Page 12 of A Rogue's Downfall
She wanted to point out that she was at least as much to blame for what had happened as he. But shesaid nothing.
“I did the honorable thing too late,” he said. “I married you in all haste as soon as you accepted me,and I brought you here where you would be safe fromthe gossip and the malice that would have followedupon the arrival of our son less than eight monthsafter the wedding. And then I returned to my life inLondon. To find that it was impossible to return to.You were a millstone.”
“You abandoned me,” she said, abandoning in her turn the pride that should have kept her mouth shut.“Can you imagine what it is like to be a woman nineteen years old, with child, newly married, and abandoned on her wedding day in a strange place amongstrange people?”
He was a long time answering. “Better that than being stuck with my company,” he said.
She did not ponder his reply. “It was suitable punishment,” she said. “I deserved punishment for what I had done. And I will not blame the drink. As soonas I saw you, as soon as you asked me to dance, Iwanted you. I was excited by your reputation and excited by the fact that you had taken notice of me. Iwas excited by your words and your touch. And byyour suggestion that we be alone together. I was excited by what you did to me. All of it. I found it allutterly wonderful. As if I had never been taught aboutpropriety or sin or the consequences of sin. I havedeserved all the consequences—the terror of knowingmyself with child, the humiliation of begging you tomarry me, the misery of being abandoned on my wedding day and again only two weeks after the birth ofour son. I have deserved it all.”
“Amy—” he said. He seemed to realize finally how tightly he was holding her hand. He loosened hisgrasp.
“But I will no longer pretend that it was ugly,” she said passionately. “I have been accustomed to call itso because it was sinful and ought never to have happened. But I lie to myself when I call it ugly. I willnot have it said ever again that my son was conceivedin ugliness. He was conceived in beauty. I don’t carewho you were or are or how carelessly you seducedme—though no seduction was necessary. I don’t care.It was beautiful, what happened. I was not so drunkthat I cannot remember. I can remember every moment. Even though it was sinful and even though Imust be punished for it every day for the rest of mylife, I will no longer deny it. It was the most wonderful experience of my life, and I am glad James came ofit. I am glad.”
She snatched her hand from his and overturned her chair in her haste to get to her feet.
“Amy—” he said.
“It is not very flattering to be told that one is a millstone about someone else’s neck,” she said. “ButI don’t care. If it is guilt that has brought you here,my lord, you can go back to London tomorrow witha clear conscience. I absolve you of any guilt in whathappened. I wanted it to happen. And I am not sorryit happened. So you can go back to your life and allyour other women, and forget about me.”
“Amy.” He tried to regain possession of her hand, but she snatched it away again.
“And no more games,” she said. “Perhaps they are amusing for you. They are not for me. Go play themwith some other woman. Go away. Leave me in peaceagain. I have lived without you for a year. I can livewithout you for the rest of a lifetime.”
She turned to rush from the room, but she jerked back again, before she could stop herself from sospoiling the effect of her anger, to snatch up her rose.She hurried away, waiting for him to say her nameagain. But there was silence behind her. She had toclimb the stairs and make her way to her room frommemory. Her eyes were blinded by tears.
The day was over. The day that might have been hers.
It was wrong to be feeling so elated, he thought as he walked through the formal gardens to look at thebank that sloped sharply downward beyond them.Sure enough, the brown earth was being nudged asideby numerous green shoots from the daffodil bulbs.There would be blooms before the end of the month.
And he would see them too this year. By God, he would. The blooming of the daffodils had always beenthe highlight of spring. He could remember taking abouquet of yellow trumpets to Cook one year. Shehad tapped Jenkins’s predecessor none too gently onthe wrist when he had called him a young jackanapes.She had ordered the man to leave the dear little ladalone. The aggrieved gardener had gone stamping offto cut away the abandoned stems.
Even now, long before the daffodils came into bloom, he felt that light soaring of the heart thatspring always seemed to bring—except last year. Paradoxically, he had found her bitterness and her angerreassuring. Her words had given him hope.
I wanted it to happen,she had said.And I am not sorry it happened.She had been speaking of the experience he would have thought she had found the worstand the ugliest in her life.
He was conceived in beauty. It was the most wonderful experience of my life.
He went down on his haunches the better to see one shoot that was just peeking above the surface ofthe earth. He had been. Their sonhadbeen conceivedin beauty. Strangely it had been beautiful. He had feltso much guilt over it since that he had ignored thememory of how it had been at the time. It had notbeen the quick, frenzied coupling that one might haveexpected of two people coming together under suchcircumstances. He had made love to her. He could notremember making love to any other woman, thoughhe had bedded more than he could possibly count. Hehad suppressed the memory of the tenderness withwhich he had given her joy. And guilt had forbiddenhim to remember the answering joy he had found inher body.
“I love you,” she had whispered to him over and over again when he was deep in her body. She hadbeen gazing up into his eyes, and he had believed thewords and not found them either amusing or alarming.
“I love you,” he had whispered back. Three words that he had never strung together and spoken aloudbefore—or since. Words that he had forgotten saying.
What had made her doubt between that moment and the next morning when she had refused his marriage offer? He straightened up and turned his stepsto the hothouses. Perhaps the same thing that hadmade him doubt—soberness and the memory of whoshe was, and who and what he was. In her inexperience, she had probably imagined that what he haddone to her body and the words he had whispered toher were what normally happened between a rake andhis doxy. And in his inexperience, perhaps he hadimagined that a young and innocent girl with a fewdrinks inside her could not possibly know what shedid or said—and could not possibly welcome the addresses of the man who had seduced and ruined her.
No more games,she had said.Go away. Leave me in peace.
Did she mean what she had said? And yet she had been distraught and crying. And then she had turnedback to grab the rose that was part of the game. Perhaps he had spent too long believing what she saidand what she seemed to say. People did not alwaysspeak the truth, he knew. People did notoftenspeakthe truth when they were trying to mask emotionsand protect pride. Had he ever spoken the full truth?Perhaps telling only a part of the truth was as bad astelling none of it.
“Jenkins,” he said, seeing that his head gardener was inside the hothouse where the roses grew, hispride and joy, the one part of the garden that no othergardener was allowed to trespass upon, “show me theloveliest red bud, will you?”
Jenkins looked glum. “Another one?” he said. “I’m only glad whoever thought of Valentine’s Day did nothave the bright idea of making it Valentine’s Week.That one I would say, m’lord. Or would you preferone that is partly opened?”
“No,” the earl said. “The tighter the bud the better. That one? Yes, I think I would have to agree.”Jenkins sighed. “That one it will be then. Makingup for lost time, are you, m’lord?”
The earl looked at him sidelong. “I will not dignify that impertinence with an answer,” he said. “I shallcome just before dinner to cut it.”
“She has them side by side in a vase by her bed,” Jenkins said. “So Jessie says. Cook thinks it must beworking, m’lord. Which is more than you deserve, shesays. And the rest of us agree with her.”
