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“You do not strike me as a woman who would forsake hours of her life to please an old, dying man. What do you do it for?”
She sighed heavily. “Why do you think I do it, Gael?”
It had troubled him greatly, since learning of it the day before. Why did Carrie go into the countryside and read novels to his long-suffering father? Why every week? It didn’t add up. From the moment he’d renewed his acquaintance with her, she’d gone out of her way to prove her devotion to the fast paced, party hard lifestyle of London’s successful professional youth. Spending hours couped up with a cripple didn’t fit.
“I can’t imagine …” he drawled finally.
Carrie changed tact. It was none of his business, anyway. “Did your mother ever remarry?”
His eyes darkened. He ate a little more, and Carrie watched him intently. Despite the hum of afternoon noise it felt, in that moment, to be just the two of them there. “No.”
“No?” She would have laughed at his brevity if she weren’t feeling so strangely entangled by him.
“No. She loved my father. Losing him was a wrench from which she never recovered.”
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Carrie said earnestly. Something ancient was stirring in her chest.
He shifted uncomfortably. “You needn’t apologise. Your mother was not the woman who tempted him to break his marriage vows. You are not personally at fault.”
Carrie nodded. “I only meant that I’m sorry for her loss.”
“I know what you meant.” His tone was gruff. He softened it with a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Carrie bit down on her lower lip. “You’re angry.”
With visible effort, Gael calmed his temper. “I make it a rule to not speak of my parents. Their behaviour – on both sides – saddens me. It is better to let sleeping dogs die. The past is done. Dealt with. No good can come from reliving it. Wouldn’t you agree, Carrie?”
She did, fervently. “I’m pleased at least that you’ve forgiven your father…”
“Forgiven him?” Gael queried.
Carrie nodded.
“I don’t forgive. Only idiotas forgive.” He’d almost finished his meal, and Carrie hadn’t realised. She hadn’t even tasted hers; she’d been so entranced in conversation. “I accept. I understand. Frailty is part of the human condition. But forgiveness breeds contempt; forgiveness invites repeat offence.”
“That’s … not necessarily true.”
His laugh was rich with condescension. “Because all those bus-side advertisements tell you forgiveness is divine? That you should forgive anyone anything?” He leaned closer and lowered his voice to an insistent whisper. “It’s a lie, Carrie. If someone hurts you, you should hold onto that hurt. Keep it close to your chest as a chain in your armour. The more you are hurt, the more you will be defended, and the better off you will be eventually.”
Finally, she lifted some of her lunch to her lips and chewed it. It was delicious, but she wasn’t hungry. She rested her fork down beside her plate thoughtfully. “People change. I don’t think your father is the same man he was then.”
Gael’s eyes flashed with that same burst of annoyance. “You know him as a man weakened by disease and a life lived poorly. Do not kid yourself, Carrie. If he spent a day in my body, he would enjoy seducing every pretty woman who crossed his path.”
“And you despise him for that?” She pushed, fascinated.
He shrugged, but his chest felt oddly compressed. “Si.”
Carrie shook her head, and fingered the long, tapered stem of her wine glass. “But you’re just the same, Gael.”
He lifted his brows. When he spoke, his tone should have been a warning. It was laced with the kind of fury that was all the worse for the appearance of containment. “In what way am I the same as my padre infiel?”
Carrie didn’t meet his eyes. Perhaps if she had, she would have seen the alarm signs she hadn’t heeded in his voice. She swallowed past a lump in her throat, wondering why she felt as though she was fighting back tears. “You have sex with woman after woman. The night we met, it took me less than ten minutes to get you in bed. You knew nothing about me. If your father was the same in his youth, what is the harm?”
“The harm?” His tone was silky smooth, but his morals were repulsed. “He was married. That’s the harm. First my mother, and countless women after her, suffered because of his taste for as many women as he could screw.”
He was right. Why had Carrie not seen it that way? She bit down on her lip and nodded in a silent acquiescence to his stand, but Gael was past being placated.
“I am nothing like him. I would never marry. I would never make a promise that I couldn’t keep.”
