She thought of her life as Lord Harry, of the decision to make herself into a gentleman. Lord Harry had given her life meaning and focus. The sharp pain in her side was preferable to the wrenching pain that now filled her. Had Lord Harry’s existence been for naught? She felt hollow as she forced herself to ask, “You said that Elizabeth would never tell you who fathered the child. Yet you believe that it was Filey.”
He turned to face her and she saw surprise in his dark eyes, surprise that she was no longer challenging him. “Yes, that’s true. I told you that if I had been certain, I would have killed him. The babe carried his general features, very fair with a thatch of reddish hair. There was no resemblance whatsoever in the babe’s features to Damien or to me. There is nothing more I can tell you, Hetty.”
She lay back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “No, there’s nothing more. I believe you’ve told me everything.” Suddenly she felt such relief well up inside her that she wanted to shout with it. She was awash with it until it hit her hard what she’d done. She’d set out to kill a man, a man who was innocent. She struggled up on her elbows. “God, I’ve been like Don Quixote, fencing with windmills, searching for vengeance, when I had naught to do but speak to you, to show you Elizabeth’s letter, to ask for the truth. You were my vendetta. I used you to help pull me from my grief. I made you my nemesis. I made you evil, all on the basis of a single letter. May God forgive me, what if I had killed you?”
She was crying, for the first time in so very long, she was crying. She felt stripped bare. She felt guilt and relief and such despair for what could have happened that she couldn’t bear it. She stared at him wildly.
“Hetty, no, you must not”
“Oh no, there’s no forgiveness for me. I believed you guilty over nothing more than that bloody letter. I shall never forgive myself for my blindness, for my stupidity.”
She turned her face away from him, muffling her damnable tears into the pillow.
He strode to her and gathered her in his arms, rocking her gently against his chest. She offered him no resistance, but he sensed her struggling with herself against the tears. He stroked the soft curls atop her head and waited quietly for her to regain control. He found himself smiling as her sobs dissolved into hiccups. He shifted her in his arms so that he could see her face.
“Come now, Hetty,” he said as she tried to burrow her face into the open neck of his white shirt, “Lord Harry would stare me straight in the eye and call me a damnable fool to have fallen into such a horrible situation. Surely Lord Harry wouldn’t weep all over my neck.” She continued to sob against his neck. “Lord Harry is also an honorable young gentleman. His courage and strength of principle are admirable, and since you, my dear Hetty, are Lord Harry, I would that you would stop this display of guilt. Surely Lord Harry would very quickly find another bone to pick with me. No, still not ready to come back to me? All right, Lord Harry thought I was vicious, that I was a predator. Perhaps I’m not those things, but I am an excellent gambler. I could take you at whist and at piquet and at faro and win your entire dowry. I could leave you humiliated, lying in the dust, no more money to your name. You wouldn’t have a chance against me. What do you say?”
Hetty raised her face, aware of his eyes, dark and tender upon her face. Why tenderness from the man she’d meant to kill? It warmed her. It made her feel strangely urgent. She sniffed loudly, then said right in his face, “You’ve seen me naked.”
Now this was unexpected. Interesting, fascinating even, but unexpected. But he was a cautious man, upon occasion. “Well, yes, I suppose that’s true enough, but I didn’t really think of you as a woman.”