Willful Depravity

by Ingrid Hahn

  Silverlund, indeed. What a notion. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  “What a notion! The man—” She’d been about to say “despises me,” but that too would lead to uncomfortable questions. “Why, the man is a duke, of course.”

  She cringed at the pathetic sound of the echoing “of course” she’d lamely appended to her redirected statement.

  “You and he made quite the scene at the Reyne ball.”

  “Oh. That.” She blinked. “And because of our spat—”

  “Because of your very public argument, I think you’ll find.”

  “Mmm. Because of that, people think we’re lovers?”

  Her father frowned. “Why are you grinning? Nothing about this is humorous.”

  No, it wasn’t. Not humorous in the slightest. But delightful. Because she, Patience Emery, was old enough to be a spinster in some people’s (wrong) estimation. Yet, rumor was she’d caught the fancy of a duke.

  She almost laughed. If they knew how much better the truth was…

  Her smile wilted, and her heart gave a protective pang. Ashcroft. God help her, they’d fornicated like heathens stubbornly determined on their own sexual destruction. But… No, what she’d done with him was private.

  “Patience?”

  “It’s not true. The duke and I are not…I can’t say the words, because they disgust me so.”

  “I see.” The seriousness of expression and the intensity of his steady gaze said yes, he might see, but he still very much required quite a number of things to be illuminated.

  She stifled a yawn. “Can we discuss this in the morning? I’m ever so tired.”

  And if the jewel had started becoming uncomfortable an hour ago, the passage of time had done nothing to help her.

  “There remains the matter of your having left the house tonight, Patience.”

  In the scant light of the room, her father appeared smaller. His clothes looked roomier, as if he’d lost some weight. He would be turning eighty in August and had no weight to spare. And he looked frail. Guilt ate at her insides… Is this my doing?

  “I needed to see a friend.”

  Mr. Emery’s expression turned dubious. “A friend?”

  “A friend who needed me.”

  He lowered his chin, staring at her as if he could see through her. “A friend who smells of sandalwood?”

  Her face went hot. Of all the things her father might smell on her, that was the most innocuous choice.

  “You’re blushing, Patience.” He narrowed his eyes. “I think you’d better tell me the truth.”

  “I have been.”

  “I don’t doubt it. You are a clever girl, but I mean the unadulterated truth. The one including every last detail.”

  “I can’t give you every last detail. Nor—” She spoke quickly before he could interrupt. Or lose her nerve. This was the closest she could come to telling all. “Nor would you want the whole truth of me.”

  He blanched and reached an arm behind him, blindly searching for the chair as his unseeing gaze fixed on a distant point. His fingers brushed the armrest, and he carefully sank down to sitting.

  “Mr. Wilshire—”

  Patience cut him off with a sound of exasperation. Then bit her lip. “Forgive me, Father. I meant no disrespect.”

  Well, at least she wouldn’t have to suffer through any questioning about her behavior last night.

  “Believe me, Patience, I see the faults of the man plainly enough. But consider the attributes.”

  Her mouth went flat. “I’ll listen, but in fairness, I must tell you that I’m not feeling openhearted about the man.”

  Her father raised a hand and nodded. “You’re a clever person, and the man has serious faults. Pray believe me when I say I understand, but I must say this all the same. He’ll give you a name, a house, and freedom.”

  “He’s a fool.” She narrowed her eyes, expecting the conversation to take a turn.

  “In social matters, I could not agree with you more. But he’s respectable. What matters, though, is that you’ll be safely married, well cared for, and I absolutely promise you that you’ll have your way in every particular.”

  Except a wife was supposed to submit to her husband in bed. Her body would belong to Mr. Wilshire. Would it never belong to her?

  It was shrewd of her father not to mention children. The idea of Mr. Wilshire climbing on top of her… Her knees turned to soggy bread, and her thighs clenched. They would never part for the likes of that man. Never. The idea of following the Marquess of Ashcroft with Mr. Wilshire was not to be borne.

  None of which Patience could say to her father.

  “I’ll never accept him.”

  Mr. Emery gave a faint nod, averting his gaze to stare forlornly in the fire. He turned. Walked agitatedly to the other side of the room.

  Something plagued his mind.

  “What I must tell you, my darling, must be held in the gravest confidence.” His eyes went watery, and he pressed a hand against his chest as he shook his head, blinking back tears. “Forgive me. I didn’t expect to be unable to master my emotions.”

  In all her years, Patience had never witnessed her father crying. It was almost too much. If someone wept, they never did so alone if Patience was near. This was a special instance, however, and…well, she just couldn’t. What was needed now wasn’t compassion, no matter how powerfully it rose in her breast. What was needed now was strength.

  “I’m not who you think I am, Patience.”

  Her emotions seesawed between bewilderment and terror. Neither was preferable to the other. “What do you mean?”

  His smile faded, and he hung his head. He looked frail. “I’m nobody, Patience.”

  She shook her head, understanding nothing. “You’re Charles Emery, printer and publisher of The Navy Man’s Review.”

  Not to mention The Haunted Tower. “My name at birth wasn’t Emery.”

  She frowned. “What?”

  He drew another long breath. “In fact, I had no name at birth. I wasn’t wanted a’tall, actually. Whoever my mother was, she left me in a heap of rubbish at the docks to die.”

  Then and only then did he meet her eye. Patience couldn’t blink. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Nothing. “Father?”

  “The people who became my caretakers at the foundling home where I eventually went had no hope for me. I was a weak little thing, apparently. Except even as an infant, it seems, I was determined, and I thrived despite expectations. Later, whatever the other children did, I did more and better. I didn’t know then that I was desperate for a way out—I only knew I wanted something more than I had been given.”

  “But the family portraits—”

  “Those which do not belong to your mother were purchased.”

  She thought of the picture on the wall of a bulbous-nosed man, the likeness bewigged and powdered and rouged by an artist of undistinguished talent. “Great-Uncle Esau who married the six-fingered widow? He’s a fiction, too?”

  Her father barked a laugh. “Remember that story, do you?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Forgive me.” He went sober. “I should never have related those stories. But you were so curious. As a child, I spent hours at monotonous work and passed the time by inventing family for myself.”

  The forlorn tenor of his words shot straight to the bottom of Patience’s heart. She imagined a tender boy, needing love, alone in the world and desperate not to be. This time she couldn’t stop her lip trembling.

  “So, Patience. I must ask you again. What have you done?”

  “I’ve…” Fallen in love. With a man whose status was more distant from her than ever. Ashcroft could probably trace his lineage back centuries. To Elizabeth, certainly. Maybe even William the Conqueror. And she was the daughter of a sailor’s daughter and a man who’d been left to die as an infant.

  But she’d gone mute. There was something bigger at work than lineage. Fallen in love. Fallen in love. Fallen
in love.

  Where were the words now she needed them? They’d been upon her lips, but refused to leap free. It just…well, it didn’t seem right that her father should learn the state of her heart before Ashcroft did.

  Patience swallowed. It was a risk, what she was about to ask, but if she didn’t have faith in herself—didn’t have faith in Ashcroft—she would neither be worthy of him nor deserve him. But he was a broken man. He’d shut her out. If he couldn’t recover from his injury, there would be no hope. None at all. And all she was about to ask would ruin her. Forever. And shatter her parents.

  Which means she had to find a way to help him. Restore him to what he’d been—the man who’d brazenly given her the jewel she now secretly wore, the man who’d stared at the sapphire’s facets glittering in the firelight as he’d fucked her. Or if that was not possible, help him find his way out of the darkness.

  How, though? She hadn’t the first notion.

  She licked her lips. It was a risk she would have to take. “It’s a great deal to ask at this point in time, Father, I know, but I need you to trust me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  With great effort of will, Giles lifted heavy lids. Another hellish night. Another bright morning provoking him to staunch resentfulness. It was amazing he had anything left in him to feel. That, in a way, was the ultimate betrayal. He could no longer ride or fence, yet he was left with an enormous reserve of energy. Energy that kept winding tighter, making his muscles stiffer and stiffer with each passing hour he wasn’t allowed to exert himself. He needed to burn away everything he felt and fall back into oblivion.

  Oh God, no. And another unwanted visitor, too.

  Giles pushed from the bed coverings. The bed curtains had been opened, allowing fresh air into the stuffy cocoon. Holbrook’s figure towered over Giles.

  And the cat, apparently. The creature was curled on the pillow beside him, tail wrapped around his body, flicking back and forth at the tip. Giles, almost without noticing, had begun calling the cat King, after how he expected to be treated by the people around him. King looked perturbed at the interruption. Almost as much as Giles was.

  “He’s still here, is he?” Holbrook gave the cat a suspicious side-eye.

  “Stubborn bugger. Won’t leave.”

  The scent of charcoal and paper hung in the air. Like things now forbidden in the house had been smuggled in.

  Which was ridiculous. The servants had been warned against defying him, on pain of immediate dismissal. If any of them called his bluff, his credibility would be lost forever. He didn’t want to send his people out into the streets. He wanted them to obey him. And leave him alone.

  Never mind that, though. Smelling charcoal and paper, indeed. Nobody’s senses could possibly be so attuned, save those who were blind.

  “I have something for you.”

  Giles flinched at the effort of standing. The soles of his feet ached from disuse. It was like he discovered he were made of iron only after he’d begun to rust. “Can’t it wait until the evening?”

  “Close enough, old chap. It’s already five of the clock.”

  “Is it?” He tried not to do what every instinct in his body fought to do…look at the light. Assess the quality of the shadows. See how the sun’s light hit the facades of the houses across the square.

  Instead, Giles made a noise of noncommittal acknowledgment. He hobbled through the room, passing the banyan strewn haphazardly over a chair, caring not a whit about his nudity. It wasn’t anything with which his friend hadn’t any experience…and why shouldn’t he finally see his mangled arm? So what? It’s what everyone wanted to know, wasn’t it—how bad was it, really?

  Bad. Very, very bad. Let them see.

  “All right then.” Giles used his right hand to take a towel from the washstand, dip it into the basin of water, and awkwardly squeeze the excess from the fabric. “What is it?”

  But Holbrook didn’t need to respond. Because in the reflection of the glass…there they were. Drawings. His drawings. Obscene drawings—ones he’d made of Patience the night he’d painted her in mica and fucked her in the fire’s dancing light as the swirls on her skin shimmered.

  Something vile in Giles’s gut twisted. If he’d had anything to eject, it would have been summarily cast upon the carpet just then. Each stroke had been drawn by a man who’d known who and what he was. Who’d been something. Who’d attracted the notice of an extraordinary woman…

  An extraordinary young woman whose life he could never be a part of again. Fortunate then, weren’t they, that she’d been sensible enough to throw that absurd marriage…what was it, proposal? No, that would be an insult to doe-eyed couples everywhere, the sort who cooed over each other most nauseatingly.

  “I found them at Glenrose. I thought—”

  Giles snatched them off the table and took long strides to the fireplace, his heel strikes against the floor making something in the room rattle.

  “By God, Ashcroft, what are you—”

  Giles was crushing them as best he could with one good arm, the unwelcome smells of his abandoned art invading his senses. The next thing he knew, Holbrook was upon him. “Stop, man. Stop.”

  “They’re mine, damn you. You had no right to bring them here.” Giles was trying to wrench free—to no avail. It was worse than when he’d found a forgotten stash of studies he’d made of Icarus in motion several months after he’d found his horse’s corpse.

  “You’re not making sense.” The duke’s grip was too strong—and he wasn’t a broken man. He wrestled the paper easily from Giles’s awkward one-armed clutch.

  They stood together a moment. Giles, his body betraying him at every turn, panted from the exertion. Holbrook did not. “Damn you.”

  “Resign me where you will.” Holbrook moved to the table with the drawings, straightening the paper as best he could without smudging the charcoal. The sketch on top was relatively innocuous, saving both Miss Emery’s identity and modesty.

  There was no question that Holbrook had abstained from looking at the pictures. He was an odd one and could be damned principled when he chose to be. And loyal to a fault. Which was why he’d returned to Giles, no doubt. Believing he could be helped.

  Fool.

  The part of Giles that had gone a little mad after…well, after…wanted Holbrook to look at the drawings. He wanted to arouse his friend so that the part of Giles, the dead part, who’d once possessed the power to evoke such things in other people, wouldn’t be forgotten.

  “We have an idea.”

  Giles clenched his jaw. “We?”

  Holbrook sent a significant glance over Giles’s nude body. “Care to cover up?”

  “Feeling modest, Holbrook? Or merely intimidated?”

  He gave Giles a tiresome look and replied drily, “To be one of the few in England to neither fear nor envy your cock puts me in a uniquely privileged position.”

  “You can take a position on your knees, if you care to see what the fuss is about.” If Giles could find a way to offend Holbrook and drive him away forever, he would. Malachi was so much more depraved than Giles, though, nothing could shock him. Then there was the business with that damn loyalty again.

  “Most tempting. But I thought you might like your banyan, because in a few minutes Miss Emery will arrive.”

  Another knife to tender parts he’d never wanted to have. Why wouldn’t they bloody leave him alone? Giles went to the side table and poured himself a drink, not noticing what he poured. He tossed it back in one swallow without tasting.

  “She won’t be admitted.” His voice was hoarse.

  “I’ve already fixed it with the servants.”

  “Then they’ll be out on their ears looking for new jobs without a character.” A bit of panic began to waver in Giles’s breast. Good God, this whole business was getting out of hand. Was he going to have to fire his entire staff to prove a point to Holbrook? That seemed wrong.

  “They’ve been promised jobs with me if
you prove to make an ass of yourself over this. And I’m not a ranting, tyrannical madman, so I’m sure”—his tone turned derisive—“they’re shaking in their boots at the prospect of seeing the last of you.”

  “Even if I were to receive her, which I won’t, she has better sense than you.” Giles had been about to finish his statement with because she knows what to do with a good cock when she finds it. But he didn’t. Friend or not, what happened between him and Miss Emery was private. Saying as much to Holbrook would have been crass.

  Holy dancing pigs, Giles had stumbled upon a line he wouldn’t cross. What would Silverlund say if he were here to see him now?

  Giles snorted at the thought of his sire.

  A knock sounded on the door. Giles tensed. “No. Send her away. Please, I’m begging you, man, have pity on me.”

  But when the door cracked open, Holbrook did nothing to stop it.

  Giles was suddenly desperate to cover himself. She couldn’t see his arm in this state. The other night it’d been cloaked under layers of billowing shirtsleeves, and that had been grotesque enough.

  Too late. She stood in a glowing light, a picture so beyond Giles’s hope or ability. Her gaze fell. She paled. Then she and the duke exchanged a glance, and he gave her a small nod of encouragement.

  It shouldn’t have affected Giles. It had naught to do with him.

  Except that was a bloody lie even he, in his newly hollow existence, couldn’t believe. If he had to endure this, too, why the devil couldn’t he be too numb to care?

  Miss Emery closed the door behind her while Giles struggled to wrap a blanket around his shoulders. If it’d been his right arm, everything would be different. His life, himself—it’d be salvageable. He’d still have all the bloody inconvenience of struggling with all the things people did throughout their days. All the indignity, disfigurement, and pain.