The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy

He had humiliated her. He didn’t get the opportunity to talk her out of her fury.

“It’s just a kiss,” he said softly, but he was not that naive. He had to know it was more than a kiss.

“You took my freedom,” she said, hating how her voice trembled with emotion. “You took my dignity. You will not take my self-respect.”

“You know that was not my intention. What can I do to make you understand?”

Iris shook her head sadly. “Maybe after . . .” She glanced down at her belly, where her empty womb hid beneath her clothes. “Maybe I will fall in love with Fleur’s baby. And maybe then I’ll decide that this was all worth it, even that it was God’s plan. But right now . . .” She swallowed, trying to find compassion for the innocent child at the heart of it all. Was she so unnatural that she couldn’t even manage that? Or maybe she was just selfish, too hurt by Richard’s manipulation to let herself ponder what might be the greater good.

“Right now,” she said softly, “it doesn’t feel like it.”

She took a step back. It felt as if she were snapping a rope in two. She felt empowered. And infinitely more sad.

“You should talk to your sister,” she said.

His eyes flicked toward hers.

“Unless you have finally gained her agreement,” Iris said, answering his unspoken question.

Richard seemed to be vaguely perturbed that she was questioning this. “Fleur has not argued with me about it since the day she arrived.”

“And you perceive that to be acquiescence?” Really, men could be so stupid.

He frowned.

“I would not be so sure that she has come around to your way of thinking,” she told him.

Richard looked at her sharply. “Have you spoken to her?”

“You know very well I have spoken to no one.”

“Then perhaps you should not speculate,” he said in what Iris found to be an unbecomingly snippy voice.

She shrugged. “Perhaps not.”

“You do not know Fleur,” he persisted. “Your interaction has been limited to a single conversation.”

Iris rolled her eyes. “Conversation” was not the word she would have used to describe that awful scene in Fleur’s bedroom. “I don’t know why she is so determined to keep the baby,” Iris said. “Perhaps it is the sort of thing only a mother could understand.”

He flinched.

“That was not meant as a blow,” she informed him coolly.

Richard’s eyes met hers, then he murmured, “Forgive me.”

“Regardless,” Iris continued, “I don’t think you should consider yourself secure until Fleur gives you her explicit consent.”

“She will.”

Iris raised her brows doubtfully.

“She has no choice.”

Again, so stupid. She gave him a pitying look. “So you think.”

He looked at her assessingly. “You disagree?”

“You already know that I don’t approve of your scheme. But that hardly matters.”

“I meant,” he said through clenched teeth, “do you think she can raise the baby on her own?”

“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Iris said, even though in this, she agreed with him. Fleur was mad to think she could withstand the hardship and scorn she would suffer as an unwed mother. Almost as mad as Richard was to think he could pass off her child as his and not have it rain unhappiness later. If it was a girl, they might make it work, but if Fleur had a boy . . .

Clearly they needed to find that girl a husband. Iris still didn’t understand why no one else seemed to see this. Fleur flat out refused to consider marriage, and Richard kept saying that there was no one suitable. But Iris had trouble believing this. Perhaps they lacked the funds to buy Fleur a well-connected husband who would be willing to accept her child, but why couldn’t she wed a vicar? Or a soldier? Or even someone in trade?

This was no time for snobbery.

“What matters,” Iris continued, “is what Fleur thinks, and she wants to be a mother.”

“Stupid, stupid girl,” Richard said harshly, the words a bitter hiss on his lips.

“I cannot disagree there,” Iris said.

He looked at her in surprise.

“You did not marry a paragon of Christian charity and forgiveness,” she said sardonically.

“Apparently not.”

Iris was silent for a moment, then she said, almost dutifully, “I will still support her. And I will love her as a sister.”

“Like you do Daisy?” he quipped.

Iris stared. Then she laughed. Or maybe she snorted. Either way, it was indisputably the sound of humor, and she brought one of her hands to her mouth, barely able to believe herself. “I do love Daisy,” she said, bringing her hand back down to the flat plane of her collarbone. “Truly.”

A faint smile played across Richard’s face. “You have the capacity for more charity and forgiveness than you give yourself credit.”

Iris snorted again. Daisy was vexing.

“If Daisy has given you something about which to smile,” he said softly, “then I must love her, too.”

Iris looked at him and sighed. He looked tired. His eyes had always been deeply set, but the shadows beneath them were more pronounced. And the crinkles at the corners . . . the ones that formed so merrily when he smiled . . . now they were weary grooves.

This hadn’t been easy for him, either.

She looked away. She didn’t want to feel sympathy.

“Iris,” Richard said, “I only wanted—damn.”