Louise Allen - Regency Surrender - Passion And Rebellion

‘I can excuse you for not seeing my true motives for the way I’ve behaved,’ he said. ‘Because you knew nothing of my misery, my sense of utter failure. So now, will you have the honesty to think about my earlier failure to believe in you? Remember, all I knew of you was that although you professed to be from a very strict background, you never protested when I crossed the line. You did not put up even a token protest that first time I kissed you. You wanted me to kiss you. You didn’t seem to care if we got caught, either.’

‘But that was because...’

‘You loved me. I know that now. And I should have believed in it at the time, too. But what Fielding told me put a very different complexion on your behaviour. It was all just credible enough to make me wonder. So before you condemn me for not being able to somehow discern that you were totally innocent of all the charges laid at your door, let me ask you this: When the situation was reversed, did you believe in me?’

No. She hadn’t. She’d been so angry with him for the way he’d cast her aside that she’d wanted to believe the worst of him. Stoking up her hatred had given her the strength to go on living. She’d pored over those newspaper stories, believing the very worst of him without a shred of evidence to back any of it up.

So how could she condemn him for believing what a true, honest, good friend had told him, from the best of motives? Especially when, now she looked back on it openly and honestly, her own behaviour might have made the accusations against her seem plausible?

She’d been so bowled over when the handsome, charming young son of such a notable family had paid her attention that she’d forgotten every principle she’d ever had. She had encouraged him, as much as she’d dared. When he’d snatched that first kiss, a hasty peck on the cheek, she hadn’t protested. She’d blushed and giggled, and let him engineer situations where he could do it again. They’d rapidly progressed to kisses on the lips. Then heated kisses on the lips.

She caught her lip between her teeth.

‘What a pair we are,’ he said. ‘Neither of us can quite believe in love. I couldn’t believe you loved me ten years ago and you cannot believe I love you now. Or perhaps you are just looking for excuses to escape me. I’m not much of a catch, am I? You’ve made it clear that I’m good enough for a fling, but not a lifetime.’

He walked over to the window and stood with his back to her for some time, in complete silence. When she darted a glance in his direction, it was to see his shoulders hunched in an attitude of defeat.

She wanted to cry out that she’d been too hasty. That, perhaps, if he gave her time to think it over, she might be able to...

To what? Believe in him? Trust her entire future to his hands? When by his own admission he’d proved himself capable of the vilest kind of behaviour?

‘I may as well go,’ he said, whirling round and making for the door. ‘Forgive me for haranguing you. I hope your voyage back to England will be uneventful and that your memories of your stay in Paris are...sweet.’

And with that, he walked out.

Leaving his hat lying on the floor where he’d dropped it.

Amethyst stared wide-eyed at the closed door through which he’d gone. He’d given up. He’d seen that she couldn’t ever trust him fully again and he’d given up. And gone.

Just like that.

She got to her feet and ran to the window. One last look. She would take one last look at him as he walked away until the crowd in the street swallowed him from sight. She laid her hand flat on the window pane, as though she could reach through it and touch him. Knowing she couldn’t.

She’d blamed him for destroying what they’d had, before. But this time, he was right, she was the one who’d destroyed it. She hadn’t been prepared to trust him. To forgive him. Worse than that, she hadn’t even tried.

She could justify ignoring that first proposal. The night he’d discovered she was still a virgin and guilt had reared up and slapped him round the head for what he’d done. But the subsequent ones? If he didn’t know about her wealth, if he was really trying to get her to marry him because he loved her...

She shook her head, tearing herself away from the window and returning to her chair.

Where her eye fell on the portrait that he’d brought to her. For no other reason, according to him, than that he thought it might be a way to get to speak to her again. Was that true? He certainly hadn’t attempted to use it against her, the way she’d expected.

A shaft of cold dread speared down to her stomach. What if he’d meant it? What if he really did think he was in love with her?

No. She took a deep breath, pushing the possibility to the back of the sofa where she’d stashed the portrait. It couldn’t possibly be love. He probably thought marrying her would mean returning to a time before his life had gone so catastrophically wrong. To a time when he’d thought he could just marry a simple country girl and live in a sort of bucolic idyll.

But she wasn’t that girl any more. She ran businesses. She could never retreat to the country and live the way he’d said was his own fantasy.

It just wasn’t possible.

He wasn’t the rather dreamy boy he’d been either, who talked about the beauty of nature, and how wonderful it would be to visit Italy and see the works of art on display in so many cities. He’d become a rake. A man who was capable of carrying on affairs with two women at the same time, to deliberately wreak as much destruction and pain as he could.

That wasn’t a man she could love, was it? If she was capable of loving anyone at all.

And anyway, why was she sitting here arguing with herself about it? He’d gone. Defeat in every line of his body. He’d realised it was over between them. That it had been destroyed ten years ago and there was no putting it back together.

So that was that.

Chapter Thirteen

Men were good at saying all the right things, but actions spoke louder than words.

Nathan had said he wanted to marry her, that he loved her, that he couldn’t bear to think of her leaving Paris. But after one rebuff, he’d disappeared. If he’d really meant what he said, he would have called, every day, begging her to reconsider.

But he didn’t call.

Though what would be the point, she didn’t know. It had been one thing having an affair with him here, but to make a new life with him in England? Impossible. Even if he still wanted her, which, apparently, he didn’t.

Or he would have called.

And since he hadn’t, it meant that he’d lost interest.

He was probably painting another woman right now. Telling her she had glorious hair as he sifted it through his long, supple fingers.

Telling her whatever was most likely to get her into bed.

She straightened up from the trunk she was packing, welcoming the flare of anger that had just flowed through her. Anger was what had kept her going for so many years. Without it, she didn’t know what might.

She certainly didn’t want to return to Stanton Basset looking as if she’d had all the stuffing knocked out of her, which is what she’d felt like after that final scene with Nathan.

Only she couldn’t seem to get a solid grip on it. It was as if she didn’t have the energy to sustain a decently solid bad temper.

She slumped on to a chair, looking at the belongings strewn across the room. They’d acquired so much stuff since arriving in Paris. It would be no use trying to travel home the way they’d come. It was a symptom of her state of mind that she hadn’t raised even a token protest when Monsieur Le Brun decided to hire a wagon to carry all the trunks that contained both hers and Fenella’s new wardrobes. And a second carriage to contain the maid he’d insisted on employing for Fenella. A French woman, naturally. He didn’t consider English domestics worthy of a place serving his wife.