Page 61 of The Bachelor
“Do you know that suite of rooms on the third floor that is closed up just now?” he murmured.
“The Tapestry Suite?” she asked.
“Is that what it’s called?”
“Given that every wall has a tapestry? Yes.”
He cast her a searching glance. “We need to talk. Privately. That seems as good a place as any. Meet me up there as soon as you can get away from your mother when we arrive back at Armitage House.”
“Very well.”
Her stomach sank. Now came the reckoning. He had sort of offered marriage, but that had just been his way to shut Lionel up. Still, after everything the two of them had done together, she supposed he might actually want . . .
She sighed. She had no idea what to expect from him. She would simply have to brace herself for whatever it was.
Though if he condemned her for her past, she wasn’t sure she could ever forgive him.
Chapter Seventeen
As Joshua paced the drugget-covered carpet of the Tapestry Suite’s bedchamber, the largest of the rooms, he began to wonder if Gwyn would actually come. He’d been waiting quite a while, and the longer he waited, the more questions he had. And the angrier he grew.
She’d repeatedly lied to him about Malet. And considering that her brother had paid the arse off ten years ago, Thornstock had lied to him as well, both about her prior connection to Malet and the nature of the threat he posed to Gwyn.
How much did Thornstock know about her past with Malet anyway? For that matter, could Joshua even believe what Malet had accused her of?
He had to. Otherwise, Malet had no reason to blackmail her.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.” Gwyn walked in and closed the door behind her, then locked it, to his surprise. “I had a difficult time getting rid of Mama. Shefinallywent up to take a nap, after I refused to talk about . . . us.”
“Why refuse?”
“She was hoping we might marry,” Gwyn said bluntly. “But don’t worry. I squelched that idea.”
Damnation. Part of him had begun to hope that himself. Which just showed what a fool he was. “You mean, because you would never wed me.”
“Don’t be silly. If things were different—” A weary sigh escaped her. “But they’re not. And I’m not daft enough to hold you to the promise—threat—you made to Lionel: that if he sought to ruin me publicly, you’d save my reputation by marrying me. For one thing, I know you were just trying to protect me. For another, you deserve to have the sort of wife you actually want.”
That caught him entirely off guard. “What sort of wife wouldthatbe?”
“You know,” she said with a vague wave of her hand, “a wife above reproach, who doesn’t . . . have a checkered past.”
“Yes,” he said sarcastically, “because I’m so far above reproach myself that I must needs have a wife who is equally so. Never mind that I can’t walk properly, that I jump at loud noises, that I have trouble controlling my temper . . . That I nearly beat a man to death in a fit of anger earlier today.”
“On my behalf!” When he lifted a brow, she walked over to stare blindly out the room’s one window. “Don’t think I’m unaware ofwhyyou were so angry at him. You realized I was . . . not the chaste innocent you’d assumed, and you blamed it on Lionel.” Her back was as straight as a ramrod. “And to a certain extent, onme.”
“What?That wasn’t why I was angry, for God’s sake. It was because Malet was threatening you, trying to line his pockets by holding your past association with him over your head. Any man who does that isn’t worth the ground he slithers on.”
Her breathing grew ragged, as if she were on the verge of tears, and she still wouldn’t look at him. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly. The bastard took advantage of you in your youth, was paid off by your brother to put an end to it, and then tried to come back and take advantage of you all over again in a different fashion.” He approached her. “He’s the sort who preys on women. Heywood told me that much. And hearing how he acted with you, how he’s acting now, merely confirmed it.”
Her gaze swung to him, so dark and uncertain that seeing it cut him to the bone. “You seem to be operating under the assumption that he forced me into his bed. But he didn’t. Ilethim seduce me.”
That gave him pause. But then he realized—“It doesn’t matter. He knew what he was doing. You did not. He had an unequal advantage. Just like—” He caught himself before he revealed Beatrice’s secret about their Uncle Armie. “I’ve seen how scoundrels like him work. Hell, if your brother hadn’t married Beatrice, I would have had his head for daring to take advantage of her, duke or no duke. I certainly wouldn’t have blamedherfor it.”
Frustration knit her brow. “You still don’t understand. At the time, I genuinely fancied myself in love with Lionel.”
He ignored the pang those words gave him. “I assumed as much. The only thing that matters is whether you fancy yourself in love with himnow. And I gather that you don’t.”
