She was crying, for the first time in so very long, she was crying. She felt stripped bare. She felt guilt and relief and such despair for what could have happened that she couldn’t bear it. She stared at him wildly.
“Hetty, no, you must not”
“Oh no, there’s no forgiveness for me. I believed you guilty over nothing more than that bloody letter. I shall never forgive myself for my blindness, for my stupidity.”
She turned her face away from him, muffling her damnable tears into the pillow.
He strode to her and gathered her in his arms, rocking her gently against his chest. She offered him no resistance, but he sensed her struggling with herself against the tears. He stroked the soft curls atop her head and waited quietly for her to regain control. He found himself smiling as her sobs dissolved into hiccups. He shifted her in his arms so that he could see her face.
“Come now, Hetty,” he said as she tried to burrow her face into the open neck of his white shirt, “Lord Harry would stare me straight in the eye and call me a damnable fool to have fallen into such a horrible situation. Surely Lord Harry wouldn’t weep all over my neck.” She continued to sob against his neck. “Lord Harry is also an honorable young gentleman. His courage and strength of principle are admirable, and since you, my dear Hetty, are Lord Harry, I would that you would stop this display of guilt. Surely Lord Harry would very quickly find another bone to pick with me. No, still not ready to come back to me? All right, Lord Harry thought I was vicious, that I was a predator. Perhaps I’m not those things, but I am an excellent gambler. I could take you at whist and at piquet and at faro and win your entire dowry. I could leave you humiliated, lying in the dust, no more money to your name. You wouldn’t have a chance against me. What do you say?”
Hetty raised her face, aware of his eyes, dark and tender upon her face. Why tenderness from the man she’d meant to kill? It warmed her. It made her feel strangely urgent. She sniffed loudly, then said right in his face, “You’ve seen me naked.”
Now this was unexpected. Interesting, fascinating even, but unexpected. But he was a cautious man, upon occasion. “Well, yes, I suppose that’s true enough, but I didn’t really think of you as a woman.”
“You’re lying,” she said, still staring at him straightly. “I was at Lady Buxtell’s establishment with Harry and Scuddy. There wasn’t a single man who wasn’t extremely interested in every inch of every female who was there.”
“You were in Lady Buxtell’s?” There was awe, but no particular surprise in his voice. “You actually went to a whorehouse?”
“How could I avoid it for five months? I tried, but Harry wouldn’t let me weasel out of it. I did something good, though. I saved a young girl who’d been befouled by Sir William. She’s now Little Jack’s nurse.”
“You go to a brothel and you manage to bring out a whore to stay with your nephew?”
She told him about Mavreen, about the death of her Uncle Bob. “What really made me angry was Sir William Filey. He’d treated her horribly.”
“Sir William isn’t a nice man,” he said, and dropped a kiss into her hair. He was so startled that he just looked at her. Hetty cocked her head slightly to one side, then smiled at him. “I also learned that men tend to think about sexual matters all the time. It was disconcerting until I got used to it and learned how to say my own titillating things. Everyone believed that I was keeping Mavreen and I let them believe it. It kept me out of Madame Buxtell’s house.”
He just shook his head at her. “It’s unbelievable” was all he said.
There was silence between them then, a silence filled with questions and curiosity.
Then she raised her face. He kissed her very lightly on her closed mouth. “I remember wanting to do that at the Ranleagh ball,” he said. “I wanted to touch you, too. I loved your laughter, it flowed over me and made me feel the warmth of you. You charmed me, Hetty, charmed me to my toes. I thought you fascinating. I couldn’t figure out why you’d disliked me, why you’d leave your father’s house just to avoid me.”
“You charmed me as well,” she said. “I don’t know anything about men and women, your grace”
“My name is Jason. Do you think perhaps you could say that to me?”
“Jason, as in the Greek Jason who was ever so heroic and noble and adventurous?”
“The same one,” he said, and kissed her again. “Now, about you knowing about men and women, I would say that you have a perspective on my species that no other woman could have. I would like to hear all of your exploits. I like to be terrified and astounded.”
“You really didn’t think of me as me when you took care of me?”
The night had ended very much differently than he’d expected, he thought, and lightly kissed her yet again. She tasted warm and sweet and he wanted her very much. Not that it mattered. “You’re beautiful. I’m not blind. But believe me, I’m in charge of you your health as your doctor if you will, not as your husband. One doesn’t shirk one’s duty, Hetty. Surely you would have cared for me had there been no other choice. Would you have looked at me naked and felt a woman’s lust for me?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly, frowning deeply in thought. “I realize that the gentlemen, as I told you, all think about sex nearly every hour of the day and night. I think it’s strange. I don’t know much of anything about a
