Not that it mattered either way, for the damage had been done. Bess had been hurt, and he hated himself for that. Hated himself even more for the rest of what he had to reveal to her. For the further pain it would cause her, when she had already endured far too much.
Hattie shook her head, lips pinched. “As I said to Ewan, I don’t wish to know. What you choose to do with your paramours is your concern. But what you do to your wonderful wife, my friend and sister,ismy concern. And you’ve hurt her badly, Torrie.”
“Damn it, Lady Worthing isn’t my paramour,” he snapped. “And I would never betray Bess as she thinks I’ve done. The truth of it is…worse, I fear.”
Hattie’s brow furrowed. “Worse?”
Monty strode to his wife’s side, sliding a protective arm around her back. “Perhaps not worse, but dreadful, nonetheless.”
“I don’t understand.” Hattie looked from her husband to Torrie, her countenance equal parts worried and confused. “What are the two of you speaking of?”
Dear God, this was not a conversation he wished to have with his sister. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with anyone. Indeed, he wished it had never bloody well happened, his disastrous affair with Eugenia and what it had unintentionally led to. But it had, and here he was, with a wife he loved who refused to speak to him, the woman he had been bedding before his marriage carrying his child, and his sister and best friend looking at him as if he were Beelzebub himself.
“Lady Worthing wasn’t invited to the ball,” he forced himself to say. “She made her way inside and sought me out because she wished to tell me that she isenceinte.”
“Well, how lovely for her. I’m sure Worthing will be pleased to have another spare…” Hattie’s words trailed off as she searched his face, her own expression changing. Falling. “Oh, Torrie. Please don’t say that you’re the father.”
He nodded grimly. “The lady informs me that I am. When I tried to take her to a private chamber so that I might quell the wagging tongues and avoid anyone overhearing, she took it as an invitation for more. And she wouldn’t accept that I didn’t want her. Bess walked in on a disastrous scene, and although the fault was not entirely mine, and I most definitely was not a willing participant, I can understand how it must have looked to her. I can understand the hurt she must be feeling.”
He had hated it, knowing that she had been so wounded, so devastated, that she had left their home. His sole comfort had been that she had taken Angel with her, and that she had come here to his sister’s care at Hamilton House.
“Dear God.” Hattie pressed a hand to her mouth, apparently at a loss for words.
“Satan’s breeches,” Monty added—for good measure, Torrie supposed. “I told you last night, and I’ll tell you again, old chap. You’re going to have to grovel if you truly want to win your wife back.”
“And as I told you,” he reminded Monty grimly, “I’m more than prepared to do so, if she will but allow me. That, however, requires my ability to speak with her. And also, my ability to deliver the news of Lady Worthing’s impending child.”
He couldn’t bring himself to saymy child. Not yet. The notion was too new. Not even a day had passed. He needed time. After everything that had unfolded, he was queasy, exhausted following a sleepless night, and terrified he was going to lose Bess.
“You can’t force your way into her chamber and make her listen,” Hattie advised him gently.
Did part of him want to race up the staircase, set his shoulder to her chamber door, and ram his way inside as if he were a marauder attacking the castle portcullis? Yes. But he was also willing to wait. He would wait forever for her if he had to.
“I know, Hattie.” With another heavy sigh, he raked his fingers through his hair. “I may feel beastly, but I’m hardly a beast. I’ll give her all the time she needs. Until then, I’ll simply wait.”
His sister’s brows rose. “Here in our drawing room?”
“Wherever you would have me.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, glancing at Monty. “You are the one who befriended me first. You ought to have known better. Now, here I stand, your bugbear.”
“Hardly that, old friend,” Monty reassured him, giving him a considering look. “Do you remember Eton?”
He blinked, scouring his mind, and realized it was happening again. More memories were returning to him, and it was like the sun parting the clouds after a furious rainstorm. Light after darkness.
But this time, so much more than the other occasions.
He remembered.
He rememberedeverything.
His father, his mother, their contentious marriage, Father always in his cups and yelling so loudly the servants cowered. Mama weeping in her chamber, Hattie hiding away wherever she should, always with a book in her lap to escape from the unhappiness surrounding them. He recalled his years at Eton, his friendship with Monty, their endless scrapes. He remembered Hattie as a girl.
He remembered Bess, too. Bess falling at his feet, wearing some dreadful gown that was far too large for her, looking horrified and too embarrassed to speak before she had scurried away.
Like a mouse, he had thought, being chased from the kitchen by a tabby cat. He had noticed her eyes even then, the deep brown with golden flecks, ringed by long lashes. And her mouth, far too large for fashion, yet made for kissing.
He recalled being intrigued by her, but then telling himself that she was an innocent, and that he didn’t dally with women on the marriage mart. Particularly when he had no intention of finding himself caught in the parson’s mousetrap.
And he remembered what had happened just before she had tripped over her too-long hems and fallen at the Althorp ball.
