The Wedding Game(56)

‘And she was very beautiful. I loved her,’ he said. It had been true, at first. ‘I could not help it. She was magnificent. Charming and witty and not too many years older than I. And there were advantages to the arrangement.’ Other than one that his loins had noticed from the first.

‘You were not educated abroad,’ she said, her voice flat.

He laughed in surprise. ‘If that is what you take from my confession, you are very innocent indeed. No, I was not formally educated, in this country or another. But it is amazing what can be accomplished when one wishes to impress a woman and has access to a library.’ He could still remember those early days, alone with all those books and the feeling, almost like hunger, for all the things he did not know.

‘I read,’ he said, simply. ‘And I questioned. And then I read some more. But there are still so many questions left unanswered. Why are some men dukes, and others common? Why do some men make the laws when others can only be punished by them? The system is not ordered by their innate wisdom or lack of it. I have seen that it takes little more than a decent tailor and a set of proper manners to pass amongst the upper classes unnoticed.’

‘But people think you are Cottsmoor’s son,’ she said, obviously still stunned.

For a moment, he wondered if she meant to cry out the truth and see him cast down into the depths that had been his future, to work with his hands and keep his eyes and mouth tightly shut so that he might not upset a divinely ordained system. ‘It began as a joke between the Duke and his wife,’ he said. ‘He said I was there so much, I might as well be family. To spite him, she told someone I was his son. To spite her in return, he agreed and encouraged me in my studies.’

‘He knew about you and...’

‘...his wife,’ Ben finished for her. ‘He did not care. They loathed each other. Cottsmoor and I became quite good friends. But the better he liked me, the more she hated us both. And yet, she did not want to let me go.’ And then it had been too late for him to get away. ‘My love for her died, long before she did.’ He had stared down into the grave and felt nothing but relief.

‘By then the world was convinced that you were a duke’s son. You acted like one, at least.’

He shrugged the shoulder that supported her head. ‘I am sorry to disappoint. But it is better to be thought a bastard than known as a paid satyr to a lady of importance.’

‘And the resemblance between you and the Duke?’

‘Purely coincidental,’ he replied. ‘But my family has lived on the Cottsmoor lands for generations. It is possible that a previous duke hid a natural son close by and there is some distant blood connection.’

‘And he encouraged you to exploit it,’ she said and then fell into silence.

‘If he’d thought I could carry it so far, he’d have been just as likely to see me swing at Tyburn. But he is not here and I am.’

‘And planning to stand for office,’ she finished.

‘After a long acquaintance with a member of the House of Lords, is it so surprising that I might want to use the education I gained to see that men like him are not the only ones making the laws?’

To this, she had no response. If this had been enough to shock her, he did not dare tell her the rest of the truth. But he did not want her to be disgusted with him. He wanted to hear her reassurance that it did not matter who he truly was. Could she still love a man who had gained his current life by taking money for the use of his body?

At last, she spoke. ‘You said before that there was a way out of our current predicament,’ she said, as if his past did not matter to her. ‘What did it have to do with what you just told me?’

‘I thought it would be obvious,’ he said. ‘I have given you all you need to betray me. If you go to Cottsmoor village, you will find someone who can corroborate what I have told you and give you some parts of the story I am honour bound not to divulge. I promise, they are more than enough to shock even the most jaded gossip.’

‘And what am I to do with this information once I get it?’

He carefully disengaged himself from her caress, threw back the sheet and swung his legs out of the bed. ‘Get the whole truth and bring it back to London. Share the news and ruin me. Your father will be forced to break the engagement immediately and Belle will be free.’

‘But what about us?’ There was a plaintive note in her voice that told him she had still hoped for a future. But when she sat up, it was on the opposite side of the bed, far from him.

He shook his head, wondering if she could see the denial in the dim light. ‘The truth will out and I will not have to break my oath to your father.’

Or to Cottsmoor’s family.

The thought actually cheered him for a moment. ‘And if I am not worthy of Belle, then I am certainly not worthy of her sister. There is no hope for us, my love.’

‘But Belle will be free,’ she said hesitantly.

‘I will marry her, if that is what you think best. And I will care for her, just as I promised. But you have seen her with me. She does not want this.’

‘She does not,’ Amy agreed.

‘If we truly want what is best for her, we should not force her to accept it. Help me to end this farce of an engagement. Ruin me. But what we have...’ He shook his head again. ‘It is over, my love. Do what is right, I beg you, no matter how much it hurts.’