Patrick grabbed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. “All right, I hit him. I did exactly what he wanted me to do, and now I am the villain because I let my pride and my anger get the better of me. I cannot change the past, but I would like to make up for it in the future.”
“Apologize to Reginald.”
“This is not about Reginald,” he said. “This is about you and I.”
Linley took a deep breath. “Then apologize to me.”
“For what, exactly?”
She turned her face away from him. There was no way she could tell him how she felt. How could she explain jealousy over someone she never met? How could she tell him that she hated him for once caring about another woman, despite the fact that he never hid it from her? Patrick told her from the very beginning that he’d known other women. He had left no room for jealousy or distrust between them.
“Linley,” he said. “If you cannot be honest with me about how you are feeling, then I cannot do anything to help you. Talk to me, please.”
She could not look at him, even as she spoke. “Those things that Reginald said—they were true, weren’t they?”
“I make no attempt to deny them.”
“Then…you cared for that woman. More than you originally let on?”
Patrick hung his head. “You asked if I loved any of those women, and I told you I did not,” he said. “I cared for Esmée Wolstanton a great deal, but I don’t know that I loved her. I was young and stupid, and I had na?ve expectations. She played me like a fool because I didn’t know any better.”
Linley finally turned to face him.
“Above all,” he continued. “I was ashamed. I did not want you or anyone else to know the details of my private, sexual life. And I don’t think I am wrong to feel that way. What passed between Lady Wolstanton and I is between Lady Wolstanton and myself. Not for her to laugh about with Reginald, and not for Reginald to throw in my face. And most certainly, not for you to lose any sleep over.”
Linley reached up and pushed away a piece of dark hair that fell over his forehead. “Tell me about her.”
“I was lonely at the time, and I think she was, too. Her husband was much older—your father’s age at least. But it was a good marriage for her. In the first year, she gave him an heir, and then she was free to do as she pleased.” Patrick paused. “But that all happened a very long time ago. I was still at Eton then.
“I met her just out of Oxford. I had recently come into my majority, and she was not yet thirty. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She must have thought me decent enough looking because she didn’t put up much of an argument. Someone else arranged everything—one of my school chums who knew her—and before I realized what I was doing, I found myself in bed with her.
“I won’t go into detail, but I will say that I was initiated into lovemaking the way a runt puppy is initiated to a deep bucket. And it was Esmée Wolstanton holding my head underwater. The whole thing was just a game to her. I couldn’t see it then, but now I look back and think I should have known better.”
He shook his head, sadly. “And to hear your friend Reginald telling everyone my shame. To hear him telling you the one thing I would never want anyone to know…” Patrick closed his eyes and sighed. “Please don’t think me weak, Linley. I couldn’t bear it.”
He looked years older then, his face shadowed in moonlight, one side of his nose swollen and purpled. Linley wondered what he had been like at her age. Before all the loss, and the hurt, and the years of responsibility took their toll on him. At only twenty-seven, he already carried the burdens of an old man.
And she wondered what future burdens he would have to carry, for there would certainly be many.
“I don’t think you’re weak, Patrick. I think you are a good man with a good heart. You just gave it to the wrong woman,” she said. “And to take that heart and treat it so cruelly, I think Lady Wolstanton must have no heart at all.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Linley stretched, stiff and sore from sleeping on the hard stone ground. She rolled over to find Patrick a few feet away from her, sleeping on his stomach. He looked peaceful, besides his bruised face. Linley wanted to tell him that she wasn’t mad at him anymore, but she didn’t want to wake him. Instead, she scooted closer to him and slipped her hand in his.
Instinctively, his fingers closed around hers.
Even tucked away in slumber, he still wanted a connection with someone. To hold, and to be held, and not be laughed at for it behind his back. That was not weakness, as far as Linley was concerned. To her, it was the very measure of a man.
Someone stirred, and Linley snatched her hand out of Patrick’s, afraid of what the others might say if they caught them holding hands.
Patrick’s eyes jerked open. He looked confused to have been pulled so quickly from sleep.
“Good morning,” Linley whispered.
“Is it?” he asked, looking around. “I dreamt I was back home in Kyre.”