s a cousin in the Governor’s household, it would appear. But he is too wary of the Ravenhursts to do more than poke and pry.’
It felt so temptingly good to be close to him again. Clemence allowed herself to be drawn into the anteroom and seated on a sofa. ‘A glass of wine?’
‘No, thank you. And he hardly mentioned Jamaica to me.’ As soon as she said it his lips tightened and she could have kicked herself for her lack of tact.
‘So, he was gossiping about me instead?’
This was not how she had imagined being with Nathan again. ‘Yes.’
‘About Corfu?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then I had better tell you the truth.’
‘It is none of my business,’ Clemence interjected.
‘No?’ Just what did he mean by that cool monosyllable? ‘I will tell you anyway. I prefer my friends to know the facts, not to listen to Polkington’s gossip. What has he said?’
‘That your wife’s name was Julietta, that she was half-Greek and very lovely and, er…lively.’
‘That is all true, at least.’ Nathan leaned back, his long legs crossed, his arm casually along the back of the sofa as they sat turned to face each other. To an onlooker he must seem entirely relaxed, but Clemence knew him too well to be deceived. There was a tautness about his jaw and the smile on his lips did not reach his eyes.
‘I thought I was in love with her—so did half the gentlemen on the island. Her father was a prosperous local merchant married to an Englishwoman of some style and education. I proposed one heady, moonlit evening and she accepted me. Her father—no fool—encouraged a rapid wedding and there we were, two virtual strangers learning to live together.’
‘And she was not as you had thought?’ Clemence asked carefully. She had thought that hearing about his lost love would hurt her, but instead all she felt was sorrow for the newlyweds, so evidently heading for disaster.
‘Neither of us was what the other had expected. She thought she was getting a doting, fun-loving and indulgent husband. I thought I was gaining domestic bliss and set about reforming myself—doubtless into a stolid prig. She carried on flirting, perfectly harmlessly, I can see now. I became the heavy husband, forbidding her to enjoy herself, in effect. One night she slipped away to a party I had said we were not going to attend. When I arrived, fuming, she was on the balcony with my friend Lieutenant Fellowes.’
‘Oh, Lord.’ Clemence realised she had extended a hand to his and drew it back sharply. ‘What were they doing?’
‘Nothing so very bad. He had plucked a flower and was fixing it at the bosom of her dress which, Julietta being Julietta, was held up more by will-power than by anything else. I hit Adrian, he accused me of slandering my own wife—and the next thing we knew we were facing each other at dawn in a field with a pair of pistols.’ Nathan’s eyes were unfocused as though he were looking back down the years.
‘You didn’t kill him, though? You told me you hadn’t?’
‘I had told you I had duelled? I had forgotten that. I obviously told young Clem altogether too much.’ He smiled at her, back from the past, and something warm and vulnerable uncurled inside her and dared to hope for a second. ‘I just caught him on the shoulder, a flesh wound—which you may choose to believe, or not, is what I intended. He missed me. And then we looked at each other and realised what a pair of bloody fools we both were and shook hands and went and had breakfast by way of the doctor’s house.’
‘Thank goodness,’ Clemence murmured. ‘But wasn’t duelling forbidden?’
‘Of course. But Adrian insisted to anyone who would listen that it had all been an accident while we were having a shooting competition to try out his new pistols. The authorities might have taken a harder line—no one really believed a word of it—but by then Julietta was dead.’
He made to get to his feet as if suddenly he could not manage to tell this story any longer. Clemence reached out again and this time curled her fingers into his hand. ‘No, Nathan, please tell me the rest.’ He sat back again.
‘She knew about the duel, of course. Whether she thought I would be killed or whether she feared my anger if I survived, I have no idea. I was not very understanding when I left her that morning. But she rode, by herself, to her father’s estate in the countryside and on the way there was an accident of some kind. They found her in the road, the horse by her side. Her neck was broken.’
‘Oh, no,’ Clemence breathed. ‘You loved her and you had not even had the chance to say goodbye to her. And to face that in the midst of the scandal after the duel.’ She bit down on her lip to steady the quiver in her voice. ‘It must have been hell.’
Her hand was still in his. He sat looking down at it for a while in silence, playing with the seams of her glove. ‘No, I didn’t love her, I realised that too late. That was almost the worst thing of all, the knowledge that if I had had more sense, more self-control, I would never have got us into that situation. I should have waited, seen it was just infatuation, and she would have been safe.’
‘How old were you?’ she asked abruptly, startling him into looking up at her.
‘Twenty-three. She was nineteen.’
‘And you blame yourself, with the wisdom of your current age and experience, for the folly of a young man? I am nineteen, like she was—no, I quite forgot it, but I have had a birthday, I am twenty.’ Fancy forgetting a birthday! But she had other things on her mind at the time…‘Women mature more quickly than men in matters of the emotions. She should have known she was not in love with you, too.’
‘You think you can tell?’ His blue eyes were hard and bitter.
‘Oh, yes,’ Clemence said, releasing his hand and getting to her feet in a swirl of skirts. ‘I know perfectly well when I am in love with a man.’ Where the courage to utter the words had come from, she had no idea. They stared at each other as he got slowly to his feet. ‘It was a tragedy. I am so sorry it seems to have convinced you that it would be folly to risk your heart again.’