The Regency by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles Read Free Book Online Page B

startled.
    ‘ You said you had a confession,' Héloïse reminded him. 'You have confessed nothing yet.’
    He reddened. ‘Ah — yes. I don't know quite how to tell you.'
    ‘ Go on from where you stopped — that is the best way. You loved this Mary Loveday. She married Mr Skelwith. Et puffs?’
    He looked away. 'He was away a great deal, her husband, attending to his business. I met her by chance one day in the street. I was miserable and she was lonely, and one thing led to another —' His eye returned to hers reluctantly. 'I became her lover. I know it was wrong, but I felt that she had been wrong to marry him, and that her father was wrong to force her to, and that —'
    ‘ Everyone was wrong, so one more wrong did not matter?' Héloïse offered.
    ‘Don't make fun of me,' he said.
    ‘ You mistake me, my James,' she said gravely. 'There is no fun in the story, only sadness.'
    ‘ Yes,' he said, still hurt, 'and you don't yet know it all. Mary conceived, and because her husband had been away so long, it was obvious that the child could not be his. There was the devil of a to-do. He came up to Morland Place to demand that I be horse-whipped, and Mary came after him to plead for me. My father furious, my mother in tears, me in disgrace — everything as bad as it could be! Well, they calmed the old man down, and persuaded him to forgive Mary, and I was packed off to Court to get me out of the way, and everything was hushed up. I would have stood by her and looked after her and the child, but no-one wanted that, not even Mary. Especially not Mary.’
    She turned and put her arms around him, feeling him rigid with the memory of his old anger. 'Come,' she said, 'come to bed.' He resisted. 'It is enough now,' she said. 'Come, my own love.’
    In bed, when the candle was out, she felt him begin to relax in her arms. Some things were easier said into the darkness. ‘So the young man, John Skelwith, is your son?' she said. James grunted.
    ‘Does he know it?’
    He roused himself. 'I don't know. I hope not. Mary always said not. She said that was why she —'
    ‘ Why she would not see you any more? Well, my James, she was right. You were angry with her for refusing to leave her husband, weren't you?' He grunted again. 'But to compound the fault could not have cured it, don't you see? She had already agreed to marry another man, instead of you. It would be both weakness and folly to take you now, on worse terms than she had rejected you for. She had to make the best of it, and do the best for the child.'
    ‘ You think she was right?' he said, but his indignation was already less.
    ‘ I think she did the only thing possible. And if this John Skelwith does not know you are his father, then she has done well, and you would not put all her trouble at nothing, would you, love?'
    ‘ I wouldn't tell him, if that's what you mean. What kind of a fool do you take me for? It would hurt him, to no purpose.'
    ‘ Is that how you see it? You are in the right, of course,' she said, and there was a silence. She felt him gradually relaxing, his breathing slowing and steadying towards sleep, his body growing heavier. 'And now I have a confession to make also, my heart's love,' she said, choosing her moment.
    ‘Mmm?' he enquired sleepily.
    ‘ I knew already that this young man was your child.’
    ‘ What?' he struggled up from the edge of sleep. 'You knew? Then why —?'
    ‘ I found it out today by accident; but I had to let you tell me yourself. How would you have thought if I had come to you, asking, like an accusation? It would have come between us — now, it is nothing.'
    ‘You —! You are —' he was at a loss for words.
    ‘ Very clever: I know,' she smiled into the dark. 'One of us must be clever, my James, for it is certain you are not.'
    ‘ No? But there is something I am good for, isn't there?' he enquired dangerously.
    ‘ Many things, mon amant,' she concurred, allowing herself to be engulfed. 'Mais surtout