"I used to come up here a great deal as a boy," he said, "and imagine that I was lord of all I surveyed."
"And now you are," she said.
"And now I am."
The silence between them was companionable. Strangely so, considering what had happened between them in the past, considering his reason for having her at Denbigh Park, and considering the fact that she did not trust him-she had told him so the day before.
"You are very different from what I have always thought you to be," she said quietly.
"Am I?" He turned to look at her.
"You care," she said. "All your house guests are people who would have spent a lonely Christmas without your invitation, are they not? And you are generous to your people. I expected that you would wait outside each cottage until someone came outside to take a basket from your hands. But you visited and made conversation. And there are the children in the village. You have far more than just a financial commitment to them."
"Perhaps it is all selfishness after all," he said. "I have found that I can secure my own happiness by trying to bring some to other people. Perhaps I am not so very different from what you thought, Judith."
She frowned. "You used to be different," she said. "You used to be cold, unfeeling. But then, of course, our betrothal was forced on you. Perhaps I was unfair to judge you just on that short acquaintance."
Cold? Unfeeling? Had she not known? Had she not realized? Cold? He remembered how he had used to toss and turn in his bed, living for the next time he would see her, wondering if he would have the opportunity to touch her, perhaps to kiss her hand. Unfeeling? He remembered the pain of his love for her even before she left him and his fear that he would not be able to give her all she desired from life.
A forced betrothal? He had gone to his father the morning after his first meeting with her and begged to have the marriage with her arranged as soon as possible. Although he had been apprehensive at the prospect of allowing his father to choose his bride, he had forgotten his misgivings as soon as he had met her. The betrothal, the wedding could not be soon enough for him.
Poor naive fool that he had been. Twenty-six years old and entrusting his heart, his dreams, all his future hopes to a young girl he did not even know. A young girl who had preferred charm and flirtation and the apparent glamor of a near elopement. A young girl who had broken his heart without one thought to his feelings-because she had believed him cold and unfeeling. Had she ever tried to see beyond his shyness? Had she ever tried to get to know him?
And now she sat calmly beside him telling him that that was the way he had been. She still did not understand.
But she would. Oh, yes, my lady, he told her silently and bitterly, you will know what it feels like.
Chapter 10
The Marquess of Denbigh turned sideways, rested one arm on the back of the seat behind her, and slid his free hand inside her muff to rest on top of her hand.
"Perhaps," he said. "It is always difficult to know what goes on in another's mind. I thought you were content with our betrothal, Judith, but apparently you wanted something different. Well, you had it-for a while. And you have your children."
She was looking down at her muff. Her hand was warm and still beneath his own.
"Yes," she said.
There was a silence between them again, not so comfortable as before. There was an awareness, a tension between them. Her hand stirred. He looked at her, his face hardening.
"Did you love him?" he asked.
"Yes." She answered him without hesitation.
"Always?" he asked. "To the end?"
"He was my husband," she said, "and the father of my children."
"In other words," he said, "it was loyalty, not love after the honeymoon was over. Did you not know about him, Judith, before you married him?"
He thought she would not answer. She stared downward for a long time. "I was eighteen," she said. "I was still young enough to believe that one person can change another through the power of love. He was very handsome and very charming. And very persuasive. Did you know why he married me?"
He had often wondered, since though she had been beautiful and well-born, she had not been particularly wealthy. He had wondered why Easton had saddled himself with a wife when his subsequent actions had seemed to prove that it was not for love.
"He loved you, I suppose," he said.
"You did not know," she said. "I thought these things quickly became general knowledge in the gentlemen's clubs."
He felt a pulse beat in his throat. Had Easton raped her?
"Tell me," he said.
She turned to look at him and smiled ruefully before looking away down the hill. "It was a wager," she said. "It seemed that there were enough gentlemen willing to wager a great deal of money on the belief that Andrew could not snatch me away from a wealthy viscount and heir to the Marquess of Denbigh."
The pulse was hammering against his temples.
"He told me," she said, "after we had been married for about a year. He thought it a huge joke. He thought the story would amuse me."
There was one thing the marquess wished fervently. He wished that Easton were still alive so that he could kill him.
"I thought you would have known," she said.
"No."
He withdrew his hand from her muff and turned in his seat. He picked up the horses' ribbons and gave them the signal to start down the slope that would bring mem around the east side of the house. He did it all mechanically, without thought. Her words were pounding in his head.
He thought of a shy and beautiful eighteen-year-old, fresh from the schoolroom, fresh from the country, pitted against the practiced charms of a handsome and accomplished flirt and rake. She had been married because of a wager. He had suffered those months and even years of agony because of a wager.
"Your daughter must be awake by now," he said as the sleigh drew to a halt before the front doors. "Bring her downstairs for tea, Judith, will you? My aunts dote on her, if you had not noticed."
"Yes, I had,'' she said.”And I will bring her down. Thank you."
He watched her ascend the stairs to the house and disappear into the warmth of the great hall before taking the sleigh and the horses to the stable block.
Did this change everything? he wondered. Did this mean that she had been as much of a victim as he? But she was still guilty of not having said anything to him. She had still behaved dishonorably, running away without a word or even a note. But she had been eighteen years old and in the clutches of an unprincipled rake.
He needed to think, he knew. But he had no time to think. He would be expected indoors for tea. Besides, he did not want to think.
If there was one place in hell hotter than any other, he thought viciously as he strode back to the house, he hoped that it was occupied by Andrew Easton. It was not a Christmas wish or even a Christian one, but he wished it anyway.
The caroling had always been one of Amy's favorite parts of Christmas. This year it was even more special with almost all of the singers being children. They went from house to house, singing lustily and not always quite on key. Several of the children pushed close to her when it came time to sing.
"You got a lovely voice, mum," Joe told her. "The rest of us sounds like rusty nails."
"Speak for yerself," Val yelled at him.
Amy laughed and felt warmed and wanted and very happy. Mr. Cornwell always stood behind her shoulder, sharing the music with her.