Chapter 21: What He Never Did

The room did not laugh.

It was the longest silence I have ever stood inside.

Somewhere a glass touched a plate, and a woman's fan stopped.

"Since the Earl has been so frank," said Gervase, "I should like to be frank too.

"Mina, will you hold these?"

He held out his left hand.

I put out my palm, and he drew off the first ring and dropped it into it.

Then the second, and the third, and the fourth, a small heap of cold gold on my skin.

I closed my fingers, and his bare hand hung at his side.

"For nine years," said the Duke of Tarrant, "you have believed a story about me.

"Most of you have repeated it.

"I let you.

"I want to tell you how it ended, because the end has never been told."

He did not raise his voice.

He had never needed to.

"Tonight I am done letting it stand."

A murmur went across the floor, low and hungry.

"I was not hers, and she was not mine.

"I did not touch her then, or ever.

"I let you believe it, because it was the only door out of that drive.

"She never asked me to carry it.

"I did that on my own, and I have been proud of it, God forgive me, and ashamed, in about equal parts."

He looked at the Chairman by the second window.

"My lord, I owe you an apology.

"You sat in the House and listened to a woman swear to a thing that never took place.

"If anyone in this room must be called a liar for it, I am the man."

"No," said a voice.

The crowd by the stairs parted.

Georgiana Fane walked into the middle of the floor in her dove-grey gown.

She was shaking so that I could see the pearls on her bodice tremble.

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