Page 32 of What the Lady Wants
‘Yes.’
He was still holding her hand. She hadn’t pulled away. He looked as though he wanted to speak, and at the same time didn’t, but at last he said heavily, ‘And then what?’
She was conscious of feeling cold; she was shivering. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I understand that we must marry. There is no point me saying again that this – your hand in marriage, you as my wife, I mean – is what I wanted, for you knew that, and it can be of no possible concern to you since you did not. Want it, I mean. Want me.’ My God, how she had hurt him. ‘But how shall we live?’
‘Together, with our child when it arrives. How else?’
‘Really? You will live with me, and share my bed, for all the years that may lie ahead of us, when you have told me in very plain terms that you cannot love me? That you can never love me?’
Her voice cracked as she said, ‘What else would you have me do?’
He sighed, and in a dull tone said, ‘Love me, as I love you, I suppose. Say you will try, at least. I think I could be content if you would say that you would at least try.’
‘How can you try to love someone? Did you try to love me?’ She was crying now, despite all her efforts to suppress it, and she thought he might be too, only her eyes were so blurred she could not see.
‘No. You are saying, then, one loves, or one does not. And once again you make it very clear that you do not. I suppose you are right, and it is out of our control.’
She had known this interview would be difficult; she had not anticipated this. ‘You won’t marry me, then?’ Was that what he was saying?
‘Of course I will, I have said so. I must.’
‘Then I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t either. I had thought that nothing in this world could make me so happy as you agreeing to be my wife. I thought that if I could have you in my life and at my side, my God, with our dear child too, I would want for nothing else in this world. But I find it’s not true.’
He took a deep, harsh breath and said, ‘I’ll marry you. I must obtain a licence in order to do so quickly, it will take a few days and a trip to London, but it may easily be arranged. And obviously it must be soon. But… but if you think you can never love me, if you are determined you will not, I’m not sure I can live with you afterwards.’
36
Leo hadn’t meant to say it. He cursed himself a thousand times, but he couldn’t get away from the essential truth of it. He was her servant and belonged to her utterly in a way that time could never break nor alter. He would obey her in everything, he’d have said he would, but it seemed, when he came to it, that he couldn’t obey in this. He simply couldn’t agree to live with her as man and wife if there was no possibility, not the tiniest glimmer of hope, that she might ever come to love him.
Even as he’d said it, he knew what he was giving up. Her, in his life, in his home, every day. In his bed. He knew the connection that burned between them well enough by now to be sure that bed would be part of it. A major part. She wasn’t proposing a marriage of convenience, not in any conventional sense, and certainly not a marriage in name only. She’d give him her body. The bond between them was still alive, still powerful and electric and undiminished by their estrangement. He’d been aware of it, distressed as they both were, in that dusty, sad little room. A touch, a glance, and they’d have fallen on each other once again, though it would have solved precisely nothing. It wasbitterly ironic that they no longer needed to be so careful, now that it was too late.
It didn’t for so much as a moment occur to him to doubt her; she had no reason in the world to lie to him. She hadn’t trapped him, far from it; she had trapped herself, to her evident horror. She wanted the baby, sure enough, that wasn’t the problem – she just didn’t want him along with it, not in the way he wanted her.
A child, her child, theirs. An everyday sort of miracle. More than that, after what she’d been told with such certainty by men who might have been supposed to know their business, but clearly did not. In other circumstances, it could have been some of the best news he had ever received, a moment he would remember for the rest of his life. He supposed that last part at least was still true. He wasn’t likely to forget this dreadful day any time soon, when he had been offered a sort of twisted parody of everything he had ever dreamed of for himself.
But it wasn’t enough. Not for him. He wished it were. It would be so much easier if he could accept it. He didn’t enjoy doing this to himself. The prospect of marrying her then immediately separating, which was after all what he was proposing, was appalling to him. The idea of voluntarily denying himself the company of the woman he loved, of ensuring too that their innocent child grew up without him as a daily presence, was nothing less than horrible. Obscene, almost, and profoundly wrong. It wasn’t that it would cause comment, even scandal – he didn’t care about that, though he knew that others would, his mother included. But it would be pure misery. It was no way for anyone to live, married yet not. But spending every day at her side, holding her, kissing and touching her, without love, without any hope of love – that was a travesty too. He thought that for him that would be worse. Were those really his only choices? It appeared so.
He couldn’t face her after this. He didn’t want her to think he was deserting her, leaving her to confront this alone, because he would not do that – he had said he would marry her, and he meant to stand by that. This wasn’t her fault, he wasn’t blaming her – well, no, it was her fault, because she’d concocted this bizarre scheme, and this unwelcome outcome had always been a distinct possibility, whatever she had sincerely believed and convinced him to believe too. A man and a woman coupled; a woman conceived a child. There was hardly anything unusual about it. But he was an adult, and had agreed, so if there was blame to be apportioned it belonged to both of them. This must always be the case when two willing partners – and God knows they had both been that – made a child together. He’d marry her. But just now he didn’t think he could stand to look at her. Because after all he still loved her, and it was unbearable.
He went to talk to Hal. He couldn’t leave without telling him, although he couldn’t face Cassandra or his mother, and after all, there was no great need for secrecy now. Everyone would know that they were marrying soon enough, and the haste with which they must do it was bound to result in speculation. He found Lord Irlam playing billiards with his brother, Matthew and Tom, but he didn’t have to devise some ruse to take him aside, because one glimpse of his own face was enough to have Hal setting down his cue in haste and pulling him from the room to find some privacy.
His cousin had the sense to wait till they were alone to say, ‘My God, Leo, what’s the matter? Is there ill news – is it one of the boys? Georgie, her child? For pity’s sake, tell me quickly!’
‘No,’ he hastened to say. ‘Nothing like that. I’m sorry I made you think… No, it’s this wretched business of mine. I can’t be here, not now. I need to go up to London tomorrow, but I’ll go home tonight. I have to.’ He felt as though his tongue wasswollen in his mouth, making it hard to speak, to form coherent sentences or even thoughts.
‘What’s happened now?’ Hal asked with a certain measure of resignation.
‘Lady Ashby…’ It was ridiculous to call her that. ‘Isabella… We quarrelled. I foolishly started to think, to hope, that she might care for me, and I declared myself to her, so stupid. But I was wrong. She doesn’t love me, of course she doesn’t.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Hal said soberly. ‘I really am, old fellow. I wish I could do something to help you.’
‘Nobody can. But that’s not all of it. She’s with child, Hal. She just told me.’
His cousin swore, his face a picture of astonishment. ‘Good God, man, I can’t comprehend what you’re telling me! You mean you… You mean she…?’
