“You cannot accuse me of seducing you,” he said.

“By saying the which, you accuse me of seducing you!”

“No.”

“What then?”

She waited. He tried to sort and order his thoughts. It was several minutes before he spoke, and by the time he did, she had consciously relaxed her tension, sitting easier than she had before, one hand curled on her lap, the other reaching idly to touch a drying leaf.

“I blame myself,” he said at last. “How could I have been such a fool?”

Since no woman is flattered at being told that loving her was fool’s work, she said, “You are detestable!”

“Yes, I am,” he agreed. “Married to the dearest, best woman in the world—and to forget it in a moment of weakness, to allow myself to—”

“To what, sir?”

He shrugged.

“To fuck, sir! Is that the word you could not say? Do not spare my sensibilities. They are sturdier than your own.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Where was I to go? You had invited me.”

“Yes. I had done, yes.”

“I came to deliver myself of your—possible heir. Why has Sarah not given you a child?”

“Don’t speak of Sarah.”

“Oh, certainly,” she agreed. “I am not good enough to speak of ‘the dearest and best,’ having corrupted her husband and brazenly come to ask asylum for a time—only for the time it will take to unburden myself of an unhappy and unwanted load.”

“You are wonderful,” he said, with a different meaning than he had said it their first evening together in Charleston.

“I consider that a frugal accolade from one who made it impossible for me to continue the life I was content to follow—as my own mistress, not yours or any man’s.”

“Spare me the concept of yourself as victim. You are my victim as a greedy king is the victim of his appetites.”

“Well said!” She clapped her hands in mock applause. “Fear sharpens your wits.”

“I am not afraid of you.”

She pretended surprise. “Then am I free to tell Sarah it is your child I carry? One that she cannot herself conceive?”

“If you want to destroy her happiness,” he said bleakly.

“Is she, then, happy?”

“I believe she is.”

“Not merely busy?”

“I don’t consider that I have known you at all before tonight,” he said slowly.

“You don’t know me now. If only you understood,” she added.

“I should like you to understand something, Lauretta. Sarah and Beulah Land are the best things in the world. You cannot threaten them, you can only threaten me.”

“I revise my earlier estimate and take you at your own evaluation. You are not merely detestable—you are, indeed, a fool. I cannot express to you adequately the loathing I feel when I think that I am to bear your child.”