Page 93 of One Night with a Prince
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this ‘boy’ is about twenty-two now, is he not?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“I was twelve when I lost my pathetic excuse for a home, and when, for all practical purposes, I lost my mother. Don’t ask me to feel sympathy for some lad who’s had a loving family and comfortable home until now. Because of Prinny’s favor, he probably has fine prospects. Do you know what prospectsI had at twelve?”
“Gavin—”
“Do you know that days after the fire, the blackleg who’d taken me in actually made several appeals to my dear ‘father’? That he told His Bloody Highness I was alone in the world and could use some assistance? And that Prinny ignored every appeal?” Gavin snorted. “Prinny no doubt feared that if he gave me any money, it would be a tacit admission of our connection.”
Gavin’s anger burned in his gut like a hot brand. “And the prince wasn’t about to admit that he’d been, as you put it, a liar and a cheat, that he’d grievously wronged my mother. No, it was much better to ignore the plight of a boy who heknew was his child, to let his mistress’s name continue to be so vilified that she felt she could only help her son by abandoning him.”
Christabel’s face now filled with such pity that he had to look away. “You saw her, lass. Surely you realize how much she suffered from his neglect.” His voice grew hoarse. “Do you know how she got so badly burned?”
“I know she saved you,” she whispered.
“Yes. Late at night, she returned from some piddling job she’d managed to find. When she heard I was still inside, she wrapped herself in a wet rug and came in after me. She found me asleep and couldn’t wake me. Since she couldn’t carry me out while keeping us both wrapped in the rug, she chose to wrap me in the rug and face the flames herself.” The old pain rose to choke him, acrid as the smoke that had clung to his clothes for weeks afterward. “And for her sacrifice, she suffered months of pain, still suffers even today.”
Violently he fought the tears stinging his eyes. He had never let them fall before and wasn’t about to do so now. He could at least be as strong as his mother had been that cruel night.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlHis hands balled into fists as he swung his gaze back to Christabel. “If not for His Bloody Highness, she would have been living in some comfortable brick house in a decent part of town where fires didn’t happen with appalling regularity. I wouldn’t have been left alone at night while she slaved at some menial job. She deserves justice for what he did to her, and I mean to get it for her.”
“But she doesn’t want justice,” Christabel protested. “Whatever hatred she felt for him is long gone. You’ve got to put that part of your life behind you, and getting vengeance won’t do that.”
“It might. How can Inot avenge her, when every time I look at her face—”
“She’s happy, Gavin. Can’t you see that? If you do this, do you really think it would improve your life? And what about your brothers? I take it they don’t share the same difficult relationship with the prince as you do—will they be pleased to watch you destroy His Highness’s chance at being king?”
“If they aren’t, they ought to be,” he growled.
“And me?” she whispered. “You know howI feel about it. I can’t just stand by and watch while you destroy everything I’ve worked for, no matter how much I love you.”
Love. The word dangled between them, a glittering promise. With other women, he’d only seen it as a signal that a pleasant affair was about to turn into a prison. But with her, it was an invitation to a life he’d never expected to want. A life he began to think he might want after all. And that terrified him. Because it meant he would have to be a different man. Marrying her was one thing—it was practical, even sensible. Butloving her? Bloody hell. “Don’t say that,” he rasped. She paled. “What? That I love you? I can’t help it. It’s true.”
Panic swelling in him, he tore his gaze from her. “It’s not. What you think you love is an illusion. Meeting my mother put some notion in your head that I’m noble and unselfish and all those damned things you admire. But I’m not. I only survived those years of poverty by beating my conscience into silence and trampling my heart.”
“But you don’t have to do that anymore. You have a successful business and friends and family—”
“The point is, it’s done. I can’t regain what I lost, Christabel. This is all that’s left, this…this creature of will with no heart, no conscience. If you can accept that, then we can probably have a decent marriage. But if you want more, then I can’t be what you want. I’m the man with no soul, remember?”
“I don’t believe that.” She caught his chin, forcing him to look at her. “I’ve seen you be kind to your servants and generous to card cheats and fierce in the defense of those you love. If that’s not a man with a soul, I don’t know what is.”
The love shining in her eyes was so bright, it hung before him like a palpable temptation. But to live up to her belief in him, he’d have to give up his chance to make Prinny pay. And he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.
“See what you want to see, but that makes it no less an illusion.” Tearing his gaze from hers, he said in a hollow voice, “I’ve never before let talk of love override my reason. I’m not about to do so now.”
The low moan she gave, like that of a wounded beast, cut him so to the heart that he nearly wished theGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlwords back. But if they were to have any sort of future, she would have to realize what he was.
“You mean to publish the letters, if you find them,” she whispered.
“I mean to use them however I can to strike at Prinny.”
“I can’t allow that,” she said in a small voice. “So I’m afraid that from now on, we must part ways.”
His heart thundering, he shifted to stare at her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll look for the letters alone. And I can no longer…share your bed.”
An unreasoning rage seized him. “My other mistresses have tried to manipulate me by withholding their favors, my sweet. It has never worked before, and it won’t work now.”
The hurt in her face made a hard knot fist in his gut. “I’m not trying to manipulate you. I’m simply telling you that I can’t bear to stand by and watch while you bring the world down about your ears. And that means I can’t bear to share your bed. It would be too painful.”
