he took me out to a summer house and whispered sweet nothings, swearing eternal devotion.’ A single tear tracked down her cheek. She brushed it away before he could capture it. ‘I was in love with the romance of it all. My husband knew the right words to woo me. I only discovered the truth after it was far too late.’
‘On your wedding night?’
Her throat worked up and down. Her entire being vibrated with anguish. ‘Worse, after he died. Stupid fool that I was. I swallowed his lies whole, never questioned. He was away, fighting, most of the time.’
‘You never questioned or you didn’t want to question?’ he enquired.
She gave a sickly smile. ‘It made it easy to keep my illusions. I lived for his letters. They were so sweet and so full of promises.’
‘Were you in love with him?’ He held up his hand, appalled that the question had slipped out. ‘That was bad of me. I apologise. I have no right to ask.’
She turned her blue-green shimmering eyes to him. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I ever loved him or just the idea of him,’ she said in a deadly calm voice which contrasted with her earlier anguish. ‘When I found out about his perfidy, I discovered that I couldn’t tell anyone about the truth of the marriage.’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve my pride. I paid his debts and settled his other loose ends in the most expedient fashion. Then, Stephanie needed help and so I gave it, selfishly gaining a new start to my life where no one could pity me.’
‘And no one knows about it? Not even your sister?’
‘You know now.’ She wiped her eyes with fierce fingers. ‘I didn’t want you to have some mistaken idea about my marriage. Or how I might feel about my late husband.’
Kit’s heart leapt. Her marriage was far different from the one he’d imagined. He wasn’t competing against some perfect ghost, but rather she’d been damaged in some way because of her late husband’s heavy-handedness. It put the kiss they had shared in an entirely different perspective.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I had no idea.’
She dipped her head. Her hands were folded in her lap. ‘You can’t lose something you never had.’
He watched her without saying anything, but he could see she was teetering on a knife’s edge. He doubted that she would have shared this information even a few hours ago. The fight had changed everything. He was very glad it had. The minor discomfort of a few bruises and pulled muscles was nothing compared to the relief of not competing against a ghost.
‘What would he have wanted for you?’
‘What he would have wanted is no concern of mine.’ She shook her head. ‘Stephanie keeps telling me that he’d have wanted me to marry. Charles Wilkinson was a dear friend of my brother-in-law’s. Every time she brings the subject of remarriage up, I become more determined to stay a widow.’
‘You are allowing him to define you.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ Her nostrils quivered like she was a wild deer, catching the scent of a hunter.
‘You devoted your life to making Charles Wilkinson seem respectable. Why on earth did you do that?’ Kit asked, keeping his voice soft and steady. He wanted to release her from the prison she’d encased herself in. Misplaced guilt. She had sealed herself off from love and desire. She denied her passionate nature. ‘Where has that led you? Are you any happier for it?’
‘Since when did my happiness become any of your concern?’
‘Since I decided to fight for you. What happened, happened, Hattie. You can’t change it, but you can stop allowing your life to be defined by it. It is not good to live in fear. You are a passionate woman. Why must you shut yourself off from life?’
‘I will accept that you have no idea what you are saying due to the laudanum.’
Before Kit could protest she stood up and walked out of the room. Kit clenched his fist and slammed it down on the bedclothes. Since when did he break his rules about non-interference? It was better to allow her to go. Her life was nothing to do with him. She should be able to lead the sort of life she wanted, even if it was limited.
He should be thanking his lucky stars for the narrow escape. There could never be a future with her. He shuddered with the memory of the taunts he’d suffered, and the way respectable women had turned away from him in his youth after they had found out The Scandal.
Hattie laid her fevered cheek against the cool plaster of the hall and attempted to regain some measure of control. Her hand trembled so much that the wax spilt, burning her wrist. She set the candle down on the floor and forced herself to breathe in deeply.
She had made a mistake, a colossal mistake. She’d vowed never to speak about her husband’s betrayal. Ever.
Now she’d confessed the bald truth to a man who was little more than a stranger, simply to keep from confessing how she felt about him!
What was worse—he’d said the things she had known in her heart. Every single word was true as much as she might wish it were a lie. She had allowed herself to be defined by Charles and what he’d done. She had hated what he’d done to her, but everyone considered her to be the grieving widow. How could she besmirch the memory of a hero? She’d used it as a way to lick her wounds for years but it was hypocrisy of the highest order. She had stopped living. Her dreams were just that—dreams.
Neither did she want everyone to know of her humiliation. Even now that burning sense of shame filled her. She hadn’t been able to keep her husband happy. He had secretly laughed at her feeble attempts. His mistress had taken great delight in showing her the letters. She knew nothing about making love. Sensible and unattractive, lacking any real fire or passion. She’d longed to scream that he was wrong. But how could she when she had lived her life without passion?
Hattie hugged her arms and sank down to the floor. She wanted to feel passion, the real sort, the feeling-utterly-alive sort that she had felt when Kit kissed her at the Roman ruins. She had never had that all-consuming feeling before. She wanted to be alive, instead of existing.
When she had discovered the mistress’s address, she had visited her. Hattie had not wanted Charles’s miniature, but throwing it on the fire had seemed less than charitable. She had packed it up along with a few personal items so that the children would have something to remember their father by. Afterwards, Hattie had been sick in the street. The obvious love that woman had for Charles contrasted with her infatuation and fantasy of the perfect marriage.
All she’d wanted to do was to run away and hide. And she had—all the way to Northumberland. She’d been successful as well.
Undone by a man’s nightshirt. How pathetic was that?
Hattie pressed her hands against her eyes and tried to control the shaking in her limbs. She refused to cry after all this time. Not again and most definitely not over him.
It had been a mistake to insist that Kit return to the Dower House, rather than allowing the doctor to look after him. And then she had further compounded the mistake by sitting up and watching him sleep.
What he must think of her! She hardly knew what she thought of herself! All she knew
