She went on, her face pale. 'When I met the man, I did not like him. He was wretched and stank and leered at me so. He wanted to lead me to this doctor himself. I suddenly did not want to follow.'
I nodded. 'You were no doubt wise. He and your high-flyer might have been conspirators, and he leading you off to rob you.'
'I thought of that. I realized how utterly alone I was. I tried to run away. He took out his knife. And then you were there.'
I ran my finger over the engraved brass head of my walking stick. 'I am pleased that I at least saved you from danger.'
'I was so grateful to you.' She smiled a little. 'Do you know, that was the first time in my life that someone had taken care of me. It has always been me, you see. I looked after Roe, and Chloe. Neither of them were ever very strong. I was the one who held my head up and faced it all, no matter how terrible, and kept them safe. But that night, I at last learned what it was to lay my head on someone else's shoulder. I so craved that comfort, and you offered it for nothing.'
I remembered how she'd twined her arms about my neck, pressed her lips to mine, how she'd whispered, 'Why not?'
'I am pleased I was able to help,' I said.
She gave me a rueful smile. 'Always so polite. By rights, you should hate me.'
I looked away and let out my breath. 'I cannot hate you, Lydia. I admit that I tried to when Louisa made it clear that the child was not mine.' I paused. 'I gather from your actions that the child was not your husband's either.'
'It was not. Roe and I…' She stopped, grief filling her eyes. 'No, it was not his.'
'I know about your husband's-difficulties,' I said.
She glared at me, suddenly indignant. 'You know? How the devil could you? Did Richard Eggleston-'
I held up my hand. 'You asked me to discover the truth and so clear your husband's name. I am afraid that when one searches for truth, one uncovers it all, not simply the parts that are not ugly. I am sorry.'
She sank back. 'Oh, it does not matter anymore. I resigned myself long ago that I would never have a natural marriage. After a while, I no longer cared. I could still be a partner to him, if nothing else.'
'But he gave you Chloe.'
She nodded, a faraway look in her eyes. 'Yes, on a moonlit night in Italy. I was so happy. I thought everything would be all right after that. But it was not. It never was.'
I felt sweet relief. If she told the truth, then Grenville had been wrong. She had not taken a lover to give herself Chloe. She was innocent of that at least.
We sat in silence for a time, listening to the crack of the flames and the wind in the trees outside the window.
I still did not have one piece of information. 'I could have wished that you had told me from the start what Eggleston's hold over your husband was.'
She glanced at me uneasily. 'Hold?'
'The reason your husband promised to go to the gallows for what Eggleston and Breckenridge had done.'
Color filled her cheeks. 'I did tell you. For honor.'
'That is true, in part. Colonel Westin, from all I have learned, held honor in high regard. But what was the other side of it? A gentleman might die for another when the cause is just, and worthy. Even Brandon is willing to chance death to save his fellows from harm, but I doubt he'd have crossed the street for Eggleston. What was your husband's reason?'
She gave me an anguished look. 'Gabriel, must you?'
'Damn it, Lydia, might we at least have perfect clarity between us? If we can have nothing else?'
She hesitated a long time, then she sighed. 'You are right, Gabriel. I can at least give you the courtesy of my trust. There was something. It happened ten years ago, but Eggleston could not leave it lie.' She looked at me limply. 'Roe had an affair with a young subaltern. Eggleston, the toad, brought it about, helped them meet in secret, and kept it quiet for them both.'
Chapter Twenty-two
I stared at her. 'An affair? But I thought- '
She toyed with a button on her cuff. 'I believe it surprised Roe most of all. Eggleston instigated it, of course. He suggested that where Roe could not succeed with a woman, he might with a man. I suppose Roe was desperate. So he let Eggleston lead him, and discovered that, indeed…' She faltered.
'Good God.'
Lydia nodded. 'Roe was so ashamed. And yet, for a long time, he could not stop.'
But he had at the last. He had returned to the good Dr. Barton, trying desperately to learn how to go to his wife.
'How did you discover the truth?' I asked.
She lifted her head. Rage sparkled in her fine eyes. 'Eggleston told me. He sat down with me one evening and told me all, giggling in that horrible way of his. He hoped, you see, that I would destroy my marriage with Roe, that I would shame him, perhaps go so far as to have him arrested. Eggleston kept suggesting ways I might go about proving a case of sodomy against my husband, which would have taken Roe to the gallows. I do not know why Eggleston wished that; he might have been jealous, or he might have been angry that Roe would not put through a promotion for his dear friend Lord Breckenridge.' She fixed me with a steely gaze. 'But Lord Richard Eggleston read me wrong. Perhaps I could not have a real marriage with my husband, and perhaps I had not loved him for a long time, but I was still his friend.'
I could imagine her rising before the astonished Eggleston, rage and scorn radiating from her. I hoped she'd made Eggleston crawl away on his belly.
'Colonel Westin was lucky to have you,' I said.
'Roe was a good man. I wish you could have known him. He did not deserve to be in thrall to someone like Richard Eggleston.' Her expression softened. 'I also recognize that you are a good man. And you did not deserve what I did.'
'I did it to myself,' I said, knowing the truth. 'You beckoned to me, and I was willing to oblige. I would have done anything for you, even lived a lie.'
She held up her hand. 'Do not, please, Gabriel, I do not think I can endure gallantry just now.'
'I did fall in love with you,' I admitted. 'But do not worry, the madness has passed.'
She pressed her shaking fingers together. 'I am so sorry. I had realized that day-the day you found me ill-that I could not go on deceiving you. But you had made me feel…' She broke off, smiling faintly. 'I had never had a lover before. I had not known I could feel what you made me feel.' She made a helpless gesture. 'I so did not want to give that up.'
'Few people do.'
'But I realized how unfair it was to you. I was ready to lay my burden upon you, to let you ruin yourself to take it up. When I lay ill, Mrs. Brandon explained to me about your first marriage. You ought to have told me you were already married, Gabriel. I certainly would never have tried to trap you.'
'My life was already in ruins. Taking up your burden could only have improved it.'
She flushed and did not answer. We sat in silence again. 'You are lying about one thing,' I said after a time.
She looked startled. 'Am I?'
My anger, nearly forgotten, began to simmer again. 'You have just told me you'd never had a lover before. That is a lie. Someone fathered the child you destroyed. Who was he?'
Her face whitened, and she looked swiftly away.
Behind my stillness, the anger reached out and clawed the last of the fog away. 'I believe I have guessed it,' I said. 'But name him.'
