She glanced down at the cricket ring on her finger and tried not to think about a teenaged Trevor giving something that special to a whore. “What happened?” she asked, dreading to hear the answer.
“My month was over. I went to the house where she lived and found my father there instead. He was furious with me.”
“You told him your intentions?”
“Didn’t have to. She’d told him herself. Said that she’d run off with me if he didn’t pay her to leave me alone.”
Oh dear.
“Five thousand pounds.”
A fortune.
“She left for the Continent that very day.”
Mellie realized that Trevor would never have let her go. Not sent away by his father without a word to him. He was too determined and methodical in his passions. It was part of what made him a good scientist. “You must have followed her.”
He nodded, and she now saw how his lips were tight, and his gaze had canted away from her. Was he ashamed? He’d been a boy. She used her free hand and gently touched his face. Eventually, he looked back at her. “What happened when you found her?”
He swallowed. “She was with her true love. A footman in my father’s household. They were taking my father’s money and starting a new life somewhere else. And with five thousand pounds, they could live quite nicely. For a time.”
She heard the bitterness in his tone. She didn’t truly understand finances. Not like her uncle did. She knew that five thousand pounds was a good beginning, but not enough for a lifetime. Not without proper management. Which meant that eventually the money would have run out.
“Oh Trevor, did she come back?”
He squeezed her hand, and she was startled to see how severe his expression had become.
“You don’t have to tell me,” she began, but he shook his head.
“I truly haven’t thought about this in years. It shouldn’t pain me at all.”
But it did. How could it not? “She was your first love. Of course it still pains you.”
He looked up, his expression rueful. “First love? Goodness, no. Well, yes in that it was so intense, and I had been so sure. But Mellie, I’m a man who falls in and out of love relatively easily. By the time I’d met Francesca, I’d already loved half a dozen girls at school.”
“Did you propose to them?”
“I certainly thought about it.”
So he made a habit of this, then. Proposing to girls and not carrying through. In and out of love, and none of it real. Her hand went slack in his, but he continued to grip her as he finished his sad tale.
“Frannie came back a year later. She begged forgiveness, spouting a sad tale of woe.”
“You didn’t believe her.” It wasn’t a question. She could see in his face that he knew the woman had been lying.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. She certainly regretted life with a footman who couldn’t support her as well as life as a courtesan. But it didn’t matter.”
“Because you didn’t love her?”
He looked her dead in the eye. “Because my affections had moved on. Because I’d learned by then that my heart is a fickle, uncertain thing. And by the time she came back, I couldn’t fully understand what I’d seen in her in the first place.”
She narrowed her eyes, watching the tiny shifts in his body. A month ago, she wouldn’t have seen it. Truthfully, she wasn’t entirely certain now. But the tightness of his shoulders, the studied casualness of his gestures—all of it indicated a lie. When Trevor was in the depths of science, his body was focused and economical. He moved exactly as he needed to and no more. When he was with her in dalliance or even dancing, there was a simplicity to his body. His gestures were fluid, but still with a coordinated purpose. It was only when he lied that his body seemed to disconnect. His torso tightened, but his hands fidgeted. His mouth and jaw moved when he spoke, but his head was statue still.
“You still love her,” she guessed.
His eyes widened in horror. “God no!”
Well, that was certainly emphatic. “But something about her appeals to you. Something makes her betrayal still hurt.” She touched him. Their fingers were still entwined, but this time she touched his chin and forced her to look directly at him. “Don’t lie to me, Trevor. I couldn’t bear it.”