“So, if Priscilla had come looking for you, she would have found a married man? Or at least learn that you were married.”
He faced her. “Ifshe’d come looking for me.She would have understood. Priscilla knew I had no choice.”
The problems of theton.And it always circled around money. Clarissa imagined herself in her mother’s situation. “She couldn’t knock on the door with your new wife there.”
“I wish she had. Arabella wouldn’t have minded. She didn’t like me. She was even more angry after she was with child.”
“You have a child?”
He shook his head. “Arabella died in childbirth. And my second wife was barren. She died last year of a flux. I have not been blessed to be a father.” He laughed, the sound bitter. “I married to protect an estate for which I have no heirs. Not one. Not even a distant cousin. When I die it returns to the Crown.”
“Or you marry again and have a child,” Clarissa said reasonably. She could tell him the truth, that his daughter stood before him.
She wasn’t certain he deserved to know. Or her feelings about the matter.
“I don’t know if that would help.” He looked away. “Sometimes, I feel as if God punishes me. I haven’t been a good man. Perhaps if Priscilla had stayed beside me—”
“Stayed beside you? The way you stayed beside her?”
If she had slapped him across the face, he could not have looked more stricken. Well, he deserved her harsh words.
She had no idea where Priscilla went after she left her brother’s house or where she had her baby. However, Clarissa could imagine hermother receiving one of those messages from the man she loved asking her to return to him. She could see Priscilla making the hard trip to reconnect with this man she loved, only to learn he had married. “You were intimate with her, weren’t you?”
He frowned. His hands balled into fists. Had her instinct been wrong—?
Then he whispered, “Yes. Before the fire. We were going to marry... we were young.”
“That is an excuse?”
“You sound exactly like her.” His expression softened. “I’ve thought about that night repeatedly over the years. We loved.”
We loved. Magic words. She knew.
“My life would have been different if I had married Priscilla. I would have been an honorable man. I just didn’t understand at the time what she meant to me. And seeing you,” he said, turning to her, “the very image of her, has brought all that I lost to the forefront. I was such a fool, my lady. And I thank you for your kindness in listening to me.”
“I appreciate your honesty, my lord.”
“Tell me,” he said. “What is your given name?”
She tilted her head, uncertain, and then decided what harm could it do? He could easily learn her name another way. “Clarissa.”
He laughed as if delighted. “I knew that. Priscilla would tell me that if she had a daughter she would name her after her favorite book. She readClarissarepeatedly and wept every time. She always had her nose in a book.I never worried about where she was because I knew I could find her reading.” He shook his head as if he was being silly. “Of course, you already knew that.”
No, Clarissa hadn’t, and this detail about her mother’s love for literature that mirrored her own touched her deeply. She thought of the way her mother had died, alone and betrayed by love just like in the novelClarissa.
“Ah, now see, I have made you sad.” He reached up and touched the tear that escaped Clarissa’s eye, and she knew she had to tell him her story, the one that included him—
“Do not touch my wife,” was the only warning they had before Mars jerked Lord Dervil around and smashed a fist in his face, the force of it sending the man back against the balustrade.
Horrified, Clarissa reached for her husband’s arm, lest he do it again. What was the matter with him? It was as if hewantedto fight. As if he desired it above all other actions. To Lord Dervil, she said, “I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t know what has taken hold of my husband—”
“You will meet me for this,” Mars demanded of Lord Dervil, ignoring Clarissa. “I will have satisfaction. You will meet me, sir. You will meet me on the morrow.”
Lord Dervil was a bit unsteady. He touched his face and saw that he had a cut on his cheekbone that was bleeding. Slightly dazed, he looked up at Mars and didn’t answer.
Clarissa had plenty to say. “What do you think you are doing?”
“Protecting you,” Mars barked, his angry gaze on Lord Dervil while he opened and closed his fists as if he would happily hit his enemy again.
