Once Upon a Tower

“It wasn’t like that,” she cried.

He bent over and pulled on his breeches, not bothering with his smalls.

“Where are you going?” she asked, hating that her voice was shaky. She couldn’t let him go like this. She slid from the bed.

“For a walk.”

She stepped forward, but tripped on the sheet, stumbled, and nearly fell.

“Careful,” Gowan said, his tone cutting. “My father took to sitting on a three-legged stool because it was a shorter distance to the floor once the whisky went to his head.”

Edie took a breath and tucked the sheet securely around her breasts. Any pleasurable effect of the champagne had evaporated. “Couldn’t we talk about this? I’m truly sorry.”

“What would we talk about?” Gowan buttoned his placket, not meeting her gaze. “I was under the impression that I was making love to you. That you were with me, in a moment I thought was . . . But, obviously, I had my head up my arse. You were shamming, and I was fool enough to believe you. Fool enough to think that there was something special about the moment.”

He gave a short laugh. “That’s the real travesty. Every time you moaned through your supposed pleasure, I prided myself that we were perfect together. I kept thinking that even though you yourself told me in a letter that you had very little interest in the ‘pursuits of the flesh,’ I was proving you wrong.”

“I shouldn’t have pretended,” Edie said, her hands wringing together. She feared the bleak look in his eyes even more than she had feared his rage. “But I didn’t know you very well yet, and I found what happened in bed embarrassing.”

“Well, now we know each other. And how in the hell am I ever supposed to trust you now?” He grabbed one of his boots. “You’re at your most honest when you’re drunk!” The words burst with rage.

Edie tried to form an answer, but nothing came. Her stomach was churning, and she had a sudden panicked thought that she would throw up at his feet.

“I had hoped to marry a woman who would love and care for Susannah,” he went on. “I didn’t question my decision, even after you told me in the same letter that you had no maternal inclinations.”

He slammed one foot down into his boot with a thump that rang through the room like a gunshot. “You warned me, and I ignored it. I have no one to blame but myself for the fact my sister will grow up in bloody England.”

That hurt so badly that Edie couldn’t even speak. A hoarse sound burst from her chest. “I wanted to be her mother; I did, I did.”

The flash of disbelief in his eyes was almost more painful than his rage. Then he turned aside, looking for his second boot.

“I would have loved her,” Edie said, her voice wavering. “But Layla was there, and . . .” Tears spilled down her cheeks.

He shrugged. “I took one look at you and lost all capacity for rational thought. I marched in to your father and bought you with no more thought than if I was purchasing a horse.”

Gowan slammed into his other boot. “Then I failed in bed—not to mention the fact that I was such an ass that I didn’t even know all those oohs and aahs were mere lines, performed by my wife, the actress.” She saw him shudder. “Did I tell you why I didn’t sleep with a woman until marriage?”

The question was so savagely asked that tears spilled down Edie’s cheeks.

“I had this quixotic idea that honor demanded honesty between myself and my wife. Honesty. And the moment I met you, I decided that you were that person. Hell, I even fell in love with you—”

She made a sound, and he looked up. “Go ahead and call me a damned fool, because I am. I fell in love with you and decided you were a perfect woman, evidence to the contrary.”

“And now you don’t think I’m perfect for you?” Edie’s voice cracked.

“What you are perfect for is playing the cello. In truth, the only thing you really give a damn about is that instrument. Your father as good as told me that, but I ignored him as well. You’re married to the cello, not me, and I’m married to a woman who had to get drunk in order to enjoy intimacy.”

“It’s not true,” she whispered. “I—I did like it at first. You know I did. And I married you.” She searched his face, looking for that spark of warmth that was always there when he looked at her. The way he watched her, the way he reached out to touch her. She had always felt he wanted her . . . yes, that he loved her.

It was gone.

“You said you love me,” she cried, hating the sound of her own voice, the way she was pleading with him. “That can’t just disappear.”

“I love the woman I created in my own mind,” he snapped. “The woman who had a fever so high she couldn’t even hear me, but I didn’t notice it. You told me yourself that you didn’t want to be a mother, but I blithely thought you’d change your nature for me. I was as drunk as my father on a bottle of whisky, but it was on a product of my own imagination.”

“Don’t,” Edie cried, sobs rising in her throat. “Please don’t say these things.”

“I’m simply acknowledging the truth.” He looked suddenly exhausted, the skin drawn tight over his cheekbones. “It’s as much my fault as yours; I forced our wedding before we had time to truly know each other, and now we both have to live with the consequences. Most importantly, I fell short in the most profound way a man can.”

He pulled on his shirt. “I need to rearrange my view of the world. A matter of priorities. I can—it will all be fine.” He enunciated the words with savage precision.

“Gowan!” She put raw emotion into her cry.

He walked to the door, leaving her standing in the middle of the room. “Drama doesn’t suit you.” His voice hardened. “My father warned me, you know. He said that there are two kinds of women: the ones who give and take pleasure, and the wives, who lie in bed like pancakes.”

Tears were streaming down Edie’s face, blurring her vision.

Gowan had opened the bedroom door, but then, at the last moment, he suddenly wheeled and lunged back into the room. She jerked aside as he snatched up a book that lay on a side table. The earlier rage had reappeared on his face . . . and not just rage. He looked like a warrior king betrayed by his own men. Like Caesar, when his friend Brutus raised the dagger to his chest.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, fear washing her body.

He turned to her slowly. “I’m not the only one who knows that I failed you in bed, am I?”

Edie felt the blood drain from her face, as a wave of guilt flooded over her.

“You told Lady Gilchrist. In fact, you wrote her a letter describing my shortcomings, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t reveal any details,” Edie said in a choked whisper.

The next word out of his mouth was flatly blasphemous. Then: “How could you do that? You told someone about what was happening in our bed?” He wasn’t even bellowing, but this was worse than shouting. There was a desolate acceptance of betrayal in his voice that cut her to the heart.

A sob rose up in her. “I didn’t mean it that way!” She ran forward and threw her arms around his neck. “Layla is like my mother. Please . . .”