Epilogue
Life is cruel.
A piercing pain struck Caroline’s jaw as the sharp edge of Albert’s signet ring cut her skin. Her head snapped back and her gaze left the blue of her husband’s eyes. He was a villain, this man she loved.
Her hand lifted to protect her face from another blow while she grasped the back of a chair to stop herself from falling. “Please. No. I did nothing wrong.”
“Nothing…” He growled at her through teeth gritted in bitter anger.
His hand lifted again.
She covered her face with both hands, to avoid the next strike. It hit her across the side of her head, a hard slap. Tears flooded her eyes as she fell.
“What have I done?” Caro cried, her hands gripping her head and her body curling on the wooden floor into a position that sought to protect, and yet it was childlike. She longed for comfort, for kindness
“Lived, while my son died!” The accusation rang about her bedchamber. A curse. She was cursed. She could not carry a child, could not give him the heir he needed. He leaned over her, every muscle in his body taut with accusation.
She loved him, regardless.
He hated her.
“Your doctor spoke to me today. He believes you may never bear a child. He believes your womb is damaged.”
Caro swallowed back the tears catching in her throat. She knew. She had been told. Yet did it justify such brutality and bitter hatred? He hates me, and I have always loved him…
There was nothing to say in her defence. She had lost another child, his child, and she might never be able to carry an infant full-term. Tears flooded her eyes. How many times? How many children? How long could she endure this?
“I need a son! Give me a son, Caro! That is all I ask. You are capable of conceiving, you must be capable of giving birth!”
She lifted a hand so she could look at him. His gaze softened.
His eyes were like azure stones, an entrancing blue. Even in his vicious moods, when he was cold and callous, she still saw the man she’d married, the man who’d given her months of happiness and hope.
But each time he behaved like this, a little more of her hope died.
He turned away and walked across the room.
How could she love and hate the same man? How could she love a man who terrified her?
She struggled to her feet. “I am trying to give you a son.” Yet she no longer believed she could. She had lost five children.
He stopped and turned, his eyes expressing pain, pity and disappointment.
Long ago, once upon a time, Caro had believed him in love and her marriage a happy-ever-after, like a fairytale. There had been gifts and balls, and their gazes holding across rooms, and gentle touches on her waist and her back as they walked together, which said, silently, I love you. But it was damned—doomed.
“Trying is not enough. I need a son. You will do your duty.” He turned again and walked away.
She stared at the door when it shut behind him.
Before their marriage, and after it, throughout the first year, Albert had seemed love-struck. He’d begged the Marquis of Framlington for her hand, and the marriage had been arranged swiftly so he could be rid of his wife’s illegitimate daughter.
Albert had been attentive, walking and standing close to her wherever they went, and devouring her body at night, but it had not been love, it had been obsession, and when she’d become pregnant and sickly, his interest had waned. He’d found a mistress and ceased to come to her bed. It had broken her heart. Especially when he continued to touch her and look at her as though love hung between them in the day and at balls. Then she’d lost the child.
That was when the beatings and the hatred had begun. He would not forgive her for the loss of their first child and now when she was with child he was so used to beating her he would not even think of her condition.
Yet the old Albert still shone through: the handsome, powerful man who’d entranced her in the beginning. Every night she had an unbearable reminder of how things should be between them, of how they had been. Even when he was angry with her, when he came to her bed he still joined with her as though he cared. That sense of being loved was still there—when in her childhood she had known so little love. She’d clung to the moments of intimacy and affection for years.
She cared for him.
“Ma’am, may I help you retire.”
Caro had forgotten the maid was even in the room. “Yes, and please bring some fresh water.” To wash the blood from her cheek and her lip. Albert would expect her to look well when he came to her later.
~
Sunset had passed long ago when Albert returned to the house, and Caro’s bedchamber was entirely dark when he entered. He’d not brought a candle.
His footsteps quietly crossed the room, then the sheets beside her lifted. The mattress dipped when he lay down.
“Caro,” he whispered as his hand reached for her waist and pulled her to him. The scent of brandy carried on his breath. His lips pressed onto hers and his hand slid to her breast, gentle now.
His kiss eased away all the pain from the blows. The thoughtfulness he showed her at night wrapped about her soul and held her heart as his prisoner. The Albert she’d fallen in love with was here.
This was how it was with him—cruel, heartless, beautiful love. He would beat her and then he would devour her tenderly.
His fingers rubbed and gripped her breast through the cloth of her nightgown for a while, then he unbuttoned it.
He was passionate in all respects, in anger, in admiration, and in bed. Yet where his heart ought to be,
