“Not appropriate, then.”
“Not in the least.”
“I am very sorry she died and left you with so much grief and guilt. I should have guessed there was a good reason you never came here and ignored this place.”
She did not understand. Neither did he, not all of it. He never spoke of this, never thought about it if he could help it, but right now—He did not want her making new assumptions to replace her old ones. Yet to explain might destroy the joy he had known the last few days.
“Did you love her?” The question came on a small whisper of a voice.
“I was enthralled, even enslaved, but it was not a mature love. It was mostly carnal.”
“Sexual.”
He had to smile at her directness. “Yes. She was wild.” How to explain to a respectable woman? “There were no rules. None. And I had lived with so many, for so long, that the freedom to be wild as well intoxicated me. Like a drunk, I lost sight of myself, my duties, my past and my future. I slipped out of my harness and broke through the paddock and galloped hard.”
She smiled, which gave him heart. “No wonder you never lost control again if the time you did ended so badly.” She looked out on the land surrounding them. “Why did you bring her here? So no one would know?”
Now they were down to it. Stupid of the king or himself to think this smart woman could ever be bought off with half a loaf. He could lie. Omit most of it. But she’d know eventually. Perhaps she already had figured it out.
“The affair was a secret, that is true. But we came here because I intended to marry her.”
* * *
Davina had not expected to hear that. She was wrong when she thought she could take these revelations in stride. It had been a mistake, perhaps, to demand them.
He did not call it love, but he wanted to marry her. Not an arranged, appropriate marriage. Not one of convenience and obligation, such as he made with her. He had not taken this Jeannette’s innocence and marched to the altar due to the gentleman’s code of honor.
“Ah yes,” she said. “The one thing Scotland is good for. No banns, no waiting, nothing much.”
His hand moved just enough to touch hers, then hold it. “My father learned of the affair. I had told no one, but she had been indiscreet. He commanded me to break with her. I pretended to, but I didn’t. I kept her in London for almost a year. I think he suspected that she—She was very changeable in her moods. Very extreme. When happy, she was delirious. When sad, melancholic and despondent. When angry, enraged.”
She wondered how extreme she was when sexual.No rules, he had said. Small wonder a young man found her enthralling.
“I should have seen those moods and wondered about those extremes. Instead, I just made sure that when she was with me, she was happy.”
“You should have told me that you married her. That one thing I had a right to know.”
“You have a right to know all of it.”
Perhaps, but she rather wished she didn’t know anything. Of course there had been women—many women, most likely—but this one sounded very special. Special enough to marry, even though she was inappropriate in every way, even though his father forbade it. It had been years ago and she should not care, but she did.
“If I am not quick to share the story, it is because the whole of it reflects badly on me. One thing you definitely must know, however. We did not marry. It did not get that far. The fire interfered.”
She looked at him, surprised by this turn in his story. In his eyes, as he stared down at that stone, she saw anger and grief and regret all mixed together.
“How tragic to have lost her just then,” she said.
His hand holding hers gripped tighter. His jaw tightened like a vise. “Ah, Davina, you are too good. It is not what you think. She started that fire. That she tried to kill me might be excused as an act of passionate fury, but many others came dreadfully close to perishing as well. All because I refused to see what I had in her.”
* * *
A weight lifted as soon as he said it. Spoke of it. Even with Roberts, who had been there and almost died too, he had never once done that. As so often happened with Davina, he found peace in her presence.
She did not ask any questions. She did not tell him that he was not to blame. Thank God for that. He couldn’t have born the cheap sympathy of that reassurance.
He no longer wanted to stand in front of this grave. He led Davina out of the yard, down the hill and through the portal. They found the path Roberts’s boots had made and followed it.
“You have not asked why she did it. How it happened,” he said.
