“Tutto a te mi guida.”
“You’re a very enigmatic man, you know. It’s just like you not to tell me we’re going to America until the day before we leave.” Juliette glanced at him as they strolled through the garden a few hours later. “I wonder if I’m ever going to learn all your secrets.”
“Do you want to know all my secrets?”
Juliette had a sudden memory of the vulnerability of his expression when he’d looked down at the revealing sketch she’d made on theBonne Chance. Let him keep his secrets. She had no desire to learn anything that would hurt him to disclose. “Only if you wish to tell them. I imagine I’ll find out everything about you in the next fifty years or so. It might even make life more interesting if you surprised me occasionally.”
Jean Marc threaded his fingers through her own. “I shall endeavor to do so. I’d hate you to become bored with me.”
“I don’t mind your secretiveness as much as I do your stubbornness. I don’t know how I could come to love such a stubborn man. You made me very unhappy with all your dawdling.”
“You didn’t show it.”
“I have pride. I gave you my love, and I had no intention of letting you know I wasn’t happy with the little you gave me.” She walked in silence for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about it and I think perhaps you should have shot Charlotte d’Abois instead of her lover. We would all have been much happier if you hadn’t let her scar you.”
Jean Marc chuckled. “Could I challenge the woman to a duel?”
“Why not? If you hadn’t been so honorable, I’m sure your father would—”
“I wasn’t honorable.” The laughter had disappeared from Jean Marc’s face. “I betrayed him.”
Juliette stopped and turned to look at him.
“Secrets? Here’s one I’ve never told anyone.” Jean Marc’s lips twisted in a bitter smile. “Charlotte d’Aboiscame to my bed when I was fourteen. I didn’t turn her away.”
Juliette’s eyes widened in shock. “You loved her?”
“Mother of God, no!” he said violently. “By that time I knew what she was and I didn’t even like her. It didn’t matter. I knew she didn’t really want me. She was amused by my antagonism and wanted to show me how helpless I was. She knew exactly what to do to me to make it not matter. During that summer she came to me several times and I couldn’t send her away.” His expression was tormented. “She belonged to my father and I cuckolded him.”
“Did he know?”
“No, but I knew. I loved him, I respected him, and still I betrayed him.”
“You said she was very beautiful.”
“What difference does that make?” he said fiercely. “I should have sent her away. I tried, but she was too strong for me. She was like a fever.”
Strength. He had been defeated by Charlotte d’Abois and suffered the most painful torment possible. Was it any wonder he had been fighting to prove over and over he could never be so subdued again?
“You were only a boy.” Juliette frowned. “And I think she must have been even worse than I thought. Is that why you wanted to leave your home and go away on a voyage?”
“Partly. I couldn’t look at my father without wanting to go out and jump into the sea. I finally told her no more.” One corner of his lips rose in a twisted smile. “She wasn’t pleased.”
“And she arranged to send you away on the slave ship.”
“The fault wasn’t entirely hers. I betrayed him.”
She gazed at him in astonishment. “Mother of God, your father was a grown man and he was helpless before her and you were only a boy. Your father brought his mistress into your home and let her hurt you. If anyone was to blame, besides that pig of a woman, it was your father. Where is your good sense?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I never thoughtof—” A slow smile lit his face. “You’re so angry you’re trembling. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Well, I am upset. I don’t like what that woman did to you and I don’t like the idea of her in your bed. It makes me angry and frightened.”
“Frightened? Why should you be frightened?”
Juliette tried to control her voice. “Because she had the power to hurt you and I’m afraid you cared more for her than you’ve told me.”
“You have nothing to be frightened about.” His hands gently encircled her throat, his thumbs rubbing the hollow where she pulsed with life. “She was only a boy’s first passion. I’ve never loved any woman but you.”
