She couldn’t believe that she’d aroused his passions very deeply. He’d said himself that his offer was foolish fancy. He was probably now thanking his lucky stars that she had refused.
But if he wasn’t, this temporary captivity must be even more awkward for him than for her. He was the one who had been rejected. He must be hating the sight of her.
Oblivious to her lurid thoughts, Randolph said with a trace of wry amusement, “I knew Christmas in Italy would be different from home, but I never dreamed just how different.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth agreed somberly, “but at least we’re alive. If we had started down the path a few seconds sooner ...”
“Very true,” he said, his voice dry. “So I suppose there was some value to my misbegotten proposal since it delayed us.”
“I know that being trapped here with me must be difficult for you. I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Don’t apologize. The fault is mine. I should have known that one seldom gets a second chance where love and marriage are concerned. For my sins of bad judgment, I must pay the price.”
His words cut too close to the bone, and she drew a shuddering breath. “You are right. For whatever reason—bad judgment, bad luck— most of us only get one chance for happiness. We think it will last an eternity, and then it vanishes like smoke in our hands.”
He turned to face her, a silhouette against the bright sky. “What happened to your chance, Elizabeth? Why are you spending your life raising other women’s children rather than your own?”
She sighed. “It’s not a very dramatic story. William and I were childhood sweethearts. He was the younger son of the squire, I was the daughter of the vicar. Our families were not enthralled by the match, for neither of us had any prospects, but we were young, optimistic, willing to work hard. We had our whole lives planned. William’s father bought him a pair of colors and off he went to the Peninsula. I was teaching and saving my salary. When he became a captain, we would marry and I would follow the drum.”
“But that didn’t happen.”
“No,” she whispered. “Within a year he was dead. Not even nobly, fighting the French, but of a fever.”
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “That was a dreadful waste of a brave young life, and a tragic loss for you.”
In her fragile mood, his compassion almost broke her. She made an effort to collect herself. “I feel fortunate for what little we had, even if it was much less than we had expected.”
She tried a smile without complete success. “It was a great stroke of luck that even one man wanted to marry me. I’m not the sort to inspire a grand passion and without a portion I wasn’t very marriageable. If William and I hadn’t grown up together, I doubt he would have looked twice at me, but as it was, we . . . well, we were part of each other.”
“I wish you would stop demeaning yourself,” Randolph said sternly. “Beauty and fortune have their place, but they are not what make a good wife.”
“As you learned to your cost?” she asked quietly.
“As I learned, to my cost.” He stood abruptly. “I’d better start a fire while there is still a little light.”
It was fortunate Lord Randolph had flint and steel and a penknife to whittle dry wood shavings from the inside of a branch. Soon a small fire was crackling away. He sat back on his heels, staying close enough to feed the blaze easily. “Having a fire brings civilization a little closer.”
Elizabeth did not agree. Even with a fire, civilization seemed very distant, and she found herself speaking with a boldness that normally she would not have dared. “You said that you had committed the sin of bad judgment,” she said tentatively. “If your sin was falling in love with a beautiful face, then finding the lady’s character was not so fine as her features, that’s not such a great crime. Many young men do the same.”
Lord Randolph must have felt the same lessening of civilized constraints, because he replied rather than giving her the set-down she deserved. “My crime was much worse. Like you, I fell in love young. Unlike you, our families were delighted. Lady Alyson was a great heiress, and I was a good match for her. Of similar rank, wealthy enough so as not to be a fortune-hunter, and as a younger son, I would have ample time to devote to managing her property when she inherited.”
Throwing the last shred of her manners to the winds, Elizabeth asked, “Was the problem that she did not love you?”
The muscles of his face went taut in the flickering light. “No, she did love me. And I, in one moment of foolish cowardice, hurt her unforgivably and wrecked both our lives.”
The silence that followed was so long that finally Elizabeth said, “I realize that this is absolutely none of my business, but I am perishing of curiosity. Is what happened so unspeakable?”
His face eased. “Having said that much, I suppose I must tell the rest. I made the mistake of calling on Alyson with one of my more boisterous friends along. While we were waiting for her in the drawing room, my friend asked why I was marrying her. If Alyson had been a little golden nymph, he could have understood, but she wasn’t at all in the common way.”
Randolph sighed. “I should have hit him. Instead, because my feelings for Alyson were too private to expose to someone who might make sport of them, I said breezily that I was marrying her for her money. I knew that was a reason he would understand.”
Elizabeth had a horrible feeling that she knew what happened next. “Alyson overheard and cried off?”
“Worse than that.” Carefully he laid two larger pieces of wood on the fire. “I didn’t learn the whole story until quite recently. She did overhear and told her father she wouldn’t marry me if I were the last man on earth, but wouldn’t explain why she had changed her mind.
“Thinking she was just being missish, her father became very gothic and locked her in her room, swearing that he would keep her there until she agreed to go through with the marriage. Feeling betrayed by both her father and me, Alyson ran away. She stayed away for twelve long years. Just this last September she returned and reconciled with her father.”
“Good heavens,” Elizabeth said blankly. “How did she survive so long on her own?”
