Page 59 of A Whisper of Desire
She couldn’t look at him.
A finger lifted her chin so she had no choice but to let him see her embarrassment.
“The fault is mine. I have been a coward. I didn’t wish to face the feelings you so easily arouse in me.”
Relief surged along with the joy at his words—“easily arouse.” He did want her. She saw heat and need filling his eyes as they darkened to a deep emerald. She leaned forward to kiss him, but his hand landed on her shoulder, forcing her upright.
Another rejection.
“I have to tell you something important, and disturbing, about myself first. I want you to understand the man you married, but, more important, the man who longs to share your bed.”
He took her hand and led her to the chairs positioned by the banked fire. She looked at the trinkets positioned along the mantelpiece. A clock, two frames with miniatures of Penelope and Antonia, and the book he seemed to have been reading the last few nights. He saw her looking at the book, and at his frown she quickly took a seat. He moved to pick it up from the mantel. He waved it in the air.
“This is part of my cowardice, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.” He remained standing, but he was silent, looking out the window. He looked like a lost little boy; it took everything she had to not jump up and fold him into her arms.
The afternoon sunshine flooded the room. There were no shadows to hide in. They would both be totally exposed.
With his back to her, he spoke. “When I was sixteen…” He faltered. “Gosh, this is harder than I knew it would be.” He sighed and dropped the book into the smoldering fire grate.
“You don’t have to do this.” Marisa couldn’t bear to see him looking so sad.
He faced her then. “I’m doing this for you, for us. So yes, bear with me as I tell you a sorry, sordid tale.”
She merely nodded and hid her clenched fists in the folds of her dress.
“You know about the sickness that invaded my father…well, something happened when I was sixteen that made me think I was exactly like my father.”
Her face looked pale as he began to unburden his past. He had to force himself to keep looking at her. She deserved to see the real man she married.
“When I was fifteen my father was diagnosed with syphilis. I didn’t really understand what that meant or the impact it would have on my life.”
She remained passive, not moving except to blink back the sympathy shining within her eyes.
“The next twelve months I was ignorant of his increasingly debauched behavior because I was at school. When I came home at the end of term the atmosphere in my father’s house was one of terror. My father no longer went to town because the brothels he usually inhabited closed their doors to him. He was living permanently at the estate in Hampshire, hoping the local lasses did not understand or know of his condition.”
He watched her swallow. “He was having relations with women knowing he was ill.” Marisa’s horror could not be contained.
“You know the answer to that because of Priscilla. He had no real symptoms at this stage, so it was easy to hide.”
She looked away. He was pretty sure it would not be the last time she looked away before his story finished.
“Near the end of the term break, a ‘lady,’ and I use the term loosely, arrived. It was my father’s mistress. I didn’t know at the time, but she also had syphilis. I don’t know if she gave it to father, or he to her, I didn’t really care.”
“At least he wouldn’t be infecting other women if she was with him.”
“Ah, you don’t know the depth of depravity the two of them fell to.” He took a deep breath and willed himself to hold himself together. He didn’t want to fall to pieces in front of her. “One day I’d been out riding, visiting some of the tenants. They had asked to see me to express their concerns over my father and how the estate was being run. They wanted to know when he was returning to London.”
“I got back later than I expected. Dusk had fallen. As I rode into the stable yard I heard young Annie the underparlor maid screaming. It was coming from the stables. No groom came out to meet my horse. That was when I had a good idea who was in the stable and why Annie was screaming.”
Tears welled in Marisa’s eyes and her hands clenched on her lap. “I don’t want to hear if something dreadful happened to her.”
He crouched down and took her hands in his, unfurling her tiny fingers and lacing them with his.
“I managed to get there in time. It was the first time I realized I was big enough, and he was drunk enough, for me to battle with my father. I punched him and wrestled him to the ground long enough for little Annie to make her escape.”
“Thank goodness,” Marisa said, and squeezed his hand.
He pressed a kiss to her head and stood. He leaned against the mantelpiece, needing the support for what was to come. It was almost harder in the telling…
