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Rhys snorted. “I am not that petty.”
“Then why?”
He didn’t answer.
Isabel let out a weary breath. Speaking with her husband was like pulling teeth.
“Tell me this, if you were so infatuated with me, and you didn’t think our age difference was a major obstacle, why didn’t you say something?”
“I almost did,” he said irritably. He ran a hand through his hair. “I was too young when we first met, but even during my years in Eton, I could not forget you… So when I was nineteen, I returned. I thought you would be more amenable to my courting since I was of age. I was an educated gentleman, more worthy of you.”
“Why didn’t you?” she asked, captivated by his growling voice.
“I came to your estate and asked to see you, but you were not at the house.” He swallowed. “I thought that perhaps you were at your favorite spot at the stream, so I went to look for you. When I found you… You were not alone.” There was a long pause.
“Who was I with?”
His voice turned hoarse. “You were in a heated embrace with the Earl of Stanhope.”
Isabel almost choked on her tongue.
It couldn’t be.Oh, Lord, please do not let this be true.Had he seen her with Stanhope on the exact day when they— Isabel shook her head.
“Oh, Lord.”
“Yes.” He nodded for emphasis.
Isabel rolled on her back and covered her heated face with her hands. It wasn’t enough. She wanted to cover herself with a pillow. Or hide under the bed. Perhaps fall into oblivion.
“You witnessed that?”
“I am afraid so. At first, I thought he was forcing himself on you… I was angry and was about to intervene, but you whispered something to him. And he called you… darling.” Rhys’s voice broke, and he fell silent.
Isabel lay like that, her mind blank, unwilling to relive the terrifying realization that the one time she acted wanton, she’d been witnessed—and by her future husband no less!
She would never recover from the mortification she felt at that moment.
Then another realization hit her. She turned toward him. “And that’s the base of all your accusations? Youthful indiscretion?”
“No, it—”
“I’d like to know if you were so chaste your entire youth while you went gallivanting in clubs and—
“I was chaste!” he roared. “I was waiting for you.”
“What?” Isabel’s voice came out small.
“I thought—It doesn’t matter what I thought. But I was chaste when I came to you that day, not that it matters. I had not thought about it or you for a long time. I left that day and found out that my uncle and father had been killed in an accident.” He paused. “I became a guardian to my nephew the marquess… And then he, too, passed a few weeks later from fever. By that time, my mind was not on our courtship or anything else concerning you. I did not know what happened to you or if you married. A few months later, I met a girl from a neighboring estate and married her. I moved on.”
Isabel swallowed. There was a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Were you in love with her?” Her voice was weirdly high-pitched.
“I thought so at the beginning. But it doesn’t matter. That youthful indiscretion, as you call it, is not—and never was—the reason for my coldness toward you. Well, perhaps a little. After all, you crushed my youthful dreams. But do not act all innocent since I saw you again with Stanhope at that ball and once again at our wedding breakfast! Do not tell me you haven’t continued your liaison even though he is a married man now.”
His voice turned cold, and Isabel shivered.
“For your information, that night at the ball was the first time I’d conversed with Stanhope for longer than a ten-second greeting in years! I did not go to meet him. He accosted me in the alcove. I was hurrying away from him when I stumbled onto you. And I know you don’t believe me, so you’re free to think what you will.” She sniffed and turned away from him.
“He did what?” Rhys’s question was more of a growl.
