Brandon ran a curled finger against her lower lip and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Kate, the bedrooms of London are filled with people who are not married to each other. No one can hold what we felt against us.”
Or could have stopped them.
“However,” she bravely went on, ready to confess all, “with Hemling, I lost sight of who I was. I stayed because I was afraid of what he might do when I tried to go—that this was what I deserved for my own foolishness. And I was angry, Brandon. I believed you had betrayed me, that I was abandoned. I was too proud to go home. I’d come to London to act and now, I was a prisoner, even with my own coach. Everyone thought I was fortunate to be kept by a marquis, but it was hell. I was an outsider. No matter how well I behaved, he saw me as almost less than human and not deserving of any dignity... and society felt the same way. The turning point came when I decided to take dignity for myself, when I left Hemling.” She shook her head. “He paid the theater managers to keep me off the stage. People thought I was rash to leave such a rich benefactor. They didn’t know how he really treated me. Nor did they care.”
“What did you do?”
“I went home.” Suddenly, his body heat was too warm for her. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, wishing she could blot out those days. “I had been so involved in myself, I had no idea what was happening at home. My parents were dying. It was the fever. Mother nursed Father and then she started to feel poorly. My sisters were doing all they could... it was a terrible time. They died within days of each other. In the middle of it, on her deathbed, Mother confronted me about Hemling. She’d heard the rumors.” Again, her throat threatened to close. She’d never told anyone of this. She forced herself to speak. “She said I shamed the family. Those were her last words to me.”
Hot tears flooded her eyes. She tried to will them back. She’d already cried more than she had in all her years combined.
Brandon came up over her. “Kate, stop this.” His voice was stern. “Your mother was ill. Your family in desperation. You can’t hold on to the words she said during that time.”
“She knew what she was saying—”
“Yes, but did you tell her Hemling had forced you?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Kate, you must listen to me,you were not at fault for what happened. Do you understand?”
“I should have left immediately. You even thought that—”
“Because I was jealous and jumped to a conclusion that wasn’t true. I was wrong, Kate. I was holding you to a different standard than I would have held myself. Hemling was evil. You were not at fault.”
Kate stared at him in disbelief. “I could have left. I did leave—”
“The man held you emotionally, if not physically, hostage. It was not your fault,” he repeated the last as if wanting to imprint the idea in her brain.
She started to protest again, and once more, he denied her. “You coped the best you could. You survived. You found yourself again. Can you forgive yourself, Kate? Hemling was wrong. He should have been lashed and quartered for what he did to you. And I am to blame as well. I left. I should have had more faith in you.”
Something that had been tightly wound inside her began to loosen. “I was not at fault.”
“No. You were trying to do the best you could. The world is a confusing place and sometimes, we don’t know the right answers immediately. Look what I did when I thought you chose another. I left the country. I upended my life.”
“No, Hemling upended your life, just as he did mine.”
“But now, we have a chance to reclaim what we once thought lost. You are on your way to London... and I’m holding you again.” He pressed a kiss on her shoulder.
“I hate the thought that she died believing what she did about me.”
“She knows the truth now. She probably knew it the moment she passed.”
At the doubtful look Kate gave him, he said, “Come now, have you not ever felt your mother’s presence in your life after her death?”
“She is gone, Brandon.”
“Don’t close your mind, Kate. Do you truly not ever feel her spirit?”
Kate looked at him with new eyes. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “When I am about to step out on stage, I’ll be nervous and I’ll say a quick prayer... and then I pretend I can sense her. Actually, what I’m really doing is being superstitious.”
“Because?”
“Because ghosts aren’t real.”
“I’m not claiming she is a ghost. That is superstitious. But don’t you feel her influence?”
That was true. Kate rolled onto her side to face him. “Are you going to tell me a story that explains this?”
