Chapter 42
It was hardly surprising that Cecilia struggled to sleep.
Her mind, as was its habit, buzzed with images and snatches of conversation from the evening, which had seemed to last forever.
On any other moonlit night but this, she’d have gone outside to try to dissipate her mental restlessness in the cool spring air, to let nature soothe her, and perhaps to encounter Alistair as well, and end the evening in his arms. But somehow, knowing that an angry and abusive man was out there, even if he remained miles away on his own side of the bay, made her feel that the beach and even the garden were not quite so safe as they had been before.
She didn’t think that Lord Pallant would come over here tonight with the intention of harming her or anyone else…
but she couldn’t be perfectly confident he wouldn’t.
Not when his own sister was terrified of him, too scared to go home for fear of what he might do to her in a drunken rage.
She could only feel guilty for losing control of her temper, which had precipitated so much else, but she gave herself a mental shake when the emotion threatened to overcome her.
The Baron was desperate for her money. Sooner or later, he would have offered for her hand; sooner or later, she would have rejected him, albeit in politer words.
She could not doubt that he would have persisted after her rejection, as a decent man would not, and eventually, the matter would have resulted in some manner of angry confrontation, where she made it clear to him that she would never take him, just as she had done tonight.
If the Constantine family were to be the subjects of blackmail after rejection, she could not doubt that it would always have happened, no matter how gently and tactfully she might have turned him off.
And she had at least told her unwanted suitor that none of them might marry anybody for a year, which she could not regret.
She hoped it might protect her, and Bianca, from any further scheming on his part.
But she had also told Alistair. She knew he had heard; though she had not been aware of his approach, he’d been right there at her side, defending her, a second later.
And telling him, however inadvertently, was an action with so many potential repercussions that she could hardly begin to contemplate them.
She could not have said anything before, could not even have raised the subject, because that would have been to assume that he might wish to marry her, and for all she could tell, he did not.
He desired her, she knew, he enjoyed her company; tonight, she had even begun to wonder if he might really care for her.
But he had been cruelly rejected by a woman not long since, and it was very possible that he was still deep in love with her.
Cecilia, after all, had been the one to initiate the kiss, and all that had followed from it.
She could not regret it – it had been a part of the precious new independence that she was determined to explore – but she might now ask herself what unattached and lonely man in his situation would have refused her outrageous offer.
And now, even if his heart was free, even if he was beginning to be interested in her – and after all, they had not been here much more than a fortnight yet – he knew that Cecilia could not marry.
Although she had not said so in so many words, she believed he was clever enough to work out that if she married within the year, she would forfeit her fortune, since Mrs Albery had had no other way of enforcing her will on her heirs.
He did not care for that, perhaps, the loss of what she had so recently gained – but he might easily assume that she did.
And, she realised, this was correct, in fact.
She did care for it – of course she did, being an imperfect human being, not some noble self-sacrificing heroine of romance.
She and her sisters had been financially dependent on others all their lives; it was no consolation at all to say that most women were.
It hadn’t been in the least enjoyable, any of it.
If she or Bianca married now, their inheritance would pass to whichever sisters remained unmarried.
They loved each other; they would share.
But then that would be dependence again.
An obligation, and a cause for lifelong gratitude.
No good man would ask the woman he adored to make such a choice just to demonstrate the extent of her devotion to him. He’d step back.
So if Alistair was now cold with her, if he tried to withdraw from their intimacy, she would not be able to tell if this was because he cared for her and did not want to be thought a fortune hunter, or because he was indifferent, but too proud to want to be suspected of mercenary motives.
And if he did not pull back, if he said nothing and showed every sign of wanting to continue to make love to her, would not that merely be a sign that his interest in her was only physical and nothing deeper?
Or would it? Might it not indicate instead that he loved her, or was coming to love her, and did not want to be deprived of her company, no matter what? She could not for the life of her see how she was supposed to tell.
It made her head spin. Her acquaintance with the Major had been so short, their passionate liaison had grown up so very quickly, that she did not think they could talk of such delicate personal matters sensibly, or even at all.
If they were magically free to marry tomorrow, with not a single obstacle in their way, would he want to – and even supposing he did, would she?
Cecilia could not think of any way to be sure of his feelings; this could be no great shock, when she was not even certain of her own.