Chapter Twenty-Seven

To everyone else, it looked as though Harry and Ruth were just taking a moment to themselves before everyone was called to dinner. The receiving line had been completed. Ruth had told her grandfather that she and Harry would be back before the meal. Nothing to see there.

Only Harry knew Ruth quite well by now. He knew that she was seething mad. There was a hardness in her eyes he'd almost never seen, and the way she gripped his arm to lead him to an unused room off the ballroom was nearly enough to bruise him through his formal uniform jacket. And as soon as she closed the door behind them, she whirled around with fire in her eyes. "Tell me," she demanded.

"I wish I'd told you sooner. I swear, Ruth, I had no idea Juliet was your aunt."

"She's not my aunt, she's just the woman married to my uncle," Ruth spat.

That distinction was obviously very important. "Let me explain," he said defensively.

Ruth folded her arms across her chest. The cut of the dress made her décolletage spill over the top of it when she stood like that, but Harry quickly averted his eyes, as it was not appropriate to take notice of such things at this precise moment. "Go on," she allowed. Her voice was so cold.

Harry did not like being in this position. Being made to feel guilty for something he had no proper reason to feel at all guilty for. It wasn't as though he'd cheated on Ruth. And he certainly never would. But the reality of this situation, the fact that Juliet, of all people, had married into the royal family, Ruth's family, was quite unpleasant. "It was a long time ago…" he began.

"How long? I'd like an accurate report," she demanded.

A very small part of him felt oddly proud of her like this. When they had first met and even when they had first started dating, she would not have stood up for herself this way. She may have disapproved or gotten annoyed with him, but she used to get quiet and a bit sulky and retreat from him when it came to the personal. At work, she was quite fierce indeed, though he'd encouraged and cultivated that quality in her, seeing how useful it could be to them both in that context. Here, though, this was new.

But now was certainly not the time to praise Ruth's newfound personal strength. Here and now, it was a bit frightening. She had asked him a question, however, and he intended to give her a full answer.

"It was nine years ago," Harry told her. "After the war ended, I became a bit cavalier about my marriage. I had been separated from Jane for three years during the height of combat, and when I came home, everything was different between us. The children were young, I was newly promoted and I'd been knighted. I was still young and foolish, and I did very foolish things, including a short career seducing women of nobility."

"And the Marchioness of Kerswith was a part of that career?" Ruth's face was the picture of revulsion. Harry did not blame her. He rather felt the same about it now.

He nodded. "The very end of it, actually. I had quite a high opinion of myself. I toyed with women who knew there was no future with me. Some of them were married, like I was, and some were not, just looking for a bit of fun before their families arranged some sort of strategic marriage for them. And then came Juliet."

Ruth shook her head in disappointment. "I cannot believe you, Harry. I knew you had something of a reputation for infidelity in your first marriage, but this?"

"A lot's happened to me in the last nine years, Ruth," he countered angrily. She had no right to say such things to him before he'd gotten a chance to properly explain. Yes, of course, it did look very bad. But he had his reasons. "I was very lost and very selfish and extremely stupid, as I said. And after that, Jane divorced me and I was sent overseas to be responsible for a company of men and women in foreign lands. And then my children lost their mother and I had to learn very quickly how to care for them. You know better than most what a rotten job I did before I was brought in to head Foreign Intelligence with you, and you know I'm not the same man I was all those years ago!"

She stared at him, taking in everything he said. For better or worse, she did not question any part of it. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, and she asked in that same cold tone, "So what happened with Juliet?"

Harry had procrastinated a bit of this, desperately not wanting to confess to Ruth, of all people, what had happened with Juliet. But more than anyone else, Ruth deserved to know. Ruth was his fiancée. He loved her and respected her and trusted her more than any other person in the entire world. But he prayed this awful truth would not overshadow what she knew of him here and now. "At the time, I thought that I was in love with her. Maybe I was in love with her. She was unlike the other noblewomen I'd taken to bed. She treated me differently. Some of them were timid and desperate to be given an education. Some were keen to use me as an outlet for their various proclivities and explorations, tastes that were unsatisfied elsewhere in their lives. But Juliet…she was devious, really. She treated me as a person, taking me to her bed with a sense of connection that was lacking elsewhere. It wasn't just sex with her. We made love. I had stopped seeing other women when I was with Juliet. She made me remember how good things had once been with my wife, when I was with someone I cared about and who cared about me."

"So why didn't you marry her?" Her question jolted him out of his memory, and he saw tears gathering in her eyes. Best tell the rest of the story quickly so they could get it over with.

"It was all a lie," Harry told her. The words had the metallic taste of betrayal even still. "She used me. She waited until I was utterly besotted and offering to leave my wife so I could be with her properly. And then she used that as leverage with her father."

"What?"

Obviously Ruth hadn't seen that part coming. Well, neither had Harry. "She told her father that if he did not find a suitable match for her, she would run off with a soldier. She actually told her own father that if he failed to find her a husband of proper standing, she would disgrace the entire family by falling pregnant with an adulterous commoner. And when she told me that, grinning with sick delight, she said her father had begun contracting with the Duke of Shepolk to get her married off."

Ruth frowned. "That was my father's cousin John. He died in a car accident."

"I didn't know," Harry replied softly. "I always assumed she'd married him and gone off to be a duchess. She was barely twenty and already keen to climb the social ladder. Obviously when the duke died before marrying her, she did even better by marrying the Crown Prince instead."

She watched him closely, curiously. "She broke your heart," Ruth said in quiet understanding.

"At the time, yes. I was betrayed and utterly ashamed I'd been duped into the whole thing. Whatever was between us had all been a complete illusion. I cannot believe I was so stupid to fall for it. Any fond feeling I ever had for her has been utterly erased from my mind and my heart, Ruth, I swear to you."

"I believe you, Harry," she answered with a nod. "And I can see why you didn't tell me before. I don't relish retelling my romantic disasters, though I will say none of my boyfriends in school ever treated me that badly. Can't say I'm surprised to know that was what Juliet did to a man. Though I am incredibly sorry she did it to you."

"My own fault for being an adult and fooling about as I did. I deserved what I got for the way I behaved."

Ruth shook her head again. "No one deserves to be treated like that." She crossed toward him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Harry very gratefully held her close, careful not to disturb the pretty style those hairdressers had spend all that time on. "I'm sorry you're marrying into a family that she's a part of." Her words were muffled against his jacket as she hugged him tight.

"I'm not sorry that I get to marry you, darling. That's all that matters," he murmured in return.

She lifted her head to smile up at him. "Well, we'll just have to do our best to avoid her even more than I already do. I can make sure that we're seated far away from her at state dinners."

"Good," Harry whispered, taking the opportunity to kiss her softy. "Now, I think we'd better go out for dinner. There's speeches and toasts and things in our honor. We should probably be there for it."

"Yes, you're right," Ruth agreed with a sigh. "Though I do wish we could just go home."

"My home or yours?"

"Mine tonight, but once we're married, I assumed I'd move into yours. It's not fair to make the children move. Though Tom will surely hate it, since my house was built to include all the exact security specifications needed. He won't have free reign over your house," she realized.

Harry smiled. He had hoped that she would want that very arrangement, for the same reasons. "We'll deal with it later. We've got enough to contend with now."

When they left the spare room, they found Joanna Portman waiting for them. Apparently everyone was waiting for the guests of honor. She led them to the dining room, where they were announced with a bit of fanfare. One glance at Ruth let Harry know that she hated it as much as he did. But they were seated together, thankfully, at the center of the long table with King Richard and Prince James across from them. Prince Edmund and Princess Juliet were off to one side with some friends of theirs. Ruth's father and grandfather both gave toasts in honor of her engagement and sang Harry's praises for all to hear. The prince focused on how good Harry was to Ruth, how much in love they were, how he and his children had welcomed Ruth into their lives. Of course, he did not know that firsthand, but surely Ruth had told him all those things. The king, on the other hand, focused on Harry's professional career, recounting his heroism during the war that earned him his knighthood and his exemplary military career since then and now heading Foreign Intelligence, which was how he and Ruth had met. It was all quite nice and flattering, though embarrassing for the same reason. The whole room toasted and sipped champagne and the meal was then served.

Having Ruth beside him made the evening bearable. The first state dinner, he'd gotten to sit beside Ruth's father, who was a wonderfully interesting person, and Harry had quite enjoyed getting to talk to him all night. He had absolutely no interest in saying more than two polite words to any of these other people. Ruth must have sensed it, and she took the lion's share of conversation, which he knew she didn't enjoy in the least. But she was in her Princess Louisa role now, doing what needed to be done, and he was proud to watch her dazzle like this, even when she hated it.

After dinner, they got to have some dancing. Harry and Ruth got to dance the first few dances together until Ruth's father cut in. Thankfully, King Richard chatted with Harry while Ruth was otherwise occupied so he wasn't left to the mercy of the hoard. Juliet danced with her husband for a while, and then with the king when Harry was back dancing with Ruth. The last dance of the evening was reserved for Ruth and her grandfather, and Harry was all too happy to go stand and watch beside Prince James as the king's final dance signaled the end of the evening.

At long last, they were allowed to go home. Tom drove them back to Ruth's townhouse, as there were professionals there to help Ruth off with her dress and such. Harry was looking forward to having a quick shower and crawling into her bed beside her. It had been an utterly exhausting evening in more ways than anticipated.

But he and Ruth had said what they'd needed to each other. There was nothing more to really say on the matter. Not just now, anyway. They were quiet on the drive home, holding hands in the backseat of the car. Harry's thumb traced over the engagement ring on her finger, and he smiled, knowing that he was the lucky man who had put it there.