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she recognized and that touched her soul. If she lied to him now, she would be doing more than hiding the truth from him. She would be stealing something precious and wonderful.
    Slowly she nodded her head. “Yes.”
    As he let out his breath, Verity straightened her shoulders with renewed determination. “That is why you cannot come here again. There is a resemblance. Anybody seeing the two of you together may guess the truth, and we cannot risk that.”
    “I could recite the names of several acquaintances who are bastards, whether most people know it or not,” he said. “Once the heir is assured, such…lapses…are not uncommon.”
    “Perhaps among the nobility, but we are not of that class. It is also different for a man. Indeed, illegitimate children are more often considered proof of virility.”
    “I know society has several standards of acceptable behavior depending upon wealth and rank and sex.”
    “You have been protected all your life by your money and status, Your Grace, so you cannot possibly know how it would be for me, and Jocelyn, too. I will not have my child tainted if I can avoid it.”
    “So you married an old man for protection rather than come to me.”
    “What if I had?” she demanded. “Would you have offered to marry me, although I had no fortune or family to recommend me? There was no word of love between us.”
    His gaze did not falter. “No, there was not, and I daresay you are right. I would not have married you. But I would have looked after you, for the child’s sake.”
    “So you say now.”
    His brow lowered ominously and his eyes flashed with anger. “I tell you, I would have taken care of you and Jocelyn, even though—”
    He fell silent.
    “Even though I came to your bed uninvited like the worst sort of woman?” Verity finished for him.
    “Yes.”
    “I had no way of knowing what you would do if I told you.”
    “So you gave me no chance to answer at all. That wasn’t very honorable of you.”
    “Honorable? I had already dishonored myself—and the responsibility for what happened is mine, Your Grace. I came to you that night.”
    “I remember,” he said quietly.
    “Therefore,” she continued after a moment, her voice strained, “I would not burden you with any of the resulting responsibility, either.”
    His gaze flicked away. “No doubt you thought that useless anyway.”
    “Perhaps. But all this happened ten years ago, and it is over with.”
    “It is not over with for me.”
    “We have to think of Jocelyn,” she said, as much a reminder to herself as for him. “We have to consider what would be best for her. Surely you do not want everyone to know of her shame?”
    “The circumstances of her birth are not her shame. I would have her know that she has a natural father, and that he did not abandon her, once he knew of her.
    “She is my child, Verity,” he continued firmly, “and I want to be a part of her life. I have not been part of a family since my mother died. I have relations, but that is not the same thing.”
    “I’ve explained—”
    “Why did you do it, Verity?” he demanded, his even tones measured and deliberate. “Why did you come to my bed?”
    “What does it matter now?”
    “It matters to me.”
    Need burned in his eyes as he regarded her steadily, need and longing that was not a desire of the flesh, but something more.
    In light of that longing, she could not keep this truth from him, either. “I was going to marry a man old enough to be my father in a month’s time, and I wanted to know what it would be like to experience a young man’s passion, just once,” she answered, her whole body hot with humiliation.
    “So I was the lucky candidate for assuaging your curiosity. Given that you burst into tears and fled from the room, I must assume I was a disappointment.”
    She shook her head. “No, you were not.”
    “Then I daresay I should be pleased that the experience was not without some merit.”
    “That experience gave