Chapter Twenty-One #3
“I have no respect for a murderer,” Jasper retorted bluntly. “And I am tired of all our secrets. The truth, and you know it, is that Cecil and I caught the mumps when we were children. I was fine. I was only six. But he was twelve years old, and though he recovered, he was sterile.”
His mother began to cry again, and her sister snapped, “Oh, hush, Pansy, do. I know he was your son, but really, dear, we all knew he was a rotter even before this news that he killed his wife and turned Gideon over to thieves. If I were you, I would dry my tears and do some good hard thinking over the wrongs you did your grandson and Jasper by keeping silent all these years.”
Her sister’s eyes widened in dismay. “But I didn’t know!”
“Of course you didn’t. You are always careful not to know,” Odelia retorted. Her sister’s eyes welled with tears, and Odelia said, “Oh, don’t start up again, please.”
Lady Odelia surged to her feet, her last exchange with her sister seeming to have restored her old spirits.
“Well, Gideon, there you are. It may not be much, but this is your family. The best you can do for that little boy is to give his mother a house in the city and let Timothy stay here. I’ll warrant she’ll be more than happy to let him grow up in the country while she enjoys life in town.
And you, no doubt, will make sure he has all the advantages.
With luck, he will turn out better than either his mother or…
well, whoever his father was. You, I fear, will simply have to learn to live with being an earl. ”
“I promise you, I shall endeavor to do so,” Gideon replied.
Jasper stepped forward to speak to him, and Irene seized the opportunity to slip away. She had not made it to the door, however, before Gideon called her name, but she did not look back, only continued out of the room.
“Excuse me,” Gideon told his newly found father. “I would like to talk with you. But first I have some very pressing business to attend to.”
He hurried out into the hall, half expecting to find Irene disappearing into her bedchamber, but instead she stood waiting for him in the corridor. Her face was no longer angry, merely weary, and he felt a sharper pang than anything her bright-eyed fury had cost him.
“Irene, please…” He took a step forward, his hand going out to her. “Let me talk to you. Let me explain.”
“All right. But let us at least go out into the garden. I do not care to make my personal life the subject of gossip for everyone here.”
He nodded, and followed her down the stairs and out onto the terrace. They wound their way through the garden until they came at last to a secluded bench.
Irene turned to face him, straightening her shoulders, and said, “I am sorry for striking you. I hope you will forgive me.”
He gave her a faint smile. “Of course I forgive you…if you will forgive me for being a clumsy fool.”
She quirked a brow at him. “I suppose you cannot help it.”
A short laugh escaped him. “I can always count on you, can’t I? You never allow one the easy way.”
She shrugged. “Then you are well out of it, are you not?”
“I don’t want to be well out of it,” Gideon replied. “What I want is to marry you.”
She grimaced. “Then I fear you are doomed to disappointment.”
“Did you mean what you said?” he asked. “That you love me?”
She lifted her chin. “I am not in the habit of lying. Yes, I love you, but that doesn’t mean I have any intention of marrying you.”
A smile tugged at one corner of Gideon’s mouth. “Not even if I become a rag picker?”
The familiar temper lit her eyes. “Do not mock me! I offered you my love, and you offer me—money and…titles…and…”
“My love,” Gideon said simply, going to her and taking her by the arms. He looked down into her face.
“I offer you my love. First, last and always. Everything I have is yours. Without you, I fear that none of it would be worth anything to me anyway. But most of all, you own my heart. You have from the moment I first saw you, pointing that gun at my chest, those golden eyes blazing down at me.”
“But I—” Irene felt herself begin to tremble with the aftermath of all the tumultuous emotions that had swept through her this afternoon. “You said—” Tears welled in her eyes, and she stumbled to a halt, feeling at once foolish and wonderful.
“I offered to release you because I could not in fairness hold you to your promise. That does not mean I wanted you to accept that release. What I hoped was for you to do as you did….” He paused and with a rueful grin, rubbed his cheek.
“Although perhaps somewhat less forcefully. I had to give you the chance to choose, knowing everything.”
She let out a little sound, half sob, half laugh, and moved into his arms. “Please, do not offer me such chances again.”
“I will not,” he assured her, wrapping his arms around her tightly and laying his cheek upon her hair. “Believe me. I intend to give you no other chance to get away from me. Fair or foul, you are mine, and I will never let you go.”
Irene circled his waist with her arms, pressing her cheek against his chest and drinking in the feel of him, the warmth, the strength, the scent. After a moment, though, she leaned back and looked up at him. “But you said—you told me last night you could not love me. You said you—”
“No doubt I said a number of foolish things,” he interrupted her.
“I thought—I told myself that I did not love you, that what I felt for you was hunger, desire, friendship, admiration—and it was all those things. But this afternoon, when I watched my uncle—my father—as he bent over my mother’s body, dead so many years, and I saw the tears well in his eyes…
I knew. I knew that was how I would feel if you were taken from me.
Twenty, thirty years later—the rest of my life later—I would still ache for you.
And I knew that I was only pretending that what I felt was anything but love. I love you.”
“Gideon!” Irene flung her arms around his neck and went up on tiptoe to kiss him. “I love you, too.”
After a long moment he released her, looked down into her face and smiled. “I think,” he said quietly, “that we should leave Aunt Odelia to spread her story about without our help.”
“I think that sounds like a very good idea,” she replied, smiling back at him.
“I also think that I should tell the servants to send our supper up to us in the tower. I am not, I fear, feeling well enough to join our guests this evening.”
Irene’s smile broadened. “You know, I believe that I am not feeling well, either.”
“Then we agree? I believe this may very well be the second time.”
“And the last,” Irene put in.
“Then I think we should celebrate the occasion.”
He kissed her until she melted against him. Then he slipped his arm around her shoulders, and they strolled off toward the ruins.