Page 69 of My Deceitful Duchess
“Husband.” It was guttural, visceral. “I was going to marry you, and take you away from England. To the continent, perhaps, or to America.” His hands were buried in the pockets of his trousers, but she saw the bulge of his fist within the right one, and she suspected his fingers had found some coin or something like it to manipulate within them.
She gave a delicate sniff. “Bit foolish, I should think, to marry a woman who’d killed her previous husband. Certainly you’d have expected to sleep with one eye open, in the event I should be tempted toward any further murderous inclinations. How had you planned forthat?”
“I reasoned that if you’d murdered your late husband, he must have been enough of a bastard to have earned it—and that if your first marriage had beenthatbad, then possibly I stood a reasonable chance of making you happy.” He eased a step closer. “And then, once I learned you were with child, I thought I’d just keep you so busy with my babies that murder would never cross your mind.” Another step; Charlie’s tail began to wag, thumping heavily upon the ground. “For all that society would place the burden of childlessness upon women, it is equally possible for a man to be sterile. Did you know?”
Her breath stilled in her lungs. “You could not possibly have known that to be the case.”
“No. But I had hoped.” A slow roll of his shoulders; an uncomfortable sort of shrug. “I thought I stood little chance of persuading you to marry me without a compelling reason. So I hoped you wouldhaveto.”
Jenny turned her face away, pressing her cheek against Charlie’s whiskery muzzle instead and suffering the licks to the ear that the action provoked. “How disappointed you must have been when you learned of my past,” she murmured. “How disgusted.” She could still remember his face—the twist of his mouth, the narrowed eyes. Thesuspicion.
“Not disgusted. Frightened. I’d put you in a terrible situation, and I was struggling to get yououtof it—and then there was a child to consider. I knew you were not eating well, likely not sleeping…” He blew out a breath, rocking on his heels. “There was so little I could do for you when you needed me.”
“I did need you,” she said, and winced to hear herself admit it aloud—like a weakness she had concealed within her heart, suddenly sprung free. “That first week—I wanted to believe that you would come for me. Hold me. Tell them there had been a mistake. Tellmethat everything was going to be all right.” A sniffle caught her unawares; she swiped at her damp eyes. “I knew there had been no mistake, of course. But still, I wanted to believe.” Right up until the moment she had been shoved into that cramped little room with him and stared into his cold, cold eyes.
She hadn’t even heard him move, but there he was, crouched beside her, his face drawn in lines of misery. Much like hers, if she had to guess.
“Jenny, I would hold you now.”
“I don’t need that from you now.” Her voice came out hard, prickly. Like she had grown thorns all over, to protect herself from his indelicate handling.
But he only looked at her in that assessing way, branding her a liar with nothing more than a gaze.
“I don’twantit,” she amended, loosening her arms from around Charlie’s neck, and letting him settle back onto his haunches once more.
“Jenny.” There was no more than mild reproach in his voice, but it scored her anyway.
“I don’twantto want it.” And there—thatwas honest. Still, it had come with the imminent threat of tears, and she hated the tiny quavering note in her voice. She shoved herself to her feet, turning her back on him as he rose once more to his. “I’m not such a watering pot,” she said defensively. “I’m really—”
“Jenny.” His arms came around her pulling her back against his chest. His chin touched the top of her head, the short bristles of the new growth of beard snagging in her hair. “Itwasa mistake. The worst one I’ve ever made by far.”
It broke her heart just a little more. She had needed itthen, after all. And still she waited, patiently, for the rest of it…until she realized at last that it was not coming.
He could not tell her that everything would be all right. Whatever else he was, a liar he was not.
Chapter Thirty Two
“You don’t have to do this.”
Sebastian ground his teeth together, biting back a retort to Lady Clybourne’s muted whisper to Jenny. It would do him no good, after all, and if Jenny had seen fit to rouse Lord and Lady Clybourne at such an hour of the morning, then there had been a pressing reason for it. She’d come to a decision—one Lady Clybourne was doing her level best to talk her out of. Which, he supposed, boded well for him.
“I do, Lottie. You know I do.” Jenny had settled upon a couch in the office, and was preparing herself a cup of tea, her hands trembling just a little—the silver tongs clicked against the sugar bowl as she carefully selected tiny sugar lumps.
Lord Clybourne was standing silently near the door, like some sort of guardian braced to make certain a reluctant bridegroom came up to scratch—at the point of a pistol if necessary. Sebastian could have told him he needn’t have bothered.Hewas not the reluctant one.
Lady Clybourne alighted finally next to Jenny, her hand finding the crook of Jenny’s elbow. “But youdon’t,” she said. “We’ve—we’ve weathered scandal before. We can do so again.”
“Notthiskind of scandal.” And Jenny was correct, of course. There were scandals that were a flash in the pan and quickly forgotten, and scandals that were ruinous entirely. Every woman who had championed Jenny when she had been jailed would desert her the moment they discovered she was expecting an illegitimate child.
And there was nothing Lady Clybourne could say to argue it. The truth was immutable, regardless of how much they might wish otherwise. A heavy silence pervaded the room, thick and terrible. Sebastian did not misunderstand his role in this scene. It was only to agree—to whatever Jenny had decided.
Shelookedcomposed enough, but he didn’t see how she possiblycouldbe. She had to be terrified. Angry.Hurt. So bloody hurt, and whatever she had once felt for him was buried beneath stiff layers of it.
“I won’t live with you,” she said softly, but she wasn’t even looking at him as she said it. As if she could not bear even to lay eyes upon him.
“Understood.” It came out a big rougher than he had hoped, as if someone had prodded the acceptance out of him.
“I won’tsleepwith you.”
