Page 446 of From Rakes to Riches

“My mother was near hysterics that anyone should know what he did, fearing that he would not be buried in consecrated ground.”

It all was so clear now: Mrs. Shelby’s terrible sadness, the shadows in Victoria’s eyes. Her own father had betrayed them, rather than stand up for his mistakes and help his family. And David was no better, insisting that everything revolve around him and his family.

“Victoria—”

“No, I must finish it all, or I’ll never say it. We agreed not to tell a soul what we four knew. I could have borne this sin forever for my mother’s sake—until I fell in love with you.”

She said the words he longed to hear, but without the joy.

“I couldn’t let this secret keep being a shadow between us. I married you violating the tenet of honesty you hold dear, and I would not blame you if you renounced our marriage.”

“Victoria, stop!” He tried to take her hands, but she pulled away from him.

“Or if that would be too much of a scandal for you, I would gladly retire to the country, so that thetonwill forget about me and not unearth the truth.”

“I gave you every reason to imagine my reaction to be so poor. I am deeply ashamed of myself, that I proved so untrustworthy—and so unworthy of your love.”

“No, no, don’t say that. I lied to you, about such an important thing! I chose my family over you.”

“Do you think I blame you?” he demanded. “What was I to you at such a time? You had sworn an oath to your mother and sisters. It is my fault that later, as our friendship returned, you didn’t feel you could tell me the truth. I made you think you had to be perfect, when God knows I wasn’t. I let so many things about my family’s past affect my life. And it was all for naught.”

Her voice was cautious. “What do you mean?”

“I was just a child, and thought I knew everything. I blamed my father for the deaths of my siblings, and for my mother’s death in the end.”

“David, you were so young.”

“Don’t excuse what I did. I began the ruin of my relationship with my father, when all along it was my mother who ignored her own health, my mother who needed to prove something by having more children.”

She sighed and rested her hand on his knee. But he couldn’t stop now.

“My father may not have been wise to have his mistress live with us, but he asks my forgiveness now, and it is a shame Icould not grant it to him long ago. I didn’t tell him everything that Colette had done, of course.”

“You mean the scandalous parties?”

“That and…other things.”

Victoria watched the struggle on his face, felt the pull of his emotions as if they were her own. She was so afraid to hope, so afraid that his words could not be true.

“Tell me, David,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers and squeezing. “Let us have no more secrets.”

“There have to be secrets between my father and me,” he said tiredly. “In his own way, he loved Colette. How can I tell him that she spent so much time trying to seduce me?”

She inhaled sharply. “How old were you?”

“Seventeen, when it started.”

“You could have written to me. Maybe I could have helped.”

His beloved face softened in amusement. “My sweet Victoria, I could tell no one. Thank God my father finally allowed me to go off to Oxford. I don’t know what I might have done to the woman, had she kept pressing herself on me.” He shuddered. “She thought I would tumble her in my mother’s bed. And my father wondered why I wouldn’t attend the woman’s funeral.”

“I’m glad things are better between you and the earl,” she said.

“They are—and it’s because of you.”

David turned to face her, their knees pressed together, their hands clasped. “I spent my adulthood looking at the past out of a child’s eyes, instead of seeing that onlyIcan decide how a scandal should affect me. And I hurt you in the process.”

“David, do not berate yourself so.”

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