Page 98 of The Truth About Lord Stoneville
“I mean it, Oliver.”
He faced her, eyes blazing. “My mother caught me in bed with a guest at our house party, all right? She caught me in the act of tupping a married woman.”
She stared at him, not sure what to make of that.
He went on in that same awful voice, “It was the last time I saw Mother before she ran off to the hunting lodgeto find Father.That,my dear, is why she killed him.”
Maria could see that he believed it, that he was tormented by it. But she couldn’t understand why. Yes, it would be a shock for a mother to find her sixteen-year-old son in bed with a married woman, but would it anger her enough to make her kill her husband? That seemed highly unlikely.
“But why . . .”
He let out a strangled oath. “Lilith Rawdon was an army wife. She and Major Rawdon had been invited to Halstead Hall for my parents’ house party. When they arrived, Lilith seemed upset over something. But it didn’t stop her from flirting with me when no one was watching.
“I was flattered. At that point I’d never bedded a woman. I’d kissed a tavern maid or two at Eton, but nothing more.” His voice hardened. “It didn’t take long for Lilith to realize how ripe I was for the plucking. When everyone else was at a picnic on the second day of the house party, I cried off because I always hated watching my parents make cutting remarks to each other in the guise of being witty and sophisticated.”
Maria didn’t speak, afraid to stop the flow of words.
“Lilith found me in my bedchamber reading some dry tome about farming that Father had assigned me to read. I was bored to tears. So you can imagine my reaction when she walked in, closed the door, and began to remove her clothes.”
Though shock at the woman’s blatant wickednesscoursed through her, Maria fought to keep her expression neutral.
“I couldn’t look away. Lilith was remarkably beautiful, and she acted as if she found me attractive.” He shook his head. “God, what an idiot I was.”
Maria wanted to cry at his self-loathing. The cursed woman probablyhadfound him attractive. Maria could easily picture Oliver at sixteen—a lithe, olive-skinned Adonis with the energy and vitality of youth. Having watched her male cousins at that age, she could also see how he would have been dazzled by the attentions of a beautiful older woman.
He went on, his breathing ragged. “She climbed on top of me and . . . well, you can guess the rest. I was happily engaged in losing my virginity to the very talented Mrs. Rawdon when the door swung open and Mother walked in.” A dull flush rose in his cheeks.
Poor man. Given how furiously one of her cousins had blushed when Maria had found him merely kissing his future wife, it must have been ten times more awful for Oliver.
But she still didn’t see why it would lead to such tragedy.
Oliver stared as if the scene were playing out before him. “Instead of covering herself,” he went on, “Lilith rose up to stare boldly at Mother. When a vicious smile crossed her face and the color drained from Mother’s features, I knew. Lilith had intended for Mother to find us—to findme—in that state all along.”
“Why on earth would she want such a thing?”
“Apparently I was part of some sick need she had tostrike at Mother. That was confirmed when Mother looked at Lilith and said, ‘Isn’t it enough that you havehim? Must you take my son, too?’ ”
So Lilith Rawdon must have been his father’s mistress. Great heavens.
Oliver’s face was a mask of revulsion. “I’d always wondered why the Rawdons spent so much time with my parents. Mother didn’t seem to like Lilith, and Father made fun of Major Rawdon in sly ways that even I could recognize. But that day, when Mother saw me . . .”
He balled his hands into fists. “Oh, God, there was so much pain in her voice. It has haunted me all my life. Mother told me to get out of her sight, and fairly tossed me from the room. The last thing I saw was Lilith smiling at my mother like a cat in the cream.”
“But why did the woman do that? If she and your father were engaged in an affair, why taunt your mother with it?”
“I’ve spent years trying to figure that out. Several rumors were circulating back then about the Rawdons—that their marriage was in trouble, that there was talk of a separation. Divorce was out of the question, of course, but perhaps Lilith hoped to convince Father to run off with her somewhere they could live together. How better to accomplish her purpose than to make Mother angry enough to ask for a separation herself? She would never have left without a strong impetus.”
“Or maybe the whole thing was just how it seemed,” Maria pointed out. “Lilith Rawdon, clearly a woman oflow character, couldn’t resist taking a young man into her bed whom she found attractive. Did she try to see you again after that?”
“No. They left that night. I tried to see her later, to get the truth out of her, but when I went to her home, the servants informed me that she and her husband had gone to India. I wrote to her—she never wrote back. My other letters came back marked as undeliverable, so they’d apparently moved on.”
He fixed Maria with a tortured gaze. “But there’s no doubt in my mind that Lilith had a purpose in what she did that day. And that I, in my stupidity and my weakness for women, let her use me to hurt my mother, to cause her to—”
“Oh, my darling,” she said, fighting back tears as she went to him. “It wasn’t your fault!”
“Wasn’t it?” he choked out. “Mother’s last words to me, while I scrambled to hide my nakedness, were, ‘You’re a disgrace to this family! You’re behaving exactly like your father. And I’ll be damned if I let him turn you into the same wicked, selfish creature as he is, sacrificing anyone to his pleasures!’ That’s why she shot him. To prevent what she saw as his bad influence on me.”
Oh, her poor dear. What a curse, for that to be the last memory of his mother. No wonder he had lived all these years trying to forget the past. Who wouldn’t?
