by Burke, Darcy
“Why do you want the money anyway? You’ve plenty. Even for a new house.”
“Consider it a wedding gift.” He laughed softly, then took another drink.
“I should call you out,” Anthony growled.
“I’m quite good with a pistol,” Chamberlain said with cool confidence. “How are you?”
“Good enough, and I’m sure my second—Ripley—will ensure I’m at peak performance.” Marcus was well known for his accuracy with a pistol.
Chamberlain’s façade cracked a bit, his brow darkening. “Just pay the money and be done with it.”
It was a disgustingly appealing invitation. That Anthony was tempted only increased his self-loathing a thousandfold. He would’ve done it if not for Jane’s sister. In fact, he would’ve paid more if Chamberlain also agreed to call off the wedding. But if he cried off, it would hurt Anne more than it would him. Her reputation would suffer, and Anthony couldn’t do that to her. Not after everything Jane had endured regarding her own reputation. The only way to preserve Anne’s reputation was to ensure Chamberlain’s crimes were known. Or that he was arrested. Preferably both.
Finishing his brandy, Chamberlain set his glass down, then stood. He tugged his waistcoat over his thickening middle and straightened his coat, looking down at Anthony with repugnance. “Think about it. I’ll give you until tomorrow to make up your mind. Then it will be a wedding gift.” He clapped his hand on Anthony’s shoulder.
Anthony shot to his feet, violently shrugging off the smaller man’s touch. He towered over Chamberlain with menace, his hands fisted, ready for battle. “Touch me again, and there really will be no wedding tomorrow. You won’t be able to speak, let alone consummate the marriage with your bride.”
“Do you really want to fight here?” He looked around. “Think twice before you completely ruin yourself, Colton.”
Anthony turned, throwing his shoulder against Chamberlain and knocking him off-balance before striding from the salon. He passed a footman bearing a tray with drinks and plucked one off the salver. Tossing the port down his gullet, Anthony deposited the empty glass on a table before he made his way outside.
The cool evening air rushed over his heated face. He briefly closed his eyes, trying to dissipate some of the anger and helplessness. The self-loathing, however, remained. It would always be there. He wouldn’t even try to expel it.
Wiping his hand over his face, he turned up St. James’s and nearly walked straight into Marcus.
“Ho there, Anthony,” he said. “What were you doing at White’s?”
Brooks’s was their preferred club. “I needed to see someone.”
Marcus frowned, but there was concern in his gaze, illuminated by the streetlamp. “Harry Sheffield came to see me. He said you might need a friend. Looking at you, it seems he’s right.”
“I don’t deserve friends.” Anthony pushed past him and started up the pavement.
“Does that include Jane?” Marcus followed him, keeping pace beside him.
Anthony scowled, keeping his gaze focused in front of him. “Leave her out of it.”
Marcus snagged Anthony’s elbow, drawing him to stop. “I can’t. Phoebe and I care about her. We won’t allow you to break her heart.”
Oh God. What did they know? Anthony swung around to face him, shaking off Marcus’s grip. “Why would you think I’d do that? Have you and Phoebe discussed this?”
“Yes. Jane told her about your affair.”
Anthony felt as though everything was falling apart. He’d been barely holding it all together as it was—he’d been happy for what felt like an impossibly short span. But then he’d known it wouldn’t last, because he didn’t deserve happiness. He hadn’t, however, known that Jane would go back on her word and tell Phoebe about him.
And why the hell did any of this involve Jane’s heart? Anthony had told her from the start that he wouldn’t fall in love with her.
“Don’t be angry,” Marcus said.
“Don’t tell me what to be. And don’t follow me. I mean it, Marcus.” Anthony turned from him and started walking.
A light drizzle started a few minutes later, but Anthony didn’t quicken his pace. He wasn’t even sure where he was going. And so it was with some surprise that he found himself in Cavendish Square.
He didn’t go to her door, but made his way through the mews to her garden. He wasn’t sure of the time, but estimated it to be after dinner. Sure enough, she was in the garden room when he reached the door.
Trying the latch and finding it unlocked, Anthony let himself in. She rose from the chair near the hearth without a flicker of surprise. He walked by her and picked up her glass of port, draining it before setting it back down on the small table beside her chair.
He pivoted to face her. “You went back on your word.”
Her gaze was steady. “So did you.”
“How so?”
She surveyed him slowly, thoroughly, her mouth pulled tight. “You’re drunk.”
“I never said I wouldn’t get drunk. I said I wouldn’t drink while I was your guest.”
“Then perhaps you should leave.”
He leaned toward her. “Do you really care that I’m inebriated?”
“I care that you dislike yourself enough to drink this much on a seemingly regular basis. I suppose I should be happy you aren’t bruised and bloody.”
“In fact, you should. That was definitely an option tonight. Might still be yet.” He positively ached to do serious damage to Chamberlain.
“How did I go back on my word?” she asked, drawing him back to the start.
“You told Phoebe about me. After I specifically asked you not to.”
“Actually, you asked me not to tell Marcus. You also asked that I not tell him about the fight you were in. I didn’t tell him anything, and I didn’t tell Phoebe about the fight. Whom I tell about our affair is my business.”
“It’s also mine, Jane. Your reputation isn’t the only one at stake.”
Her eyes widened, and she let out a sharp laugh. “You mean to tell me you care what people think about your sexual partners now?”
“Fucking prostitutes is not the same as carrying on with a respectable lady like you, and you know it.” He cringed inwardly at his coarse language.
She stared at him, then nodded. “You’re right. And you did try to refuse me. Repeatedly.”
He hated the hollow pitch of her voice, the pain in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Jane. I don’t care about my reputation. I’m an utter reprobate—everyone knows it, including you. I saw Chamberlain tonight. It didn’t go well.” He turned from her, taking his hat off and running his fingers through his hair. Where the hell had he left his gloves?
“What happened?”
He faced her again and saw the concern creasing her face. Guilt tore through him. “He promised that if I paid him, he wouldn’t bother me again.”
She paled, her breath snaking in with a sharp gasp. “You’re considering it. What about Anne?”
“She can cry off.” A chill settled over Anthony, and he knew in that moment that whatever happened, he couldn’t return from this place, this utter despair. “I don’t care about my reputation—I told you that—but I can’t subject Sarah to any of this. You convinced me of that.”
“I wish I never had,” she said softly. “Sarah is stronger than you think. She would understand why you had to do this. For my sister. And her reputation.”
“I’m not going to ask her to do that. I can’t.” Anthony’s voice broke, and he looked past her toward the dark garden, his body rife with a tension that threatened to shatter him into pieces.
“I never realized you were a coward.”
He pinned his gaze to hers. “You should have seen that the moment you scooped me off your front step. I told you from the start exactly who I am and what to expect.”
Her eyes turned to ice, and Anthony didn’t think he’d ever find warmth again. “You left out the part where you were a coldhearted s
coundrel.”
There was only one thing he could say, and he wasn’t even sure he believed it was true. “Sarah is all I have left.”
Her eyes widened slightly before turning frigid once more. “And here I’d hoped you knew you had more than that. You had me.”
Holding her head high, she swept past him and quit the room. He stood there, his body frozen, until he felt something nudge his leg.
He looked down and saw the kittens attacking his foot. Maybe he did have more than he realized. Or he had, anyway.
Squatting down, he petted them both. When he stood, he looked around the room, his heart squeezing and his throat burning. He made his way to the door and gave the kittens a small smile. “If you could talk, I would tell you to tell her that I love her.” He exhaled raggedly. “It’s probably best that you don’t.”
He turned and left, certain that Jane now possessed whatever had remained of his heart.
Chapter 16
If Jane had slept an hour, she would have been surprised. Tormented by Anthony’s rejection and absolute self-destruction, she’d almost gone to his house to make sure he was all right. To tell him he would be all right, that he had to be. Because even if they weren’t going to be together, she loved him. Even if he was so trapped in his own despair that he couldn’t do what he ought, she loved him.
But he didn’t want her love. Maybe that was why he’d chosen to break her heart instead.
Jane’s coach stopped in front of the church. Rain streamed like tears down the windows, and Jane was glad to find her eyes were dry after last night’s bout of crying.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she waited for the coachman to open the door. He held up an umbrella for her until she passed between two of the tall Corinthian columns and into the covered portico of St. George’s Church.
“I’ll wait for you here, miss,” the coachman said.
Jane nodded and moved into the vestibule. Finding it empty, she moved into the sanctuary. Her parents and Anne stood a little way down the center aisle.
“Jane!” Papa strode toward her, his brows pitched into an angry V. “We told you not to come.”
“You’ve told me to do many things, and as you’ve noted, I’ve decided I prefer my own counsel.” She looked past him to her sister. “Anne, I must speak with you.”
“No, you may not,” Mama said, moving to stand in front of Anne.
Anne veered around their mother and came toward Jane. She threw an irritated look at their parents. “Leave Jane be. I want her to be here. She should be here.”
Tears sprang to Jane’s eyes as she beheld her sister. Adorned in a pale blue dress trimmed in tiny pearls and embroidered flowers, her blond curls entwined with pearls and blue and white ribbon, she was breathtaking. “You look beautiful.”
Anne’s gaze softened, and she took Jane’s hand. “Thank you. I’m so glad you’re here.”
An older woman with ruddy cheeks and a pleasant smile approached them. “Come, let’s move to the back. The guests are beginning to arrive.” She led them down the center aisle and into a room on the right side. Giving Anne a gentle pat on the arm, she said, “It won’t be long now.” Then she returned to the sanctuary.
Spurred into action, Jane tightened her grip on her sister’s hand and turned toward her. “Listen to me, Anne. You can’t marry Mr. Chamberlain.”
“Stop it this instant,” Mama cried. “You will not ruin your sister as you ruined yourself. This is an excellent match—one you should have made years ago. Your jealousy is horrendous.”
Jane cast her a beleaguered glance. “I’m not jealous, Mama. I wouldn’t want Chamberlain if he were the last man alive.”
“Why not?” Anne asked cautiously.
“Because he’s an extortionist. And he associates with criminals. He’s an awful person, Anne.”
“Listen to her.”
Jane swung her head to the doorway. Anthony stood just inside, garbed in stark black, his face pale, his hair brushed back from his forehead. Despite her anger and hurt, her pulse thrummed at the sight of him.
“Lord Colton?” her father asked, having turned toward his voice just as Jane had—and as her mother and Anne had too.
Anthony came farther into the room. He didn’t look at Jane, but kept his gaze on her father. “You must listen to your daughter. Chamberlain is an extortionist, and he does associate with criminals. I know this because he sent me to an underworld moneylender so that I could borrow money to repay my substantial gambling debts and has been extorting me with that scandalous information.”
“That’s absurd,” Papa spat.
Anthony arched a brow at him. “Are you calling me a liar, sir?”
Papa’s jaw worked. He tipped his head briefly toward the floor. “No. But why would Chamberlain do such a thing?”
“I’m not entirely sure, but it scarcely matters. Perhaps he just likes to wield power over people—he certainly didn’t need the two hundred pounds I paid him or the three hundred he demanded I give him today as a wedding gift.” He sent a sympathetic look toward Anne. “I’m sorry.”
Jane squeezed her sister’s hand in support as she stared at Anthony in disbelief.
“I’d hoped Bow Street would arrive to arrest Chamberlain, but I was unable to find a Runner this morning. I did leave word, however. Along with the evidence—letters Chamberlain sent me outlining my transgressions and his demand for payment to keep them secret.”
The older woman came in again, her features creased in a clearly agitated state. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but there seems to be a problem in the sanctuary. A Bow Street Runner has arrived.”
Papa strode past Anthony and the older woman. Anne let go of Jane’s hand and followed him, and Mama was fast on her heels.
Jane went to Anthony and stood before him. “Why?” It was all she could think to say.
“I couldn’t let her marry him—no matter the cost.”
“Unhand him!” Jane’s father’s voice carried from the sanctuary.
Jane picked up her skirts and hurried from the room. She heard Anthony moving behind her.
In the center aisle, two men flanked Chamberlain, whose face was a dark, mottled red. His gaze snapped to Anthony. “You!”
Several guests had arrived. They stood farther back in the center aisle, their attention rapt on the shocking scene before them.
“You can’t arrest him at his own wedding,” Papa said angrily.
Jane gaped at him. “You’d rather he marry Anne?”
“This is what he wrote to me.” Anthony’s voice rang out clear in the church. “‘I know what you did, how you killed your parents. Unless you want everyone to know your sins, I require two hundred pounds, delivered to the barkeep at The Stinking Sheep in Blackfriars. You must deliver the funds personally on the seventeenth of May, or everyone in London will know the embarrassing and tawdry details of your transgressions—gambling, debt, drinking, womanizing, but most of all, murder.’” He turned to Jane’s father. “You want your daughter to marry the author of that?”
Papa’s face turned to ash, and in that moment, Jane felt sorry for him. But her pride in and love for Anthony outshone that and every other emotion fighting within her.
“He can’t marry your daughter anyhow,” one of the Runners announced. “We’re taking him to Bow Street.”
Chamberlain sneered at Anthony. “You’ve just ruined yourself. There’s no coming back from this.”
“There was no coming back from it anyway,” Anthony murmured. “I was already lost.”
Jane’s heart, broken after the previous night, swelled as she looked at him. He turned his head, and their eyes connected. His lips curved into a small smile. “I’m so sorry, Jane. My deepest regret will always be how I treated you.”
Then he turned and cut over to the side aisle. She watched him go, desperate to follow him, but rooted to the floor as everything crumbled around her. Mama had started to cry, and Papa came toward Jane.
“Colton
was your friend who was being extorted? I can well imagine what sort of ‘friend’ he was.”
A horrible awareness bloomed inside her. “You knew about the rumor,” Jane said, certain now. “And you believed it.”
Anne came to her side. “That rumor?”
Jane barely nodded. “That I was a wanton, and that no respectable young man should wed me.” Tears stung her eyes. “It was a lie, Papa. Started by God knows who.”
“It was started by him.”
Everyone turned to look at who had spoken. It was Lord Rockbourne—Chamberlain’s brother-in-law. His wife, Dorothea, Lady Rockbourne, rushed to his side and urgently whispered something to him.
Lord Rockbourne raised his hand and cast her a dark frown. He looked to Jane with an apologetic stare. “I should have known it wasn’t true. You were such a charming and intelligent young lady, so lively. I was quite taken with you.”
Anne stalked toward her betrothed. “Is this true? Did you start that vile, disgusting rumor about my sister?”
Chamberlain jerked his head toward his sister, Lady Rockbourne. “She begged me to do it. She wanted Rockbourne and feared he was about to formally enter into a courtship with your sister.”
“So you ruined Jane?” Anne’s voice climbed, echoing in the sanctuary. Then she did the most alarming, shocking, wonderful thing: she hit her betrothed in the nose.
Chamberlain’s head snapped back, and he yowled in pain.
“I wouldn’t marry you if there was a pistol to my head, and I don’t give a fig if that ruins me. If Society would rather I wed a lying, extorting, filthy piece of rubbish, I would prefer to be cast out, thank you.” Anne marched back to Jane and took her hand.
The Runners dragged Chamberlain down the aisle. All the guests that had arrived and gathered moved aside, their mouths agape. Oh, this was going to set the tongues wagging for quite some time.
Jane beamed at her sister. Then she sent a glare of pure loathing toward Lady Rockbourne, who was appropriately crestfallen. Rockbourne, on the other hand, looked positively livid. He left her and walked down the aisle to where Jane stood with Anne.
