“My father,” Lady Philippa Ware said. Her face was chalk white. Her lips looked almost blue in contrast.
“Yes,” he said.
She closed her eyes and swayed. He got to his feet to go to her.
“No!” she said sharply, holding up one hand, palm out. “I will be fine.”
He sat down and waited for her to open her eyes again and gaze across the space between them and into his own eyes.
“I have always... consoled myself,” she said, “with the beliefthat at least he amused himself with women whose profession it was to give pleasure and be very well paid in exchange. Though even that was scant comfort, for I daresay many if not most of those women are forced into what they do by penury or other dire circumstances. But at least I believed he had never destroyed another family as he had ours.”
“Stratton,” he said. “The name became synonymous to me with all that is irredeemably evil. I would have killed him if I had ever come face-to-face with him—or so I believed as a fourteen-year-old boy. In reality, of course, I would have done no such thing, just as my father did not kill him or even confront him with his perfidy. At least, there was never any evidence that he did so. It seemed like cowardice to my boyhood self, but as I grew older I came to understand the hopeless complexity of his dilemma. He had two possible courses of action. He could denounce my mother, disown her child, put her away from him and us, perhaps even divorce her, and thus destroy our family and bring terrible and lasting scandal and suffering upon us all. Or he could keep his knowledge to himself, pretend he did not know, continue with his marriage, and accept the new child as his own. It was a choice made more terrible, I am sure, by the knowledge that if the child were a boy, he would be the spare to the heir—to myself, that is—that my father and my grandfather had always craved. We are all brought up to believe that we ought always to speak the truth openly to the world and do what is right and just, even when it is painful to do so. When we grow up, though, we quickly learn that concealing the truth and doing nothing is sometimes the wiser option to avoid a devastating impact upon other, innocent people.”
“Yes,” she said. “I know.”
And he realized, too late, that she did indeed know. According to her story, her brother had spoken the truth about their father andhis paramour and done it publicly before everyone in their family and neighborhood, whereas their mother had kept it to herself for years before that. Who had been right and who wrong? There was no obvious answer, was there?
“My mother went into labor prematurely a few months later,” he said, “and gave birth to a stillborn son. She died herself a few hours later. My father’s grief was profound and doubtless many layers deep. Less than a year later, when I was still only fifteen, he set his horse’s head at a hedge that was far too high and wide and unnecessary. There was an open gate a mere few yards away. His horse had to be put down, and he broke his neck and died instantly. I would not say it was deliberately done, but I do believe he had grown reckless and did not care what happened to him—or us. Our world changed, Lady Philippa, just as yours did at the same age.”
Her hands were now clasped tightly in her lap and she was gazing down at them. He watched as one tear fell onto the back of one hand. She brushed it away with a finger of the other. A short while later another tear fell, though she was not openly weeping.
“My brother and yours,” she said so softly that he scarcely heard. She was referring to his mother’s dead child, he realized. His mother’s and Stratton’s.
“Yes,” he said. “My hatred was for your father alone, Lady Philippa, though I realize that in all probability my mother was equally to blame. I doubt he forced her. What I said of you that night was totally unconsidered and untrue and wicked. But I understand why you can never marry me anyway—especially now, after hearing my story. You will understand why I can never marry you. But let us... Please let us not hate each other.”
Another tear plopped onto her hand.
Lucas got abruptly to his feet, strode across in front of the fireplace, grasped her upper arms, and half lifted her to her feet andinto his arms. He held her close, his cheek against the top of her head, feeling her slim, supple warmth as she collapsed against him and her arms came about his waist. He closed his eyes, concentrating upon giving her comfort even as he realized it was impossible. He drew comfort, however, from the way she arched into him when she might well have shrunk away from him.
She did not weep, but for a long while she rested the side of her face against his neckcloth, no doubt crushing the folds upon which his valet had expended such care a few hours ago. She kept her arms about him. She sighed at last, deeply and audibly, and tipped back her head to look into his face. Her own was still pale. Her eyes were large and as blue as an early summer sky.
He lowered his head and kissed her.
He was not without experience. His years at Oxford had provided him with a valuable education in both academics and sexual matters. He had kissed a number of women and bedded a few. Compared with most men his age, though, he did not doubt he was a veritable novice. He had never kissed a woman with less experience than he had. Nevertheless...
He thought it altogether possible that Lady Philippa Ware had never been kissed before. Her lips pouted and then trembled and then relaxed against his own. When he parted his lips, she allowed her own to part too. But it was all wrong, he thought after a few self-indulgent moments. She ought not to be stuck with the memory that her first kiss had been with him of all people. It was happening nevertheless. A kiss of comfort. A kiss of hopeless longing—on his part anyway. Of unwilling affection. A kiss he must not prolong.
He raised his head. “Phil.”
Those blue eyes gazed into his again. “You must not fear that I will tell anyone else,” she said. “Ever.”
“Thank you,” he said, though he realized that she would surely wish to keep his secret as much for her own family’s sake as for his.
There was a brisk knock upon the inner door of the library at that moment, and it opened abruptly before they could move apart.
“Ah,” Stratton said curtly. “I am to wish you happy, then, am I?”
Lady Philippa removed her arms from about his waist, and he dropped his own arms to his sides as he turned to face the door.
“Not yet, Dev,” she said. “And perhaps never.”
Stratton’s eyes, as hard as granite, moved to Lucas.
“We have agreed that it is too soon,” Lucas said. “For me to ask. For Lady Philippa to answer.”
Which was not strictly accurate, but it was all he was prepared to say.
“You have taken the devil of a long time to come to that conclusion,” Stratton said. “I beg your pardon for my language, Pippa.”
