Unforgivable(44)

“You believe he thought me willing, then? Willing to marry you as you were then?”

She flinched minutely at that, and he felt a pinprick of remorse even in the midst of his anger. Could she really still be hurt by the memory of how she used to look? Now that she was so lovely?

“Yes,” she said, her voice calm and controlled. “I believe he thought you were willing. As did I, until our second night together. Do you remember? We were staying at an inn, and I knocked on your bedchamber door, and you—”

Now it was Gil’s turn to flinch, though he tried to disguise his reaction by interrupting her with a drawled “I recall consummating our marriage once or twice, yes.” He hated himself even as the words fell from his lips.

Rose stared at him, expressionless. And God, but there she was at last: the girl he’d married. He remembered that bland look very well.

“I realised that night that you did not wish to be married to me,” she said mildly. “Your distaste for my person was very evident.”

He knew he’d hurt her that night. But he said nothing, turning away from her and walking to the window to stare out at the well-kept lawns of the formal garden, feeling hollowed out, his anger dying in the empty space inside him.

“I felt no distaste for you,” he said with his back to her. “But I did not wish to marry you.”

There was a long pause, then he heard her sigh, and she said, “It is the same thing. You did not want me.”

“It is not the same thing,” he said tautly. “But you are right—I did not want you.”

“You married me solely to retrieve the properties your father lost to mine.”

“Yes.”

He heard her moving behind him. A moment later, she was standing beside him. He felt her eyes on him and turned his head to meet her gaze. She wore a pleading expression that he hardened his heart against. “Gil,” she said. “You must understand that I believed you were willingly entering into a real marriage with me, in return for a real dowry. Had I known what the arrangement was, I would never have consented. Especially if I’d known you loved someone else—”

“Do not speak of her to me!”

“But—”

“I would never have told you any of it, if I had known who you were,” he hissed, his anger riled again as he recalled how he’d opened her heart to Eve Adams. “And I especially wouldn’t have spoken of her.” He cringed to think of what he’d revealed to her of the young man he’d once been. The idealistic boy.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you? Why don’t you admit that you enjoyed it,” he said bitterly. “Having me in your power? Grovelling at your feet like a—” He stopped himself. She was staring at him, horrified.

“I—no! Gil, no! I truly meant to tell you, but then you talked about the past, and the more that came out, the more I realised things were different from how I’d always believed. In the end, I just couldn’t do it. I decided not to tell you at all. I waited till you fell asleep and slipped away, and the very next day, I came back here.” She sighed. “But then I found out about the baby—”

He stared at her with cold, angry eyes.

“I don’t believe you,” he said at last. “I think you planned it all. You always intended to get pregnant, didn’t you?”

“No,” she whispered. “I didn’t.”

“Stop lying to me!” His fist slammed into the wall, six inches from her head, the pain of the blow blooming sharp in his knuckles and radiating down his arm. Rose cried out and shrank from him, one hand going protectively to her belly.

Her plain fear made him rear away from her, empty desperation mingling with self-loathing now. He turned again, sagging against the window frame to stare out unseeingly at the iron-grey sky.

After several minutes of silence, he faced her again. “You are sure the babe is mine?”

“Yes, I’m quite sure,” she said bitterly. “I’ve never done—that with anyone else.”

“Unlike me, you mean?” he said, investing his words with ice. She looked away and shrugged carelessly, but he saw the betraying movement of her throat as she swallowed.

God, what a mess.

He gave a weary sigh. “When I got your letter, I was curious as to who the father of my wife’s child would be,” he said. “I didn’t imagine it would be me.”

“Well, it is you,” she replied flatly.

“How can I be sure? Perhaps it is that fellow who was just here.”

“Oh, you are a pig!” she blurted out. “The babe is yours!”