“Forgive me,” he muttered.
Emily had calmed down,thank Christ. She sniffled and cast an uncertain glance in his direction. “Pa?”
“Papa is sorry for making you cry, poppet.” He blinked at a sudden burning in his own eyes.
Not tears. Certainly not.
“Is something in your eye?” Julianna asked, frowning at him some more.
Of course she was frowning. That was all she did unless he was making her come. Why the devil did she despise him so? Was he not the one of the two of them who had been wronged, and most grievously at that?
Sidney frowned back at her. “A bit of dust on the wind. Nothing more.”
Damn it, his vision was getting blurry. He was still thinking of Emily’s sweet face crumpled with sadness. He turned away from Julianna and surreptitiously swiped at his eyes with his handkerchief. The last thing he wanted to do was allow her to see him crying like some silly, swooning miss.
“Shelbourne, why is Emily not in the nursery with Johnston?” Julianna demanded behind him.
He tucked away his handkerchief and turned back to her. “I wanted to spend some time with her. I am attempting to undo the damage of the last year, in which she was kept from me.”
If there was an undercurrent of anger in his voice, it could not be helped. He still resented Julianna quite desperately for the abrupt manner in which she had left for America. For staying away for two years. For keeping Emily a secret. For not loving him as he had loved her.
Julianna’s lips thinned. “If you are going to keep her from her nurse, then you must promise to do a better job of watching over her. She could get in all manner of trouble in this garden. What if she had put a pebble in her mouth and choked upon it?”
“She did not.”
“But what if she had?”
He rubbed his jaw some more, irritated with her. Irritated with himself. “What would you have from me, Julianna? My promise that I will never again dare to bring my daughter to the goddamn garden?”
She flinched. “Please. Your language.”
“Yes, yes.” Fury roared, replacing the sadness, and he embraced it. “My language is despicable. I am a terrible father who cannot be trusted to be alone with his daughter in the parterre. I am such a detestable scoundrel that you fled an entire ocean instead of marrying me. The only time you find me moderately palatable is when I am pleasuring you, and the only reason you married me is so you can collect a tidy fortune. That sums it up, I believe. Does it not?”
Her lips parted, moved. She looked stricken, as if she were about to say something but could not find the words.
Had he rendered her speechless? He bloody well hoped so. He was tired of listening to her treat him as if he was an untrustworthy beast when it came to their daughter’s welfare.
“I… Shelbourne, that is not fair.”
“Is it not?” he asked. “I have done everything in my power to ease this transition. I have gone to great lengths to right the wrongs you are responsible for, and yet you continue to act as if I am an outcast in my own home. What more do you want from me?”
What more indeed? He had happily traded one loveless marriage of convenience for another, but there came a time when a man grew tired of paying the price for sins he had not committed. He would own that he should never have been so reckless with her out of wedlock, but he had wrongly believed she had returned his feelings and that she would welcome a match between them. That charmed summer had left him stupid with lust and love, but he had been doing penance ever since.
And he was deuced tired of it.
She was staring at him, silent once more. Emily clapped her hands, amused in the midst of her parents’ mutual enmity. This fighting was not what he wanted. Part of him had hoped they might find common ground in their union.
“Tell me, Julianna,” he persisted. “What more do you want from me, aside from what I have already given you?”
“I am sorry.”
Her contrition took him by surprise, for it was most certainly not what he had expected. But he wanted more. “Tell me,chérie. Just what is it you are sorry for?”
“For keeping her from you.” She swallowed, then pressed a kiss to their daughter’s brow. “For hurting you. Your actions two years ago were inexcusable, but my subsequent actions were no better. I recognize that.”
“Myactions were inexcusable? I asked you to marry me.”
Her smile was sad. “Yes, you did.”
