to oppress you. No, and what is more, everything I have done in your regard has been for your benefit. And the longer I spend with you, the more convinced I become that you need somebody to watch over you. You do not appear to have any instinct for self-preservation at all. You say whatever comes into your head, without giving thought to the consequences, never mind the way you act. You leap into situations that are well beyond your comprehension, with a naïveté that is truly stunning.’
‘You have only seen me act impulsively the once,’ she retorted. ‘And believe me, I regret interfering …’ She faltered. ‘No, no, actually …’ she lifted her chin and looked at him defiantly ‘… no, I don’t regret it. I cannot like Miss Waverley and I don’t suppose I ever shall. But I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if you really had ruined her, not knowing that I’d witnessed the whole thing and could have stopped it if I’d acted.’
‘What?’
‘I think you heard me. But to make it even clearer for you, I admit I may have acted in a way you think was naïve and foolhardy, but at least my actions that night ended in good.’
‘Ye gods, you sound like some kind of … Puritan. As though you were brought up to believe in some antiquated code of fair play that went out with the restoration of the monarchy.’
‘I was brought up to tell the truth, and value honour and decency,’ she said. ‘There is nothing unusual in that.’
He laughed mirthlessly. ‘Now that just goes to prove how naïve you really are. And how much you stand in need of a protector. I have lived far longer than you and moved in wider circles, and so far I have not met anyone else who would put such values above their own self-interest. If it wasn’t for the fact you allowed your feelings about Miss Waverley to show enough to call her a cat, I would wash my hands of you entirely. For if there is one thing I cannot abide, it is a sanctimonious hypocrite.’
‘I am not sanctimonious! Nor a hypocrite. I—’
‘Very well,’ he bit out. ‘I absolve you of that sin. Sin,’ he laughed bitterly. ‘Who am I to absolve anyone of sin? Since, according to one who considers himself an authority on the subject, I am the most blackened sinner of this generation.’
‘Are you?’ She flushed guiltily at having the temerity to say such a thing, and hastily attempted to cover her blunder. ‘I mean … I wonder that anyone dared to say it.’
‘A vicar tends to think his pulpit gives him a certain measure of authority,’ he said. ‘And since the vicar in question also happened to be my brother, he felt no compunction in haranguing me in public for a change.’
For a change? She frowned. ‘If he is in the habit of, um, haranguing you, what on earth made you go and sit in a church where he was preaching?’
‘An idiotic notion that my presence at his first appearance in the parish where he went to take up his living might go some way to mending the breach between us.’ Instead, he’d learned that the seeds of hatred his father had sown during their childhood had taken such deep root not even his brother’s so-called Christianity was sufficient to make him forgive and forget. Will’s face had been contorted with spite as he’d moralised about the sins of fornication and adultery, culminating with a look of total malice as he’d rounded off by proclaiming that the meek would inherit the earth.
Well, that was as may be, but one thing Will would not be inheriting—no, not even though he’d already managed to get his wife with child—was one inch of his father’s property. His father’s property. He’d always known he would have to marry and produce an heir, but reluctance to end up tied to a woman like his mother, in a relationship like the one his parents had endured, had made him drag his feet.
That woman! He might have had real siblings if she’d had any sense of decency at all. If she’d even bothered to defend any of her brood from his father’s malice, they might now be able to tolerate one another. Instead of which, the olive branch he’d extended to Will, by going to support him in his new parish, had been taken out of his hands and used as a weapon to beat him with.
Well, if it was war Will wanted, war he should have. He’d decided there and then that he must put aside his aversion to women in general, and wives in particular, and set up his nursery. One legitimate son, that was all he needed. One male child, sired indisputably by him.
The look on Lord Deben’s face made Henrietta’s heart go out to him, even as her hand went out to clutch at the handrail. His brother had evidently hurt him by denouncing his morals from the pulpit. Not that men ever admitted to being hurt. But it certainly explained why he’d whipped up his horses and was suddenly driving them at such a demonic pace.
She braced her feet against the footboard as he put his curricle through a gap that was so slender she was almost convinced he would lock wheels with one of the other carriages. When they made it through, with what looked like barely an inch to spare, and he urged his horses to even greater speed, she bit down on her lower lip and the craven urge to beg him to take care. He had already accused her of various defects in her character. She was not going to let him add the feminine one of timidity to the list and give him another excuse to sneer at her.
Besides, men needed a way to work through their feelings, since they would scorn to go away somewhere quiet and weep. She’d seen it often enough with her brothers. They went out and shot something, or got into a fight—or rode their horses at breakneck speed.
‘You can wash your hands of me with a completely clear conscience,’ she declared, surreptitiously taking a tighter hold on the handrail. In the event they did collide with anything, at least she might avoid the ignominy of being pitched on to the grass verge like a sack of grain.
‘I do not consider that you owe me anything.’
‘Well, that is just where you are wrong, Miss Gibson. I owe you more than you can imagine.’ His search for a wife would not have prospered with the scandal Miss Waverley had almost unleashed upon him. Oh, he had no doubt that there would have been women still prepared to overlook what they would perceive as a lack of gentlemanly behaviour, but the encounter with Miss Waverley had taught him he would, indeed, rather shoot himself in the leg than shackle himself to one such. ‘And for that reason, I have decided to help you.’
He smiled. In a way that made him look cruel.
She shivered. And admitted, ‘I am not sure I like the sound of that.’
From the look on his face, whatever form this ‘help’ might take did not stem from any sense of altruism. He’d already told her he did not care what anyone thought of him, or might say of him. So, if he was planning anything, it was not because he wanted to help her, not really, but because in some way it would benefit him.
‘Come, come, wouldn’t you like to win your suitor back from Miss Waverley?’
‘Not particularly.’ She was not about to tell him that Richard had never, technically, been her suitor. But anyway, she was done with trying to get him to notice her. All it had accomplished was her humiliation.
‘Well, even if that were true,’ he said in a derisive tone, not taking his eyes from his team, ‘I think you would enjoy taking the wind out of Miss Waverley’s sails. And I certainly would. I have a strong aversion to letting people think they can manipulate me.’
She knew it! This was nothing to do with protecting her, or helping her. He was trying to use her to take his own revenge upon Miss Waverley.
