Chapter 32 #2
Feeling a faint thrill that she quickly suppressed, she did as he asked…
and found herself close to bittersweet tears as she felt him unbutton the back of her ruined dress.
It was not one she was particularly attached to, but she was still sorry that it had been torn and muddied, entirely unsalvageable.
“At least it wasn’t my wedding dress,” she said with a stiff laugh.
“How did this happen?” he asked.
Gently, he eased the dress off her shoulders and teased the short sleeves down her arms, the brush of his touch warming her cold skin. The dress fell to the floor, and his hands moved to unlace her stays.
Had this been a day ago, in his study, the mood would have been rather different. As it was, there was something so tender about his actions, each touch careful and deliberate, as if he wanted nothing more than to take care of her.
When he pulled her shift up and over her head, leaving her bare, he did not try to caress her naked body. He did not kiss her skin or pull her against him. Instead, he took her by the hand and led her to the bath, helping her into the soothing, fragrant water.
“Is it too hot?” he asked as she sank deeper into the warmth.
She shook her head, smiling. “It is perfect.” She groaned a little. “My legs will be so very grateful for this. I have not ridden a horse that much in a long time… if ever.”
Picking up a cloth, he dipped it in the water. With an expression of intense concentration, he began to run the cloth along her legs, scrubbing her skin of the memory of her kidnapping.
“You said that you heard everything I told Mary in my study,” he began after a moment.
Selina closed her eyes and nodded. “I did.”
“You heard me admit that I had considered how choosing you as my bride would anger my father?”
She nodded again. “Yes.”
“Did you also hear me say that I care for you now?”
“I think so.”
She cracked open one eye and watched as he held her left leg out of the water, paying extra attention to a patch of mud above her sore, chafed ankle.
“Anything else is not true anymore,” he insisted. “Revenge has no place in what is between us. My heart doesn’t care if marrying you would anger my father or not. All I care about is you.”
Her heart swelled in her chest, but she could not get ahead of herself. It would only hurt more if she raised her hopes only to have them dashed.
“But was it true that you do not want children?” she asked, her voice catching, as if her mouth did not want to know the answer that might ruin everything afresh.
He carefully put her leg back into the water and lifted the other, his jaw tense and his brow creased as he scrubbed away the dirt. It seemed he was trying to buy himself time, and she was only too happy to let him, so she could cling to the illusion of happiness a moment longer.
As one minute became five, however, she couldn’t stay silent anymore.
“I never wanted to get married,” she said. “I expected I would have to, and I hoped it would be romantic and built on love, but I became more rational about it as I grew up. I understood that it might not be like my books. That being said, if I do marry, I… cannot spend the rest of my life alone.”
He glanced at her. “You would have me. You would have your friends. You would never be alone.”
“I appreciate that,” she said cautiously, “but it would never be enough. I did not know it until I heard you dismiss the idea, but… I want to be a mother.”
There was always a chance she would not be able to conceive, but at least there would be a hope of children. If Philip was determined to have none, then there was no hope at all.
“You have to understand something, Selina,” he said.
“My father was a cruel, evil man. He was not made that way, but born vicious.
My grandmother always told me that there was something wrong with him, even in childhood.
He hurt animals to amuse himself, he destroyed things on a whim, he lamed his own pony because it would not go fast enough, and he would terrorize the servants.
His father indulged him and would not allow my grandmother to scold him, but he was rotten to the core.
“That only worsened as he got older. I have heard countless stories, but the story of how the feud between my family and yours started is the worst.” He sank back on his haunches, the cloth dripping in his hand.
“What do you mean?”
He puffed out a breath. “He was so cruel to your aunt—your father’s sister—that she…
ended her own life. He wooed her, made her believe his lies, promised to marry her, and got her with child.
But she lost the child, and he dismissed her from his life as if she were nothing, leaving her so bereft that she threw herself into the Thames.
He was so obsessed with continuing his bloodline that he didn’t care who he hurt.
I cannot risk bringing a child like that into the world. ”
The warmth of the bath suddenly offered no comfort, the cold shock of Philip’s words shuddering through her.
She had often asked what had caused the enmity between her family and Philip’s, but her father would not speak of it. Instead, he would erupt into profanity and fury and leave for his study with a slam of the door.
She could never have imagined it was something so horrible, so tragic.
“Children are not born evil,” she said, rallying. “I am not saying I do not believe your grandmother, but perhaps there is more to it than you know. Perhaps his father encouraged his cruelty. But you—you are proof that a child of that bloodline can be born without cruelty.”
“I killed countless men and felt nothing,” he countered.
“That is war, not innate cruelty!” she argued. “War is awful, I have no doubt, but it does not mean that you are evil. You didn’t start the war; you merely fought in it. And Lizzy is not cruel, either.”
Philip shook his head. “I do not know that I can promise you children, my love. I do not know if it is something I can overcome. I am trying to think it over, but—”
“And I cannot overcome a childless marriage,” she said firmly. “So, I think this conversation is over. You have some thinking to do and so do I, and I would prefer to do mine alone.”
“Selina, please…”
She swallowed thickly. “I need you to go. I need to think.”
“But I just got you back,” he said, his voice thick with hurt.
“Please,” she murmured, unable to form any other words, her throat choked with sorrow.
How could he not see that history did not always have to repeat itself? They were already proof of that, considering she was not going to repeat her parents’ mistakes.
How could he not understand that he was not his father, and any children he might have would be so loved that they could not possibly end up cruel and wicked?
But she could not explain that to him, not without falling to pieces.
With a weary sigh, Philip rose to his feet, placed the cloth on the edge of the bathtub, and left the room without another word.
Selina flinched at the soft click of the door closing and dunked her head under the water before a single tear could fall.