He frowned, another uncomfortable thought occurring to him. “Was I unkind to you in other ways? Aside from the terrible things you overheard me saying at the Althorp ball, that is. I want—nay, need—to know.”
He fervently hoped that she hadn’t kept the truth from him to make him feel better about what a cruel arse he’d been. He wouldn’t put it past her. That was just how goddamned selfless and good his Bess was.
She sighed, and the cat stirred again, the heaviness of their conversation apparently disturbing her sated slumber following the chicken liver feast. “Very well. If you must know, I had an idea, which was quite wrong-headed, that you must have felt the same connection sparking within you that I did when your eyes had met mine. I fancied myself in love with you. But I recognize my feelings then for what they were—a girlish infatuation, nothing more. Please don’t think you gave me any reason to have hopes, or that you were otherwise unkind to me, aside from that one remark.”
In love.
Bess had beenin lovewith him. With the old Torrie.
Why that knowledge produced such a sudden, vicious ache in his chest, he couldn’t say. But it was there, swelling, growing stronger, tearing him apart. Other emotions rose, too. So much emotion. The strong, kind, beautiful, resilient woman before him had been in love with him, and he had been too stupid and thoughtless and careless to notice. What manner of man had he been, to have Bess looking at him the way she did now, and fail to see her for the magnificent woman she was?
How had he failed her, failed them both?
“I didn’t say anything else that was hurtful to you, then?” he pressed, wanting to be certain.
She shook her head, a wistful smile playing at her lips. “As I said before, you never spoke a word directly to me. Even when I fell at your feet, I believe you were too astounded by my lack to do anything other than offer me a hand. You never took notice of me after that, and then Lady Andromeda could no longer keep her town house, and I abandoned my hope of becoming a wife and mother and became a governess instead.”
The reminder of the injustices visited on her rankled.
He ground his molars. “You should never have been reduced to such circumstances. That you were will forever be a mark upon the souls of everyone who should have been caring for your welfare instead of lining their avaricious coffers.”
Pettigrew and Buxton deserved retribution, but that was beyond his reach now. As for Lady Andromeda, he had no doubt she would soon meet a similar fate. Her lot was to suffer in relative penury, living off the generosity of friends as she had once forced Bess to live.
“I hope to God that Lady Andromeda is being made to wear someone else’s castoffs,” he added for good measure. “I hope she has naught but sacks and rags that are three times her size.”
And far worse things, but he was gentleman enough not to say any of them aloud.
“I suppose I should be far angrier with everyone than I am,” Bess surprised him by saying, her tone contemplative. “It isn’t that I wished for them to take advantage of me, of course. But if they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you now. I never would have been in the Worthing library that night, and little Angel wouldn’t be sleeping comfortably in my lap.”
He swallowed hard, startled anew by the stinging pinprick of tears against the backs of his eyes. Torrie couldn’t recall when he’d last wept. Nor if he ever had. But a wave of feeling hit him now. Hit him harder than a fist.
Despite his questionable introduction to the cat—Angel, it was decided, then—he reached out and gently stroked the feline’s soft, thick tortoise shell coat. Slowly, gently, his fingers grazing Bess’s.
“I’m not grateful that they stole from you and mistreated you,” he said, voice low and thick with suppressed tears. “But I will be forever grateful that fate found you in the library that night, and that I carried you away in my carriage. I should have done it long ago, when you fell at my feet at the Althorp ball, but I reckon I wasn’t ready for you then.”
He wasn’t sure he was ready now. He was forever aware—acutely so—that she was his better in every way. Kinder, gentler, more thoughtful and caring and forgiving. She was everything a woman should be. Everything he wanted in a wife.
All he wanted, forever.
“I wasn’t ready for you then either,” Bess said. “Not for that man.”
His old self, she meant.
Their fingers grazed again and he looked up, their gazes meshing, emotions snapping to life like a spark turning into flame. He knew what she had been referring to, the connection he felt to her, deep in his chest, when their eyes met and held. How had he failed to see it before?
“Are you ready for this one?” he dared to ask.
Angel purred loudly between them, the only answer for far longer than his pride preferred.
And then at last, Bess spoke.
“More than ready,” she said quietly.
He leaned into her, unable to resist stealing a kiss that was meant to be hasty but turned into something longer and deeper. Something that said far more than any of their words or revelations could.
Perhaps, he reasoned as he tore his lips from hers, that was life’s truest mystery unraveled, one that even a man who had lost much of his memory could understand. Life was just a series of moments, strung together, and all good things took time. All good things came when one was truly ready.
And like Bess, he was more than ready for anything and everything there was to come with her at his side.
