Not yet. He didn't want to hear it from her beautiful lips. It wasn't that he feared the rumours were true, only that he wouldn't allow her to speak such sordid words. He didn't believe it, had dismissed it entirely from the realms of possibility – or so he thought. But her nervousness, her tentative, testing words – what did they mean? What did she know about the arrest of the Marquis de St Cyr?
She was a republican, of course – theoretically, ideally, wholeheartedly. How could Marguerite St Just not put her entire being and soul into any cause she cared about? That was just her nature. And Percy knew that she was on friendly terms with a good few revolutionaries who would know how to fire that passion, and suggest practical outlets for her intelligent and creative support. He knew because he had met most of them. One of her circle in particular, 'Citoyen' Chauvelin, had belied himself as the type to entice others into relieving his own hands of any deed that was slightly murky or in any way perilous.
Yet Percy believed in his wife's inner strength and natural goodness. Would such a woman forsake her very soul for a few strong words softly spoken? Would she let a creature like Chauvelin convince her that innocent people had to die for the future of the republic, and that she must be the one to betray them? What leverage could have made her –
Enough! Percy tried to draw rein on his suspicions. She was resting in his arms, with her soft, wonderfully radiant hair dusting the shadow of his jaw, and her slim fingers cold against the skin beneath his shirt. How could his mind be anywhere but here, in this room, even if his wandering thoughts still involved her? She was real.
But is her love? that same persistent doubt broke in. Almost against his will, he now wondered if he had underestimated her before: perhaps he had not forced her into loving him. What if it the reverse was actually the case? Had the clever Mademoiselle St Just seen in Sir Percy Blakeney a way out of her troubles, a way to escape what she had done? She seemed to respond willingly, gladly, to his devotion, as any woman would to a man blinded by her beauty and impervious to her faults. He hadn't really stopped to think, as he nurtured his own fantasies and indulged his deep passions, that perhaps their romance was not as balanced as he imagined. She was almost gracious in her love, as though he were any one of an adoring audience bestowing applause and admiration on the exquisite actress. Whereas he, Percy recalled with a cringe of humiliation, had stepped all over his dignity to please her. Anything she wanted, he had gladly given. Friends disappointed, duties abandoned, reputation tarnished.
It was true that their respective upbringings had cast them in a slightly different mould to those who might stand in judgement; Percy had grown up almost entirely on the Continent, and had assumed a vast fortune very early on in life, whereas Marguerite had only had a devoted brother, lavishing the affection of two absent parents, to guide her. It was difficult to say how either should have behaved in a 'normal' courtship, formed and governed by convention, when both had been ruled by their hearts. Certainly Percy hadn't worried when members of his own society – and at least one brave friend – had warned that he was being taken for a fool by the bourgeois actress. If he had heard, it hadn't registered immediately, but now his memory dredged up old advice and admonishments.
And yet he still loved her – whatever anybody else might think, whether she loved him, if she was guilty or innocent – passionately, intensely, entirely. For the moment, he could only breathe in the perfume of her hair, and hold her against him.