw the pain for a fleeting second in Prunella’s eyes as she looked at him and said to her in a different tone,
“When you are as old as I am, Miss Broughton, you will understand that for every human action there are always extenuating circumstances and if one has a kind heart and a perceptive mind one can find them and understand.”
Now it was her tur
