“Because I love you.”
Jordan sighed faintly. “Mayhap ye love the illusion of me,” she said softly. “Ye’ve built me up like the Virgin Mary. Ye’vemade yerself out tae be the congregation that worships me and only me. But that’s not true.”
“Christ, Jordan, itistrue.”
She didn’t respond. He sat there and looked at her, wondering just how much this was going to affect them. Perhaps he had been wrong in not telling her about Jane de Percy because he’d indeed come close to marriage with her and, truth be told, they’d had quite a passionate affair while it lasted. But he really didn’t think it mattered and saw no reason to tell her about something that had never mattered to him.
But it evidently mattered to her.
“Jordan,” he said, his voice strained with emotion. “Mayhap I really did try to create an illusion around you, an illusion that you were the only woman I had ever looked at, but we both know that wasn’t truth. But youarethe only woman I have ever loved and I will swear that until the day I die. You are my sun, my moon, and the universe around me and nothing is right in this world if you are not in it with me. I am sorry if I hurt you by not telling you about Jane, but it never occurred to me that it mattered to do so. Forgive me if it did matter. I am deeply sorry that you had to find out this way because, surely, it was not the right way for you to know. If I could have spared you, I would have. But you must know I would never, ever intentionally lie to you or hurt you. Surely youknow.”
“I know,” she murmured. “I do know that, English.”
“Then can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
She continued to gaze from the window until, very slowly, she turned to look at him. The man was desperate. Repentant and desperate. She could see that in his eye, so terrified that he had ruined something he’d had for so many years, something that was his rock and his anchor. Their love had been the one constant in his life for the past twenty-five years and he’d been grateful for it every day.
But she’d been right and he knew it. He’d made her think that she was the only woman he’d ever held in such regard, the only one he’d ever had a truly passionate affair with. Perhaps that was his way of making her feel special and loved, building her up to be the only true woman in the world for him. But she was coming to see that he had built an illusion around her to make her think that and it hadn’t been right. She’d found out the hard way that he hadn’t been as transparent with her as he could have been.
But Jordan knew, in the long run, it really didn’t matter.
He was still her English.
“In about an hour I will,” she said, a hint of mirth in her exhausted face. “Give me an hour and I’ll forgive ye. But for now… I just want tae be alone.”
The relief William felt was indescribable. He went to his knees next to the bench, reaching out to take her hand as he placed his big head in her lap.
“I love you more than the sun loves the day,” he whispered, his lips against her fingers. “More than the moon loves the night. If I could take your hurt away, I surely would, but know that nothing was ever intentional, Jordan. If I withheld something you think I should have told you, forgive me, love… I simply never thought a silly affair was important compared to the glory of you.”
He could feel her free hand in his hair. “God’s Bones, English, I canna stay angry with ye when ye put it like that,” she said. “And I’m truly not angry. Mayhap a little sad tae think a lass loved ye so much before I did.”
He kissed her hand. “She may have loved me, but I loved you,” he said. “There is no comparison.”
“Swear it?”
“God, yes.”
She stroked his hair. “I dinna think I could feel jealousy at my age,” she said. Then she chuckled softly. “Mayhap that’s allit was. A little jealousy. But I better not hear anything more of bastards about with the de Wolfe name or ye and I are going tae have a serious go-round.”
He started to laugh. “I swear to you, none that I know of,” he said. “I did not live a chaste life before you, but I lived a careful one.”
“Evidently not too careful.”
He lifted his head and looked at her. “Sadly true,” he said. He kissed her hand again and his smile faded. “But facing this now… the fact that the letter was in War’s saddlebags means that he knows he is my son. If he finds the letter missing, he might assume I have it. Or someone stole it and is going to blackmail him. I realize that it is a great deal to ask, but your counsel would be appreciated in the matter, my lady. What do I do?”
Jordan gazed down at her handsome husband, her hand still in his hair. “I am concerned as tae why he had that letter in his bags,” she said thoughtfully. “Did he bring it tae give it tae ye? Or has he been carrying it around, building up some sort of rage against ye?’
William pondered that. “Why would he be angry at me?” he said. “I knew nothing about him or about Jane’s condition. She never told me anything.”
Jordan shrugged. “It may not matter tae him,” she said. “If he knew he was yer son, why not come tae ye before now? Why did I have tae find that letter in his bags? He should have told ye when he first arrived.”
William lifted his eyebrows. “I am not entirely certain that is something you tell someone you’ve only just met,” he said. “Mayhap he is waiting until the right moment.”
“Or mayhap he has come tae harm ye somehow.”
William shook his head. “He cannot harm me,” he said. “I’ve never gotten that feeling from him. I’m a fairly good judge ofmen’s characters, Jordan. In my profession, I have to be. I’ve never felt hostility from him, not ever.”
Jordan wasn’t going to push the subject, but she couldn’t help feeling suspicious of War and his motives. “Then if ye want tae know what tae do, I think that ye must tell him that I found the letter,” she said. “If he is looking for the right time, the time would be now. Ye must make it the right time. But tell himhowI found the letter– that it was by accident. I dunna want the man tae think we were spying on him.”
