But at the last moment his courage had always failed him. Given all that he’d done, all that he’d become, it was a miracle he’d managed to get even this close to her. He didn’t deserve her, not one bit. His father was right about him. Had been right all along. He was no good.
So he’d kept quiet and kept on taking what crumbs she was prepared to throw him. At least for the moment she was sharing his bed. Enjoying his company. But once she knew the depths of him, he’d forfeit even that.
He ran his fingers through his hair again as he reached his decision. It was time he owned up. It might make her hate him, but that would only be what he deserved. Punishment. For not standing by her. A lifetime of knowing she despised him would be a just sentence, wouldn’t it? For betraying her. For betraying their fledgling love.
He owed her the truth, so that she could understand what had happened, even if he lost her because of it. Well, he was going to lose her anyway, wasn’t he? She was leaving. And she’d made it crystal clear she didn’t want him cluttering up her tidy, respectable existence by going with her.
He drew in a deep, shuddering breath and let his hands fall back to his sides.
Nothing he’d done so far had helped him to breach those invisible, but very tangible walls behind which she hid. So what did he have to lose?
Perhaps it would take the shock of hearing what had really gone wrong between them, ten years ago, to bring them tumbling down. It had, after all, taken the shock of discovering the truth to jolt him out of his own emotional prison cell. And it was beginning to look as though nothing less would set her free, either.
* * *
Amethyst had just picked up her bonnet, a frivolous article she’d bought from a milliner who catered to the needs of tourists, rather than Parisians, when there came a timid knock on her door.
Fenella peeped round it. ‘Oh, you are...going out,’ she said as Amethyst set the confection of straw, lace and silk flowers at a jaunty angle on her head.
They had not seen all that much of each other since the day of the trip to the Bois de Boulogne. Though Amethyst had made a point of seeing Sophie every day to hear what she’d been doing, she’d deliberately avoided spending time with Fenella alone. And up till now, Fenella had done much the same.
They were both tiptoeing round the fact that though Fenella and Gaston were courting, Amethyst was just having an affair. If they talked in private, one of them might speak rather too frankly.
‘With...with him, I suppose.’ Fenella’s face creased into anxious lines.
‘Yes, with him,’ Amethyst agreed calmly, tying the ribbons under her left ear in a manner that looked positively flirtatious.
‘I...I know that you say it is better not to be seen about with Gaston and me, in case someone you want to do a deal with recognises you and starts to ask awkward questions, but...’ She tiptoed into the room and shut the door behind her.
Amethyst sighed. Fenella had apparently decided that she wasn’t going to avoid speaking frankly any longer.
‘I cannot help worrying,’ she said, clasping her hands at her waist, ‘about the amount of time you spend closeted with Mr Harcourt in his lodgings. And I know that it must sound a bit hypocritical of me, given the way I have behaved with my Gaston, but I fear that...’ she took a deep breath and plunged in ‘...I fear that Mr Harcourt’s intentions are not honourable.’
‘Well, of course they are not honourable.’ Amethyst would have spared Fenella’s sensibilities if she’d just carried on pretending she didn’t know what was going on. But since Fenella had broached the topic, she wasn’t going to be mealy-mouthed about it.
‘That was the whole reason for choosing him to become my lover. You know I have no intention of ever getting married.’
‘Oh, dear. Oh, dear.’ Fenella tottered to the nearest chair and sank down onto it. ‘Your...your lover.’ She clenched her hands together again so tightly the knuckles went white. ‘I blame myself. I have been so caught up with Gaston that I have completely failed to do my duty by you as chaperon.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘No, it is not nonsense. I have set you a bad example by allowing my feelings for Gaston to—’ She broke off, going pink in the face. ‘If ever word of this got out in Stanton Basset, you would be quite ruined. Why, even if people only heard that you have been going all over Paris with a man of his reputation, there would be no end of talk. And I...I really don’t want you to have to suffer as I did. Even though I was still a completely respectable widow, then, they had no mercy. It will be worse for you, a single lady, if once they get a hint of...of this.’
‘Do you know, I don’t really care if my reputation does get a bit tarnished,’ she replied, pulling on her gloves. ‘If I was a young girl looking for a husband, or even a poor person, dependent on the goodwill of others, I might pay more heed to what other people may say of me, or think of me. Besides, you, of all people, must know how good it can make you feel to have an attractive...’ She swallowed on the word, as an image of Monsieur Le Brun’s sallow face swam into her mind. Well, there were obviously different kinds of attractive. Fenella saw something beneath the unprepossessing exterior Monsieur Le Brun presented to the world which she found attractive. ‘An attractive man,’ she repeated, ‘paying me so much attention. I am enjoying having my portrait painted and I am enjoying going out with a man with no sense of decorum whatsoever. He makes me feel...’ She paused. She had been about to say he made her feel like a girl again, but on looking back, she rather thought she’d been a bit priggish as a girl. It hadn’t been until she’d met Nathan for the first time that she’d discovered she even had a sense of humour. And she’d never just had fun, the way she had fun with Nathan. He’d introduced her to a whole new world of experience and not just in bed.
They’d talked and talked, as she’d never talked to anyone before. He was genuinely interested in her opinions. He didn’t always agree with them and sometimes their discussions grew quite heated. But he never seemed to think less of her for disagreeing with him. In fact, if she grew too angry, he would get a wicked gleam in his eyes and tell her she was at her most alluring when she got angry, and then defuse all her irritation by flinging down his brushes, stalking to the couch on which she lay and making her come, over and over again, until she lay limp and sated in his arms. And had totally forgotten whatever it was they’d been arguing about.
‘For so long,’ she said to Fenella, ‘I have felt that I have no appeal as a woman whatsoever. And now the most experienced rake in two countries is hanging on my sleeve.’
Not trying to change her, or form her opinions, or punishing her for disagreeing with him, but allowing her, for the first time in her life, to be herself.
‘Do you think worrying about what people might say, if they were to find out, is going to prevent me from making the most of it, while it lasts?’
‘No. I suppose not. But...you will be careful, won’t you? I don’t want you to get hurt.’
She spun round, on the verge of asking Fenella what she thought it was going to do to her when she left her to marry her French Count, and took Sophie away, if not wound her to the core? Sophie had become almost like a daughter to her, while she’d never had a friend as close as Fenella. If Fenella really didn’t want her to be hurt, she wouldn’t be obliging her to return to Stanton Bassett and bear the brunt of all the talk there would be, and suffer the pitying looks, the moralising and the unsolicited advice—alone.
But she bit her tongue. She mustn’t let self-pity or jealousy ruin what they could salvage of their friendship.
Jealousy? She couldn’t possibly be jealous of Fenella, having Gaston, could she? No the notion was absurd. She didn’t want a husband. She didn’t want any man to have the power over her that a husband would have, by law.
‘Thank