I worked the bridle straps free on my horse. “That might be best,” I said.
I had no intention of waking her, but she called to me as I was walking past the door to her bedchamber.
One of the servants was sitting outside. I had charged them not to allow her out for any reason, which now felt as if it were a misstep that might have a number of consequences. Would the servants spread stories about this? What would they say? How much damage would be done?
I dismissed the servant at the door, and whilst I was doing that, she opened the door and was standing there in her shift with a quilt wrapped around her shoulders. Her hair was down. She looked beautiful, the waves of it cascading around her shoulders, down her back, framing her features, her large eyes, her perfectly shaped lips.
I looked at her and I felt that same stirring I always did when I saw her.
“What did you do?” she said. “I did not ask when you spoke of it, for I did not even register, but… you said you would take care of him? Did you kill him?”
“I was going to,” I said. “But it turns out that he did not do anything except lie.”
She regarded me. “You sound certain.”
“I am,” I said. “I am sorry for doubting you. I know you did not…” I sighed, a loud sound that seemed to echo off theceiling and the walls and the door. “There is no way to make it right between us, however, none that I can think of at this hour. Accept my apologies, if you please. I do not delude myself that begging for forgiveness would result in such a thing, however, so I shall not endeavor to seek it from you.”
She licked her lips. “But how could you be certain?”
Well, I did not think she would like it if I told her the way I had ascertained it. “I simply pretended you had… a birthmark. On your… person. And he readily agreed he’d seen it.”
“That was smart,” she said, nodding. “That was quite enterprising, indeed.” She straightened. “So, then, you did not kill him?”
“Are you relieved?” I muttered. “Did you wish to beg for his life? He is handsome and charming, I suppose, such a perfect gentleman—”
“I said that before,” she said. “Before I knew about what he had done.”
“And the way you can never meet my eye when you speak about Richard?”
“Oh,” she said, dejected. “You know I am innocent, but still, you cannot trust me?”
“Answer the question I put to you before,” I said. “Why did you marry me?”
“Oh, heavens, Fitzwilliam.” She wrung out her hands.
“Was it to save your family’s reputation? To ensure the safety of your sisters and mother after your father’s death? To—”
“Stop,” she said. “Why did you marry me?”
“I asked you first.”
“You know why I did,” she said.
“I do not, or I wouldn’t have asked.”
“I wanted you,” she said. “I wanted to be wanted the way you wanted me. You would look at me, and I would feel it all over me, the heat of your gaze.”
My lips parted.
She lifted a shoulder, looking helpless.
“Truly?”
“But you don’t make sense, you know, and I can hardly speak to you, and you make me frantic and angry and thethingsthat come out of your mouth, and the way you are so set in your stupid ways, and how much you worry about what everyone thinks of you, it’s all ridiculous. Maybe someone like the colonel, maybe it would make sense for me to have fallen for him, not you, never you.”
I took a step backward.
“Oh, what am I saying?” She put a hand to her forehead. “It is late. I have been awake too long. I have been crying too many tears. I am not myself. I would not have said such things if I had more rest.”
