He had been standing behind his desk since his housekeeper had shown her into his study. He came around it now. “Go with you?” he said. “Have you lost all sense of propriety, Isabella? It is not even very proper for you to be here alone with me when Miriam is busy at the school. It would take us two days to go to Wroxford and back.”
“Yes,” she said. “I thought you would not wish to see me go alone.”
“I don’t.” His tone was exasperated and he grasped her hands and squeezed them. “You must forget this madness. You are about to be released from one scandal. I don’t want even the breath of another to smear your character. I want you to be my wife. Perhaps Lord Brocklehurst will consent now to our marrying. If not, then I want to continue with our earlier plan. I will marry you by special license. Will you, Isabella?”
Her eyes were on their clasped hands. “No, Daniel,” she said. “That is out of the question now.”
“Because of the scandal?” he said. “But that is all over now. It was not so long ago that you were pleased at the idea of marrying me. You told me that you loved me.”
“I can’t marry you, Daniel,” she said. “Too much has happened.”
He released her hands and turned away from her in order to shuffle a pile of papers on his desk. “I have been meaning to ask you about the Duke of Ridgeway,” he said, “and the strange fact of his following you here after going to extraordinary lengths to clear you of the charges against you. What is it all about, Isabella?”
“He is a kind man who cares for his employees,” she said. “I would say he is loved as well as respected by his servants.”
“And by you?” he asked. “Do you love as well as respect him?” He had turned again. His blue eyes looked directly into hers.
“Of course not,” she said. Her eyes wavered and held on his.
“And what are his feelings for you?” he asked. “He is a married man, is he not?”
“I have told you,” Fleur said. “He is a caring employer. He takes his responsibilities seriously.”
“He has nothing to do with your reluctance to marry me, then?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“I will say no more on the matter, then,” he said a little stiffly. “But I am pleased that you are home and safe, Isabella. And I am pleased that you will be working with Miriam. She needs help and I know she values your friendship, as I do.”
“Thank you,” she said. She stood looking at him for a long moment. “Daniel, I would like to tell you the full truth.”
“It is often as well,” he said. “It is good to unburden the conscience.”
“When I was in London,” she said, “I was starving and I could find no employment at all. The time came when I had been two days without food.”
He stood looking gravely at her.
“It seemed to me at the time,” she said, “and I believe I was right, that I had three possible ways of surviving. I could beg or I could steal or I could …” She swallowed awkwardly. “Or I could offer my body for sale.”
He did not help her. They stood in silence for a few moments.
“I sold my body,” she said. “Once. I would have done so again and again if I had not been offered the governess’s post that took me into Dorsetshire.”
“You are a whore,” he said very softly.
She covered her lips with one shaking hand and then lowered the hand again. “Present tense?” she said. “Is that something that is always present tense?”
“Isabella.” He turned away and leaned both arms on the desk. “There must have been some alternative.”
“Thieves in London are very well-trained from infancy,” she said. “I don’t believe I could have competed. Should I have died, Daniel? Should I have starved to death rather than become a whore?”
“Oh, dear God,” he said. “Dear God.”
And in the silence that followed, Fleur knew that his words had not been just an exclamation.
He lifted his head at last, though he did not turn around. “Are you sorry?” he asked. “Have you repented, Isabella?”
“Yes and no,” she said steadily after a pause. “I am more sorry than I can say that it happened, Daniel, but I am not sorry that I did it. I know that I would do it again if it were my only means of survival. I suppose I am not the stuff that martyrs are made of.”
His head dropped again. “But how can you expect God’s forgiveness if you do not truly repent?” he said.
“I think perhaps God understands,” she said. “If he does not, then I suppose I have a quarrel with him.”