She began pacing again, searching for words that could explain the inexplicable. "I had a... a sense of doom, a conviction that staying with you would destroy both of us; I would become a woman that I despised and you could not love, and only duty would keep you with me. Yet I couldn't talk about my fears, because pregnancy is supposed to be an occasion for joy—I was sure no one would understand, that there was something horribly wrong with me for feeling as I did.
"I felt trapped in an impossible situation. When you left for a few days to visit your ailing godfather, I found myself taking wild risks when I went riding, secretly hoping for an accident that might solve the problem. That's when I knew that I had to get away, before something terrible happened, and before my pregnancy was so advanced that you would notice. I bolted on sheer impulse and took ship for Malta, which my family had visited once and I remembered fondly."
Her head was throbbing and she raised one hand to her temple, knowing that the dull pain was because she was coming to the worst part. "By the time I reached Malta, I knew I had made a terrible mistake, but I was also sure that I had burned my bridges too thoroughly to ever go back. In my logical madness I knew that you might want the baby for dynastic reasons, or at least because you would feel responsible for it, but you certainly would never forgive a wife who had subjected you to such public humiliation."
Briefly she closed her eyes, remembering. "If I had known you were coming after me—if you had arrived even a few hours earlier, everything would have been different," she said despairingly. "But 'ifs' aren't worth the powder it would take to blow them to hell."
She drew a shuddering breath. "I still don't understand why I did what I did. There was no point where I made a deliberate choice to betray you. But I was eighteen and a fool, desperately lonely and sure that I was already ruined. The Comte d'Auxerre was amusing and flattering and looked a little like you."
She swallowed hard. "I thought that just for one night, he might keep the loneliness at bay, so when he asked to come to my room, I... I let him."
His voice edged like broken glass, Ross said, "For God's sake, Juliet, don't tell me any more about this."
"Please, bear with me," she begged. "You need to know to understand what happened later." Her face twisted with bitter regret. "It's hard to believe how naive I was. Girls are warned never to be alone with men because a male touch will rouse us to helplessly wanton behavior, and I more or less believed that, because when you touched me I definitely lost all sense and control. I knew better than to think lying with another man would be the same, but I did think that for a few hours I might forget my misery."
Her restless pacing had brought her to the wall, and she stopped, staring blindly at the rough plaster. "I was so wrong," she said wretchedly. "I soon realized that I had made another horrible mistake, but... I felt that I couldn't draw back, not after I had agreed. I loathed every moment of it, not because of anything he did—it was just that he wasn't you. I felt like a whore. I despised him, and even more I despised myself. I was too ashamed to admit how I felt, so I pretended that nothing was wrong, but I made him leave as soon as I could."
Juliet turned to look at Ross, her gray eyes as dark and frantic as twisting smoke. "That was the only time I ever broke my marriage vows, Ross. I hated what I had done so much that I could never bear to let another man touch me. The rumors that trickled back to England were just that—rumors. I suppose they were inspired by the fact that I was young and wild and heedless, but I swear there were never any other men after that night."
Ross could no longer endure lying still, so he rose from the bed and jerked on his chapan, as if the garment could protect him from the dark emotions swirling through the room. He did not approach Juliet; he did not dare. It was bitterly ironic to learn that if he had reached the Hotel Bianca earlier, his wife would have welcomed him with open arms.
Instead, they had come within the width of a single door of each other. But because he was too late, they had both been utterly desolate, and utterly incapable of comforting each other. It was a bleak picture, but he steeled himself for worse to come. Tightly he said, "What happened then?"
Juliet spun away, her movements brittle and graceless. "I felt filthy, defiled... as violated as if I had been raped, but this was worse because I was responsible. No one made me do what I did. It was my mistake from beginning to end. More than anything on earth, I wanted to die."
Her voice dropped to a hoarse whisper. "So at dawn the next day I rode outside Valletta to a lonely cove, stripped down to my shift, and I... walked into the water."