Mistress - Amanda Quick [97]
“He will love whom he will. All you can hope to do is purchase some time for him to consider his actions. With any luck he will use the time to make certain that what he feels for Juliana Dorchester is genuine love and not a passing fancy.”
“I still think my approach is more likely to produce the desired results,” Marcus said. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I have nipped the entire affair in the bud this evening.”
“I think your approach will lead to disaster.”
“Hell and damnation. I detest this sort of emotional nonsense.”
“You, sir, have no patience with anything that does not conform to the laws of science.”
“Things were so much simpler when Bennet was younger,” Marcus said in a low voice. “He respected my advice in those days. He asked me for help when he needed it. He sought my approval before he undertook an important task.”
“I understand.” Iphiginia smiled wistfully. “It was the same way between my sister and myself when she was a child. But everyone grows up eventually, Marcus.”
“Must they destroy their own chance of happiness in the process?”
“Sometimes.”
“The cost of being wrong is too high. I cannot let him do it, Iphiginia.”
Iphiginia took a grip on her fan. “Sir, I have taught students for several years. I have discovered that they do not always learn the lesson you believe that you are teaching. Too often they learn something else entirely.”
“What is that cryptic remark supposed to mean?”
“You must believe me when I tell you that your way of dealing with this situation is fraught with risk. Bennet will learn much from how you handle this situation.”
“I should hope to God he will,” Marcus said fervently.
“But I doubt that he will learn the lesson you believe that you are teaching. In short, my lord, when all is said and done, there is every chance that he will become more like you if this business ends badly. Do you really want that for him?”
Marcus looked at her in cold amazement. “I beg your pardon?”
“You are teaching him the things that are likely to transform him into a copy of yourself in later years.”
“And just what sort of man is that?” Marcus asked in a dangerously soft voice.
“A man who lives by rules that are so rigid and so unbending that they do not allow room for love.”
A terrible silence descended inside the carriage. Marcus did not move so much as an inch, but Iphiginia nearly drowned beneath the silent waves of his fury.
“My lord, I do not pretend to know much about your first marriage. I cannot help but conclude, however, that it was not a happy one.”
“It was a living hell.”
“I wish to claim my half of our bargain. I want an answer to this question. Could anyone who knew you at the time of your marriage have stopped you from going through with it?”
For a moment she did not think he would answer.
“No.” The single word was as heavy as a stone. “Very likely not. I thought I knew what I was doing. I thought that I was in love.” His smile was savage. “I believed that Nora loved me.”
“Perhaps she did,” Iphiginia offered tentatively.
“No.” Marcus’s hand closed briefly into a fist. “She needed a father for the babe she carried.”
Iphiginia froze. “I did not realize—”
Marcus met her eyes. His own were cold. “No one did. I have never told another soul that Nora came to me after she had got herself with child by another man.”
“Oh, Marcus. How terrible for you.”
He fell silent for a while. Iphiginia could not think of anything more to say. She was stunned by the realization that he had kept the truth to himself for so long.
“Nora’s family lived on the neighboring farm,” Marcus said eventually. It sounded as though he were digging the words out of a grave where they had been buried for a very long time. “I had known her most of her life. I was a year older than she and I had believed myself to be in love with her since the day I turned sixteen.”
“Marcus, please, you do not have to tell me this.”
He acted as if he had not heard her. “She found me amusing, I think. And useful. We learned to dance together at the local assembly rooms. I taught