Page 78 of A Scandalous Bargain
“She raged about a multitude of things. Regan’s neediness, because she asked her mother to read her a story once in a while.” Thomas heard the unladylike sound clogging Beatrix’s throat and felt her tense.
“What a horrid woman,” she muttered. “Sorry, continue.”
Thomas brushed a kiss atop her forehead. “Thank you for leaping to my daughter’s defense. That means more to me than you could ever know.” Regan, as she would soon learn, was the crux of everything—at least to Thomas. “She also raged about needing more money to pay her gambling debts, wanting a phaeton, which I refused to buy for her, and generally bemoaning her lot in life as a bloody viscountess. More specifically, asmyviscountess.”
Beatrix looked up at him. “Do you think she would have been happier with someone else? Some people just can’t find satisfaction in any situation.”
“Thea was one of those people. I don’t know that she could have ever been happy. I honestly don’t know if she could even understand or recognize what that felt like.” He swallowed, gathering his courage to share what he’d only ever told her and had regretted doing so. “My father was the same way. My mother was wonderful—kind, thoughtful, loving. He never appreciated her. Or me.”
“What happened to your mother?”
“She died shortly after giving birth to my younger brother. He died within a few hours, and she perished a few days later. My father insisted she get out of bed and not wallow in grief. He was punishing her for my brother’s death. He looked for any reason to torment her. And, to a lesser extent, me.”
“Oh my God, Tom. How old were you?”
“Ten. Mama was weak. She’d had another stillborn child and a third one only lived to be about six months old. I learned later that she’d nearly died when I was born and that the physician said she might not survive having another child.” The old familiar rage gathered inside him. “That never mattered to my father. His cruelty and inability to care for anyone but himself knew no bounds.”
“I’m so sorry.” She sat up straighter, and he dropped his arm behind her. “How did you become such a good man? Such a wonderful father? After everything you’ve been through…”
“I could ask the same of you. You’ve endured a great deal—losing your mother, the harassment of the girls at school, your father’s abandonment. Twice.” Pain flickered in her eyes, and he regretted bringing all that up. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. Forgive me.”
“Why? It’s all true. We’re a pair.” She kissed his cheek. “Perhaps that’s why we found each other.”
Thomas loved that idea.
He forced himself to go back to the recounting of what had happened before Thea died. He hadn’t gotten to the worst part yet. “Somehow, I managed to marry someone as awful as my father—or nearly as awful.” He shook his head. “No, she was every bit as bad, just in different ways. She was especially angry that night. She brought up divorce again, but I explained that would never happen, and even trying would only reflect poorly on her, just as her infidelity did. But she didn’t care. She never thought about consequences.” A sad smile crossed his lips. “I suppose I should be grateful, because if she had, I wouldn’t have Regan.”
Beatrix’s brow creased. “What do you mean?”
Thomas took a deep breath, his fingers lightly touching the small of Beatrix’s back, a comfort for his beleaguered soul. “She told me that night that I am not Regan’s father, that I couldn’t be. She didn’t want to have children yet and took special care to use a sponge to prevent a child, not that we shared a bed terribly often, even in the early months of our marriage.”
At the moment he’d said he wasn’t Regan’s father, Beatrix’s hand had shot to her mouth. Her eyes rounded, and as he’d continued, tears had formed. “Oh, Thomas.” Her voice broke as she threw her arms around his neck. “But of course you’re her father.”
Thomas folded her in his embrace and held her tightly. “Of course I am, and I always will be. She doesn’t ever need to know the truth.”
Beatrix pulled back and cupped his face, her eyes searching his. “Still, you must have been devastated when Thea told you this.”
“Primarily because she did it to inflict maximum pain. She had this…pride in telling me that Regan wasn’t mine.” It was hard not to feel destroyed by her malice all over again. “And I don’t know who her father is. I didn’t ask, and I don’t care.” He had wondered if Thea even knew. She certainly hadn’t taken care to use her precious sponge with whomever it had been, which told him the act had been spontaneous and rash.
Here is where the telling became difficult, where he felt a burning shame. “I was more than upset. I was seething. That she’d brought our daughter—mydaughter—into her selfish, malignant behavior enraged me.” His pulse was racing. As Beatrix dropped her hands to his shoulders, he wondered if she could feel it pounding beneath his skin.
“I have worked very hard not to be violent like my father. He pushed and hit my mother often, causing bruises and cuts, and even broken bones. He did the same to me until I became bigger than him. My injuries were not so serious, but that’s because I tried to evade him and usually succeeded. My mother didn’t do that. She took everything he did to her. I think it was to protect me.”
Silent tears tracked down Beatrix’s face. Thomas forced himself to continue. “I’m afraid I lost my control,” he said quietly, as self-loathing stole through him. “When she told me about Regan, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I just reacted. I grabbed her. She taunted me.” He recalled her sneer, the shrill vitriol of her voice. “She asked if I was going to hit her like my father hit my mother.
“I regret telling her about that. She’s the only person to whom I revealed the truth—until you. And I wasn’t going to tell you. Because I was afraid.”
Beatrix took his hand and held him tight. “I would never use that against you.Never.You are not your father.”
“How can you know that? You don’t know what happened next.”
“I know you didn’t hurt her. I think you let her go and went out to the balcony to escape, to regain your sanity.”
That’s precisely what he’d done. Shedidknow. “But I thought about it,” he whispered. “I wanted to do it.”
“You didn’t, though. That’s what matters.” She wiped her face with her free hand. “Not telling Bow Street about this doesn’t mean you lied. You didn’t lie to me either.”
“I omitted.”
