The Scandals Of An Innocent

“I am sorry,” he said, “I hurt you.” And the words fell between them awkwardly.

He hurried on, wanting to end it now so that Alice could go if she wished.

“He sent the girl away,” he said. “Later I heard that she was pregnant and had borne a child. My father made a great show of providing for them both, to atone for my sins, so he said, whilst broadcasting those apparent sins as loudly as he could. But by then we had quarreled and I had gone abroad. I never saw him again.”

He stopped. He waited for Alice to say that it was the most unconvincing excuse that she had ever heard, that he had never once been honest in his life, that she did not believe a word of it. He waited for her to leave him. The silence seemed to last forever.

“You did it for your mother, didn’t you?” Alice said softly. “You did it for her because you love her and you could not bear to see her hurt and you wanted to protect her. You were eighteen years old and you were betrayed by your father, yet you kept your silence for your mother’s sake, and that is why you have never spoken of it since and why you push away the love she has for you-”

Miles looked up and she was watching him with understanding and compassion in her eyes and something split apart inside him and he grabbed her and held her in his arms and felt her hot tears soaking his coat and he buried his face in her neck and would not let her go.

“I wondered,” Alice said breathlessly. “I wondered why you kept pushing them all away-Celia and Philip and your mother most of all. I wondered why it hurt you so much to speak of it and why you rejected me, too, when I asked you.”

“She adored him,” Miles said roughly. “She still does. I could not take that from her. Not then. Not ever.” He closed his eyes and unfurled his fingers against the curve of Alice’s cheek. “He is dead now. The injustice of it should not matter to me anymore.”

“But it does matter,” Alice said. “You have kept the secret for all these years and taken the blame for a man whose duty it was to protect you. You were a child-his child! He forced you to take the responsibility and then he forced you to carry the secret forever.”

“I could not live with the hypocrisy,” Miles said. “That was why we quarreled. He argued that it mattered nothing because it could have been me, and he was right.” He sighed. “As I said, I was no angel, even at eighteen years of age. I could have seduced a maidservant and made her pregnant and been as careless and as callous as you once accused me.”

“But it wasn’t you,” Alice argued. She leaned forward and kissed him. “Miles,” she said, “look at me. Listen to me.” She cupped his face in her hands. “It was never your fault,” she said. “Your father was the one who was weak. He was the one who failed you. You might have been wild but you were never cruel like he was.”

Miles looked at her. “I should have told you,” he said again. “I should have trusted you with the secret, but the truth was that I was afraid, Alice. I was afraid of loving and trusting ever again because I had taken my family’s love for granted and suddenly it was smashed and gone and I could not bear for that to happen to me ever again.”

“It will not,” Alice said fiercely. She drew him back into her arms. “And the rest-all the things that followed,” she said. “Your army career…”

“I joined the army because I had to get away,” Miles said. “I was angry and disillusioned, even more so when my father died and I realized how appallingly extravagant he had been as well as hypocritical. I suppose in some strange way I became the person he had branded me. I swore not to care anymore and so I took on the role I told you about, and with each step I became more hardened and cynical.”

“You are lying,” Alice said softly, smiling at him. “You have been caring for people since the very first, Miles, protecting your family, keeping your mother safe from the disillusionment of the truth. And Laura told me how much you did to help her, and how much you love Hattie. You even visited your father’s mistress to make sure that she and the child were safe and well. Mr. Gaines told me.”

“And you thought that I was visiting my mistress and child,” Miles said.

“I did at first,” Alice admitted. “What else was I to think when the evidence seemed so strong against you? But when you told me the truth I did not doubt you for a moment.”

“That is the miracle,” Miles said. He smoothed his hands over her, stroking gently. “How could you trust me, Alice? After all I have done?”

“I think it is because I love you,” Alice said. A dimple dented her cheek as she smiled. “And, after all, you have reformed. You have become an honest man.” She raised her hand to his cheek. “I love you, Miles, and I shall never stop.”

“I love you, too,” Miles said. He stumbled over the words a little. They still felt strange but they also felt right, a blessing and a promise. Alice looked up into his face and then he was kissing her with joy and gentleness, and she cried tears of what Miles hoped were happiness this time, and he kissed them from her cheeks and tasted them salty on his tongue.

“You love me,” Alice said, breathless and rosy and glowing, when he finally let her go. “You love me!”

Miles started to laugh. “Why the surprise, sweetheart? Surely you must have known.”

“I hoped,” Alice said. “But I did not know.”

“Well, now you will always know because I intend to tell you several times every day,” Miles said. He scooped her up in his arms. “And to prove it to you.”

He strode toward the house, in the door and up the stairs, past the scandalized faces of the wedding guests, brushing aside Mrs. Lister’s anxious inquiries, taking the steps two at a time.

“What are you doing?” Alice demanded as he flung open her bedroom door and placed her gently on the bed.

“I am consummating our marriage,” Miles said. He ripped open his cravat and shrugged off his jacket. “I need to prove my love to you as soon as possible.”

“But, Miles,” Alice said, “our guests are still downstairs. They will be wondering what on earth is happening. We cannot simply abandon them like this!”

Miles joined her on the bed and started to unbutton the tiny pearl fastenings of her wedding gown. “Of course we can abandon them,” he said. He gave her a wicked smile. “And I do not think they will be in any doubt as to why we have done so.”

He kissed her with hunger and passion and love.

“Oh!” Alice said, emerging from the embrace as starry-eyed as he could ever have wished.

“Yes,” Miles said. “Now help me get you out of that dress. We have a marriage to celebrate.”

IT WAS SOME CONSIDERABLE time later that Alice lay in her husband’s arms and dreamily watched the spring breeze stir the drapes about the bed.

“How do you feel now?” she whispered against Miles’s lips as he leaned over to kiss her.

“Very good,” Miles said. He drew her down to lie against him. “I cannot quite believe that you trusted me,” he added. “I was sure that you would leave because I was so slow to tell you the truth-and to tell you that I loved you.”

“I had faith in you,” Alice said, snuggling up to him and turning her face up for another kiss.

“I still do not think that I am a worthy enough man for you, Alice,” Miles said a little later, “but perhaps under your influence I may reform further.”

“I do not want you to be too good,” Alice said, sliding a hand down his chest and lower to the taut planes of his stomach. “In fact, sometimes I rather like it when you are bad…” she added, her questing fingers seeking and finding his erection, which she was pleased to discover was already hard again. His shaft was huge and hard but as soft as velvet, silken and smooth. Alice let out a sigh of awe and pleasure. Gently she stroked, learning him, feeling so feminine and so powerful that a little smile curved her lips.

Miles gave a soft groan and kissed her again, deep and certain, and Alice felt her heart unfurl and her love for him stretch and expand like a butterfly in the sun. He had trusted her and told her the truth, she thought, as she slipped deeper into the cocoon of their bed and the warmth of his lovemaking, and had bound them all the closer for it. Maybe in time he would finally heal, too. For now all she wanted to do was pour out the love that she felt for him and hope that it could touch his soul. She stretched luxuriously as his caresses became more urgent. His lips found her breast and her thoughts fragmented. She was aware of nothing now but the hot tug as he sucked her into his mouth. The pleasure pain of it was exquisite, curling through her body, rippling deep inside her.