Part 34 (1/2)

”Tell me what happened,” she said softly.

The story emerged bit by bit. His voice, his features, were void of all emotion. He didn't look at her as he spoke.

Listening to him, Arabella's chest began to ache. She began to gain a very clear picture of his childhood. A little boy who struggled to please his father, to no avail. No wonder he said that Sebastian had been both mother and father to him and Julianna, more than his own*and little wonder that he and his father were ever at odds. Little wonder that he had grown rebellious and bitter.

”When I was seventeen, he caught me stealing into the house at dawn. I was foxed. He was furious.” A harsh laugh emerged. ”Nothing new there, of course. We quarreled. He called my mother a wh.o.r.e. Of course, I knew it was true. All of England knew it was true. My mother was a vain creature who knew of her beauty and used it to entice men. To seduce them. Sometimes I do believe my mother, with her own pie de vivre, would have spread her legs for any man simply to spite my father. And my blood was tainted, you see. My blood was hers. That's why he hated me. Because I looked like my mother. He held me in the same contempt, the same disdain. He told me so*oh, so many times! Never in front of Sebastian, of course. But that night*he shouted that I was a wastrel. That I was just like my mother.”

Arabella was shocked. ”Justin, it was he who was wicked, not you*never you!”

”No. You're wrong. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to spite him.”

”But who can blame you?” she protested. ”My G.o.d,” she burst out, ”what kind of man would say such awful things to his own son?”

”Ah, but there's the thing, you see. It's entirely possible I'm not his son.

That none of us are. Not me. Not Julianna. Perhaps not even Sebastian.”

Arabella's mind whirled giddily. Her lips parted. ”Are you saying that he is not your father?”

For the longest time Justin said nothing. ”I don't know. Don't you see? Given my mother's reputation, it's entirely possible* I've often wondered if my mother was the only one who knew for certain*but if she did, it was a secret she took to her grave.”

His eyes darkened. ”It was that night that I realized*and I taunted him with it. I taunted him with my mother's infidelities and asked if he knew if his children were even his own.

”He was livid. And I was so very pleased! And I laughed, Arabella. I laughed. He started to shout at me*It was then he fell to the floor. He clutched his chest. And I left him there. I left him there.”

His mouth twisted. ”My conduct, as usual, was abhorrent. I rode off to London that night, so no one would know I was there. The servants found him in the morning. I never told a soul I'd been there, that I was the one who killed him. No one, not even Sebastian.”

Her heart went out to him for the guilt he'd lived with all these years, the mistaken belief that he'd killed his father.

”Justin -”

”There's more,” he said in a tone that sent p.r.i.c.kles all down her spine.

He rose and walked to the mirror next to the armoire.

His voice stole softly through the silence. ”Remember that night at Thurston Hall, with McElroy? I'll never forget what you said. That all your life you wanted to be like everybody else, look like everyone else. You asked me if I knew what it was like to gaze into the mirror and cringe. To hate what you see and know there's nothing you can ever, ever do to change it.”

His voice plunged further. ”I know what that's like, Arabella. I know. I'll never forget, not long before that night with my father*I stood before the mirror in my room, staring at my reflection. Before I knew it, the gla.s.s was shattered. I'll never forget bending over. Lifting a shard of gla.s.s and holding it to my face*” In the dark, he made slas.h.i.+ng movements with his hand.

A suffocating tightness in her chest, Arabella stared at him in horror, at his exquisite, perfectly sculpted features. ”Justin,” she said on a strangled breath. ”Justin, no-”

His hand fell to his side. ”Obviously, I couldn't do it. But now you know, Arabella. Now you see the ugliness inside the handsomest man in all England. Now you see me for the coward I was. But then, you always did see me for what I am.”

”Oh, G.o.d, Justin. It wasn't you. It was never you. He poisoned you -”

”Poison. Yes, that's what I am.”

His scathing self-disgust brought her to her feet. A single, scalding tear slid down her cheek but she paid no heed. Sliding her arms around his waist, she clung to him, laying her cheek against the sleek gold skin of his shoulder.

”Stop that. If- if you had cut your beautiful face, I don't think I could bear it.”

He twisted around. ”Why don't you blame me? Why don't you hate me?”

”Don't,” she said with utter fierceness. ”Don't say that. Don't even think it!”

”Didn't you hear what I said? Didn't you hear any of it?”

”I heard everything. Everything.”

”Then why are you still here? How can you stand to be near me? To touch me?”

She heard the way he tried to stifle the emotion from his voice and couldn't. Something painful caught at the corner of her being. She'd been given a glimpse inside his soul, and she couldn't turn from him now. He needed her. He might not know it yet, but he did. She couldn't desert him. She wouldn't.

Her throat aching, she drew a deep, quavering breath. Her vision misted by tears, she gazed up at him, uncaring that her heart lay in her eyes. ”I'm your wife, Justin. And what kind of wife would I be if I were not here to share your life and your pain? A wife belongs at her husband's side*and I belong with you.”

”Oh, Christ.” His voice caught roughly. ”I've made you cry again.”

”It's all right,” she said bravely. Brokenly. ”Just hold me, Justin. Just hold me and - and don't let go.”

Powerful arms swept her against him, close and tight, exactly where she wanted to be. He fiercely kissed the tremulous lips she offered, wrapping his arms about her back and lifting her clear from her feet.

This time when he carried her to the bed, there were no more words, no tears*nothing but the breathless splendor of being his.

Twenty-one.

Wednesday of the following week, Justin was whistling as he vaulted onto the seat of his curricle. He'd just made a visit to his solicitor, and while it was a visit that cost him a goodly sum, it was, he decided with supreme satisfaction, well worth it.

His mouth curled upward. Lord, how things had changed in the past year. His stylish townhouse in London had been the first of his acquisitions. Then a wife. And now a country house in Kent. He laughed to himself. Ye G.o.ds, he was now unquestionably a man of respectability!

It was odd, he reflected, how with the addition of a wife his life had become*simpler somehow. It should have been the opposite, he suspected. For most men, that probably would have been the case.

But he could be no less than honest. If his wife had chanced to be any woman other than Arabella, it wouldn't have happened. He'd probably be trying to figure out how to extricate himself from the marriage trap, he decided dryly, instead of burrowing deeper. h.e.l.l, if it had been any woman other than Arabella, he wouldn't even be married! Justin harbored no illusions. Compromised female or no, he would have found some way to elude impending matrimony.

But he didn't feel tied down. He didn't feel chained. He didn't feel trapped.

He felt curiously*free.