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Rounding on her, he hid nothing of his misery, and she had the good sense to look frightened. “You,” he intoned.
She raised an eyebrow. “I?I was at the theater, was I?”
He sank into a chair.Good God, she’s right. This is all my fault.
“Really, darling, I meant my words earlier. Iamproud of you. When a little bird told me where you’d been last night, I was certain you saw the light and followed my advice. Why, if she has any sense, Lady Candleton should be thanking you for sparing her your—”
“Stop! You don’t deserve even to speak my wife’s name. I made a tremendous mistake last night, one I regret. I shall have to face the consequences. In that, I have only myself to blame.”
“Don’t be too harsh—”
“I could forgive you for your disregard for me and Augustus. Your coldness as a grandmother. But not for your viciousness. Look at your merriment in my lowest moment! I won’t turn a blind eye to it any longer. You’re not welcome in this home. You are not welcome around my wife!”
In an unusually ungraceful movement, she set her teacup down with a clatter. “Disregard? Coldness?”
“You’ve called on my home to revel in my shame. But have you ever come to celebrate your grandchildren’s birthdays?Mine?Do you even know when it is?”
Her face twisted. “I wastherefor yours, William! Do you think I could forget such a horrible day?”
Shaking his head, he closed his eyes. He had enough difficulties to face today without traveling to those in the past.
“It was terrible.Terriblewhat I went through! I was fifteen. Alone! Your father had been so disgusted with my fat belly, he left for London. The pain of childbirth is like nothing you can imagine. But what came after was far worse.”
Unable to stop himself, he opened his eyes. “What came after?”
“They took you away from me. You think me cold, but you have no idea how much I loved you from the moment you were born. I was young. Strong. I fought them when they took you to the nursery!” Seeing his frown, she laughed bitterly. “Mrs. Brown was my lady’s maid then. Hired by your father’s mother just before she died.”
William’s eyes dropped to the table. He had known how young his mother had been at the time of her marriage and his birth nine months after the wedding, but never thought much about it. His stomach turned, realizing that in the eyes of society, his Miriam would be of a marriageable age in only five years.
“Yousent Mrs. Brown away after your first child was born. No one was there to send her away from me!” She straightened her spine. “And so much the better. Someone had to teach me to be a marchioness. I was but a child, and learn I did. You thinkmecold, but do you remembermymother?” She dashed away a tear.
He blinked, rubbing his mouth as he searched his memory. His grandmother had died when he was six. If she had ever visited him, he had no such recollections. Come to think of it, never had he given thought to his mother’s own upbringing. He looked up at her, now an elegant woman of fifty, who looked much younger than her age—except for the lifetime of suffering in her eyes. Had she prized her vanity because it was all she had ever been allowed?
Seeing his pity, her eyes turned cold. “Do you think you could have become the man you are today if I’d held onto you instead of you being taken away? Spoiled you with affection as your wife does your children?”
If you’d held onto me and allowed us both to love, you could not have turned into the woman you are.And where wouldhebe, indeed, if not for the upbringing he’d had? Absorbed in self-pity, he imagined that with more warmth growing up, he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to keep Bea at a distance all these years.
He pushed up from the table, knowing whatever his own upset now, his wife was in a hell of his making. “I had it better as a child than you, I think. May my children have it better than I had. I don’t wish to dwell in the past, Mother. But you are on notice. You will not taint my future or my children’s. It’s time for you to leave.”
When he knocked on his wife’s door, it was her lady’s maid who spoke to him through it. “Her ladyship is indisposed.”
“I will see her,” he insisted, his tone invoking his authority as Marquess.
He was admitted, and the maid left. Bea sat in a chair near the window, eyes red, holding a handkerchief.
“Please look at me,” he asked quietly, sinking to his knees next to her skirts. When she refused, he sighed. “I have done you wrong. Hurt you. I ask your forgiveness.”
“Why?Whywould you have come to me this morning, after you…”
He tried to capture her hand, but she snatched it away.
“It’s in partbecauseof last night, Bea. It was the first time I had ever been to that theater. The first time since our marriage I have ever so much as looked at another woman. I shouldn’t have gone, but I did. I was weak. Lonely. Wanting only you but believing I could never have you. In the end, however, I couldn’t stand to be there. Yes, I met someone there. But I left before…”
“Beforewhat? Before you were seen? No? Beforewhat, precisely?”
“Do you wish to know? For if you do, I shall tell you everything. Cast light on it all, in the hope that we have no secrets between us.”
Bea pressed the silk handkerchief to her eyes. “I don’twishfor any of this!”
