Page 71 of The Trouble with True Love

She stopped, but he knew what she’d been about to say. “Until your mother died.”

“Well, yes, and then Papa rather went to seed. But love’s hardly to blame for the fact that he chooses to drink.”

“It’s unfair for me to blame love, I suppose, but there it is. My father chooses to remain bitter and wounded and unforgiving. He won’t let go of a woman whose love for him vanished over twenty-five years ago. My mother, on the other hand, being both more affectionate and more shallow than my father, loves love so much she does it every year, rather like debutantes do the season. Every time, she’s sure this time the love is true and everlasting, only to find herself crushed and disappointed when it all falls apart. My parents, your father...” He shrugged and took a swallow of champagne. “What good did love ever do any of them?”

“I’ve known from the start you were a cynical man,” she said. “I suppose I just didn’t realize how cynical. But Rex, some people who marry are happy.”

“Yes, so the matchmaking members of my family remind me daily. Even my father, who to this day refuses to quit the hell he made for himself, wants me to marry. But what’s the point of it? Why should I?”

“What about children?”

“I have an heir, and though he may be a distant cousin, at least the estates won’t revert to the Crown when I die.” He shrugged. “Marriage is a difficult business. To my mind, frankly, there’s not enough reward in it for the risk.”

“Perhaps if you ever truly fell in love you’d change your mind.”

“I doubt it.” That reply was so uncompromising, Clara’s face so solemn, watching him, he felt he had to lighten the moment. “I think if I ever had an inclination to love, I’d just want it over as quickly as possible. Love is painful, they say,” he added, forcing a laugh. “Why prolong the agony?”

She didn’t smile in return. Instead, she gazed back at him, her eyes dark and steady, and in their depths, he saw—God help him—a hint of pity.

He sobered at once, looking away, reaching for the bottle to refill their glasses. “And how does one know it’s true love anyway? That’s the trouble with it. Infatuation and desire blind you, so there’s no way to know if you’ve got something that will last through a lifetime. When you fell in love with your vicar, you were sure you wanted to marry him, but you must agree that if you had done so, he could never have made you happy.”

She considered. “I don’t think I thought about it from that standpoint. It all seemed very simple and straightforward to me. I loved him. If he loved me, then of course we would marry. What else is there?”

His hand tightened around the glass in his hand as he slanted a glance at her, the devil inside him appreciating all the delicious possibilities. “What, indeed?” he countered, holding her filled glass up for her.

She took it, making a face at him. “Free love, I suppose,” she said, and took a swallow of champagne. “Hardly the culmination devoutly to be wished.”

“Depends on one’s point of view,” he countered, setting the bottle aside and settling back with his glass. “I could say the same about marriage.”

That bit of wit did earn him a smile, rather a rueful one. “God help any woman who falls in love with you,” she said, shaking her head. “As to my vicar, I was only seventeen when I fell in love with him, so I’m sure infatuation was a large part of what I felt. But that wasn’t all of it. I cared very deeply for him, and though I couldn’t give him the sort of marriage he wanted, I still believe he cared for me.”

Rex considered that, and gave a nod. “Yes, I think he did. Otherwise, he would not have been so honest with you. It’s lucky he was. Had he not told you just what sort of marriage he was hoping for, you’d have wed him in ignorance, only to be shocked and disappointed when the truth was revealed. And you’d also have been stuck for life with a man who could never have made you happy.”

“Thank you, but...” She paused, giving him a rather tipsy smile over her glass as she swirled her champagne. “Had we ever married, I’d like to think I would have eventually persuaded him to abandon his notions of a celestial marriage.”

A picture formed in his mind at once, of Clara standing in a bedroom somewhere in corset and drawers with that smile on her face, and his throat went dry, leaving him in need of several swallows of champagne before he could reply.

“In the case of most men,” he said at last, “no persuasion would be needed, Clara, I assure you. But for your vicar, it’s my guess all the persuasion in the world wouldn’t have availed. I saw enough of that sort of thing at Eton to know.”

Her smile vanished, and she gave him a puzzled frown. “What sort of thing?”

“There are some men who just don’t desire women. Any women. Ever. Poor devils,” he added, shaking his head. “It’s illegal for men to desire other men, you see.”

She stared at him, aghast and shocked, heaven bless her sweet, innocent mind. “That’s what you meant about being arrested?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens.” She shook her head, still trying to assimilate this theory of the events surrounding her marriage proposal. “It wasn’t me, then,” she said after a moment, and began to laugh. “It wasn’t me at all. It had nothing to do with me.”

He took a deep breath, unable to look away from her laughing face even as he tried to shove images of her in a corset out of his mind, appreciating more than ever his newfound pleasure in self-torture. “Really, Clara, I don’t know why that’s such a revelation now,” he muttered. “I told you weeks ago it wasn’t you. I even demonstrated the fact, quite strongly, as I recall.”

She stopped laughing, her smile faded away, and suddenly, in her face, he saw all the same desire he felt. Or at least, he saw what he wanted to see. “And really,” he added, taking refuge in teasing, “I don’t know why you needed a demonstration anyway. Why can’t you just trust me when I tell you things?”

“Maybe because...” She paused and licked her lips as if they were dry, drawing his gaze like a moth to a flame. “Maybe because you’re a rake and not to be trusted?”

“I’m not though,” he blurted out. “Not a rake, I mean. Not anymore.”

She laughed, clearly skeptical of that contention. And who could blame her?

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