that, ten years earlier, he’d spurned the only woman he’d ever loved, because he hadn’t had the guts to question a pack of the most dastardly lies about her? And only finally learned the truth of her complete innocence of any kind of wrongdoing because he’d treated her like the veriest lightskirt?
He darted from the bed, out of the room and over to the table where he kept a decanter of good brandy. For a moment or two he could see the attraction of becoming a Papist. It must feel wonderful to be able to go to a priest, confess, and have your guilt absolved through the muttering of a few prayers.
Sloshing a generous measure into a glass, he hurried back to the bedroom, to find, to his relief, that she was still sitting hunched up on the edge of the bed, clutching the quilt round her shoulders and not, as he had feared, hunting round the room for her discarded clothing.
He handed her the glass, which she took from him with a scowl.
‘I...I’m sorry it hurt.’ Mea culpa. ‘The first time often does, I believe...’
‘I’m amazed anybody ever does it a second,’ she said, screwing up her face as she took a gulp of the brandy.
‘Perhaps...other men are not as clumsy about it as I just was,’ he admitted, running his fingers through his hair. ‘If I’d known...’ No, he couldn’t tell her that, could he? Or he would then have to explain why he’d made such an assumption. ‘I misunderstood. That is...I thought you seemed impatient.’
No, that wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t try shifting one iota of the blame on her. His was the fault. And it was up to him to make amends.
And there was only one sure way of doing that. He took a deep breath.
‘We must marry, of course,’ he said. It was the appropriate penalty to pay for all he’d done to her. The ultimate sacrifice to atone for his sin.
But her scowl only grew deeper.
‘We will do no such thing!’
‘We have to, Amy, don’t you see?’ He sat down on the bed next to her. ‘I have taken your virginity, ruined you...’
‘You didn’t take anything. We were sharing a moment of what I’d hoped would be pleasure. What a stupid mistake to make,’ she said bitterly.
He flinched. Had he asked her the same question ten years ago, she would have been overjoyed. She’d loved him, back then, just as he was.
Now he’d become as big a disappointment to her as he’d always been to everyone else.
‘It is a mistake, however,’ he persisted, ‘that can soon be rectified.’ He wouldn’t be a disappointment to her as a husband. He would cherish her. Stay loyal to her. Make up for all the hurts she’d ever suffered on his account and defend her from anyone who ever attempted to do anything similar in future.
‘Not by marrying,’ she retorted. ‘I agreed to your proposition because I believed you were the one man I could trust not to want to go all...respectable. You made it quite clear that you had no intention of marrying me, not ten years ago, and not now. You made me,’ she said, jabbing him on his arm with her forefinger, ‘believe it would be safe to take up with you. Oh, why do I never learn? I should have known you would be nothing but a disappointment. To think I hoped that because you had the reputation for being a rake, that you would be able to make this...’ she waved the hand holding the brandy glass wildly, indicating the rumpled bedding ‘...enjoyable! And not only was that the stupidest mistake I’ve ever made where you are concerned, but now you are talking about trapping me into matrimony.’
She slammed the brandy glass down on his nightstand and got to her feet.
He had to think of something fast. He couldn’t let it end like this. If she left now, he would never get her back. Never be free from the guilt. He went cold inside.
Think, man, think!
Firstly, he got the impression that the tighter he clung to her, the harder she would struggle to break free.
And she’d just said she’d wanted to feel safe with him—which meant free to come and go as she pleased.
And finally, she’d said she wanted pleasure.
Summoning every last ounce of his ability to dissemble, he leaned back into the pillows and folded his hands behind his head as she struggled to get off the bed with her dignity intact, which wasn’t easy given all she had to preserve it was a rather moth-eaten quilt that revealed as much as it covered whenever she made an injudicious movement.
‘Very well,’ he said with feigned insouciance, ‘you don’t want to marry me. I can understand that. For as long as I can remember, there has been somebody telling me I’m no good.’ Except for a few heady weeks ten years ago, when a young girl, fresh from the country, had hung on his every word. Her face had lit up whenever she saw him. Nobody had ever made him feel as though he could be enough for them, just as she was, until he’d met Amethyst.
His calm voice, his apparent nonchalance, had an instant, and highly satisfactory, effect on her. Just as a skilled groom would gentle a skittish, badly broken mare, his retreat roused her curiosity. She stopped scrabbling round on the floor for any item of clothing she could find and looked at him fully for the first time since he’d withdrawn from her body.
Though there was still wariness mingled in with the curiosity.
‘What do you mean, no good? You are the son of Lord Finchingfield.’
‘He was always my sternest critic. I’ve never had any ambition, you see, which in his eyes is the greatest sin a member of the Harcourt family can commit.’
It was some consolation that he’d taken a stand and broken free of his father before tonight. Otherwise, he’d have had to go and tell him that he’d never forgive him for what he’d done to Amethyst. For what he’d made him do to Amethyst. For making him an accomplice in her heartbreak.
Meanwhile, Amethyst had found a shoe, sat down on the edge of the bed with it and was sliding it on to her foot.
He pulled himself together, sat up, slithered closer and slid his arms round her waist.
‘You don’t really want to leave, do you?’ he murmured the words into her ear. She shivered, but didn’t pull away. ‘I won’t mention marriage again,’ he breathed, before nibbling his way down her neck, ‘if the prospect of being legshackled to a man of my calibre is really so offensive to you.’
‘It isn’t you,’ she huffed, arching, probably involuntarily, to grant him better access. ‘I don’t want to marry anyone. Ever.’
He wondered why not. It was generally the height of every woman’s ambition.
His mouth flattened into a grim line. He had a sneaking suspicion that might be his fault too.
‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘Having gone through the misery of being chained in a bond of mutual antipathy, I would not lightly enter into the state again.’
‘But you said...’
‘It was the shock, my sweet,’ he said, sliding one hand inside the quilt, to cup a breast, ‘of finding you a virgin.’ Well, it was true, up to
