The Widow Wager (10 page)

Crispin knew the feeling. He had reached for spirits with the same desire to be buoyed up. In the end, that never worked.

He sat on the chair that faced hers and took a sip. “I don’t think we can avoid continuing the conversation that was begun in my brother’s house this afternoon.”

She took a gulp of her brandy and set it aside as she coughed delicately into the back of her hand. When she had recaptured her breath, she said, “You mean about what they said? That they believe we should remain married to avoid the scandal and ruin that will follow if we break this union?”

He nodded once, watching every line of her face to try to determine her character at a much deeper level than he had before. Was she truly capable of hurting another person? It was so hard to believe that when she looked so delicate. So fragile. Like porcelain that was beautiful but too easily broken.

“You’ve had time to think about it, as have I. It would be foolish to pretend it has not been on both our minds for hours.”

“I would never pretend it wasn’t. I have thought of nothing else since we left the duke’s home. I would like to say one thing, though, before we begin.”

He cocked his head. “Please do.”

“Earlier today you asked my opinion about what I wanted.” She fiddled with a loose thread on her sleeve, refusing to meet his gaze. “I wanted to thank you for that courtesy. I have not been allowed to have an opinion on the subject of my own future for a very long time and you were so earnest in the question that I felt comfortable in speaking the truth. I appreciate that more than you could know.”

Crispin drew back. That moment in Rafe’s parlor had been meant to make up for what a clod he’d been, and yet she acted as though he had granted her a boon rather than a common courtesy.

“Whatever happens, Gemma, please know that I would always like you to be able to voice your opinion, especially when it comes to those things which affect you personally.”

“You say that now, but you’d come to not like it,” she said, her mouth thinning into a line.

He shrugged. “I might not always like your opinion, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have every right to voice it.”

“That is a very unpopular notion about a woman’s mind, Mr. Flynn,” she said, her tone hardened into a challenge.

He met her gave steadily. “You have met my mother and Annabelle,” he said. “Do you think I was raised without a healthy respect for an intelligent woman’s mind?”

She hesitated, the upset leaving her face to be replaced with surprise. “I-I suppose that must be true.”

He finished his drink and, ignoring the desire that burned in him for another, folded his arms. He could get a second, a third, a tenth one later, after Gemma had gone to bed.

“Now, what do you think about what my family said today?”

“About us remaining married?” Her tone was suddenly breathless.

He nodded.

She sighed. “I told you already what was at stake for me and for my sister. If I think in terms of only myself, there is a greater benefit to me in remaining your wife and dealing with the fallout from our hasty, reckless, scandalous union than in facing the consequences of breaking it. Even though I don’t want to do this, that is the best thing for me.”

He watched her, increasingly fascinated not just by his questions about her past, but with how she held herself. There was both strength in her and also hesitation. Like a tightrope walker at a traveling circus, she balanced between the two.

“Is it the best thing for me?” he asked softly.

She blinked a few times, her gaze flitting to his face. “I-I don’t understand. I couldn’t know the answer to that, after all you have lived with scandal in the past and I have no idea how amenable you are to even more of it.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said, leaning forward. He held her stare now evenly, reading every flicker of her lashes, every dart of her pupils. “You alluded to a secret earlier, Gemma. A rumor about your marriage that might make me hesitate. And I have now been told what that rumor is.”

She swallowed hard, and he watched the color drain slowly from her face until she was so pale that he was glad she was seated for fear that she would have fallen if she had been standing. She drew a few ragged breaths, her hands shaking as she reached for her forgotten brandy. She didn’t speak again until she had drained the glass.

“Were you?” she finally asked, her voice cracked and broken.

He felt desperately sorry for her in that moment. There was no denying her pain at the subject, her humiliation and even the fear that flickered deep within her stare. But he ignored any instinct he had to back off or comfort her. Those were dangerous urges considering the subject.

“There is only one thing I need to know right now Gemma,” he said, enunciating each word carefully. “Did you kill your husband?”

Gemma’s head spun and she gripped the armrest of the settee until her nails dug into the fine fabric. This subject always elicited the same reaction, and now her stomach turned, threatening to cast up what she had managed to eat of her supper and her head began to throb.

She’d known Crispin would eventually hear the whispers that followed her wherever she went. She’d known it would change whatever delicate dynamic they were slowly building between them. She’d somehow hoped for more time. That she would find a way to tell him that thing that she had never been able to discuss fully, even with Mary.

She didn’t want to discuss it now. But she had no choice. She was trapped in this man’s home, as this man’s wife, held in place by his focused, deep blue stare. He would not allow her to avoid it. He would hold her there by one way or another. As her husband, he had every right to do it, even with violence.

Though she couldn’t imagine him doing so. But then, she hadn’t imagined a great many things in her life were possible.

“I need to know, Gemma,” he said, his voice neutral. He offered no comfort, but there was no censure either.

She swallowed. “I realize I’m taking a long time to answer,” she said softly. “And I know you need to know the truth. But it is very difficult to address this subject.”

His gaze gentled ever so slightly. “Take your time. We have all night if need be.”

She nodded. It could take all night if recounting the story was as painful as she feared it would be. If only she could escape the telling. But if she wished to save her sister, and perhaps herself, this was the only way.

God damn her father.

She exhaled a long breath and then let the first words croak from her dry lips. “My father wanted sons,” she began. “He was obsessed with having them to further himself financially through their marital and working potential and to continue his name. He and my mother tried for decades to have them, but between the failed attempts that resulted in my sister and I and so many lost children that tiny caskets became commonplace in our home, he was thwarted at every turn. Even when my mother died birthing the last dead child, his first response was to rejoice that he might find a new wife who would better do her duty.”

“But he is not married, is he?” Crispin asked.

She shook her head. “You’ve met him. He has little to offer to a lady, and his methods of courtship are as crude as his methods of parenting. Perhaps he will one day find a desperate young bride and his attention will return to siring sons, but for now he has other things on his mind.”

“Such as?”

She pursed her lips. “When I came of age, I was finally of use to him. I could marry well, you see, link him to a better family and perhaps convince my rich and titled husband to provide him with an income of some kind. He allowed me two Seasons, and when I could not find a man of my own choosing, he somehow hurtled me into a union with the Earl of Laurelcross.”

Crispin nodded. “Did you
want
that marriage?”

She hesitated. With everything that had happened between the first time she’d met Theodore and now it was sometimes hard to remember her thoughts at the beginning.

“He was older than I by twenty years,” she explained slowly. “But he seemed kind enough and his courtship was friendly. I recognized I could do far worse with my father at the helm of my future. I suppose the word
want
might be too strong, but resigned sums it up better.”

Crispin flinched. “I know such things are commonplace amongst those with title and rank, but I’m sorry.”

“At first there was no reason to be,” she said, her mind turning back to those first days and weeks. “Theodore was attentive and gentle. He thought of my needs both in our day to day life and…” She hesitated as heat flooded her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I must be very blunt, but I assure you it is only because the details I’m about to share are pertinent to the question you asked me about his death.”

Crispin’s brow knitted in confusion, but he nodded. “You may be direct. After all, I am a Flynn, I assure you it cannot be anything I haven’t seen nor done myself.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “My husband introduced me to the pleasures that could be found in a marital bed. And I-I liked it.”

She stopped talking because her throat felt like it was going to close. She struggled for a moment, keenly aware that Crispin’s eyes were now wide, and he leaned in closer at that shocking admission. She had no idea what he thought of her, but she knew what the world would say.

Harlot.

“You say that this fact pertains to your husband’s death?” Crispin asked when she had been silent for too long.

“May I have some water?” she asked, handing him her empty brandy glass. He took it, quickly moved to the sideboard where he gave her what she needed and sat back down. He held the glass out to her.

She took it, dragging in deep gulps of the water. It still tasted of spirits, but at least she felt she could breathe again.

“We went on that way for a few months and I found myself becoming content.” She shook her head at the foolishness of that sentence now, with hindsight as her guide. “I
thought
we could have a life together.”

“But?” Crispin asked.

“My husband began to change.
Then
I realized I had married a man with the same desires as my father had. The earl had children from his first marriage. But they were daughters who were grown and close to my own age. He never had a son, and soon he made it clear that my failure to breed was an issue.”

Crispin frowned. “I see.”

She shivered. “At first it was just looks in the hall when my courses would come. Glares that could cut like a knife, and icy silences. After months, he began with angry statements about how he had paid for a product he hadn’t received. Then he progressed to screeching at me. He seemed to be morally affronted that he had offered me pleasure in our bed and in return I had not granted him the child he required.”

“One has nothing to do with the other,” Crispin muttered.

She shrugged. “Perhaps he figured that out too, because after a year and a half of our marriage, he took away whatever remaining pleasure he gave.”

“How?”

“He would not touch me. He started using an oil to ease the joining when once he used to…” She blushed again, the humiliation of this story almost overwhelming. “Must I say it?”

“No.” His lips pursed. “I understand, please continue.”

She somehow gathered her remaining composure. “And then he even stopped doing that. He told me if I wanted to keep from feeling pain, I would ready myself with my own dirty hands.”

“He said that to you?” Crispin asked.

“That and worse. He felt, I think, that he had been given a bad trade. He’d paid for a biddable young bride who would give him an heir and a spare to continue his line. I was a lame horse.”

“His words again?” Crispin asked, and now he sounded angry.

“Perhaps,” she whispered, trying not to remember every awful exchange. In the months since Theodore’s death, the nasty things he’d said to her had faded somewhat, becoming softer in her mind. This brought the truth of them rushing back.

“This is a very sorry tale,” Crispin said, and it sounded like he was speaking through clenched teeth. “With the villain in the piece a bastard who did not deserve you.”

“He wasn’t a villain,” Gemma said, but the words were weak.

“He was,” Crispin said, tone utterly firm and certain. “However, I still don’t understand how he died. Did he drive you too far with his attitude? Did he turn to violence and you defended yourself against his attack?”

“No!” Gemma recoiled and thrust herself from the chair. She paced away from him. The entire room seemed to spin and she gripped the surface of a tabletop to center herself.

“Then explain it, Gemma.” He stood up too but made no move toward her. “I have not judged you thus far, I swear to you that I will not judge you later. Just explain why people think you killed the man.”

“I did kill him,” Gemma murmured, and she watched Crispin stiffen. “Just not the way you think.”

“Tell me,” he insisted again.

Her breath came out as a sob and Gemma bent her head. She swiped at the tears that suddenly filled her eyes as she braced herself for what came next.

“One night he told me that he was coming to me for…for…”