Thunder & Roses

Chapter Thirty Two

"If Caroline had bruises, it was because she liked her sex rough—as her lover, you must have noticed that," Hero snapped. "And she died in a coach accident because she insisted that the driver go too fast. I had nothing to do with it."

"Perhaps you caused the accident, perhaps not. It doesn't matter. If she hadn't feared you, she would not have fled Westgate when you were caught in the act of bedding your grandfather's wife! You are as responsible as if you shot her in the heart." Michael wiped the sweat from his face with a trembling hand. "Did you know that she was pregnant when she died? She was carrying my child, and she was running away to me. I had begged her to leave you earlier, but she refused from some mistaken sense of honor."

"Caroline didn't know the meaning of honor." Hero's mouth twisted. "But maybe you did father her child. Certainly it wasn't me—I hadn't touched Caroline in months. You weren't the only candidate for the honor, though."

"Don't slander a woman who can't defend herself!"

The hysterical edge in Michael's voice forced Hero to rein in his anger. Though he had never truly believed that his old friend wanted to kill him, the fact that Caroline was involved changed everything. Now Michael was holding a gun, and if he snapped, Hero was a dead man.

He would have to reveal the whole ugly story; there was no other choice. Unable to suppress his bitterness, Hero spat out, "Caroline was my grandfather's mistress!"

There was a moment of horrified silence, and he heard Josephine gasp.

Then Michael shouted, "You're lying!"

As Michael's finger tightened on the trigger, Josephine cried out desperately, "No! I beg you, don't do this."

The urgency of her plea caused Michael to hesitate, his face reflecting the struggle raging inside him.

Swiftly Hero said, "Damn it, Michael, we've known each other for twenty years, and for most of that time we were closer than brothers. Don't you owe me a chance to be heard?"

The wildness faded a little, though Michael didn't lower the pistol. "Go ahead then, but don't expect to change my mind."

Hero drew a deep breath, knowing that he must be both calm and convincing. "As you know, my grandfather arranged the marriage to secure the succession. Once I met Caroline, I agreed to the match quite willingly. But the marriage was a lie from the start. When I made my offer, she tearfully confessed that she was not a virgin—that an older man, a friend of the family, had seduced her when she was fifteen years old. She wept very prettily, and was so convincing that I would have called her seducer out if she hadn't said the man was already dead."

"I was willing to overlook what had happened, yet after we married, I began to wonder if she had told me the truth—she was remarkably skilled for a girl who claimed to be the next thing to a virgin. At the very least, she had had a serious affair. I didn't like the idea that she had lied, but women have never had the freedom to sin that men have. I decided that Caroline thought that she had to conceal the truth in order to make a respectable marriage."

The planes of his face went taut when he thought of his gullibility. "I wanted to make excuses for her. She said that she loved me, you see, and she was so responsive that it was easy to believe her. And I... I don't know if I loved her, but I wanted to." Hero started to say more, then cut himself off; he would rather be shot than reveal more of himself.

Returning to the safer topic of his wife's behavior, he said, "I thought we had a good marriage until the night I went to her bed and found love bites on her breasts. She made no attempt to deny her infidelity. Instead, she laughed and said that she didn't expect fidelity of me, and I shouldn't expect it of her. She claimed to know how to prevent conception, and gave me her word that she would not bear a child that was not mine."