overlook any indiscretions on your part. It can all be forgotten. I’ll perform any penance you ask, but we will put this behind us. I’ll have the boy sent abroad and raised there. We’ll never see him. He’ll be better off that way, and so will we.”
“No, Edward. No one would be better off. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Neither are you,” he retorted.
Perhaps he was right: thoughts were colliding in her head. She didn’t know whether to believe him about Henry. She had known Henry so well, his sweetness and forbearing, his concern for others. But he had also been a man of his class, raised to respect the boundaries between high and low, with a full understanding of the consequences should the order of things be disrupted. Had Henry really given his blessing to a future union between his cousin and wife, in full knowledge of poor Ruth Parris and her chance-born child?
Then, almost magically, the turmoil and distress subsided, and everything became clear.
She had loved and respected her husband and had always heeded his opinions. But from now on, she would trust her own sense of right and wrong. The sin was not love, but the lack of it. The thing to fear was not scandal, but the betrayal of one’s own morality.
“You are I are not going to marry, Edward,” she said, actually feeling a bit sorry for him, when he was so obviously making ruinous choices for himself. “There will be much for us discuss in the coming days, including a tangle of legal matters. I want you to resign the executorship of the will, and step aside as trustee of the estate—and I beg you not to make the process difficult. For now, I would like you to leave.”
He seemed aghast. “You’re being irrational. You’re going against what Henry wanted. I will take no action until you’ve calmed down.”
“I’m perfectly calm. Do as you see fit. I’m going to seek the counsel of solicitors.” She softened as she saw how distraught he was. “I’ll always be fond of you, Edward. Nothing will erase all the kindness you’ve shown me in the past. I would never vindictive, but I want any legal association between us terminated.”
“I can’t lose you,” he said desperately. “My God, what is happening? Why can’t you see reason?” He stared at her as if she were a stranger. “Were you intimate with Ravenel? Did he seduce you? Force you?”
Phoebe let out a short sigh of exasperation and left the settee, striding rapidly to the threshold. “Please leave, Edward.”
“Something has happened to you. You’re not yourself.”
“Do you think so?” she asked. “Then you’ve never known me at all. I am wholly myself—and I will never marry a man who would want me to be any less than I am.”
Chapter 32
“Good God, Ravenel,” Tom Severin commented as West entered his carriage and took the seat opposite him, “I’ve seen better groomed whorehouse rats.”
West responded with a surly glance. In the week since he’d left the Clare Estate, primping and self-grooming had not been a high priority. He had shaved recently—a day or two ago—maybe three—and he was more or less clean, and his clothes were good quality even if they hadn’t been pressed or starched. His shoes could use some polishing, and yes, his breath was a bit rank, as one would expect after days of drinking too much and eating too little. Admittedly, he wasn’t a fashion plate.
West had been staying at the terrace apartment he’d maintained even after having taken up residence in Hampshire. Although he could have made use of Ravenel House, the family’s London home, he’d always preferred to maintain his privacy. A cookmaid came once or twice a week to clean. She had been there yesterday, wrinkling her nose as she’d gone from room to room, picking up empty bottles and dirty glasses. She’d refused to leave until West had eaten part of a sandwich and some pickled carrot slices in front of her, and she had scowled when he’d insisted on washing it down with some fettled porter.
“You’ve a thirsty soul, Mr. Ravenel,” she’d said darkly. He could have sworn she’d poured out the rest of the porter before she’d left—surely he couldn’t have downed all of it in one afternoon. But maybe he had. It all felt wretchedly familiar, this churning in his gut, this endless poisonous craving that nothing would satisfy. As if he could drown in a lake of gin and still want more.
He’d been in