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“Verily,” Lady Charity agreed, still giggling. “Silly man.”
“What is so silly about not wanting to be leg shackled to one… you do not love?” Lord Wentwell asked. He bit his lip. It was too soon to be speaking of love. He planned to be at least forty before he even considered the idea, but the idea was there, blooming in his heart.
“Nothing,” Lady Charity said sobering. “Nothing at all. I hope for the same for myself.” She looked at him through her lashes, and he thought, he could love this woman. Perhaps he did love this woman. She was so unlike Kathrine or even Danbury.
“I do believe the rumors got quite out of hand,” he said. The specter of Miss Macrum’s lies sat there between them, but neither acknowledged her part in the scandal. She did not matter. She could not matter.
~.~
Charity watched a myriad of emotions track across Lord Wentwell’s face. He looked out of the window for a moment and then back at her, as he spoke. “I have never heard so many untruths strung together. It became quite alarming actually,” he said.
“Untruths?” Charity asked. “All of them were untruths?” Her heart beat fast as she thought of Miss Danbury, and Lady Amelia’s succinct sum up of the situation. If he were a gentleman, and the lady had his affections then he would be lost to you.
He quirked an eyebrow. “Pray, of which did you wish to inquire?”
She felt her face burn as she plowed on undaunted, “I mean….Miss Danbury? The word is, she is ruined.” Her voice dropped to whisper. Her heart beat fast. Would it change? Would the world change for her if he had a bastard child? Her heart climbed to her throat. She hoped that she had it in her to forgive him, but Julia’s words flashed through her mind.Once a rake, always a rake.She twisted the fan in her lap. A man who did such, was not a gentleman. She breathed, and stilled her roiling thoughts. She laid the fan purposely aside, and just listened. She knew that what happened before their meeting was beside the point. There was only this moment. And then he answered her.
“And Miss Danbury might well be,” he said matter-of-factly. “But not by me.”
Relief flooded her. She looked up into his green eyes then, and believed him. The atmosphere of the carriage became quite serious, and Charity felt a bit lost. What did one talk about after such a conversation?
Every judgement that she had ever made about the man had been thrust out the carriage window. It had all been a ploy, a ploy to protect his own heart because, deep inside of him, he was nothing like the image he portrayed. He was, she now realized, the best and most faithful of gentlemen.
“I heard tell that you were once to be married,” she murmured.
He stiffened.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She knew immediately that her curiosity had taken the conversation too far. She should not have spoken, but she did want to know. She wanted to know everything about this enigmatic man, but perhaps wringing all the secrets from him in one night was not the best strategy.
“Bloody Reg and his sister,” Lord Wentwell muttered low enough that she might pretend she did not hear the coarse language, but she found that she liked the sudden heated passion. He was not so cold a creature as he pretended to be. She remembered that he had once said the male was a creature of cool and calculating logic and a woman a creature of emotion. She had proved that assumption wrong, in a horribly hurtful way, but she had proved it so nonetheless. Still, he clung to the idea, and she understood why.
“It was Lady Amelia who told me, of your past engagement. But yes, she most likely heard the tale from Lord Barton’s sister,” Charity revealed. “I believe she made an attempt to excuse your behavior, that I might look beneath the guise and see more.”
“Yes,” Neville said, “Reg will do such things. In fact, I see evidence of Reginald’s fingers all over this.”
“You are not cross with him?”
“Not at all,” he smiled. “Not if it is preventing you from being set against me.”
“Here I am,” she replied in a breathless whisper.
“Yes,” Lord Wentwell seemed similarly affected in his ability to breathe. “I suppose it is best you hear the truth from me, than from rumor,” he said. “The lady that I was to marry was named Miss Katherine Dubois, he continued. “She was young, beautiful, and all too skilled at convincing me of her love.”
“Did you love her?” Charity asked. She knew that the question would be improper to most, but they now shared a kinship and, besides, she needed to know.
“I thought that I had,” he said with a shrug. “I was mistaken. Fooled by the art of deception.”
“I had no idea.”
He took a deep breath as if clearing his head. “It was a long time ago,” he explained. “I was young and not so knowledgeable. I only wish that I knew then what I know today.” He closed his fingers around her gloved hand, his fingers warm against hers.
Charity was confused by his words but he said nothing further. She was afraid to press for she was beginning to realize that the more that she learned about Lord Wentwell, the more she was drawn to him. Every detail circulated about theTonwas false, a creation of his protective barrier. She had to pick apart the rumor bit by bit to find the truth. She was beginning to see that there was much more to him than met the eye and, what was hidden, was a puzzle that she longed to solve.
~.~
Neville sat back and watched Lady Charity for a few moments as he realized she was indeed serious. She had taken his word and placed her trust in it. He would never have expected such a gift and vowed not to misuse it. In that moment, he knew that she was a different kind of woman, an honest woman in every sense of the word. He had suspected it from the moment he saw her and she had chided him, and challenged him to be better. He had watched her lips tremble as the weight of her future weighed on her. Now, as she learned the truth of him, he could see that it had turned her world upside down.
“I have acted the fool,” he said, “And I have hurt people. I thought of what you said to me many times. I have played with women’s hearts. I did not know how fragile those hearts might be until lately.” He thought of his own heart, and how hurt he had been by theTon, and most especially by the lady beside him when his own reputation, a reputation that he had cultivated, kept her from his side. “I did not think people would so easily believe the worst of me, especially the ladies.”
