Page 113 of In the Prince's Bed
“It was not merely that. He did love your mother enough to want to—”
“Love? That ass had no idea what love is. He was always calling her vulgar and cold, while she spent her nights crying.”
“It was easier on his pride, I expect, to blame her.” Emson shot him a veiled glance. “Some do say that it is the woman’s fault if the man cannot perform his duties. So he may even have convinced himself that such was the case.”
Alec bristled. “My mother was the sweetest, best—”
“I am not saying he was right, my lord, either in his beliefs or in his actions. Clearly in later years, he took the blame upon himself or he would not have sought cures. I am just saying it weighs sorely on a man when he cannot bed his wife.”
“I suppose that’s true.” He sucked in a heavy breath. “And it probably weighs sorely on the woman, too.”
“Yes. Unfortunately, after the old earl and your mother married, and he realized she was not…the solution to his problem, he lashed out at her. That wounded her feelings and made her uneasy around him, which in turn made him more bitter and on and on. It got worse until finally—”
“She let the Prince of Wales seduce her.”
Emson nodded. “And then the marriage became as you knew it.”
“With the earl always berating her and her believing she was of no worth.” His jaw tightened. “And that her son was a reckless ne’er-do-well who would never be a credit to his name.”
Alec glanced away. He couldn’t believe he was talking about this with Emson. But then, who else was he supposed to talk to about it? The only other people who would understand were his half brothers, who weren’t around, and—
Katherine. If she’d stayed, he could have told her. The woman who’d ached for him because he was “poor” and seemingly too proud to tell her might not have flinched at the idea that he was secretly a bastard because his father had been impotent. She might have understood and accepted it, as she’d done with so many other things about him—why he’d worked with horses, why he’d hidden his past…why he liked to break the rules.
But he’d driven Katherine away. And all because he’d been too much of a coward to trust her with the truth from the beginning.
Just like the old earl.
Alec stared blindly at his servant. “I thought it was the fortune that made it impossible for them to be close. He was always swearing that he wouldn’t have married her if not for it.”
Emson nodded. “The master was wrongheaded and too proud for his own good. Trouble is, his sort of pride has no place in love. A man must be humble enough to show his whole self, bad and good, to the woman he loves if he is to gain her trust.”
“Which I didn’t do,” Alec said.
Emson shrugged. “You weren’t marrying for love. You were marrying for money. That’s different.”
“I wasn’t marrying only for—” He stopped short. He had been. His deceptions and manner of wooing had all been to lessen the risk of losing Katherine’s fortune.
None of it had been to lessen the risk of losing her love. And now that he’d lost both, he saw that he’d put all his attention in the wrong place. Because losing her fortune didn’t mean losing Edenmore. He could always find another heiress or borrow more money—assuming that Katherine kept silent about him in society, which he somehow knew she would.
But he didn’twantanother heiress. He only wanted Katherine. So losing her love meant losing it all, because without her…
The reality of what he’d done sank over him like a funeral shroud. Oh, God, how would he live without her? What did it matter if he restored Edenmore to a brilliant and efficient estate if he had no Katherine to share it with?
No Katherine to laugh at his puny jests, no Katherine to fuss over him, no Katherine to love.
He groaned. He loved her. Like an idiot, he’d gone and broken his own rule—not to fall in love with the heiress.
But she loathed him now. And too late, he understood what she’d been trying to tell him.How can I ever separate the things you said to win me, from the things you said to win my fortune?
He hadn’t thought of it that way. He’d been too busy scheming to realize that his one deception would make her regard everything he’d said to her as a lie.
Even if it wasn’t.
But how could she know that, when he’d never shown his true self? When he’d kept parts hidden purposely to deceive her? How could he expect her to know what was real and what wasn’t?
He couldn’t. That damned fortune of hers would always be between them, convincing her that he’d never really cared for her at all.
Unless he gave up the fortune.
