Free Redeeming Jack by Kate Pearce Page B

thought there was.” She glared up at him. “Dammit, Jack, I
worshipped
you.” Before he could answer, she stepped back. “I’m going upstairs to make myself presentable. Will you and Gareth order dinner, and I’ll come down to you in an hour.”
    “As you wish, my lady.”
    Carys could only nod, her attention on the burning sensation that lingered on her lips. It seemed as if Jack’s touch still branded her far more than the alcohol ever would.
    * * *
     
    After Carys’s departure, Jack stared in frustration at the closed parlor door. What was the matter with him? This was hardly the way to make things right with her. Fighting, when all he truly wanted was to make peace. Half smiling, he recollected her scornful face. She was no longer a shy, adoring bride or the upper-class lady his mother had tried to mold her into. She was truly herself. In a strange way he was absurdly proud of her.
    Jack turned and met Gareth’s speculative stare. “I’ll wager you are beginning to wish you’d never agreed to this journey.”
    “Not at all. I’m enjoying it. In truth, I haven’t seen my sister so animated in years.”
    “You don’t object to our squabbling?”
    “It’s not pleasant, but at least Carys is showing some emotion.” Gareth saluted Jack with his pewter tankard. “Since she’s taken up with Lord Oliver Rice, she’s been far too saintly in my opinion.” He sighed heavily. “I was beginning to think she’d forgotten how to live.”
    “I bled the
life
out of her, Gareth, don’t you remember? I was the fool who kept getting her pregnant.”
    Jack spotted Carys’s abandoned purse on the table and picked it up. His fingers caressed the embroidered silk as he remembered his wedding night. He’d hesitated to introduce Carys to lovemaking, afraid he’d made a terrible mistake in claiming her so young. To his surprise, she’d claimed him as fiercely and bravely as she embraced everything in her life. He’d been swept along by her sense of rightness. Far from complaining when he’d taken her virginity, she’d gloried in his possession of her…
    Gareth remained silent for a long while, his clear blue eyes, so like Carys’s, trained on Jack’s face. “That’s in God’s hands, Jack. You did what any man in love with his wife would do.”
    Turning his back on Gareth, Jack stared out of the window at the busy coach yard below. “I was selfish. Whenever I returned from the war, I tried to bury those memories by burying myself in her. I forgot she would have to pay the ultimate penalty for my indulgence.”
    Gareth noisily cleared his throat. “Don’t take all the blame yourself, man. Carys wanted those babies as much as you did.”
    “Gareth is right, Jack.”
    Jack swung around and saw Carys framed in the doorway, hands clasped tightly together, her face pale.
    She gestured at the purse. “I came to fetch my reticule. I didn’t mean to overhear.”
    Blindly, Jack held it out to her, but she didn’t take it. Gareth muttered an inaudible excuse and left the room. Jack waited, eyes on the tattered carpet, as Carys advanced toward him. The toes of her walking boots poked out from beneath the muddied hem of her green gown.
    “I wanted a baby more than anything else in the world. Toward the end of our marriage, I was so desperate I ignored all your attempts to prevent further pregnancies. Don’t you remember that?”
    Jack couldn’t look at her. “I was older and more experienced. I should have been able to stop you…”
    “Ah, but you did in the end, didn’t you?” To his surprise, Carys didn’t sound angry anymore. “You found the perfect way to keep away from my bed.”
    He looked at her then, his fingers digging into the metal clasp of her reticule, bruising his flesh. “If you are referring to my dishonorable dismissal from the army, believe me, I didn’t arrange that for your benefit.”
    “I was referring to your adulterous relationship with Mrs. Sian Williams. You must have known