there was a smear of blood on her inner thigh. He’d been dimly aware of the barrier even before she’d cried out with pain.
She had been a virgin.
How the hell was this possible?
A black miasma swirled up before his eyes, which he shut, to blot out the sight of her curling up on her side, thrusting her hands down between her legs, her face crumpled with anguish.
But he could still see exactly how it was possible.
The bastards had lied to him.
Ah, God! He placed his fists over his eyes, barely suppressing a cry of anguish as keen as her own had been.
How could his father have done this to him?
And it had to have been his father who’d told Fielding that Amethyst had secretly given birth to a child. He’d known it from the moment his friend had said he’d been told in confidence and hated to have to be the one to break it to him. He’d recognised his father’s style of setting up a dupe to do his dirty work.
But he hadn’t really questioned the veracity of the tale. He couldn’t quite believe even his father would stoop so low as to deliberately blacken a respectable woman’s name, just because she stood in the way of his plans, not back then.
He’d naïvely thought his father—with great tact and forbearing—was trying to deliver a warning that he’d strayed into a potential minefield. Giving him a chance to extricate himself from it, rather than just wading in and throwing his weight around, the way he usually did. He’d felt as though his father was finally giving him a chance to prove that he could do the right thing. That he was offering him an opportunity to go to him, and say he was ready to settle down, to stop resisting his family’s efforts to match him up with Lucasta, without either of them having to speak of the disaster he’d almost made of things when left to his own devices.
He’d thought it was that important to his father—their relationship. He’d thought all the subterfuge was about trying to avoid coming to a confrontation between them, which might have resulted in a complete breach.
His insides hollowed out as the truth smacked him in the teeth. It had been the alliance with the Delacourts that had been important to his father. His determination that all his sons should cut figures in society. Even his youngest.
No matter what it cost.
Or who paid the price.
She groaned, then, struggled into a sitting position and shot him a look of loathing.
‘I might have known all you’d bring me was pain,’ she said, jolting him out of his own agony of mind and reminding him that, right now, she was in actual, physical pain. Pain that he’d caused.
‘That you’d lead me halfway...somewhere, then let me down.’
Was that the way she’d seen it? It must have been. She couldn’t have had a clue why he’d suddenly turned so cold. For he’d cut her out of his life with brutality. And in public. Her face that night—oh, God, the wounded, bewildered look she’d given him as he’d given her the cut direct. The way she’d crumpled when he’d danced with one girl after another. What had he done to her?
Why hadn’t he questioned it? Why hadn’t he gone straight round to see his father and demanded proof?
Because he’d finally seen a way to win his father’s approval, that’s why. Having Fielding carry him that tale had told him the old man was vehemently opposed to the match with Amethyst. He had plans for his youngest son. Plans that did not include him marrying a nobody and settling down in the countryside to live a life of contentment in obscurity.
So he had played along. Hardened himself against her tears. Told himself they were evidence of her guilt. That she was upset at being found out.
But he’d known, deep inside, that he was watching her heart breaking.
He’d known, God dammit!
Just as he’d sensed her innocence tonight. But just like before, he’d thrust the truth aside, preferring to believe the lie. Because it exonerated him from blame. He didn’t want to be the man who’d broken her heart. So he kept on telling himself she didn’t have a heart to break. That she was manipulative and deceitful.
But he had been to blame for destroying her. He had indeed led her halfway somewhere, then let her down, not once, but twice.
He squeezed his eyes shut on the devastating truth—she’d loved him.
And he’d let one lie destroy it.
All those wasted, miserable, hellish years...years during which he’d believed in a lie. A lie so base it had warped his entire outlook on life.
She hadn’t had a child in secret. She hadn’t come to London to ensnare a man with her practised wiles. She’d been innocent. Innocent!
She moaned again and struggled to sit up.
And he wondered how long he’d been kneeling there, reeling in horror at the terrible mistake he’d made. Too long, however few seconds it had taken for the truth to strike him right between the eyes the way it had. Because she was suffering, shocked at the painfully brutal invasion of her body, and she needed comfort. Not some oaf, kneeling there, so many miles and years away in his head that he might just as well have left the room altogether.
In his mind, it was the hurt he’d dealt her years ago that was the biggest issue, but for her, it was the hurt he’d dealt her tonight.
And that was what he had to deal with. He had to put this right, he had to tend to the pain he’d caused her, right now, prove that he wasn’t the uncaring, fickle disappointment of a man who’d brought her nothing but grief.
There was no need to bring up what had gone wrong between them ten years ago. Not as far as she was concerned.
He blenched when he thought how close he’d come to quizzing her about the little girl he’d seen her with—the one he’d assumed was hers. And the man he’d thought had fathered it on her. The man he’d thought of as a vile seducer.
But it was him. He was the only seducer of innocence she knew. He was the man who’d callously, clumsily, ripped her virginity from her. As if shattering her hopes ten years ago hadn’t been bad enough. What effect had it had on her? He hadn’t stopped to consider that, not before. But she’d fled London at the height of the Season. And she hadn’t ever married...
‘I will never let you down, or bring you pain again,’ he vowed.
‘No, you will not,’ she said firmly, grabbing the corner of the quilt to cover her breasts as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Because I won’t let you.’
‘Hold hard!’ He gripped her shoulders and, when she wouldn’t look at him, spoke to her rigidly averted profile. ‘Do not leave, not as you are. Let me get you...a drink. Yes, a drink. I should have hot water to bathe you and soothe you, really, but it would take too long to fetch it and heat it.’
