Page 85 of His Forgotten Bride
“When? Tomorrow? Can you tell me in all honesty that you will be any more prepared to talk then?” He stretched his legs out before him, planting his bare feet on the floor. “I know you’re afraid, Claire. What I don’t know iswhy. It feels as if I’ve spent the past few days watching you die by inches, and I can’t watch it anymore.”
“It’s for the best.” She willed the pain in her heart to recede to a manageable ache, strove for some level of composure.
“For who? Not for Matthew, certainly. Not for me. For you, then? Will you be happy when you’ve gone?” His eyes scanned her face, and she knew that the answer had to be visible on it, because he heaved a sigh and linked his hands before him. “I can only assume, then, if you’ve determined that we should all be miserable, then it ismewhom you find objectionable.”
That wasn’t even remotely true, but he held up his hand when she tried to deny it. “I would rather not be the architect of your misery,” he said. “And the fact remains that I have known Matthew just a few months, while he’s known you the whole of his life. Heshouldbe with you, Claire. It would be incredibly selfish of me to take him from you.”
“I’m in service,” she said. “I can’t take him with me. What employer would countenance the thought of taking in a servant’s child?” Only him.Hehadn’t hesitated at the thought, even before he’d known Matthew was his son. She tried to swallow down the lump of emotion in her throat, but found it impossible. “Matthew—he is getting to the age where he will need you far more than he needs me,” she said. “I love him so much, Gabriel. Enough to let him go, if it is in his best interest.”
But Gabriel shook his head. “I’ve so little experience being a father. What would I do without your guidance?” He heaved a sigh and continued, “I’ve given it some thought, and if you’re determined to leave, then I will provide for you both. I’ll have my solicitor find you a house—in London, if you’re not opposed. I’d appreciate it if I could see Matthew from time to time. But I won’t have you forced back into service, Claire. Matthew needs his mother.”
She reeled back in shock, swaying on her feet. “Why?” she asked. “Why would you do such a thing?” She had never asked it of him, never expected such a thing of him.
“You’re still my wife. To me, you will alwaysbemy wife. Above all things, I want you to be happy. Even if it’s not with me.” He hesitated, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I’m not the man you fell in love with. I do understand that, Claire.”
“I never expected you to be,” she said. “I’m not the girl I was seven years ago. We’ve both changed.” As if drawn by invisible threads, she drifted across the floor toward him, her fingers still clutching a handful of hair pins.
“Too much, it seems.” He offered her a wry smile, but it fell flat. “I’m sorry I couldn’t find it again, Claire—whatever it was in me that you once loved. I did try.”
Tears burned behind her eyes. “I have always loved you,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Always. Sometimes I hated myself for it, because there was a time when I thought myself foolish to do so. But I always loved you.” Her palm ached from the pressure of the pins caught in her clenched hands, so she tucked them away in her pocket and scraped her hair away from her face—a nervous gesture to occupy her hands, lest she give into the temptation to reach out to him.
For a long moment he was silent, but he stared at her with an inscrutable expression, his brows drawn. “You love me,” he said at last, incredulity dripping from his voice, “but you’re going to leave me?”
She forced herself to nod, steeled herself against the pain she read in his eyes. “I don’t want you to think it’s your fault,” she said. “I’ll always love you. But you don’t love me, Gabriel, not really—you may think you do, but it’s not real. It’s just a—a remnant of the past. It won’t last.” She swallowed hard, choking down her shame and grief. “I’ve taken advantage of it already, but it would be so unfair to you to pretend that it’s anything more than it is. I can’t let you make such a mistake. And I—I couldn’t bear to watch your love fade away.”
Against all reason, he gave a bark of laughter, comprehension dawning over her his face. Slowly he unwound himself, rising from the foot of the bed. “So you think you’re protecting me from myself,” he said. “You’re prepared to be noble and self-sacrificing, to do the right thing even if it’s not what you want.”
Though she was tempted to take a swift step backward to compensate for his advance, she gathered her nerve, held her ground, and said, “Yes.”
“No,” he replied, with a violent shake of his head. “That’s notnobility, Claire. That’s cowardice.”
“No, it’s—” Self-preservation, certainly, which amounted to at least a shade of cowardice. “I can’t let you make such a mistake.”
“You are not a mistake.” His hands flexed, and by the severe curl of his lips she suspected he might be imagining throttling her. “Do you know what I truly hate, Claire? When other people decide to order my life for me, without my knowledge or my consent. Just like my father, you’ve arbitrarily decided what isrightfor me, what isbestfor me—you would leave me once again because you’ve got some wrongheaded notion that I am not the master of my own emotions.”
This time when he moved closer, shedidstep back. “Gabriel, please understand—it’s all new to you. But none of it is real, not anymore. I believe that youthinkyou love me, but the person you love doesn’t exist any longer. She hasn’t insucha long time. I don’t want to—to trap you into a marriage you don’t truly want.”
“I see,” he said, his voice sardonic, scathing. “Between the two of us,youare the only one allowed the privilege of love.Yourlove alone is real. Mine is only an illusion. Worthless, really, when you think about it.”
She flinched. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. Her back touched the door, and she jumped in surprise. But before she could pull away, find some other space to retreat to, he pressed his palm against the door just above her shoulder, trapping her there.
“I asked you to marry me,” he said. “Several times, as I recall.”
“You wanted Matthew,” she said.
“Of course I want him. He is my son.” His voice was tight, as if he spoke through gritted teeth. “But I wanted you as well. I’ve loved you all along. Even when I didn’t know you, I felt your absence. I knew I had lost something infinitely precious, something I was lost without. But then you came back into my life, Claire, and I learned to love you all over again. Perhaps on some level I knew it was only you for me. You made me want to be a better man for you, because I had been falling in love with you and I needed you to love me in return. I needed to be the kind of man youcouldlove.” His breath shuddered in his chest, escaping on a furious exhale. “How could you think I wouldeverbe happy without you? I haven’t felt anything even approximating happiness in years. In fact, I have excelled at making myself ever more miserable. If you leave, you won’t be freeing me from an unwanted marriage. You’ll be stealing my only chance at happiness.”
She drew a deep breath, staggered with the desire to believe him. She whispered, “You say that now, but in six months—”
“In six months I will still want you to be my wife,” he interrupted. “In six months, I will still love you. In six months, I will still be unhappy without you. Will you be happy?”
“No,” she breathed. “But, Gabriel—”
“Claire. We had three months of happiness, followed by seven years of misery.” His free hand came up to cup her face, his thumb stroking the curve of her cheek. “There are never any guarantees. I’ve learned that well enough by now. But evenifall that was left to us was six months, I would want to spend them with you.”
Every half-noble, half-fearful resolution she had fortified her heart with collapsed like a house built of playing cards. “It’s so much worse now than it was then,” she said. “Do you know what people will say of you for marrying beneath you? Not just a country nobody, but aservant?”
“My darling Claire, you know I’ve never cared what has been said of me. And as for marrying beneath me, I suspect it won’t take terribly long for society to determine that any good in me has been of your doing. Believe me, the end result won’t be judgments of your suitability so much as awe that you’ve managed me so deftly.” He pulled his hand away from the door, and his fingers brushed her hair over her shoulder and slid beneath it to curve over the nape of her neck. And when she leaned into his touch, he made a satisfied sound deep in his throat, as if he had sensed her acquiescence.
