Page 114 of Better Love Next Time
“I worried you would challenge him, which would give weight to his words.”
“You mean lies.”
“Yes. I thought they were. I mean they are?—”
“They are lies!” he boomed. She kept perfectly still. He scoured a hand from his brow to his chin and returned to speaking quietly. “You denied my choice on how to proceed in the matter. You made me a fool.”
“You are not a fool.”
“You emasculated me.”
“How? Because I did not give you the chance to hit a man or put a bullet in his head?” She groaned in irritation as her nose refused to stop running. She rubbed the handkerchief to her nose and shoved the thing to the mattress.
He judged her silently. Nothing she could say would ease his pride, and the more she spoke, by the anger glinting in his narrowed eyes, the weaker her case and the more furious he became.
“You wanted something to lord over me,” he said. “You reviewed my receipts, you think I lost a small fortune, you saw where I had been in London, and you said nothing. Lovett must have specifically mentioned Vauxhall and the park. You think I”—he dipped his square chin—“you believed me to be an indiscreet whoremonger. And not only did you want the men to see me as such, you withheld your knowledge for later use, didn’t you?”
“What?” She struggled to make sense of his words, and finally his meaning sank in, completely wrong. “No, I did not. If you must know the truth?—”
“I’ve been waiting for it, so please do enlighten me.”
“I did not believe Lovett’s lies and wished to spare you the humiliation of what your past had others accusing you of. And when I reckoned your losses, when I smelled her perfume on your person, I thought, whether you regretted your actions or not, it was your burden to bear alone.”
“Ah. You did think I was an indiscreet whoremonger. You still think I lost at the tables.”
“Where is the money then?”
His grin was chilling, hard angles carving one side of his cheek. “And how was I to bear my burdens? Perhaps the rite of confession? Purchase an indulgence to absolve me of my sin? Where is Father Dunlevy when you need him? Come, wife. I’m all anticipation for the lecture you are dying to give me. Where is the brandy? I suppose I’ll have to do without. Ah, what about some cold tea? This will do.”
He plucked the tea cup from her nightstand and dwarfed a floral-cushioned chair by the window.
That he would resort to reminding her of her faith and what it had done to them filled her with cold anger. But she would not shout. She shook with the effort to hold it in.
“Out with it.” He sipped the tea and dropped carelessly to the seat back. “Shall I help you along? I am a worthless spawn of?—”
“I hate your father! I wish he were dead!” She threw the bedcovers aside and struck out her fists. “I wish—I wish I could kill him myself!”
Her knuckles blanched white. Her breath scoured her throat. For years she had thought those sinful words, wished to scream them at the top of her lungs. Finally she had, and it was horrible and a relief all at once.
Julian looked about the room as calm as she was raging. “I don’t see my father here.”
“He is everywhere!” She shook so hard she might explode into bits. “Look around us! He is here. Inside you. Inside me. You are a man, Julian, a good man who has fought his cruelty with great courage. You are not a child to be abused and lectured. And I am not your father. Rebel against him. Fight me at will, but I refuse to abuse and lecture you. Ever!”
He studied her in the wake of her outburst. Beyond her bedroom door, footsteps hurried down the corridor. Rising from the chair, he set the cup to its saucer with a grating sound.
“Well done, Madame. Do you believe your pretty speech?”
“I do.”
“Hmmm. I wonder, is it worse to be despised or pitied? At least my father has never pitied me.”
Retrieving his cloak and boots, he left the room and slammed the door behind him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Charles Childers,a master shipwright before Julian had been born, owner of four yards, was a short, lanky man with large forearms, a bald pate he bewigged only in winter, and a mind that never forgot a slight.
Once, George Honeycutt, Julian’s old master, had disagreed with Childers on the best way to scarf a keel. Honeycutt had been proven right, and when Honeycutt had died from a heart seizure shortly after Julian had received Kitty’s goodbye letter, Childers had purchased Honeycutt’s yard and thrown his wife and daughter out on their arses.
