Page 65 of Scandalous Heiress
He focused on her eyes, her lips, the hollow of her throat.“They are special to me and meant only for you.”
“I question if I should accept them.”
“Of course you should.The silk will match no one else’s eyes.The jade complement no other’s rich hair.The pearls will accent the purity of your skin and keep you warm until I can kiss your eyes and hair and throat.”
She squeezed her thighs together.“You must not be so…so suggestive.”
“Oh, Ada, I’m as restrained as one can be without running off with you this minute to the vicar.”
She squirmed in the lush squabs.“Oh, you are charming, eloquent—”
“Am I?Refreshing to hear.I had it from others I was rustic in my romantic pursuits.”
“They were wrong.”
“My wife,” he said quite simply.
She formed an O with her mouth.What to say now?She rallied, stiffening her spine, suppressing her desires for him, set on her purpose.“I’m glad you’ve brought her up.”
“Want to know about her?”
“I would really like to understand if you bring any preconceived notions to any…future union from your past one.”
He frowned, turned his face to the passing scenery and was silent for a minute or more.
Stuck, frightened she had offended him, she fretted.“I hate to ask—”
“You have every right to ask.When she died two years ago, I made a rule to never speak of her.Today, I must.”
The sun was bright.The noise from the traffic a constant hum around them.The patter of horses and the low indescribable babble of pedestrians filled the void between them.
“I was twenty-two and she eighteen when we met.She’d just debuted.I should not have even gone to the ball where she was presented but a friend of mine wanted companionship.His mother was after him to choose a girl.I saw Alicia, pretty, petite, gay.”He licked his lips and winced.“I saw the coquette and nothing beneath.Had I taken time to delve, I would have done us both a service, but I liked her looks.She liked mine.We could dance easily together.Laugh easily.She’d been educated in the normal subjects a lady was to have at her command.Household management, French, ability to play the piano.Judgment of others, she lacked.Ambition, she had in abundance.For status, finery, parties she was avid.Most of all, she determined to marry well.She was the second daughter of a viscount.Becoming Lady Victor Cole, wife of the second son of a duke, fit her idea of achievement.At first.Soon she put her sights higher.But then she was married and becoming enamored of an earl or a duke and becoming his paramour for a day or a month seemed more like a frolic than folly.
“At first I was shocked.Then angry.Belligerent.A beast demanding she reform.She loved the risks of her behavior.Adventures, she called them.”
Outrage washed over Ada.“Your daughters?”
He blinked as he glared at her, the past darkening his visage.“They are mine.I see it in the color of their eyes, the shape of their faces.Thank god.They are mine.I’d not have been able to continue with the charade of marriage if they’d been some other man’s.But then…”
Ada feared more.
His expression crumbled.“She came to me one night and told me she was pregnant with another man’s child and that she had aborted the baby.”
Ada gasped at the horror he must’ve felt at such a revelation.
“She was bleeding.The abortionist had done a very poor job and she was ill.Fevered.Raving mad for days.I thought we’d lose her.We nearly did.But she survived.Just as she did, her lover, a man I knew, made the mistake to speak of her condition to a friend of his.At once in a tidal wave, it seemed, all of London knew.That’s when I decided to go abroad.Shanghai seemed like hell to me.I knew nothing of running a business.I’d spent my life learning the running of Parliament as that was to be my family role.Second son, you see.The government or the military.All of it gone in a flash.I could have stayed, I suppose.My parents fought with me to do so.I couldn’t.I needed a new beginning.”
He knit his brows.“I hope you never understand that kind of loss or shame.I hope you never witness that kind of discord.”
She remained silent, expecting he had more to say.
“I thought I loved my wife.But on reflection, it was youthful infatuation.I had a perception of love that was rosier than reality.”He fell quiet.His gaze upon the passersby.“Far too many marry without knowledge of the other.”
“For money,” she said, “or position.”
“It’s been that way for too long.”
“But my friends come to England to find a proper match.Many, not just Ezzie, consider wedding someone they barely know because it would please their mothers or give them a title.I detect that Lord Pinkhurst and his American wife are not very happy.”
