“I would have thought you might be more concerned with how I looked at him.”
“Howyelooked athim?”
Arabella looked down at her hands in her lap and spread her fingers wide apart.
“Why doeshisdesire matter?” she asked.
Because Lord Morpeth is a man used to getting what he wants. And finally, there is a chance that I might get what I want. And I won’t let him ruin it. Even if I am not a lord, don’t I have a right to stake my own demesne? Am I not a man, too, with a man’s instinct to lay claim, to possess?
“We are back to our discussion from this morning. If you,” here Arabella gulped, “if you are truly interested in a romance with me, you should be concerned with my desire. And mine alone.”
“What is your desire, Miss Lovelock?”
She gritted her teeth and looked away. “It is not for him.”
“So why did ye tell me?” Alasdair spoke loudly. He could hear the anger in his voice, but he had no interest in modulating it. “Why did ye tell me that Lord Morpeth was the man who had enjoyed ye?”
Suddenly, she seemed deflated, withdrawing even as he could feel his own fury grow.
“I ... don’t know why. In the lodge, you asked why I was upset. I didn’t want to lie to you.”
“Why did ye tell me, but then tell me not to tell yer brothers-in-law, yer stepfather?”
“My mother told me never to tell them.” She looked at the table. “She was afraid they would want to challenge him to a duel.”
“But ye dinnae fear that from me? Ye felt ye could tell me. Safely.”
She met his eyes. “Yes. I did.”
“Why?”
“Because—”
“Because I am weaker, more craven than the duke, the earl, the viscount? That my sense of honor is not as developed as theirs since I am not a peer of the realm?”
“Because—”
“Because ye dinnae fear losing me in a duel the way yer mother did for the duke?”
“Because I trusted you! I trusted that you would not do something foolish and leave me alone and unprotected. I trusted you to be a man of reason. I thought you were the not-stupid man. And I did not want Giles to have something to lord over you—I could not have borne that, to have him know something about me that you did not.”
“Well, ye are two years too late for that.”
Even as he said it, he knew it was the worst possible thing he could have said and she would never forgive him.
Oh. Oh, no.
He had told her in the carriage that she had not been ruined. And that had been what she had been longing to hear.
But it was not true. He did not really feel that way. And here was the evidence. He had cast it up to her, her loss of her innocence.
He would only ever see her as something that had been used. He would never truly absolve her for having let Giles know her first.
She took a deep breath.
“I will remind you that you were late, too, Dr. Andrews.” Her voice trembled and she hated that. “I did something that was hurtful to my family, and I will always regret it. Perhaps, I should have been like you and done nothing. After all, that is what you and this world want from me. To do nothing. To sit by the fire with my embroidery and to wait.”
“I dinnae want that, Miss Lovelock.” His voice was still angry.
