Because what if the intervention had been for the best?
Hell.He did not want to contemplate the possibility, and yet how could he deny it? When he was standing here in the gardens, surrounded by the charmed moonlight, the sweet scent on the air a combination of Clementine’s divine scent and Lady Fangfoss’s rosebushes in bloom, Anna was far from his mind. So, too the feelings he had harbored for her.
Lady Clementine nodded. “Fair enough. I suppose I must give you your answer now. It is not as simple as one might suppose. I am more than aware of my reputation. But the matches I have made…they have never been out of spite. When I lost Walter…”
Walter again.Bloody hell.
There was the jealousy, rising once more. He ought to be ashamed.
He ground his molars, forcing himself to be the gentleman he decidedly was not. “Go on.”
“I wanted to make others happy although I knew I could not be.” Her quiet words were almost lost in the hush of the night.
But he heard them. He heardher. And for the first time, he thought he understood Lady Clementine Hammond.
All this time he had believed her a vicious, cunning snake, and in truth, she had been a broken, wounded soul. One who believed, however wrongly, that catching others in compromising positions, and leading them to their nuptials, was doing them a favor.
“How many couples?” he asked, knowing he need not elaborate.
“Half a dozen or more.” Her chin raised. “I was hardly keeping count. But when the truth was so plain for me to see…I suppose it became something of an obsession for me. A distraction. If I was facilitating the happiness of others, I did not have to fret over the lack of happiness in my own life. It made me feel…necessary, I suppose. They have all thanked me for my intervention.”
The jagged pieces inside him seemed somehow less sharp. “Even Lady Anna?”
“Yes.” Her voice was soft and tinged with sympathy. “Even her. She and Huntly are a love match.”
He had not spoken to Anna since she had tearfully thrown him over in favor of the marquess. Their interactions over the last few years had been limited to being guests at the same social events, but their paths had not directly crossed thanks to Dorset’s efforts to avoid her.
The news that Anna was happy with Huntly was surprising. But strangely, the knowledge did not fill him with pain or bitterness. Instead, he found himself distracted by the woman at his side, her scent filling him with yearning. Her delectable curves tempting his fingers to learn all the dips and swells.
“You are being quiet,” she observed.
So he was. “It never occurred to me to ask her whether or not she was content,” he admitted, recognizing his own conceit. “I was so devastated over losing her…the day she threw me over was the last I ever spoke to her.”
She had sent him a handful of letters initially. He had tossed each one into the fire without reading a word of them.
Now, he wondered what she had written. An explanation? An apology? He supposed it hardly mattered. The past was where it belonged.
“It was not my intention to catch her alone with the Marquess of Huntly,” Clementine offered, her gaze on him, seeking through the moonbeams.
What did she see? A jaded rake who had somehow found himself at the mercy of a matchmaking hostess? A rogue who no longer believed himself capable of caring and yet was nonetheless experiencing a disturbing feeling of affinity for the last woman at the house party he ought?
Blast.Why did he want to kiss her again?
“A love match,” he said, using her words. “That was what you were to have had yourself.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
He could have kicked himself in the arse anew at the hesitation in her voice. “It is my turn to offer my contrition. It was not my intention to dredge up painful memories or make a mockery of your engagement with our…understanding.”
“I believe I may have misjudged you. Initially, when you announced to Miss Julia that we were betrothed, I supposed you were in need of my dowry, which Father continues to raise in hopes he can see me settled.”
There was a note of irritation in her voice now. He found himself wanting to chase it.
“You said you believe yourself incapable of happiness.”
And what a travesty that would be. A bold, beautiful, vibrant woman like Lady Clementine Hammond never finding her own contentedness after doing her utmost to make so many other couples realize theirs.
“I do.”
