Page 97 of The Lyon Returns
“He let you marry him, the selfish bastard,” Gideon said. “Isuppose he and the poet had a similar arrangement?”
She shook her head. “No. Though I believe Reggie had feelings for the man.”
Gideon grunted in acknowledgment. “How could he live with himself? He stole your life, Gwen.”
“In truth, many a marriage is based on far less, Gideon, but as it happens, he was of the same opinion as you. He never forgave himself for marrying me, and that’s what he wrote in the note he left me before he went into the woods and…” she gathered her courage, finally speaking the words she’d held onto so tightly, “shot himself.”.
“Sweetheart.” He pulled her up his chest, pressed her face into his neck and wrapped his arms around her, cradling her close as tears leaked from her eyes.
“So you see,” she said, her voice distorted thanks to the hard lump that had formed in her throat, “hedidlove me, just not in the way a husband loves a wife. And I do not know if I can ever forgive him for what he did at the last, despite the fact he did it to free me, nor can I forgive myself for being ever-so-slightly relieved.”
“You must,” he whispered. “You will.” He smoothed one hand down her back, over and over. “Thank you for telling me,” he said at last. “It does explain much.” He paused. “Gwen, I want to talk to you about something, as well.”
She burrowed into him, curling her fingers under her chin. “What is it?” she murmured.
“Today, you asked me about my marriage, about Fannie. You’d shared things about your past, deeply personal things, and I did not respond in kind.”
She levered herself up to meet his gaze. “I did not tell you about Reggie to manipulate you, Gideon. This is notquid pro quo. You do not have to—”
“I know.” He smoothed her hair back from her cheek in a lingering touch. “I’d already planned to tell you. I hadn’t decided on when,exactly. But, now seems right if you care to listen.”
She searched his eyes. Just enough light from the lone oil lamp burning enabled her to make out the somber resolve in their gold-green depths.
“Tell me.”
“Fannie, formally LadyFrances Rothman, daughter of Viscount Lord Rothman, was a favorite of Lady Ashwood’s. The viscount and his wife brought her along one summer during a house party, and from that time on, I believe the duchess harbored hopes of marrying her to Grayson and thereby linking the two families.
“Fannie was a frequent houseguest over the years, starting when Grayson and I were young bucks, and edging into the years we entered society. She had a head of glossy dark hair, a winsome face, and, even at a young age, a woman’s shape.”
“I see,” Gwen said, sounding slightly miffed.
He could tell her he found her vastly more appealing. He could, but he would keep the information to himself. He did not want to find it used against him at some future date as women tended to do.
“She was good-breeding stock as nobility went. The perfect English rose—for my brother. I understood from the start she was not for me.
“Fannie, however, being young and spoilt as many born to privilege are, and boasting above-average looks which she never hesitated to use to her advantage, was a thrill seeker and adventuress, unconcerned with the prospect of marriage at some future date; on any given day, she wanted to have fun in whatever way struck her fancy. It was clear she believed to the core of her being she would never pay aprice for her devil-may-care attitude, so long as she kept her true nature from her parents—and the duchess, of course.”
No one had been more surprised than Gideon when she’d taken an undue interest in him. In retrospect, he understood. Fannie could not resist the lure of seducing the exotic, bastard son of the duke, right under the duchess’s nose. Especially as, for whatever reason, Gideon’s transition from boy to man made him an object of fascination for many of the women who visited the chateau, and Fannie was nothing if not competitive.
He needn’t go into details about all that with Gwen, however.
The little bluestocking gazed at him with knowing eyes. “She saw you as an adventure waiting to happen, did she not?”
He offered her a semblance of a smile. “I’ll say she saw me as a challenge, and rose to the occasion. And I confess, she turned my head for a while.”
“Beautiful, wild, taboo. How could a young man resist?”
“Indeed.” He had known better, of course. The duchess’s frequent warnings to never step out of line, coupled with her very vocal assertions concerning Fannie’s socially superior status saw to that.
But he had no experience curtailing his body’s sexual clamors, and Fannie had a way of cornering him and tempting him in ways no lady had ever dared before. When she came to visit, he was torn between excitement and dread as he imagined what compromising position she might engineer during her stay that he’d be forced to circumvent, while his body urged him not to.
“It must have been difficult for you, being no longer a boy, but not quite a man.”
As usual, she understood without being told.
He went on. “The duchess was not then, and is not now, a stupid woman. Somehow she figured out what was going on. She determined to nip any mischief in the bud. No way would she allow the bride she’d handpicked for Grayson to be stolen by her husband’s bastard son.
“On the evening of my nineteenth birthday, I overheard her talking to my father. She said Fannie was coming to visit, and, as such, it was time I went to India to acquaint myself with my eastern heritage. I expected my father to argue. He did not. He not only agreed I should go, but expressed his desire to get me as far from Fannie as possible. It was only later I realized he did not mean it in the way I thought.”
