He didn’t have an opportunity to speak with her at once, however, for when he entered the drawing room, his younger sisters were gathered around Horatio, engaged in an effort to expand the bird’s vocabulary. For two hours Kyle had to listen to their giggling attempts to teach the parrot to say “minuet” and “cotillion” and “Scotch reel..” When they finally retired to bed, followed shortly by Bea and Thaddeus, he was left alone with Selena.
The silence hung heavily between them. For a moment Kyle watched her, wondering how to begin. Selena was sitting on the settee across from him, slender back straight, hands folded in her lap, soft lamplight playing on her hair.
She was waiting for his explanation, he knew. When she cast him a brief, somewhat nervous glance, he suddenly realized how important it was to him that she know the truth. He wanted her to understand.
Selena was the first to peak, though. “What is your son’s name?” she asked quietly, looking away.
Kyle took a deep breath. “Clayton…but everyone calls him Clay.”
“Does he favor you?”
He hadn’t expected that question, but he answered it honestly. “A little, I guess. Danielle says so, at any rate. He’s a beautiful child. Blond hair and green eyes. I was planning…hoping… to give him my name one day.”
“You intended to marry Danielle.” It was a statement, murmured in a small voice that wrenched his heart.
“Yes,” he admitted helplessly.
“But what of her husband?”
“Jeremiah…isn’t expected to live much longer. The doctor is surprised he’s lasted this long…” Kyle raked a hand through his hair. He was making a hash of this, stumbling over himself, searching for the right words. “I know it sounds callous to be discussing such things when her husband isn’t even in his grave yet, but Danielle has been concerned about how she would manage. I wanted her to know she didn’t have to worry, that I was willing to take responsibility for my son… and for her.”
Selena looked down at her hands. That was why Kyle hadn’t been free to accept her proposal of marriage. She remembered him speaking of a duty he was obliged to fulfill. At the time she had thought he meant his duty toward his sisters. “Danielle…must have been very upset to learn about me.”
“I don’t know… There never was anything between us. I knew Danielle, though not well. She had always been a friend of the family. When I came home a few years ago for a visit…she had been through a lot. Her husband had almost died from a bullet wound, and when he managed to recover, he was left paralyzed and in such pain that he had to be kept dosed with laudanum. Danielle had had a rough time nursing him constantly and finding money to pay the doctor’s bills.” Kyle paused, taking a deep breath. “The last week I was in Natchez, Bea coerced me into attending a revival meeting at a neighboring plantation, and Danielle was there. She was lonely and unhappy and crying, and so I comforted her, and, well… one thing led to another. It only happened once.”
Selena didn’t need to be given a more explicit explanation of what had occurred between them. She could picture it clearly: a desperately lonely woman weary of struggle and a strong, vital man who was more than capable of momentarily shouldering burdens on his powerful shoulders. Oh, yes, she could understand. She had been in a similar situation with Kyle herself.
“I should never have let it go so far,” he was saying. “I suppose I was careless…stupid. I didn’t even know about Clay until I returned the next year and Bea told me about the rumors. I wanted to make it right then, but Danielle couldn’t marry me. She didn’t want to accept money, either, for fear of how it would look, but I discovered a way. By then she was working at Chandler’s General Mercantile in town—Orrin Chandler is a friend of mine—and I gave him the money to increase her salary. And I did everything else I could—sent Clay gifts through Bea, talked my father into giving Jeremiah’s brother a job here as factor so he could help support them, saw to it that Danielle had a competent Negro woman to stay with Jeremiah full-time. And I’ve stayed away. That’s been the hardest part…that I can’t claim Clay as my son. I can’t hold him or play with him or even visit without providing more food for the town gossips.”
Hearing the note of despair in Kyle’s voice, Selena recalled how adamant he had been in his refusal to marry her, how he had almost pleaded with her to intercede with the governor. She had misunderstood his reasons then. Kyle hadn’t wanted to marry her, that was true, but it wasn’t his loss of freedom that had so disturbed him. It was the loss of his son. And she hadn’t given him any way out.
“I ought to regret what happened,” he said softly. “And I do—for causing Danielle more hardship. Yet I can’t wish the damage undone, for that would mean wishing Clay had never been born. Y
ou like children… so perhaps you can understand.”
She nodded, her clasped fingers tightening in her lap.
“Selena, maybe I don’t have the right to ask this of you—” he plowed his fingers through his hair again “—but if you could manage to overlook Clay’s existence, to pretend that nothing is wrong, at least in front of our neighbors, we could manage to avoid a scandal. And I could still see Clay once in a while.”
She finally met Kyle’s gaze, her eyes troubled, as his were.
“I can’t give him up, Selena,” he said with quiet anguish. “He’s my son.”
“Of course not. I could never ask you to.” Her own voice was husky with emotion. She thought it must have reassured him, for his intense expression relaxed infinitesimally.
“I don’t want my younger sisters to know, either. Obviously Lydia has guessed at least a little, but Zoe and Cissy are too young to find out.”
“I… I will do my best to see they never have reason to suspect.”
“Thank you.” He gave her a faint smile, of relief and gratitude, thinking the words inadequate to express his appreciation for her compassion.
They both fell silent then; there didn’t seem to be anything more to say, though Kyle wished there was.
She was so different from any of the women in his past, he thought, watching the lamplight glint on her hair like a silver halo. Observing her quiet, cool beauty, he could hardly remember what he had seen in any other woman.
Kyle shifted in his chair, feeling his body begin to throb as it always did lately when he was near her. He was bewitched by Selena’s ethereal loveliness, he knew. Her pale features and deceptive hint of fragility held such powerful allure that he found it harder and harder to remain alone in the same room with her. Making love to her had been like reveling in moonbeams—silver, sensuous rays that bathed him in magic and wrapped around his heart like slim fingers of light.
The thought of going to her now and removing her clothes, one by one, pressing her back upon the settee and burying himself in her enchanting body, beckoned him like a strong spell. And the visual image of Selena naked and writhing beneath him, long, slender legs clasping his hips, her quicksilver eyes liquid with heat, brought him to a pulsing arousal.