Chapter Thirteen #3
A flare of anger shone in her eyes before she blinked and it disappeared.
“I’ve not seen him in five years. He could be dead in the streets for all that I know—and he most likely is, for he was too fond of liquor.
I care not what happened to him. And there was little point in returning to Somerset.
My past mattered not. I only cared for my future. ”
“So you remained in the Lyon’s Den,” he said. “What made you leave now?”
“I made the mistake that all whores make in the end,” she said. Then she turned toward the window, her face in profile, glowing in the light of the setting sun.
“What mistake?” he whispered.
“I fell in love. It was then that Mrs. Dove-Lyon said I had to go. And she was right. I couldn’t lie with another man after…”
She paused, her cheeks coloring, and lowered her head.
“After?” he said, placing a finger under her chin and tilting her head up.
“After I lay with you. And it’s a poor whore who can no longer bear to lie with other men, is it not?”
“Surely you cannot mean…” The words caught in this throat. He couldn’t summon the courage to voice his hope.
“You think I’m playing you false?” she said, an edge to her voice.
“You think that all whores will tell the man they are with that he’s the only one they wish to lie with?
” She shook her head. “Of course you do, and, given what I am, I cannot blame you. But do you not recall what I once said? That your Dahlia would never lie to you. And I’ve never lied to you, James—not as Dahlia nor Cordelia. ”
He swallowed his shame. In expressing his doubt over whether he was deserving of her love, he’d made her believe that she, and not he, was the unworthy one.
“As her parting gift,” she continued, “Mrs. Dove-Lyon offered to find a match for me. So I agreed to one game, after which, if I rejected all suitors, I’d be free to go.”
“But you didn’t reject them all,” he whispered.
She curled her fingers around his. “I-I have a fondness for poorly executed paintings of roses.”
Moisture shone in her eyes and she wiped them with her free hand.
“Cordelia, I’m—”
“Don’t say it, I beg you,” she said, turning to face him, a plea in her eyes. “I’ve spoken of my history once, as you demanded, but I would ask that I now be permitted to forget.”
She turned away once more, and he took her other hand.
“Cordelia.”
She closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling with a sigh.
“Will you look at me?”
She faced him once more, and his heart almost broke at the pain in her eyes—the pain of a young girl who had been sold like a commodity, a girl who had learned to sell herself as a means to lift herself out of degradation.
A girl who had fallen in love.
He caught his breath. Did that mean that she’d spoken the truth to that exuberant young man in the Lyon’s Den?
He lifted her hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. She let out a low whimper, but maintained her gaze, her pupils dilating until he could almost see her soul in their dark depths.
“No word shall pass my lips with regards to what you have just told me,” he said. “But I shall demand an apology from Georgiana.”
“Your sister is entitled of her opinion of me, James.”
“Then I would beg you not to think too badly of her.”
“Rest assured, I do not. She’s your sister and I’ll honor that. It must be an unpleasant shock for her to have a woman such as I as mistress of her home, but I shall endeavor to ensure that she’s happy, even if she can never love me as a sister.”
He sighed. “I doubt Georgiana’s capable of love at all.”
Her expression darkened, and she whispered almost inaudibly. “Don’t say that, James. Everyone is capable of love—and everyone deserves to be loved.”
“Well, perhaps not everyone.”
He pulled her close and placed a hand on her hair and caressed it.
“Let me pledge,” he said, “here and now, that what you have told me…I shall never speak of it again. But hear this. For what you have endured, and what you have done, you have nothing but my admiration and respect. And if you need it, I shall defend you until I draw my last breath.”
He kissed her knuckles again.
“This I pledge to you, as I pledged to honor and keep you yesterday. We may not have a roomful of witnesses, but the Almighty is listening, so you must make do with that.”
He heard a footstep and glanced up.
Damn. Had someone overheard?
“Who’s there?” he said. “Show yourself.”
Releasing his wife, he sprinted to the door, but the hall outside was empty.
Then he glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf that showed a quarter to eight.
“I’ll send for Tilly to show you to your chamber,” he said. “I’ll see you at dinner. Unless you’d prefer to take it in your room? I would understand if—”
“No,” she said. “I’ll join you. After all, if I’m Lady Bedford, I should begin to play the part, should I not?”
He bowed before her, then exited the parlor, calling for Mrs. Case. Then he glanced back inside to see his wife had moved to the window, hugging herself, her face wet with tears.
She had spoken of striving to make Georgiana happy—the sister who, in front of the staff, had called her a slut. But would Cordelia ever find happiness herself?