Page 66 of The Bridal Quest

"No. Not that. About her running away. She would never have done that. I swear to you. As soon as my mother told me, I knew there was something terribly wrong. Selene would never have run away."

"What are you saying? What do you mean?" Gideon looked at him. "What else could have happened?"

"I don't know," his uncle admitted, looking uncomfortable. "But I know she would not have run away with a lover. I will not have you believe that of your mother. She was a-a wonderful woman, good and kind."

"Uncle ..." Gideon's face softened a little, and he reached out to touch the older man's arm in a gesture of comfort. "I know that you regarded my mother highly. I am sure that when you knew her, she was as you said. But you were not here at the time. You don't know what she might have been doing or—or how she might have changed."

"I know!" Jasper jerked away. "Do not patronize me or try to calm me down. Blast it! This is important. I am not some doddering old fool. You were the most important thing in the world to her. She would never have taken you from here, and she would never have abandoned you. Never."

"Perhaps she did not," Irene offered. "We have no idea what happened after she left Radbourne Park. She could have been abandoned by her lover or she could have died, leaving her son alone in London, with no one knowing who he was."

"She did not have a lover," Jasper grated out. "And she would not have removed Gideon from Cecil and his inheritance. She would not even have left Gideon here and run away by herself."

"You cannot be certain—" Gideon began.

"I can! And I am!" His uncle cut him off, his face harsh and lined in pain. "I know—because I asked her to leave with me, and she would not!"

His words were followed by a stunned silence.

"Oh, my," Irene murmured at last and sat down abruptly on the low stone wall around the fountain.

"You ..." Gideon stared at his uncle.

"I loved her," Jasper said simply, and sank down onto the wall beside Irene, resting his elbows on his knees and supporting his head with his hands. "God help me, I loved her. I betrayed my brother. My honor."

"Bloody hell," Gideon said in a low voice and turned to look out over the garden.

"I was mad for her," Jasper went on in a dull voice. "I begged her to leave Cecil, to run away with me. Time and again I begged her. I said we would go to America or the Colonies. I didn't care about giving up my family, my name. Nothing mattered to me except her. She was the most beautiful creature, the most charming and gentlest ... But you do not want to hear the lovesick maunderings of an old man."

He stood up and turned toward Gideon. "I know that she would not have left, because she refused to leave earlier with me. She told me that she could not do that to you. You belonged here, at Radbourne Park. You would be the earl someday, and she would not take that away from you. Nor would she leave without you. So she would remain with Cecil, without love, without hope, because of you. And that is how I know that she would not have run away with her lover, if such a man even existed, and taken you with her. And never, no matter what, would she have abandoned you."

"Is that why you joined the Army?" Irene asked.

Jasper nodded. "Yes. I was in despair. I could not stay here, loving her as I did, and see her daily as his wife. Cecil was not worth a single one of her tears. I hated him because she belonged to him, and because he did not even realize what a treasure he had. I began to realize that if I remained at Radbourne Park, I might someday kill him just to free her from him. So I bought a commission and requested an Indian regiment. I wanted to be as far away as I could be, so that I could not break my vow and return, even for leave." He sighed and rubbed his hands tiredly over his face. "If only I had not been so weak, so impulsive. If only I had stayed here, it would not have happened."

"You must not blame yourself," Irene told him sympathetically. "You could not have known that anything would happen."

"I left because I was too weak," he replied, his voice like iron, and his eyes were filled with a regret that she knew would never leave him. "I could not bear it. And God only knows what happened to her."

"What did happen?" Gideon asked, his voice hard and clipped.

"I don't know." Jasper looked at him. "But I am sure that Selene did not walk away of her own accord."

* * * * *

Irene went down to breakfast the next morning looking composed, if somewhat pale, with nothing to give away the fact that she had spent a restless night. The evening before, after she and Gideon had walked with Jasper back into the house, she had gone upstairs to her room, leaving the two men to talk together.

She did not know what had transpired between them, but she had been unable to fall asleep for a long time, her head full of jumbled thoughts and tangled emotions. She kept thinking of Gideon's mother, alone and in love with a man far away. What had she done? What had happened to her? Irene's mind was filled with frightening possibilities. When she finally slept, she had dreamed, jerking awake time after time, sweating, her heart pounding.

This morning she had come awake from the last jarring dream to find that the early morning sun was slanting through the cracks at the edges of the drapes. She would not, she knew, be able to fall back asleep again, and after the night she had spent, she thought that she would rather not. So she rang for her maid and dressed, then walked down to the dining room. At least, she thought, it would probably be empty this early.

It was, save for one person. Gideon raised his head at the sound of her entrance.

"Irene." He stood up quickly.

"Lord Radbourne." She hesitated, then went to the chair he pulled out for her and sat down, determined to act naturally. "Very little company this morning, I see."

"Yes, it is rather early, and I think everyone was tired from the dancing last night."