“My pain for your pleasure?” she asked, her voice barely carrying.
He did turn her now, cupping her chin to make her look at him. “Never. Because your hurts are mine. I want to understand you.”
One of those tears fell at last, sliding down her cheek as she sucked in a shuddering, pained breath. “If I don’t control everything, control myself, bad things will happen.”
She said the words she’d never spoken to another person out loud. She heard how foolish they sounded and waited for him to laugh at her or dismiss her. But instead he cupped her cheek, his expression softened in understanding and support. It nearly buckled her knees. He made her feel like she could depend on him.
What a dangerous thought that was.
“Bad things happen, no matter what we do,” he said gently. “It has nothing to do with your behavior.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. I can make things right if I try harder. I can fix things for my parents, for you, for—for?—”
His brow wrinkled a little and he took her hand. “You don’t have to fix anything for me. You’re not responsible for that. And what do you have to fix for your parents? What have you ever done wrong when it came to them?”
She stared at him. She didn’t want to give him the answers, it felt so vulnerable to do so. But perhaps if she did, he’d leave her be. If he understood, he’d stop challenging her to be more than she was. He’d understand why she couldn’t be and then she could rebuild the shell around herself and focus on what was right. What was proper.
“I was born, that’s what I did wrong,” she said softly. “And I wasn’t what they wanted. I could never be what they wanted. What they needed. My father is a younger son of an earl, and the frivolous one at that. They spent all their money because they always believed they’d be able to raise themselves through their children.”
As she began her story, Roderick drew her to the settee. They took a place together and he cupped her hand in both of hers, his eyes focused on her face.
She chose to concentrate on her lap because she didn’t want to look at him when she spilled out the emotions she had tried for years to hold in moderation. She feared what it would look like when they were finally free.
“They had me within the first year of their marriage. As a girl I would likely cost them more than I brought them…” She glanced up at him. “That’s what they told me, many times.”
He flinched but didn’t interrupt.
“They continued to try, but never succeeded in having another viable child.” She shut her eyes. “They would fight about it, I could hear them at night. But they always pretended it wasn’t happening. Put on their smiles in the light of day. As I got older, I began to feel the pressure of their desperation.”
“Because they began to realize you were their only hope.”
She nodded. “Yes. They altered their plans. Instead of having many sons and daughters, gathering support from them and their good marriages, they would have to manipulate the best marriage they could through me. To do that, they spent even more that they didn’t have. Presented a front and educated me in everything I would need to land the husband they saw as appropriate.” She shivered. “But it was never enough.Iwas never enough. I could be more, though. I could be better if I just…try harder.”
“Clarissa,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “I could be. I could make them happy and then they’ll…they’ll…” She trailed off because what she wanted to say was a stab wound to her heart.
“What will they do?” he asked.
She drew in a few breaths, squeezed her hands into fists so they’d stop shaking. “They’d like me. They’d…they’d love me.”
He let the statement hang in the air for a long moment before he touched her face gently. “You are so worthy of love without earning it. You earn it by simply existing.”
She sucked in a breath. He made it sound so simple when it never had been for her. Love was transactional. It was a carrot, or a stick when it was withdrawn after a mistake. And he made it sound like something soft and gentle and unwavering. Sort of like what she saw when she saw Ramsbury and Marianne together. Or Esme and Delacourt.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I didn’t explain it right.”
A sad smile tilted his lips. “You did. You explained it perfectly. That doesn’t change that Ihatethat you were taught otherwise by peoplewho should have valued and treasured you. That they let their own failings fall upon you like that.”
She shrugged even though saying this meant so much more than that dismissive action implied. “But doesn’t it make me better? To strive for perfection is a lofty goal. And they encouraged it by presenting me with books on comportment like the one you read. The rules ground me. They let me know my place.”
He stared at her for a long moment and it was like he was seeing her for the first time. “When the world is chaotic and difficult to manage a way through, as it seems it was in your parents’ home, I would assume the rules gave you something to lean on. A way to understood what to do, how to respond.”
She shivered because what he was saying felt so…right. She never examined her childhood very closely. Her memories were foggy and unpleasant and they made her sad when she pondered them. But chaos was the way to describe her life at home. Her life up until this man had rode up to her doorstep and turned everything upside down. Or was it right side up? When he talked to her like this, offered her peace like this…she felt right side up for the first time in her life.
“But you must see how behaving properly could make someone see me as a good bet for marriage.”
“You never aspired to love?” he asked softly, and his hands tightened around hers. “You never thought to wish for someone who would love you for yourself?”
