Page 124 of To Pleasure a Prince
“I did. Your mother told me she had locked you in your room.Your room.With plenty to eat and all your books at your disposal.”
Marcus snorted. “Did Ilookas if I’d spent three days in my room reading, when I came to apologize to you?”
“I was too angry at the manner of your apology to notice, I confess. You stared at me with hate in your eyes while you said, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”
“What did you expect? I’d spent three days in a dungeon with therats.At night there was no light, and I huddled on the old couch my mother had left for me and tried to keep from wondering when those rats would come to gnaw at my toes. In the daytime, there was nothing to do but listen for the sound of my mother bringing me my meals and debating whether I could yet swallow my pride enough to say what she wanted—”
“You and your damned pride,” the prince hissed. “You should have told her whatever she wanted the first day she put you down there, so you could get out and come to me with your anger.”
“And what would you have done? Tossed her aside? What do you think she would have done to me then?”
“I would have spoken to your father, and he would have seen that she was…helped.” The prince came nearer, his face a mask of tortured guilt. “Until she came at you with that poker, I did not realize just how…un-hinged she’d become. She’d always been a high-strung filly, but toward the end she saw you as her only means to keep my affections. So whenever you did not please me, she…took whatever measures necessary to bring you round.”
“And you, of course, always approved. Three days in one’s room is no great fun either, after all.”
“No, but I saw it as a good way to teach you that you could not speak to your future king as if he were some rogue in the street.” He drew himself up stiffly. “I could not have you going about calling me a whoreson in public.”
“Then you should have kept your damned prick in your trousers.”
“Then you would never have been born.”
That brought Marcus up short. He stared bleakly at his father.
“Marcus, I have made many mistakes in my life. But having you was not one of them. I only wish I had explained to you the situation between your father and me before I no longer had the chance.”
“What was there to explain? He was your friend before you stole his wife.”
“I did not steal her.” He sighed. “Your father simply did not care that much about the things that mattered to your mother.”
“Like status and society and—”
“Like passion. Your mother was a passionate woman, but your father was an ascetic. Passion didn’t much interest him. So when he left your mother alone for so long, she found someone else to give her what she craved.”
“Helovedher,” Marcus said fiercely.
“In his own way, yes. But not enough to give her what she wanted from him.” He shrugged. “Books interested him. Buildings interested him. But not people.” He smiled faintly. “Except for you and Louisa. He loved the two of you. And God knows you loved him.” His voice cracked. “I envied him that, having your love and your respect. No matter how hard I tried, I could not gain it.”
The prince glanced away, his eyes going hard. “Your mother knew it, too. So she tried her damnedest to get it for me.” A harsh laugh escaped his lips. “I could have told her it was fruitless. One thing you did inherit from me is that damned Hanoverian blood. You’re as willful and stubborn and proud as my father ever was.” His gaze swung back to Marcus. “When Gillian started those damned rumors about you, why didn’t you just deny them, for God’s sake?”
“Why didn’tyou?”Regina put in, her temper rising. “You should have stood behind your son, instead of abandoning him to the wolves.”
The prince blinked, as if he’d forgotten she was there. Then he scowled.
She didn’t care. Slipping her hand from Marcus’s, she approached the prince. “He has spent his life alone in exile because you were too much a coward to do the right thing by him. He deserved better from you.”
The prince searched her face. “Indeed he did. But I would make amends now, if I can.”
“By corrupting my sister?” Marcus snapped.
His Highness uttered a weary sigh, then slowly shook his head. “If you truly do not want her here, then I will withdraw my invitation.”
Marcus released a pent-up breath.
“But consider this,” he went on. “A few years at court will give Louisa the society polish she will need to make the sort of match she truly deserves. A love match with a man worthy of her.” His gaze met Marcus’s. “It will certainly erase any rumors that might arise as a result of my ill-thought machinations with Foxmoor.”
The prince had a good point, actually. The sense of it even reached Marcus, for she could see the battle raging on his face.
At last he sighed. “I will consider it,” Marcus said gruffly.
