Page 16 of The Duchess Debt

“It?”

My life.Ignoring her question, he rose to his full height. “While we were in the ballroom celebrating our future, Clarissa Wentworth was upstairs, making use of one of the guestrooms.” He bit off the end of the cigar and spat it into the fire. “With my brother.”

To fill the stunned silence, he clenched the cigar between his teeth and brought the small flame to its tip. He waved the splinter back and forth and pulled in large mouthfuls of air through the cigar to light the dry tobacco. When the tip finally glowed deep red in the shadows, he tossed the splinter into the flames.

“Adam bedded her without any intention of marrying her. Perhaps he knew her father would never have condoned a marriage to a second son with limited prospects, so he took what he could of her. Adam was nothing if not a mercenary bastard.”Gabe turned the cigar over in his fingers and watched as the thin trail of smoke drifted toward the ceiling. “By the time Clarissa discovered she was with child, my cowardly scapegrace of a brother had already departed for India, leaving Clarissa ruined and our family’s honor in tatters.”

He shoved the cheroot into his mouth and viciously puffed at it. He didn’t care that it was vulgar to smoke in front of a lady. It was either smoke to keep his hands busy or punch his fist into the wall.

“When did you find out?” The soft voice behind him was barely more than a whisper.

“The morning of our wedding.” When he was fully dressed in his wedding finery, in fact, right down to the red rose boutonniere on his lapel. When his town coach was waiting at the front steps, gleaming in black ebony and polished brass, to bring Helena to her new home in style. When every servant in the household—and then some—were in a flurry of activity to prepare for the grand breakfast to follow the ceremony. “James Wentworth and Clarissa arrived just as I was leaving for the church. She came to tell me that she was with child, and her brother insisted I make good on Adam’s irresponsibility or be called out for it.” He angrily flicked the ash from his cigar into the flames at his feet. “One way or another, a Cavanaugh had to marry her or both our families would be ruined, and I was the only Cavanaugh left.”

The silence behind him was as damning as if she’d screamed at him.

“I had no choice. I had to break off our engagement and marry Clarissa as soon as possible.”

“No,” she challenged, her voice raw. “Youdidhave a choice. You could have chosen me.”

He cast a dark look over his shoulder at her. “Clarissa and her child would have been destroyed because of Adam’s lies. They didn’t deserve that.”

“And I did?” Even from half a room away he could see the glistening tears in her eyes.

“Of course not.” He stared down into the red coals as if they were brimstone. Fitting. After all, he was already in hell. “But I expected to take the brunt of the scandal for jilting you. I was certain society would see you as the wronged party and blame me. By the time I learned what had happened to you, I had been at Grangely for nearly a year. Alice had been born, Clarissa and I were trying to make our marriage work… There was nothing I could do to ease your situation. No one believed me when I said you were completely innocent.”

“Damn you,” she rasped out.

“Exactly,” he muttered into the fire. “Damn me.”

She shook her head, unwilling to accept his explanation so easily. “You left me there, waiting at the church, with all the pews filled with our family and friends…the rector was waiting…everyonewas waiting—” Her voice cracked with anguish. “You left me standing there like a fool!”

He deserved her rebuke, but his heart had long ago been cauterized against the pain of that day. It had been the only way he’d been able to survive. Even her angry tears wouldn’t be able to pierce him.

“You were already at the church before I could send word to tell you to stay home.” He rubbed at the knot forming at his nape. “Clarissa had been so distraught that she collapsed, and I had to send for the doctor. I couldn’t leave her. I was too afraid she’d lose the baby or harm herself.”

He’d been a fool to believe her when she threatened to kill herself rather than live with the scandal of being an unwedmother. Yet that day, he had no idea of the depths to which Clarissa was willing to sink to get what she wanted.

“So you sent her brother to tell me that I’d been jilted.” Her voice lowered to little more than a pain-filled breath. “To give me your note.”

“Wentworth volunteered to take a message to you. He was the best messenger I could find at the time.”

“James Wentworth, the man who told everyone I wasn’t good enough to be your wife.” Her soft voice came from right behind him now, and the chilling betrayal he heard in it grasped his spine with icy fingers. “Who told me that again, right before he gave me your note calling off the wedding.”

“Wentworth is an ass.” Steeling himself for the anguish he would see in her, he turned to face her. “You had nothing to do with what happened that morning, Helena. I wish I could make you believe that.”

Her silence condemned him.

“I had to protect my family and the dukedom, and I had to protect Clarissa. Marrying her was the only way.”

“And you didn’t consider telling me the truth?”

“I couldn’t risk anyone finding out.” Including the woman he loved. “The world had to believe that the baby was mine, especially if it had been a son, because he would have inherited the title. If anyone learned the truth, Clarissa’s reputation and that of her family couldn’t have survived it. Neither would Adam’s career with the East India Company.” He gestured with his arm for emphasis, to take in the estate around him. “Hell, the entire dukedom could have been put at risk, with Aunt Verity and all my employees and tenants right along with it. God knows that damnable prince regent is looking for any excuse these days to increase his fortune, and don’t think for one moment that he wouldn’t have taken back a title over something like that and kept the estate for himself.”

He threw the rest of his unwanted cigar into the fire.

He leaned on one hand against the mantel and stared down into the flames. “Clarissa and I had to marry immediately in order to hide the truth, so I spent what should have been our wedding day tracking down the archbishop to obtain a special license.” And bribing the man well for it. “Clarissa was just far enough along that the baby could arrive early and not raise too many eyebrows, but there wasn’t time to send all the way to India to find Adam and bring him back to England to marry her. By then, the baby would have been a year old, my family’s name thoroughly scandalized, and Clarissa’s and the baby’s lives ruined.”

“So you chose to ruin mine instead,” she whispered.