Page 53 of Pursuing Lord Pascal
After she sent him away, as she surely must, this was how he’d remember her.
Instead of drinking the brandy, she set her glass on the desk with an unsteady hand. Her accusing gaze leveled on him. “Tell me, Gervaise.”
Pascal found no encouragement in her use of his Christian name. He made a despairing gesture as guilt lashed at him. “It will all sound so hellishly bad.”
Her lips twisted. “Did you ever intend to admit you were after my money?”
He bit back a furious protest. Because of course, that was how it had all started, wasn’t it? “Yes.”
“When?” For the first time, outrage edged her voice. But he wasn’t fooled about what she felt. Any anger stemmed from her anguish at his betrayal. “After we were married, and the settlements were signed, and you had your hands on my fortune?”
He shook his head in bleak denial, although in truth he’d never decided when to reveal his financial embarrassment. He should have told her from the first. She’d have marched away with that damned purposeful strut he loved, but at least she wouldn’t condemn him as a liar.
Pascal swallowed to push down the remorse crammed in his throat. “Please, sit down.”
She didn’t move. “Do you think you can charm me into ignoring this?”
Again he shook his head. “No. But I’d at least like you to understand, before you consign me to the devil.”
He didn’t exaggerate. Life without her was going to be the closest thing to hell he’d experience this side of the grave. But now she was convinced he’d lied from the first, she’d never believe his feelings were sincere.
The curse of all liars.
“If you insist.” Without shifting her gaze from him, she sank down onto the couch.
Resisting the urge to have another brandy, he crossed to sit beside her. No amount of brandy was going to soothe this pain. She shot him a warning glance, but he didn’t need any reminder that his touch was no longer welcome.
A heavy silence crashed down. Pascal stared sightlessly at the carpet and fisted his hands on his thighs. There was a clock on the mantel, and its heavy ticking threatened to send him mad. The lilting music from the ballroom seemed to come from another world.
“Please put me out of my misery,” Amy said, in a low voice that would have broken his heart, if it wasn’t broken already. “Was it all a pretense? Every bit of it? Right from the very beginning?”
There was little he could say to defend himself, but he couldn’t bear to let her go, believing that his seduction had been cold and calculated. “No. No, it wasn’t like that. On my honor, I swear it wasn’t.”
He looked up and met her eyes. The bright hazel turned a dull, muddy brown. He loathed that he’d made this vivid creature so wretched.
“You speak of honor?”
His mouth curved down in corrosive self-hatred. “You have every right to despise me.”
“Gervaise, I can take it. Whatever the full story is.” She still spoke in that calm voice. He’d feel better if she shouted and wept. “Just tell me. And don’t lie.”
Sucking in a shuddering breath, he went back to studying the carpet. He couldn’t endure seeing her regard turn to contempt. In recent days he’d imagined—hoped—he looked into her eyes and saw love.
“The Compton-Browne chit is right.” His flat voice masked the acrid desolation eating at him. “I badly need money to repair thedamage to my estate. We had a hurricane through last winter. I believe the place will recover and become profitable again. It’s good land, and the tenants are hardworking.”
“But right now it’s a mess,” she said, and he recalled that she’d been a farmer most of her life. At least he didn’t need to describe the toll on life and property the storm had taken. “I understand.”
He tensed his fists against rising despair. He could sink into the mire of his sins once she’d left him. Now he needed to concentrate on giving her an explanation, however badly he emerged from the tale. “So I came to Town, seeking a rich wife. I’m thirty. It was time to set up my nursery anyway.”
“Very pragmatic.”
He ignored her acerbic response. “I’m not saying I wanted to marry. You know I’ve been a libertine.”
“I know,” she said, in a hollow tone that crushed his heart to the size of a walnut. He ached to offer her comfort, but what comfort could she accept from the man who’d hurt her so unforgivably?
He forced himself to continue, although every word of his confession made his skin crawl. “I started my hunt with the current crop of debutantes, but, Lord above, they’re a henwitted bunch. Silliest gaggle of chits to arrive on the marriage mart in ten years. The night I met you, I was trying to choose between offering for Cissie Veivers, or going home and cutting my throat. When I saw you across that ballroom, you were the answer to a prayer.”
“Plump in the pocket, and too naïve to question your sudden unlikely interest?”
