Seventeen
For several moments, Yvette could only gape at Jeremy. Then she wrapped her arms over her stomach in a futile attempt to stop its roiling. “You’re . . . you’re married?”
“Not anymore.” Raking one hand through his already disheveled hair, he dropped onto the stool near the dressing table. “But I was, years ago.”
She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He’d had a wife. A wife! Heavenly day, she’d never guessed. He hadn’t even hinted at it! “Why have none of your friends and relations mentioned it? Lady Zoe or Jane or—”
“They don’t know about it. The marriage was so brief—only six months’ duration—that my parents never even told distant relations like the Keanes in England. And I prefer not to speak of it.”
“Clearly,” she muttered.
That gained her a dark look. “It was long ago, in a time far removed from my present life. I married at the age of eighteen, and she was dead by the time I reached nineteen.”
Dead. Not divorced or missing.
Yvette was glad of that, then chided herself for being glad. “What happened to your poor wife that she passed away so young?”
The pain that slashed over his face tugged at her heart. “She died in childbirth. Along with my son.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. No wonder he painted melancholy subjects and looked bleakly upon domestic life. How could he not, after experiencing such a tragedy so young? To lose his wife and son after a marriage of only six months—
Oh, dear. Wanting to clarify his meaning, she fumbled for how to ask. “I suppose difficulties are to be expected in childbirth when a babe is born so early.”
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Don’t be coy, Yvette. The child was born after the requisite number of months. I’m sure you can guess why.” Glancing away to stare grimly into the fire, he added, “Although his death did make it easier for my parents to claim that a too-early birth was what caused the tragedy.”
A veil passed over his face. “God forbid that the Keanes of Montague have a grandson rumored to have been sired on the wrong side of the blanket. That wouldn’t do. Especially when no one but their black sheep of a son approved of the mother.”
So that was why he’d been so quick to assume that Yvette had borne an illegitimate child. He’d had to face that possibility with another woman.
An intense curiosity welled up in her—to know about his wife, about his family, about all the things he’d refused to discuss in the past. But she must tread carefully to avoid spooking him. This was a weighty secret indeed, one he’d apparently kept quiet for some years.
She began with what she considered an innocuous question. “How did you and your wife meet?”
His stiff stance made her wonder if he would unbend to reveal even that much. Then, with a shuddering breath, he locked his gaze with hers. “You want to know it all, I suppose.”
“If you’ll tell me.” She let her compassion show in her face. “I promise not to judge.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “You mean, you won’t judge me as unfairly as I judged you that night at the brothel.”
“I don’t blame you for leaping to conclusions. You were unaware of the facts. Once you heard them, you understood my reasons quite well.” She tipped up her chin. “I should hope I’m just as capable of being open-minded.”
“Touché.” He bent forward to prop his elbows on his knees and gaze once more into the fire. “Very well, what was it you asked?”
“How you met your wife.”
“Ah, yes.” He threaded his fingers together between his knees. “We met because of our mutual interest in art. I’d sketched and painted for years, mostly just to amuse myself and my family, but the closer I got to eighteen and my departure for college, the more I wanted to make art my profession. Hoping to convince my father to let me study painting, I sought a teacher in our nearby town who could help me improve enough to show Father that I had real talent.”
A faint smile crossed his lips. “That’s how I stumbled across the Widow Miller, who was only twenty-two. Her late husband had been an engraver and she had some talent herself, but because he’d left her virtually penniless, she’d been forced to take on students in order to support herself.”
“And support her children?”
Again, pain twisted his features. “No. They’d had none.”
After that sent him into a long silence, she prompted him to go on. “So you became her pupil.”
He roused, as if from a dream. “I paid for the tutoring myself out of my generous monthly allowance. While my parents assumed I was drinking in taverns like most men my age, I was actually having secret lessons with Mrs. Miller.”
“My, my, you certainly are good at secret meetings with ladies.”
“I am that,” he drawled. “Though it probably didn’t hurt that she had her own cottage. It made it easy to spend enough time with her to really learn something.”
A lump stuck in her throat. “And for you to fall in love with her.”
He shot her a sharp look. “More like lust. It’s not the same. Or so I’m told, although romantic love isn’t a feeling I’ve ever experienced myself.”
Well. Nothing like being blatantly warned that he didn’t love her. That perhaps he couldn’t love her.
Not that it mattered. She didn’t love him, either.
Or rather, she hoped she didn’t. The last time she’d fancied herself in love with a man who kept secrets, it had ended so awfully that she no longer trusted herself when it came to men.
Still, she hadn’t given up hope that one day a gentleman would sweep away all her fears and she would know he was the one she could marry. Recently she’d even begun to hope it might be Jeremy. But he seemed bent on dashing that hope.
Fighting to hide her tumultuous emotions, she asked, “What about the Widow Miller? Was she in love with you?”
He shook his head. “She was still mourning her late husband. But we shared common interests and were both young and lonely and randy as hell. So it was probably inevitable that we ended up in bed together.”
Inevitable? Yvette snorted. If the woman had possessed a pair of eyes and Jeremy had been even a tenth as handsome as he was now, it had definitely been inevitable. Especially for a widow, who needn’t worry about losing her innocence. Widows were notoriously wanton, she’d heard.
And having spent time in Jeremy’s arms, Yvette began to understand why.
He stared down at his hands. “When I learned Hannah was bearing my child, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed. I had big plans—to go away to Philadelphia, about three hours from Montague, and study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Then I’d planned to travel and view the world’s masterpieces.”
A sad smile twisted his lips. “Hannah knew of my dreams and didn’t want me to give them up for her. When I proposed marriage, as I knew I must, she said she would only marry me if I continued with my plans. She suggested that we go to Philadelphia together as husband and wife.”
His voice hardened. “We were so naïve. We thought we would merely march into my father’s study, announce we were getting married, and he would happily send us off to Philadelphia with his blessing. And my usual allowance.”
The bleak look in his eyes made her want to cry. “It didn’t happen that way.”
“Hardly.” He straightened on the stool. “My father wasn’t about to permit his only son to run off and become an artist. He’d always meant for me to manage the family mills, as he’d done from the day he’d married my mother.”
Jeremy clenched his hands into fists on his knees. “The branch of the Keanes that moved to America hadn’t been wealthy. He’d always craved what his rich relations had, so he was eager to marry Mother and get his hands on her mills, since she was her father’s only child and heir. After Father and Mother inherited the company, he was determined I would be his successor.”
“But you didn’t want that.”
“I never wanted that. I respected the work it took for him to keep them running, but I didn’t see why I had to do it, too. By the time I’d turned eighteen, he already had competent managers. He didn’t need me. Or so I thought.”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “But when I told him I wanted to marry Hannah and go study painting in Philadelphia, he made it quite clear that he wouldn’t countenance that. He said he’d cut me off if I pursued art as a profession; everything would go to Amanda.”
“That’s awful!” She was irate on his behalf. “In England a father can’t cut off his son like that, you know. Or not easily, anyway.”
“Well, then, I suppose there are some advantages to the English system of inheritance.” Anger flared in his eyes. “I wanted to tell him to give my inheritance to someone who gave a damn, but I couldn’t. I’d soon have a wife and baby to support. So Father had me where he wanted. He said he’d give his blessing to the match if I agreed to stay at Montague and learn how to run the mills.”
His voice grew choked. “Hannah told me I should refuse his conditions. We would go to Philadelphia without his money. She would give lessons and I’d find a position somewhere until we could save enough for me to attend the academy.”
He paused, as if fighting for composure, and Yvette choked down tears of sympathy. She could see how much it cost him to tell her this. Should she even have asked him to speak of it?
Yes, she’d been right in that. Any man who kept such torment bottled up inevitably found himself dragged down by it. She’d seen it happen to both Edwin and Samuel after Mama’s death. Neither of her brothers had ever fully faced their grief, as she had. They’d simply twisted it into something else. For Edwin, it had been cynicism and melancholy. For Samuel, it had been recklessness.
But Jeremy’s tragedy had run far deeper than theirs. To lose a wife and child in one fell swoop! How had he borne it?
He drew in a long breath as if to steady himself. “But I feared that Hannah and I striking off together on our own was beyond my abilities. I had no experience at anything but being a rich man’s son. How was I to find a position that paid well enough to take care of a family?”
A fierce expression crossed his face. “I refused to have my pregnant wife attempting to support me while I tried futilely to find a post. No child of mine would grow up eating gruel because I was too proud and stubborn to be the man my father wanted. So I gave in to Father’s demands.”
“You had no choice,” she said softly. “No matter what your late wife said, following your dreams would have meant enormous sacrifices for her and your child. She must have been a very fine woman to consider living a harder life just so you could one day pursue schooling in art.”
“She was a fine woman indeed.” He rose, his face a mask of regret. “Yet despite knowing that, I couldn’t . . . I never did . . . love her. I liked her, mind you. I enjoyed her company. I even convinced myself that I could be happy married to her and running the mills, if that was to be my whole life. But deep down, I knew that would never satisfy me. I already resented giving up my dreams, settling into a life that didn’t suit me.”
He walked up to the bed to stare at her. “Don’t you see? A lovely woman of character—one carrying my son, for God’s sake—still couldn’t engage my heart, couldn’t change my innate selfishness. We lived together as husband and wife for six months, and that never changed.” His voice grew choked. “That’s when I knew.”
“Knew what?” she asked, her own heart in her throat.
“I’m not the kind of man who falls in love. Mother always said I would learn to love Hannah eventually, as she had learned to love Father, but I knew that would never happen for me. And when Hannah went into labor, and I wasn’t—”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Let’s just say that I had already become the same sort of selfish being my father always was. Like him, I was clearly not the sort to feel deeply. And what woman wants a man with no heart for a husband?”
“But you have a heart!” Yvette jumped up. “I’ve seen it countless times—your kindness to Damber, your kindness to me in what you saw as a foolish quest. Those do not speak of a heartless man. Or a selfish one who can’t love.”
“That’s not love. That’s basic human decency. But from everything I’ve been told, a woman wants more than that. She wants a man who will happily sacrifice for her, give up his future and hopes and dreams if that’s what it takes to secure her. I was incapable of that sort of selflessness then, and I doubt I’m capable of it now.”
“You’re basing your opinion of who you are on what you did and felt when you were eighteen. Good Lord, you were barely grown. You were thrust into a marriage before you fully knew what you wanted out of life. How you reacted to the weight of such responsibility then says nothing about the man you’ve become.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I do! I, too, had an early experience with someone who made me wary of marriage. But at least you had the good sense to recognize the true nature of your feelings for your late wife. I was more foolish—I let myself be blinded by infatuation and flattery into fancying myself in love. Looking back on it, I know I had no idea what being in love truly meant.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “You’re talking about Lieutenant Ruston.”
She sighed. Of course he would recognize that. “It’s neither here nor there who it was. My point is—”
“Oh no, you’re not going to escape that easily.” He bore down on her. “You said you wouldn’t tell me your secrets unless I told you mine. Well, I have. Now it’s your turn.”
“But we’re not finished with your story! I still don’t know how you ended up at art school after your wife’s death or why you’re at odds with your mother.”
“There was no reason to stay after my wife and child died,” he said blandly, “and definitely no reason to run Father’s mills. He realized that and agreed to let me leave, so I did. And I’m not at odds with my mother.”
“Liar.”
A shutter came down over his features. “Don’t read more into it than there is.”
“But Jeremy—”
“Enough.” He urged Yvette to sit on the bed, then sat beside her. “Tell me about Lieutenant Ruston.”
A pox upon it. “You’ll think me a peagoose.”
He smiled faintly. “I doubt that.”
“You were not the one who fell for the blandishments of a practiced scoundrel. I assume that your late wife didn’t set out to seduce you to gain your hand in marriage?”
“No, she did not. If anything, I seduced her. Why do you think I proposed marriage? I knew I was at fault. And we’re not talking about me, anyway.”
She sighed. He wasn’t going to let it go, was he? She should never have brought it up. This was what came of sharing confidences—all of one’s flaws were unveiled. “It was long ago. I’ve practically forgotten it.”
“Yes, I can see that,” he said with some sarcasm. “Here, I’ll make it easier for you. I know that the man proposed marriage when you were twenty, and I know that he was found afterward to be a fortune hunter. I also know he left Stoke Towers with his tail between his legs. I assume that your father or Blakeborough discovered his mercenary aims and had him packed off.”
“My, my, your spy Damber is quite the chatterbox, isn’t he?”
“Yvette—”
“Oh, all right.” She steadied her shoulders. “It wasn’t Papa or Edwin who sent the lieutenant away. It was Samuel. He was the one who saved me.” She lifted her gaze to Jeremy. “Why do you think I want so desperately to find his child? Because it’s the least I owe him for thwarting Lieutenant Ruston’s attempt to blackmail me.”