Chapter Thirteen #2
“You do not know any of that is true!” Irene protested.
“Perhaps your mother did die. You cannot remember what happened—you were too young. Just because the two of you were not abducted, it doesn’t mean that she abandoned you.
After all, why would she have taken you with her at all if she did not want you?
It would have been far easier to have left you behind.
It is quicker to travel without a child.
Easier to pass unnoticed. And she must have realized that a man would be more likely to chase his wife down if she had taken his son and heir with her when she left him.
” She shook her head. “No, I cannot help but think that she took you only because she could not bear to leave you behind. She must have loved you very much. Whatever she might have felt about her husband or her marriage or this supposed lover, she must have loved you.”
“Then how did I end up alone in London?”
“I don’t know. I don’t suppose we shall ever know,” Irene replied honestly.
“Any number of things could have happened. She might have fallen ill and died there, so the man she was traveling with left you. Or perhaps he abandoned her along with you, and then she grew ill and died, or was somehow taken from you.”
“Or her lover could have grown tired of hauling a brat around with them and demanded that she leave the boy behind. She betrayed her husband. She besmirched her own name. Why would she balk at abandoning an inconvenient child?”
Irene’s heart was heavy with pity for Gideon.
She could not imagine how it must feel to have learned that his mother had abandoned him.
Despite her troubles with her father through the years, she had at least always been certain of her mother’s love.
What, she wondered, must it be like to have had none of that sure, abiding love?
Gideon had been on his own for as long as he could remember, with no one to depend upon or trust absolutely.
“I am so sorry,” she murmured, aware of how weak her words must sound. She could think of no way to convey the depth of her sympathy, and of course, she could not fully understand how he felt.
Gideon shrugged, his face set and unemotional. “This news changes nothing in my life. After all, I have no real memory of my mother. It is not as if someone I knew betrayed me.”
“Yes, but what you believed is as important as what you actually remembered. You were certain that your mother did not abandon you or else you would have been bound to feel betrayed by her.”
“What I believed did not change the facts. I was alone then, just as I am alone now.”
“No, you are not alone!” Irene cried, taking a step closer to him, reaching out to touch his arm.
She drew a breath, ready to point out that she was with him, but she realized at the last moment that she was committing herself to a closeness that was not true.
She might be literally with him right now, but that situation would not last long.
She would not remain with him as a wife or even as a friend when these two weeks were gone.
Her hand fell from his arm, and she looked away from him. “That is…I mean, you are about to get married. You will have the companionship and support of your wife, so you will no longer be alone.”
He let out a short, unamused laugh. “A wife who is willing to marry such a disreputable sort as I in order to gain wealth and a title? Somehow I cannot feel that ours will be a close union.”
“It does not have to be that way,” she protested.
Gideon cocked an eyebrow in a look of disbelief. “You cannot really believe that. It scarcely jibes with your refusal to marry. How can I expect support and companionship, even affection from a woman whom I will, in your opinion, tyrannize and abuse?”
“I do not think that you will tyrannize or abuse your wife,” she replied candidly.
“You certainly made a very good pretense of believing just that.”
“No, I am simply not willing to subject myself to the life I would have if I am wrong. But I am not like most women. Few women expect or even think of the worst that a marriage can provide. Many woman are in love with their husbands. There are those who maintain that marriage is a partnership, a true union of two people. At the very least, it will provide you with a wife and children—you will have the family you never had as a child.”
“I am not looking to create a family for myself,” Gideon replied curtly. “I told you that when I first met you. I am simply doing what is reasonable for a man in my position. What is expected of me. I have no intention of marrying for love.”
“You offer a woman a cold sort of life,” she told him, bristling.
“I offer a woman wealth, a title and an easy life. The only drawback in the arrangement for her is me, and I will make sure that she has to put up with my presence as little as possible.” His face was hard and set, his eyes as cold as stone.
He looked, Irene thought, like a stranger.
“I can assure a woman that she will not be harmed by me nor smothered.”
“No, only ignored,” Irene retorted.
“Why do you care what my intentions are toward my wife?” Gideon snapped, anger flaring in his eyes.
“You have made it very clear that you have no interest in that position. I would have thought that such an arrangement would have suited you admirably—being left to your own devices, with none of the inconveniences of a husband. But you have assured me over and over again that you have no intention of marrying me. So I fail to see why you should care what sort of marriage I have.”
“I do not care!” Irene shot back, glaring at him.
For a long moment they faced each other stiffly, eyes bright with anger. He half turned away, then sighed and swung back.
“I apologize. I fear that I am very poor company tonight. It is no doubt best if I take my leave of you now.”
He pivoted and walked away toward the house.
Irene watched him go. Finally, with a sigh, she followed him back down the path.
She was annoyed not only with Gideon but with herself.
She did not know why she had said the things she had.
He had been right on all counts. She was not interested in marrying him; she had more than once assured him that she would not.
It was, therefore, no concern of hers what sort of marriage he made for himself.
She might wish that he could find happiness in his marriage, but it would mean nothing to her life.
Looking back on it, she could see the absurdity of their conversation.
She had been presenting him with exactly the sort of arguments that her mother and others had pressed on her for years.
How many times had she heard that marriage was a true union of souls?
How often had people assured her that her husband would provide her with happiness and love for the remainder of her life?
She had always scoffed at such statements.
Yet today she had been spouting the very same sort of pap to him.
Could it be, she wondered, that deep down inside she really believed those romantic notions about love and marriage?
She did not. She could not. Yes, this afternoon, she had been in something of a turmoil after her talk with Gideon in the garden.
He had perhaps shaken her resolve, made her wonder for a while if she was somehow making a mistake in rejecting him.
But that was just momentary nonsense, she reminded herself.
She knew what marriage was really like. No, she did not believe those things she had said to him.
She had simply been trying to comfort him in a time of distress, trying to make him feel better.
So she had told him the first thing that had come into her head; she had told him what she wished were true.
Irene came to a halt, struck by that thought.
She would not have suspected that such a longing lived in her, but now she could see that it did.
She had been too practical, too realistic, to believe in some rosy vision of love and partnership.
But deep down inside her, hadn’t she wished that such a thing could actually exist?
Was there a hunger in her for that sort of love—a hunger that Gideon had awakened?
She sank onto a stone bench that lay beside the garden path, her legs suddenly shaky beneath her. She felt as if she no longer knew herself. She had always been so sure. So right. She had, she knew, even felt a trifle smug that she was not as weak as other women.
But what if it was not that she was strong in her convictions but merely that she had never met a man who could make her feel the way Gideon did? So giddy and excited and fluttering with life?
Irene put her hand against her stomach, almost as if she could hold in the turmoil that bubbled inside her.
She liked the way she felt when Gideon kissed her; it was wonderful in a way she had never known, never even dreamed of.
But it was scary, as well. Where would that desire lead?
Surely she could not go against everything she had believed for all these years just because she suddenly had this hunger inside her.
Even if she had had a secret wish that love could bloom in a marriage, what did that matter?
She knew that it was nothing but a wish, a hope.
It was not real. If she had needed any reminder of that, she had just received it from Gideon himself, who held out an offer of marriage so cool and indifferent that it could freeze even the most hopeful heart.
No, even if her feelings might have changed, the truth of the matter remained the same. Marriage was a trap for a woman, and wavering in that belief would lead to a lifetime of regret.
She realized that she had been behaving as foolishly as any of the women whom she had criticized in the past. But at least she knew better and could stop behaving in this foolish manner.
However much she might feel sympathy for the man, however much she might enjoy talking with him, she was no longer going to indulge in any dangerously lax behavior.
There would be no more long walks with him in the garden or flirtations with him as they danced.
She was here to help Gideon find a suitable wife. The women in question would be arriving the day after tomorrow. And she was going to concern herself only with making sure that one of them became the next Countess of Radbourne.
Irene nodded sharply, as though she had made a point to someone who opposed her, and stood up.
There was an odd little ache deep in her chest that she was determined to ignore.
It would go away soon, after all, and she would concentrate on doing what she had come here to do.
Back straight, shoulders squared, she strode back to the house.