She thought this was a fair thing to ask. She wastryingto be fair, trying rather desperately, actually. Because maybe that would be the thing to salvage … whatever this was, without her heart being crushed in the process. Maybe she just needed to be clear and level-headed.
Helen’s voice rang in the back of her mind.Fight for what you want.
Clio didn’t listen. She and her husband had fought aplenty. It hadn’t fixed things.
Hector, meanwhile, looked very uncomfortable. He tapped his fingers anxiously on the handle of his walking stick. She’d come to realize that he used the stick not only to aid his walking, but to offer symbolic support when he needed to think. It was hard not to find this endearing, but she persevered because she was still very cross with him.
“Well.” He cleared his throat, and Clio started to feel very anxious about whatever he was going to say. This was not a man who normally got caught up in the niceties. “I didn’t … That is … It didn’t quite feelright. As things between us were …”
He trailed off, and Clio felt an expression of dawning horror cross her face.
Oh God.Oh God. He … He wasn’t attracted to her. He hadn’t lain with her because hedidn’t want to. Which meant that the times she’d received pleasure from him had been—oh, good Lord, shebarely managed to avoid dropping her head into her hands in misery. Had it beenpity?
She reviewed the incidents in her mind with this new lens. Oh, but shehadthrown herself at him. And now she’d come here, demanding that he … No. It was too humiliating.
She surged to her feet.
“I see,” she said. Her voice sounded extremely tight, but at least it didn’t crack in tears. That would be the final straw in her mortification. It might literally kill her if he told her that he didn’t desire her, and then shecried about it. “Well, then, I’ll just go?—”
He reached out and grasped her wrist, his fingers warm and sure around her. Clio hated herself for the shiver that went through her at the touch, given that her husband was probably barely repressing a shudder atonce againbeing forced to touch a woman in whom he had no interest. Oh, goodness, had she taken advantage of him? They warned young ladies about getting taken advantage of by randy gentlemen, but had she somehow … coerced him with the force of her sexual desperation?
Clio really thought she might vomit. And, now that she thought about it,thatwould be the final humiliation.
“You don’t see,” he said, sounding rather wretched about it. As well he should, she supposed. Was there a comfortable way to tell someone that they had been a completely blind idiot? “The need for an heir has become, ah, rather more pressing.”
Ha! Something inside Clio was careening rapidly toward hysteria, which she could only assume was a protective measure from her mind so that she didn’t blush herself to death.
“Um,” she said. “Why?”
He was still holding her wrist. Perhaps he feared she would run away if he released her. Fair enough. She absolutelywouldrun away, given the chance.
This was possibly the most uncomfortable Clio had ever been in her life, and she had once sat through a thirty-seven-verse poem that had been composed in her honor by a young clergyman, in which he’d compared her to several figures in the Bible, while the rest of Belgium Society listened on, not certain if they should laugh or perish from the horror.
That had been a bad evening. This was worse.
If only she’d agreed to marry Mr. Beecham, she thought now with regret, then she would have only been forced to listen to liturgy every day of her life, which would be preferable tothisconversation.
“My brother,” Hector admitted. His fingers shifted on her wrist, and she hated that it sent sensation through her, even with—well, everything. She vowed to wear gloves forevermore. “His solicitor has argued that the marriage clause in my father's will actually refers to the continuation of the line. So, without an heir, he intends to challenge me for the inheritance using that argument.”
Well, that was perfectly ghastly—and illustrated a strong ignorance of the mechanics of pregnancy, if Matthew thought they could simply will a baby, let alone a male one, into being within a few weeks of marriage. Even if she’d conceived on her wedding night—a hysterical bubble of laughter threatened—they couldn’t know for certain for several weeks more.
And yet, the businesslike nature of the need made her feel a tiny bit calmer.
This was, after all, part of the agreement between them. They’d had a deal, and she would uphold it. She would not let her foolish emotions get in the way.
“I see,” she said, and this time he didn’t correct her. Hewasstill holding her wrist, however. She wished that he would let go. “Well. What can we do to make that … manageable for you?”
Hector frowned at her. She wondered when she’d started feeling such fondness for that frown.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Oh. Lovely. He was going to make her say it.
Maybe she would blush herself to death after all. That would serve him right.
“Ah, well,” she hedged. “I understood your point about …” She waved her free hand between them, and he tracked themovement, but it didn’t make him seem less confused. God above. “About things not. Ah. Feeling right.”
“Did you?” Hector’s words were as cautious and uncertain as hers.
