Ellie shot to her feet, but she had to grope for the arm of the settee to steady herself. “Stop it!”
But he couldn’t stop. The words began to pour from him now, blood from a deep, open wound. “The kind of man who’d ruin a woman broken by grief—a widow. The kind of man who’d abandon her without a second glance when he found she carried his child. The kind of man who’d leave that child without ever seeing her, without ever offering a penny of support for her, and without ever acknowledging her.”
She was gasping for breath now. “No. You’re lying. I know you’re lying.”
She tried to break away, but he grasped her shoulders and turned her back to face him. A sense of unreality swept over him as he looked into her dark eyes.
Hart Sutherland’s eyes.
“No Ellie, you know just the opposite. You know it’s true. You have only to look at Amelia’s eyes to see it. She looks very much like my mother, yes—the fair hair, the pale skin. But my mother had green eyes, and Amelia’s are dark, almost black. Have you ever noticed that, Ellie? Her eyes look like yours, don’t they? You must have your father’s eyes too, just as Amelia does.”
“He wasn’t a good man.” She was pleading now. “I know that. I don’t pretend he was, but that—what you accuse him of, it’s—”
“Unforgiveable. Worse than unforgiveable. It’s the kind of sin that demands restitution. Don’t you agree, Ellie? An eye for an eye.”
She’d begun to claw at his hands to get free, but as soon as she absorbed those words, she went still. “All this time, you said it had nothing to do with me. That I didn’t matter. All that mattered was I was a Sutherland.”
But she did matter. She was all that mattered.
A tide of bitter regret threatened to drown Cam, and he had to fight the urge let his head fall into his hands. Why had he been so vicious? He’d meant to be kind, to tell her gently . . . yet the truth itself was vicious. How could he deliver such a violent blow with a gentle fist?
Blow. Fist. Christ, what had he done?
She sagged against him and he lowered her gently to the sofa, cursing himself.
“It started that way, but it’s not true anymore. Please listen to me. I don’t want to punish you, Ellie. Perhaps I did at one time, but not anymore.”
Ionly want you.
She stared at him, dazed, her eyes vacant and glassy, and the silence stretched between them until he could bear it no longer. “I swore to myself when Amelia was born I’d do everything in my power to right the wrong done to her. The support of the Sutherland family won’t smooth her way entirely, but it’s the best hope she has for the future she deserves.”
She didn’t reply to that. She simply stared at her lap, as if she hadn’t heard him, or couldn’t make sense of his words.
“It was either you or Charlotte,” he said, forcing the rest out, determined to finish this, whatever it took. “I chose you, because of the two of you I thought you were more likely to recognize your obligation to Amelia.”
Her head came up at this. “My obligation? I’m obliged to marry you because of my father’s sin? My God, Cam—if he could do such a thing to your mother, to Amelia, then he had fewer moral compunctions than even I suspected. What if everyone he wronged demands restitution of me? Are you willing to loan out yourwifeto them all, so I can right my father’s wrongs? It’s only fair, after all. An eye for an eye, isn’t that right?”
An eye for an eye. How ugly it sounded. How brutally unfair it seemed, when she said it. Yet it was justice, wasn’t it? Parity?
He grasped her cold hands in his. “I meant your obligation to Amelia. She’s your sister, as much as Charlotte is—your family, as well as mine. Will you turn your back on her, now you know the truth?”
But he hardly knew what the truth was anymore, because this wasn’t about Charlotte or Amelia or the Sutherlands now. It wasn’t about threats, or truces, or secrets, or justice.
It was about Eleanor. Him, and Eleanor.
He ached to press her hand to his face and whisper promises in her ear, to soothe away the hurt he’d caused. Promises he’d keep. That he’d take care of her. That he’d be good to her. That she’d never regret becoming his wife.
That he loved her.
But it was no use. She wouldn’t listen to him. Making love to her had stunned him, devastated him, but she saw it as just another ploy to manipulate her. She’d think the same of his declaration of love, and why shouldn’t she? His mouth still burned from his threats. It was a mockery to speak of love with such bitter lips.
It started as a tragedy, so why shouldn’tit end as one?
“We would have supported her, you know,” she whispered, her voice filled with such sorrow he had to close his eyes against it. “The Sutherlands, I mean. We’d have done it without the threats, without coercion. Happily. We’d have welcomed her with open arms. Charlotte, Alec, Robyn—all of us, even my mother, who . . .” She caught her breath on a sob. “Who had every reason to hope she’d never again be asked to forgive another of my father’s cruelties toward her.”
Her words hit him like a blow across the face. No one who’d known Hart Sutherland had escaped without scars. No one, no matter their rank, or their legitimacy.
“We could still. It’s—it’s not too late.” She stumbled over the words. “If you would but trust my family, there’s no need for us to marry.”
