She took a deep anxious breath. “I visited your mother. And I met your half-sister and brother. I like them, Robert, very much.”
“You had no right to do such a thing.” The harsh condemnation in his voice made her shiver. She clasped the sheet to her chest, defensively rocked by how cold and impersonal his blue eyes had become.
“I needed to know what had hurt you so much.”
“And did my mother oblige? I suppose you know the whole sorry tale.” He left the bed and stalked over to his dressing gown, pulling it on. “Will you leave things alone now?”
“She asked me to visit her again. I promised I would.” Kate lay in the cooling bed, suffering a sense of abandonment. But she still clung to the hope she could convince him of the rightness of it. That to deal with the past and put it behind them would be healing.
He paused from tying his robe and stared at her, his eyes dark with anger. Or was it hurt? “You promised?”
“Yes, but…”
“You went right ahead and did just what you wanted, with no thought of how your actions might hurt me.”
Wrapping herself in a sheet to cover her nakedness, she put a foot to the floor. She hurried toward him, almost tripping. “But Robert, I wanted to mend things, not hurt you further, don’t you see?”
“No, I don’t see at all,” he said, his voice icy. “I see only that you wished things to be as you choose. And disregarded my wishes entirely.”
“Do you realize that when your father died, he left your mother with very little money?” she flung at him. “She married to protect you from poverty.”
He paused at the door. “My father would never have left her in Dun territory.”
“He did, Robert.”
“I find that hard to believe. Why didn’t she apply to my uncle?” He ran his hand along the doorframe, considering it. Then he straightened to face her. “If it was so, my mother didn’t bother to make me aware of it.” He shook his head. “And it makes no difference now.”
She put a hand to her stomach. “What happens if we have a child?”
“All to the good. I need an heir.”
Did that mean he could then send her away? “Your mother will be a grandparent. Don’t you want her to be part of that? Your children’s lives blessed with loving relations? I’ve none to offer them.”
“That is surely for me to decide.”
Was this the same man who made love to her so tenderly? The hero and lover of her dreams? His expression was closed, and he turned away from her with a dismissive gesture, as if she meant nothing to him. As if…he wanted to be gone.
“I want so much from this marriage, Robert,” she said, her voice trembling. “That’s why I tried to make amends between you and your mother.”
“You should not have taken such a thing upon yourself.”
She clutched the sheet to her chest. “No, it seems not. You may be disappointed in me for trying to put an end to a family rift that has made you unhappy. But I am equally disappointed in you. You are unfair.”
He whirled around. “I beg your pardon?”
Kate gasped. “You…you cannot forgive others their mistakes, but you remain quite content with your own!”
She swallowed. “You are…spoiled and you are…” She groped for words as anger and distress threatened to close her throat. “Arrogant!”
Robert’s face blanched white. “I believe I’ll retire to my dressing room,” he said. “You are welcome to remain here if you wish.”
He threw open the door and left the room, closing it behind him.
With a sob, Kate pulled on her gown and gathered up the tattered remains of the expensive nightgown. She walked out into the shadowy corridor and tiptoed back to her bedchamber, sniffing back tears. On reaching it, she climbed into her bed and sobbed into the pillow. Perhaps it was unwise to speak to his mother, but the anguish of living as they had when she loved him, was something she couldn’t bear.
Robert had been right. She should have realized she couldn’t set all to rights. That she’d desperately wanted to be part of his family as well as having children of her own was no justification for what she did. How mistaken she’d been. Now her dreams had turned to ashes.
She wiped her eyes on the corner of the sheet and gulped. Robert making love to her, so passionate and yet so tender, and the pleasure he gave her, she would dream about for the rest of her life, for surely, he would never make love to her again.
