Page 27 of What the Lady Wants
‘I said it would have been unwise to show me too much attention in public.’
‘You did, and it’s true, I suppose. We do have to be careful. So if it wasn’t that, if you knew I had little choice in how I behaved this evening, it seems to me that it must have been jealousy that was making you miserable. I must confess, I hope it was.’
Her heart was thumping now. ‘Why would you hope such a ridiculous thing?’
‘Because I love you.’
29
She jerked upright in the bed and stared at him. Leo was suddenly possessed by a sickening conviction that he was making a terrible mistake, but it was far too late to turn back now. ‘I love you,’ he repeated. ‘If I could believe that you had feelings for me in turn, I would be the happiest man alive.’
‘You don’t love me. You don’t.’
‘I’m afraid I do. Desperately.’
‘You don’t. You’re in love with your cousin’s wife, with Cassandra.’ It was a good name to hiss, and she hissed it with a great deal of force. ‘You told me so yourself.’
‘I lied.’ She was looking at him in what appeared to be horror, her long hair wild and dishevelled about her naked shoulders. ‘I lied because I already knew I loved you then, all those weeks, those months ago. I thought you’d wonder why I agreed to your scheme, once you came to reflect upon it. I felt… exposed. And so I lied to you.’
‘You tricked me.’ She seemed to be close to tears.
‘I am sorry if I did. I can only say it didn’t seem so to me. I felt as though I had no choice.’
‘I’d never have started… this, if I had thought you cared for me.’
‘I know you wouldn’t. You’d have found somebody else, that popinjay… I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t. It wasn’t just that I didn’t want anyone else laying so much as a finger on you – though of course I didn’t – it was also my fear that some other man would use you, hurt you, let you down. I couldn’t let that happen.’
Her face was shuttered, closed to him. ‘You entered into this under false pretences. That’s tricking me.’
‘I suppose it is.’ His voice was cracking and he didn’t care. ‘I won’t apologise for loving you, though. Worshipping you. I can never regret that if I live to be a hundred. And tonight, when it seemed to me that you were jealous, it gave me just a whisper of hope that you might care for me too, at least a little. Was I wrong?’
‘You have no right to ask me that question. It’s not part of our agreement.’
‘I know I don’t. I’m not asking you out of vanity, I assure you. It matters more to me than anything I’ve ever asked anyone in my life. And you haven’t answered me.’
‘I don’t love you,’ she said. ‘I don’t. I can’t. I can’t love you or anyone. I love Ash. My husband Ash. I told you that from the first. I never tried to deceive you into thinking that anything else was possible for me.’ She was weeping now.
An ugly silence fell between them. ‘Then there’s nothing more to be said.’ He rose, and like an automaton, he climbed down from her bed, shoved his stiff arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, and with clumsy fingers that did not feel like his own he fastened it and turned to leave her.
She said, tears still streaming down her face, ‘It’s over, then.’ He wasn’t sure if this was a question. If it was, it was a cruel, unnecessary one.
‘I think that’s best, don’t you?’
He didn’t wait for an answer. If she was expecting him to beg her to take him back into her bed, she would be disappointed. He knew he was capable of it, of begging; he knew that if she showed the slightest sign of wanting him to stay, he’d break and fall at her feet and implore her to give him another chance, to forget all he’d said and carry on for as long as she cared to. The power she had over him was not something that could so easily be shaken off. But he had just a little pride, enough to get him out of this room and back to his own, if she didn’t say another word.
She didn’t.
30
Isabella stared at the door as Leo closed it with painful care behind him. She was in a state of shock. She’d never expected such a declaration; she didn’t know what she had wanted to provoke when she’d needled at him tonight, but not that, never that. She’d thought, if she’d thought at all, that he might admit that he was contemplating marriage at some point in the future, and Miss Peters,Susannah, was a prospect he was seriously considering. He’d have been well within his rights to say such a thing, and how could she have reacted? Even as she’d been saying what she’d said, motivated by some impulse she was unable to control, she’d known it was none of her business. He was free to do as he pleased; she had no claim on him.
But she was deliberately distracting herself, dwelling on such thoughts. They were all nonsense. He said he loved her. It was the very last thing she wanted.
At first, she hadn’t been sure if she believed him. The idea that he was hopelessly enamoured of Lady Irlam was so firmly fixed in her mind that she found it almost impossible to rearrange herself to accept this new fact. She wouldn’t. He was just saying it, surely, because he knew his love for Cassandra washopeless. It must be plain to the meanest intelligence that Lord and Lady Irlam adored each other and were excessively happy in their marriage. Here he was, witnessing their closeness with pain, and at the same time there was a woman at hand who was prepared to take him into her bed, to couple within him in ways – there was no denying the truth of this, at least – that touched something deep inside him and brought him a species of pleasure he claimed he’d never known before. Of course, he might easilywantto love her, which was a long way along the road to persuading himself that he did. He wasn’t a man on whom deception sat easily, she knew that too. Concealing their liaison made him uncomfortable. How much more convenient, then, if no concealment were necessary.
But this was nonsense too. She couldn’t forget the naked agony on his face as he’d left her just now. It reminded her horribly of the haunted expression Ash’s dear countenance had carried when he kissed her a last goodbye in Brussels, to go to what he feared was his death, and proved to be so. She ought to know love when she saw it, and she’d seen it again tonight.
She hadn’t asked for this.
