“I could never tell you,” he said.
“Tell me, or I could never love you,” Catherine countered.
“If I tell you, you will never love me.”
“Let me be the judge.”
Rotherham stepped back, allowing the young man and the young woman a bit of privacy though the crowd pushed in to hear.
“Ginger Street. We were upon it, and some man, a blacksmith I think it was, he came at us. We never learned why, but some people hate the army. Some slight perhaps, or maybe his son was killed in battle. He came, and we killed him. Not me, but one of us. We are brothers. After that, the street, just this one little street in one little town, it erupted, and the people who lived there, they attacked us. I had to kill some of them.”
“Why would that make me hate you?’ Catherine asked. None of it made sense. It was certainly a horrible story, but not one who made her think any less of Dominick.
“My company stayed there. We were ordered to. That night, on that street, after the skirmish, we found these three girls. The blacksmith’s daughters. They were young, thirteen at the least, and sixteen at the oldest. We hated them upon finding them. Three of our own company had died in the fight. We… we took it out on them. We had our ways with them, one girl with two or more men on them sometimes… and then after, we killed them.”
Catherine put her hand over her mouth. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was all too horrible, so much worse than she could ever imagine.
“I’ll leave,” Dominick said, and he stood and turned. He left drops of crimson on the stone behind him as he walked. Catherine watched him go.
“You can go after him; the marriage can be off,” Duke Rotham said, he was suddenly beside her. “I want you to marry me because you love me, not because your father loves my title.”
Catherine looked up at the man, and then back to Dominick. When she turned away from Dom, she knew it was the last time she would ever see him. That thought saddened her greatly, but she knew it was the right decision. She wasn’t sure if she would ever come to regret it, but somehow, she didn’t think she would. He had lied to her, had kept such dark things from her. If he could do that, for so long, maybe it was true that she never even really knew him.
And the Duke. He was an honorable man. He had been patient and had weathered her childishness with maturity. Images from that day on the long sofa rushed into her mind, and she felt his lips upon hers, his gentle movements inside her.
She put her arm around Andrew’s and led him to his manor.
“We have a wedding to plan,” she said.
THE END
To Seduce a Scoundrel – A Regency Romance
1
David Weatherby stood near the fence that separated the wooden stands from the dirt racing track where the horses ran. The stands were full, despite the overcast sky, thick with dark gray clouds that promised rain at any time. David stood alone, dressed smartly, a hat upon his head, the brim pulled low in an effort to hide his eyes, which were tired looking, with dark circles beneath them.
It had been some time since he had slept. He often went a day or two without rest, so caught up in his carious gambling that he couldn’t find the time to lay his head upon his pillow. The way his gambling had been going of late, he had probably already bet his pillow and lost it, so there was nothing at home for him to lay his head upon.
The horse race would be different however, he always did well at the sport. They were gathering the horses at the starting line now, and they would run once around the circuit, ending at the same line they began from.
David could see the horse he had bet on, and he had bet heavily upon it. He had a meeting to play cards later on in the evening, and it was his hope to go into the meeting with a heavy purse, full of winnings from the race. He had bet on a horse which was a long shot, but as always, David had some information the other men in the stands did not.
And there were not only men in the stands. A few women were there as well, and one came up behind David and spoke, her voice high pitched and pleasant.
“Mr. Weatherby,” she said, and David turned to see Caroline Hampton standing before him. She was dressed in a light blue dress, the skirt rustling lightly in the considerable breeze. Her hair had a reddish tint to it, and it was piled in ornate designs upon her head. Her bosom was ample, and that’s where David’s eyes travelled to first. The woman noted this, and she blushed.
“Ms. Hampton,” David said, finally looking at her eyes. He took her hand and bowed his head to kiss it, and she curtsied as well as she could between the first row of benches and the fence.
“I was hoping I may see you here,” the woman said.