Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ELEANOR KNEW she had misheard. It was simply impossible that he had married another woman. But her certainty wavered as she stared at his flushed face and angry eyes. Her heart began to pound so swiftly she felt faint and dizzy. She had misheard, hadn’t she? Or was she in the throes of a nightmare?
She gripped the back of a chair. The room tilted wildly. “You’re not married,” she choked.
He seized her arm, steadying her. His gaze was searching and their eyes met. “Peg is dead.”
The room was a blur. He was a blur. How could this be happening?
Her entire life, she had followed him, chased him, laughed at him, with him; there had been thousands of moments that they had shared.
They had swum together, raced their horses, dived off cliffs.
There had been card games, hide-and-seek, tug-of-war.
And every time she had been in trouble, he had appeared, miraculously, to rescue and save her.
The day she had fallen off her pony while following the hunting party, she had been lost and scared.
When she had gotten caught in some weeds in the lake, she had been terrified.
It hadn’t mattered—Sean had always been there.
She had loved him from the first moment she had set eyes on him and she had never stopped loving him, not even after he had so callously taken her innocence.
He had married someone else.
“Here.” Sean suddenly handed her a mug of water. “Take a sip. You’ll feel better.”
She ignored the mug. How could he have married someone else? “Why?” She managed to breathe, her heart suddenly numb, her lips as frozen. She became frightfully cold, in her bones.
“She’s dead, Elle. Because of me…they’re both dead,” he said harshly. “You should sit down.”
Somehow she was seated. Her face was wet and she realized that she was crying. She tried to focus on him but he was a haze now, his handsome features blurred. “How could you marry someone else?” she heard someone ask—then realized it was her.
He gripped her hand. “It wasn’t like that,” he begged tersely. “I didn’t love her.”
Was he lying now? She simply could not understand his relationship with this other woman—a woman he had decided to marry. She just looked at him, in acute grief and disbelief.
“Why are you staring?” he cried. “It’s been four years! So much has happened in the interim! You were marrying Sinclair…I married Peg, and now it’s over.”
She couldn’t comprehend him at all now. All she could understand was that he had been married to another woman.
He had left her to marry someone else. It was the single greatest betrayal of her life.
If he had felt the way that she did, that they belonged together no matter the circumstance, he would have never been able to bring himself to marry someone else.
Marriage was forever. He had chosen to be with another woman for the rest of his life.
And it did not matter that she was deceased. His choice, his decision and his betrayal was what mattered now.
“How long?” she choked out, wiping at her tears. “How long were you married?”
He shook his head. “Not long. Please don’t cry.”
She somehow met his pale silver eyes. “But you were supposed to marry me,” she heard herself whisper.
He stiffened. “I’ll go get supper,” he said decisively. He strode from the room, and then turned. “Bolt the door.”
Eleanor did not move. The refrain haunted her now.
He had married a woman named Peg. Her mind turned cruel, intent on torture.
She saw an unbearably beautiful woman, Irish, of course, perhaps another earl’s daughter.
She would be blond and short, because Sean didn’t like tall women, and almost too beautiful to even look upon.
She had probably been like Lady Blanche Harrington, the woman Tyrell had almost married.
Blond, beautiful, perfect—impossibly elegant and gracious to a fault.
She saw Sean with the woman, his wife, laughing, adoring, smitten.
She tried to remind herself that he had said that he hadn’t loved her.
She started to weep. She knew Sean well enough, especially the way he had been before his incarceration, to know that he had cared for this woman.
He had cared, perhaps deeply—perhaps the way he currently cared about her, Eleanor.
There was more than passion, Sean!
You don’t know anything…you were innocent until the other night!
Eleanor wept harder. She was a fool. He had used her, obviously, the way he used women like Kate.
She had been naive enough to think his lovemaking was just that.
Had he made love to Peg with the same explosive desire?
Surely he had—after all, he had chosen to marry her!
The truth was that she was no different from Kate or any other housemaid or farmer’s daughter—because she wasn’t Peg, because he hadn’t waited for her, because he hadn’t cared enough to take her hand in marriage, because he had chosen to spend his life with someone else.
She hated the other woman, God she did. It was wrong—that woman was dead. And then she realized that it was Sean she hated.
Eleanor could not breathe. She began to choke for lack of air. But it didn’t matter—she didn’t care if she lived or died. She only knew one thing. She had to get away from Sean. He was a traitor, in every sense of the word. He had been a traitor to her, to them.
She was never going to forgive him.
She stumbled down the narrow stairs, too late realizing she remained barefoot. Weeping, she did not care. Outside a hundred stars were twinkling in the night sky and the far end of the street was lit with a single cast-iron gas lamp. Eleanor ran.
It didn’t matter where she went. It only mattered that she run as hard and as fast as she could go—it only mattered that she escape her own heart and all the pain consuming her.
And then she turned a corner and saw three British soldiers swaggering up the street. They seemed boisterous and drunk. Eleanor ducked into a doorway, where she hid.
Sometime later, the soldiers long since gone, it began to rain.
Eleanor did not notice. She was too cold to notice the ice in her heart and soul.
HE WAS ILL. He walked slowly up the stairs to the room over the cobbler’s, unable to stop recalling Eleanor’s shock and grief.
But she had overreacted to the fact that he had been married, considering that Peg was dead.
She had acted as if he had betrayed her.
But he had been in shock over the massacre in Kilvore when he had taken his wedding vows.
There had been no time to really think it through.
The burden of grief had been overwhelming.
And he had never, not once in their relationship, indicated that he might love her the way she loved him.
Promise me you will return for me?
I promise.
He stiffened. He had known when he had left her standing at Askeaton’s front gates that she had taken his promise in a literal manner, when it had not been made that way. Was this entirely his fault?
The first thing he had done upon returning to Adare was to spy on her, confront her, and then make love to her.
And yesterday he had given in to his wildest desires, spending the afternoon with her.
He shouldn’t have touched her even once.
Of course she would have expectations, because she did not understand, really, the danger she was in.
Any woman gently born and bred would be expecting marriage from him—but Elle also expected his love, when he had nothing in him to give to anyone, not even her.
“DO YOU, SEAN O’NEILL, take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife? To cherish and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
Sean had been ill then, too. He had stood beside Peg in the small village chapel wearing the smith’s dark Sunday suit; Peg was clad in a simple white dress and a borrowed wedding veil.
He had looked uneasily at Peg, aware of performing a monstrous duty, suddenly feeling crushed.
She had been crying with joy over the impending union, but her tears were also those of grief, for the deaths of her father and friends.
For an interminable moment, he had not been able to speak his vows.
Peg’s image had wavered, her blue eyes turning dark and amber, and Elle had stared expectantly at him.
He had been stricken, for the first time in months, thinking of Elle and home, becoming vaguely aware that everything was wrong.
But Peg had whispered, “Sean?” And in panic, he had faced her again, then glanced at Michael, who was waiting eagerly for him to marry his mother.
Some in the congregation were weeping, still grieving for the loss of brothers and cousins, fathers and sons in the massacre earlier in the week.
He had to protect Michael and Peg. Grimly, he faced the priest. “I do.”
SEAN JERKED, realizing he stood in the dark, dank stairwell, lost in the past. He hadn’t thought about his wedding day even once since then; he’d actually forgotten it—or buried it with his memories of that entire week.
Peg and Michael were gone; Elle was not.
And now he had to admit to himself that he hadn’t told her about his marriage because he had known it would upset her; he could add that to the long list of his crimes against her, his sins.
He started up the stairs. He had not been able to protect his wife and son, but he would not fail Elle. Until she was safe at Adare, with Sinclair, he had no other cause. And he would not think about the other man taking her to wife and to bed.