The Highlander's Forbidden Mistress - Anna Campbell Page 0,6
her hands twisted together in an agitated dance. She waited for Bruard to pursue the question about Roderick, but he seemed content to remain silent. And because he was patient – a quality lacking in most of the men she knew – in the end, she answered.
"No, I didn’t love him." Her voice was low, and her hands clenched around each other.
When Lord Bruard didn’t respond, she found herself explaining. "My parents arranged the marriage. Roderick’s father was a well-to-do merchant in Lichfield. My father was a doctor in a village outside the town. He was much older than my mother and not well, so when he saw a chance to settle my future, he took it."
"How old were you?"
"Just seventeen. Papa died a month after the wedding. I’m sad that he never got to meet my son Gerald. They’re very alike." As always when she thought of her son, the weight in her heart eased, so her words emerged more smoothly. "But I’m glad Papa never knew that he’d given me to a man who was a faithless drunkard and a wastrel. I had nine years of unhappiness with Roderick."
"I’m sorry," Bruard said again.
She turned to study the earl. On paper, he was cut from the same cloth as Roderick. Except he wasn’t. Bruard possessed a strength and integrity that her husband had never come close to owning. Bruard was the kind of man Roderick had aspired to be, but instead her husband had never grown beyond being a spoiled child.
"So am I."
Bruard regarded her with grave eyes. "I’m particularly sorry that you’ve never known an ounce of joy."
Damn her for these maudlin confessions. Her pride revolted at the idea of Lord Bruard pitying her. "I was a happy child, if a little lonely. I had no brothers and sisters, because Mamma was delicate. It’s one of my great regrets that Gerald is also an only child."
"Unless you and Cecil have children."
She struggled to mask a grimace at the thought of the making of those children. "Yes."
Cecil wanted sons. He’d told her.
She could endure it. For Gerald’s sake, she could endure anything.
When she saw that she hadn’t managed to conceal her distaste, she rushed on. "And I love my son. There’s joy in that."
"I’m sure." Bruard’s discontented expression persisted. "But that’s the mother’s joy. What about the woman’s?"
Every drop of moisture dried from her mouth. She’d been frank with him, way beyond what their short acquaintance justified. Now she should tell him to mind his own business, but she found herself revealing the truth in an embarrassed mutter. "I’ve never known it."
Which wasn’t entirely true, she admitted in silent mortification. Although while the touch of her hand might ease her aching frustration, it never came close to joy.
"You’ll never know it with Canley-Smythe. And you’re the sort of woman who won’t take a lover, once you’ve pledged your faith to the blockhead."
"He’s not a blockhead," she said, cursing her hesitation. When Lord Bruard didn’t reply, she went on with a trace of desperation. "You seem to imagine you know me."
That cursed alluring smile curled his lips again. "Did you ever play that reprobate Roderick Martin false, despite his infidelities?"
Heat rose in her cheeks, as if she was about to confess some misdeed. When it was just the opposite. "No, of course not."
"You’ll be just as faithful to old moneybags."
"You make that sound like a bad thing," she protested.
"When a beautiful, spirited creature like you submits to a clod like Cecil Canley-Smythe, it is a bad thing."
Selina stared appalled at Bruard. "You haven’t been watching me as closely as I thought. Nobody in their right mind would describe me as spirited. The ladies at this house party call me the dullest woman in England. I’ve heard them say it."
To her surprise, he looked angry. "Toplofty little bitches."
She should object to his language, but she’d suffered too many snubs from the nasty cats to waste time defending them. "I am the most boring woman in England. I stay where I’m put and I do what I’m told."
Bitterness edged her tone, because it had always struck her as the waste of a life. The only worthwhile thing she’d ever done was give birth to Gerald.
He looked thoughtful. "You don’t have to follow the rules all the time."
She slid along the settle to lengthen the distance between them. "I’m not throwing over my engagement for the sake of your smile, Lord Bruard, however charming it might be."
He surveyed her as if he could