The Unmasking of Lady Loveless Read Online Free PDF Page B

all of our marriage you have paid no heed to me at all! You might as well have been a bachelor for all the difference it made!” She drew the blankets about her and sat looking at him with a sort of defiant, disheveled dignity. It made him want to kiss her, but he judged that this was not, perhaps, the moment.
    “Oh, I always knew that it was your papa who desired the match, not you,” Melicent said bitterly. “I knew you preferred Beaumont to me! Whenever you came to me you touched me as though you hated me! And when I left, you did not trouble to follow me, or even to write. I had more correspondence with your agent than I did with you, and I would have given everything for just one letter from you!” She swallowed hard. “I was so angry. But then last night I forgot all of that and was so shameless and so…so brazen!” She made a small, infuriated noise. “I cannot forgive myself,” she finished, a little forlornly. “Not when I know you have never cared a rush for me and never will.”
    Alex was staring at her as though she had hit him over the head with a saucepan, Melicent thought. He ran one hand through his hair, disordering it thoroughly. He looked baffled and upset and so damned handsome that Melicent swore on the spot that she was not—she really, really was not —going to forgive him and fall straight back in love with him in the same foolish, immature and pointless fashion that she had done when she had been a nineteen-year-old bride.
    Alex took her hands in his. She allowed them to stay there because it felt right, even though it should have felt wrong.
    “Melicent.” He sounded wretched. “Sweetheart, I had no idea. I thought that you did not realize…” He stopped.
    Melicent’s heart sank like a stone.
    I thought that you did not realize…
    Even though she had known he had not cared a ha’porth for her, it felt devastating to have the matter confirmed. She bent her head and stared at their linked hands.
    “I realiszd from the start,” she said. “Your father forced you to wed me, did he not? I do not know how or why, but I know he did.”
    “He threatened to take Beaumont away from me,” Alex said simply. “He pointed out that I had no right to run the estates, and he was correct, of course, for he owned them and after him my elder brother, Harry, inherited. I had no claim at all.”
    “But you love Beaumont with all your heart,” Melicent said. She felt cold with shock. So this was the threat the duke had used to coerce his son—taking away from him the one thing that gave his life meaning. “You are the only one who has ever cared for the land and the people,” she said. “Without you the whole place would have gone to ruin long ago!”
    Alex looked at her. His dark eyes were tired. “Papa wanted to ensure the succession of the title. He knew Henry would never wed. Put plainly, Henry’s affections are not for the female sex. So he decided to coerce me even though I was young and was not ready for marriage.” He looked rueful. “I was too wrapped up in my books and too in love with Beaumont to have space for anyone or anything else, Melicent. I am sorry.”
    “You were angry,” Melicent whispered, “and now I understand why.”
    “I tried not to let it show with you,” Alex said. “I knew it was not your fault.” He shook his head. “But you are right—whenever I saw you, whenever I touched you, I felt such anger over my father’s blackmail. It was inevitable that you should feel it, I suppose.” His fingers tightened on hers. “I must have hurt you very badly. I am so very sorry, Melicent.”
    Melicent’s throat tightened with tears. She was not going to say that did not matter, because it did. It mattered a lot. But with understanding came forgiveness of the fury and frustration of a young man who had been put in an impossible situation.
    “Do you still feel angry with your father?” she asked.
    Alex shook his head. “When he died, so did my anger. I