Page 27 of The Virtues of Christmas
“For sleeping with me?” She would kill him if he said yes and then burn his house down, after she’d carted away all of his books.
“I am ashamed of myself,” he said, hands fisting at his sides, “for lying to you. For being an idiot.”
“Idiot is too kind a term, Michael Brenner. I am Henrietta Whitlow. I turned down the overtures of the sovereign himself and scoffed at carte blanche from countless others, then gave you what they’d have paid a fortune to enjoy. I swore I’d never again… Why am I explaining this to you? Get out and take the damned book with you.”
He stayed right where he was. “I should have asked you for the book, straight out. I apologize for not using common sense, but I was too long a thief, a spy, a manipulator of events. I could not simply steal from you, and I’ve left my honesty too late.”
“Which means now you’re a scoundrel,” Henrietta said, though he seemed to be a contrite scoundrel. “You have exceeded the bounds of my patience, sir. Be off with you.”
So she could cry, damn him. Henrietta hadn’t cried since her last cat had died two years ago.
“Why have you kept Beltram’s book all these years, Henrietta? Are you still in love with him?”
Through her rage, humiliation, and shock, Henrietta’s instincts stirred. Michael had what he’d come for—so to speak—and Henrietta’s feelings for Beltram ought to be of no interest to him.
At all.
“I kept his awful little book because I didn’t want him publishing it and making me the laughingstock of the press and public. Beltram is selfish, unscrupulous, mean, and not to be trusted.” And he had clammy hands. “Possession of that book was my only means of ensuring he’d not trouble me after he’d turned me from a housemaid to a whore.”
Still, Michael remained before the fire, his expression unreadable. “Why not destroy the book?”
She might have confided that to him an hour ago. How dare he ask for her confidences now? “I will join a nunnery, I swear it, rather than endure the arrogance of the male gender another day.”
“You kept that book for a reason. Were you intent on blackmailing him?”
With the room in shadows, Henrietta could believe Michael Brenner had been a spy and a thief. He hid his ruthlessness beneath fine tailoring and polite manners, but his expression suggested he’d do anything necessary to achieve his ends.
He made love with the same determination, and Henrietta had reveled in his passion.
Now, she’d do anything to get him out of her room, even confess further vulnerability.
“I kept the book because I wanted the reminder of what a gullible, arrogant idiot I’d been. Beltram laid out my downfall, page by page. He sketched me in my maid’s uniform, adoration and ignorance in my gaze. He sketched me the first night he’d taken down my hair—for artistic purposes only, he assured me. He sketched me after he’d kissed me for the first time. It’s all there, in execrable poetry and amateur sketches. My ruin, lest I forget a moment of it.”
Michael crossed to the bed, and Henrietta stood her ground. He snatched the book off the bed, and she thought she’d seen the last of him. A convent in Sweden, maybe, or Maryland. If Borneo had convents, she’d consider them, provided they had enough books.
“Henrietta, I am sorry.” Michael stood close enough that she could smell his lavender soap. “Beltram did, indeed, have a hold over me. I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain and removed the book as a blackmail threat. I have no excuse for insinuating myself into your affections. I’m sorry for deceiving you. My coach will take you to Amblebank in the morning.”
“You’ve insinuated yourself right back out of my affections, my lord. No harm done.”
If she’d slapped him, he could not have looked more chagrined. “There’s been harm, Henrietta. I know that. I’ll do what I can to make it right.”
Not more decency, not now when he’d betrayed the trust Henrietta hadn’t realized she’d given.
“Comfort yourself with whatever platitudes you please, my lord, but leave me in peace. I’m tired and have earned my rest.”
He considered the book, Beltram’s exercise in lordly vanity and a testament to feminine vulnerability.
“This book means nothing to you?”
“It’s reproach for my folly,” Henrietta retorted. “I loathe the damned thing and the man who created it.”
Michael threw the book straight into the fireplace, landing it atop the flaming peat.
Henrietta watched her past burn, incredulity warring with loss. As long as that book had been in her hands, she’d had proof—for herself, anyway—that once upon a time, she’d been innocent.
“Did Beltram force you, Henrietta?”
Nobody had asked her that, but Henrietta had asked the question of herself. “He took advantage of my ignorance and inexperience—I’d been chaste before I met him—he misled, he betrayed, he lied and seduced. He did not force. His actions were dishonorable, not quite criminal.”
