“I—” This came too close to telling him everything, and she didn’t know if she was quite ready for that. She felt raw, as though he had taken a knife and carved her open. But he had confided in her; perhaps she could do the same, at least a little.“I loved someone once. I thought he loved me in return, but he was—he was cruel, and he left me when someone new caught his fancy. He broke my heart, and my mother broke my father, and I refuse to let Isabella go through anything similar.”
Oliver’s eyes darkened, but his hand remained gentle on her face. “She won’t. I swear it.”
Strangely, despite everything—he was Marlbury’s friend, after all—she believed him. “All right.”
“Tell me something.” He inhaled deeply, as though steeling himself, then said, “Was it Marlbury?”
The air rushed from her lungs, but she had given him too many clues; of course he had put them together. There was no point lying to him now. “Yes,” she said.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Only with his lies.”
Oliver nodded, a precise gesture, as though he wanted very much to say more, but held himself back. “What happened?”
She shook her head. “Not now.”
“Later?” When she didn’t respond, his gaze searched her eyes, as though he could prise the answers from her that way. “Let me help you, Em. I know you may not have the best opinion of me, but I want to be there.”
Just as he had sat by her bedside when she’d been ill.
How could she deny him this?
“All right,” she said, the words a promise. “Later.”
Chapter Seventeen
Latercamearoundtorturouslyslowly. After her confession that Marlbury—the same Marlbury whom Oliver had spent any number of drunken hours with—had been the one to ruin Emily’s hopes and dreams—he found himself unable to sit still. While she helped inside the house, he rubbed down the horses with his good hand, ignoring the ache in the other.
No wonder she had responded so badly to Oliver’s declaration that he wouldn’t marry Isabella. If only she could see her sister for who she was—a conniving, selfish girl who was far more invested in looking out for herself than for protecting Emily. Not once had Isabella asked Oliver to take Emily with them once they were married. He had presumed they would, but that had never been a condition of their marriage. All she had daydreamed about was visiting London and keeping a carriage and all the new gowns and shoes she would buy. If he had insisted on Emily staying in that empty old house on her own, he had a sneaking feeling Isabella would agree. Perhaps with the intention of sending Emily some of her pin money—but he knewthat such resolutions would have fallen by the wayside quickly enough.
And that was the kind of wife he had been happy to accept.
What folly.
After dinner, Oliver endured several hours in the drawing room until Mrs Chambers finally sent Emily to bed, and he followed on her heels.
Later had arrived.
He wanted to miss none of it.
Only when he closed the door behind them did she turn to look at him, sinking onto the bed and bracing herself against her hands. He meant to ease into the subject slowly, gently, to reassure her that he would not judge no matter what had happened between them.
Instead, he said, “Did he force you into bedding him?”
She blinked, clearly flummoxed, then shook her head, a slight smile springing to her lips. “Ah, so you know I lay with him, then.”
“I suspected.” He had for a while now. “So he promised you marriage in exchange for that? And then abandoned you?” He paced about the room, trying and failing to shelve his anger. This was no place for it, but he despised any man who took advantage of a woman in such a way.
With Isabella, he had offered her marriage, but he had said nothing of love, and he had not taken her innocence.
“Do you think less of me for it?” she asked, watching him.
He stopped. “No, not in the slightest.”
“Even though I am a woman who has been compromised?”
His laugh was short and harsh. “Then I suppose so have I. Do you think less of me for it?”
