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“Many men do not,” Keegain agreed.
“After the wager was made, everyone insisted that I select my future bride then and there. Charlotte was so beautiful and vivacious...I knew your family to be wealthy… and forgive me, I agreed all the more readily when she was suggested because I thought that your own recent marriage would mean that…Well, that you would be more likely to grant your permission to our union.”
“You mean, because I married for love, like a childish, foolish woman?” suggested Lord Keegain, making John hide his face in his hands and groan.
“I do not expect you to believe me, Lord Keegain. I would not believe such a thing if I heard it either, but since that day I have found myself most inexplicably and uncomfortably falling in love with Lady Charlotte. At first, I said and did things calculated to capture her attention and her heart. I admit it. But then, I started to realize that I truly meant the things I said. By the time I knew that I loved her, it was far too late to do anything to change the underhanded way I had begun our relationship.”
“I almost think I believe you,” Lord Keegain remarked conversationally. “There is a certain poetic justice to the whole thing. If you had not just devastated my sister, breaking her heart and shattering her confidence, I might even feel badly for you.”
“Shattering her confidence?” Sir John asked, sitting bolt upright at those words. “Not Lady Charlotte. Why she is the most vivacious, confident woman I have ever met. She is indomitable.”
Keegain raised an eyebrow.
“Surely, that is painting things rather grim, Keegain?” Sir John continued. “I know I have hurt her terribly, but she is the most wonderfully bold, intrepid, self-assured, regal and...” He broke off realizing how hopeless he sounded. Nothing he could say would truly describe Charlotte anyway. “Say you do not mean it, Keegain. Her confidence was crushed?”
“I meant exactly what I said. Perhaps you have heard of her recent dealings with Lord Marley?
“Vaguely, yes,” Sir John replied with an automatic scowl at the idea of Charlotte with anyone else. “Forgive me for saying so, but Marley is an arse, not fit to lick Lady Charlotte’s boots.”
Keegain grunted a response to that statement and gave Sir John a hard look. “Still, she fancied herself in love with the man, despite the fact that he wasalsoa fortune-hunting cad.”
Sir John blushed at the comparison to himself and took another sip of the brandy. It burned all the way down to his empty stomach.
“Charlotte very wisely turned Marley down, but to find out how little he truly cared about her and that he was pursuing another heiress at the same time? Well, it gave her quite a bad turn. It might be hard to tell, but Charlotte has been questioning her own value and appeal ever since. She was quite hesitant to open up to the idea of love again, worried that she would attract only fortune-hunters,” Lord Keegain informed Sir John blandly.
“Lud,” Sir John groaned. “I have done nothing but confirm that in the worst possible way. I am the lowest scoundrel to ever walk the earth. I will leave London this very day. I assure you, Keegain, she will not have to suffer sight of me again.”
“You think that will solve this? I hate to flatter you, Sir John, but she is in love with you, and I very much doubt that your absence is going to prove to be a magical cure for her broken heart.”
“She will find someone far better than me; someone who is worthy of her love, someone who would never consider, even for a moment, such a reprehensible wager. Then she will forget I ever existed and she will be better off without me.” Sir John spoke the words even as the mental image of Lady Charlotte with another man enraged him. The very thought pierced his heart and made him want to punch this imaginary suitor.
“That is precisely what my mother and sisters are telling her at this very moment, I believe,” Lord Keegain mused. “I am not so sure, myself. Love is not so easily extinguished. It does not gutter in the wind like the snuffing of a candle.”
“I would much rather you go ahead and give me that beating you promised than have you assure me that I have permanently wounded the only woman I shall ever love,” Sir John spat.
“With that attitude a beating is the least that you deserve,” Lord Keegain snapped back with sternness. “Honestly, seeing you lying here like a sluggard makes me wonder if giving you leave to court my sister was ever a good idea. If you’re going to give up this easily-”
“Give up!” Sir John exclaimed, finally letting his voice raise in anger and frustration. “Do you think that is what I have done? If it was up to me, I would never give her up, but what was I to do? She ordered me from the house. She expressed her wish not to see or speak to me again; nor should she wish to do so. I am a cad of the lowest caliber. I betrayed her trust, and your sister has seen the lie. She told me to be gone and I left.” The fight fell out of his words. “I have only done as she wished.”
“I do not disagree for one moment. You did as she demanded, but she loves you nonetheless.”
“I will not force her to listen to some pathetic plea from me. I will not selfishly subject her to that, no matter what I feel.”
“No? You shall just selfishly flee Town leaving her to feel heartbroken and betrayed, never able to trust in love again, merely to save yourself the pride of begging her forgiveness. Let me tell you something, Sir John Ashbrooke. I do not give a fig, how you feel. I care about my sister. Have you given a thought to her feelings on the matter? A single thought?”
Sir John opened his mouth and shut it again, unable to make a response. He had known that she was upset, understandably so, but he had not truly thought through things from her point of view. Now that he did, he felt even more reprehensible.
“I cannot bear to go on hurting her,” he admitted and slumped once more, feeling the full weight of his loss and guilt. He should apologize. Beg her forgiveness and yet how could he? He did not feel he was worthy of forgiveness. How could he ask it of her, when she had ordered him away?
Would she forgive him, he thought to himself? John knew that Charlotte was a passionate woman. Was it possible that she spoke in anger, and now that the anger had cooled, she might listen to his entreat? It was too much to hope for. She had not been wrong in her anger. She had the right of it. “I don’t deserve her,” John whispered.
“I agree,” Keegain said, “But that is not the question at this point. The question is do you love her? Truly love her?” He demanded taking John lightly by the shoulders. “Enough to leave behind your pride?”
“I do, more than I would ever have thought it possible to love someone.” The slim thought that there was some possibility of forgiveness, was a tiny crack of light in his darkness. “Do you think she would forgive me?” he asked, entreating the earl.
“I could never presume to know the answer to that question. I can only say, quite certainly, that Charlotte will not make the recompense easy for you; nor should she. After all, youhavehurt and humiliated her.” Keegain paused, looking Sir John up and down, and John was suddenly aware of his disheveled state. Keegain’s look turned stern. “And she is not the only one to whom you now must prove yourself, sir. I still do not think you worthy of her.”
Sir John’s heart sank even further, but inwardly, a flame burned and he rose to the challenge. His father had always said, a man rises to the challenges he is faced with. He remembered the day he and his mother fled France. HisMamanhad sunk to the ground in defeat when they realized his father had been captured, that he would die. They both knew it, and yet his father had tried to save, just one more French noble. It would not have mattered if that noble was his aunt or some stranger. His father was a hero. He had always risen to the challenge. Sir Richard would not give up and neither would John. He had felt like he wanted to die that day too. John had wanted to fall to the ground and weep with his mother, but he had found some inner strength. He was not sure if it was duty, or perhaps the remembrance of his father’s words, that gave him strength that day, but he had picked his Mother up, figuratively, if not literally. ‘We must go on,’ he had told her and they had found a way forward. It was love that gave such strength, he realized. He did not understand at the time, but now he did.
