Warren went to his room and pulled his dressing gown on over his drawers and shirt, his heart pounding.
I love you.
He really was a coward, because those words had sent him fleeing.
His wife loved him. And that alarmed him even more than his nightmares. Loving him meant she would expect things of him. Expect him to try to be a good husband to her. To stay with her at night and attempt to change his way of life.
How could he? He’d never been so terrified as when he’d awakened to find himself inside his wife and entirely unaware of how he’d ended up there. What if he’d forced her?
It hadn’t occurred to him that he might react to her presence in his dreams by attempting to take her against her will. He’d never done that, had been appalled when he’d learned of the arse who’d forced Clarissa. So the thought of his doing so, even in his sleep . . .
His throat closed up. She’d said she was beneath him by choice, but he knew bloody well that he could be aggressive in his dreams. And she might just be putting a good face on it because she wanted so badly for him to get past his fears.
He wanted that, too, but not at any cost. Not if there was a chance of losing her in the process.
I love you.
Damn, but those words enticed him. Which perversely made them all the more terrifying.
He glanced at the clock. Nearly 5:00 a.m. Normally he would be going to bed about now, but there was no point in trying to sleep anymore. So he headed down the hall to his study. Might as well get some work done, since he’d fallen behind on estate affairs of late.
Besides, it would keep his mind off his lovely wife and what to say to her when she arose. He had to say something. He couldn’t let her go on thinking she could change his dreams by the sheer force of her will.
Two hours later, he was startled by a noise in the doorway. He looked up to see Hart, wearing just a pair of drawers and a dressing gown, eyeing him with a bemused look.
“You’re awake,” Hart said inanely as he entered the study.
Warren leaned back in his chair. “I have been for a while. What are you doing up so early?”
“I came looking for you. I was about to knock on your bedroom door when I heard you in here.” Hart wandered the study like a caged tiger. “I see nothing much has changed since the last time I was in London.”
“Other than the wife, no.”
Hart chuckled. “I like her.”
“I could tell,” Warren bit out.
“Oh, come now, you know perfectly well my flirtations were merely meant to annoy you.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Doesn’t make them any less irritating.”
Hart grinned at him. “I’ve never seen you jealous before. It’s rather entertaining.”
“I’m not jealous,” Warren said sullenly.
“All right, then. Besotted.”
No point in disputing it. “Now, that I very well may be.”
Sobering, Hart sat down in the chair before his desk. “Can’t say I blame you for that. She’s quite a character, your new bride. Seems different from most women in society.”
“She is. Very different.” To say the least.
“That’s why you’re besotted with her, isn’t it?”
“For that, and so many other reasons.”
“Yet you never told her about the cellar.” Hart glanced at him, an earnest frown on his face. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything. I just figured she must have seen the scar, so she had to know something about it. You don’t mind that I revealed all that to her, do you?”
“No.” He really didn’t. Hiding the past indefinitely wouldn’t have worked, anyway. Delia wasn’t the sort to stand idly by while he kept such a massive secret. Eventually she would have wrested it out of him.
“Good. That’s actually why I came to talk to you. Wanted to make sure you weren’t furious with me over spilling your secrets. Now that I know you’re not, I’m returning to bed.” Hart reached up to rake his fingers through his hair, and his sleeve fell down to expose his forearm. And a tattoo just above the wrist.
Warren caught his breath. “Damn it all. It can’t be.”
Hart blinked. “What?”
Lunging over the desk, Warren caught his brother’s arm and shoved the sleeve up to expose an inked image of a sun. “What the hell is this?”
A flush rose up Hart’s neck. “It’s . . . it’s a tattoo. What of it?”
Warren lifted his gaze to Hart. “It’s a sun tattoo.”
Hart shrugged. “I crossed the equator a couple of years ago, and my chums in the navy dared me to get one like the sailors do. We were drunk and—”
“You were in London last year.” Warren couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. His own brother was the sharper Delia had been looking for.
No, Hart would never cheat anyone.
But he could. He knows how.
“Did you go to Dickson’s while you were in town?” Warren demanded.
Hart turned instantly wary. “Why do you ask?”
A new voice came from the doorway—a wounded, bitter voice Warren knew only too well. “Because that’s where a lord with a sun tattoo cheated my brother at cards.”
Delia came into the room, already fully dressed and heartbreakingly beautiful in that yellow gown that made her look like a sunny day.
Except that no sun shone in her face this morning. She faced Hart down. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the one who ruined my brother.”
Bloody, bloody hell.
Twenty-Four
Delia could tell from Warren’s face that he was as shocked as she was. She liked Hart, for pity’s sake! And he was the one who’d driven Reynold over the edge? Oh, Lord, how could he be the one? Her husband’s brother, of all people!
“Delia,” Warren said hoarsely, “I swear I didn’t know.”
That jerked her up short. “Of course you didn’t. How could you?”
Even as relief spread over Warren’s face, Hart snatched his arm free of his brother’s grip. “What are you two blathering about? I’ve never cheated anyone in my life. Well, other than my cousins. And my brothers.”
“You aren’t helping, you damned arse,” Warren bit out.
Hart glanced to Delia. “Who the devil is your brother, anyway?”
She stared him down. “Reynold Trevor.” When Hart paled, she knew for certain that he was the one. “You cheated him. You took everything from him!”
Hart jumped to his feet. “Yes, I won everything he wagered. But it was only to protect Niall.”
That caught Delia by surprise. “Lord Margrave was there?”
“Of course not,” Hart said. “That’s the point. My cousin was still hiding out on the Continent, and your brother kept asking questions about where he was, how to find him . . . rot like that.” He cast Warren a desperate look. “I figured that her brother wanted to hunt Niall down and bring him to justice because of that damned duel.”
Delia just gaped at him. This was about Lord Margrave? Warren looked as mystified as she.
“I assumed Trevor was a relation of the man Niall killed,” Hart continued, “so I couldn’t let him go searching for Niall, damn it. I figured if I took enough of his money at cards, he wouldn’t be able to afford a trip to the Continent to look for our cousin.”
Muttering a curse, Warren stood. “You’re saying that Reynold Trevor lost everything at the card tables because you were trying to keep him from hunting for our cousin.”
“Exactly.” Hart frowned. “Wait, what do you mean, lost everything? I only won three thousand pounds off him.”
“Which he got by mortgaging our already debt-ridden estate to the hilt!” Delia cried. “My brother is dead because of you! Because of the money you cheated him out of.”
The blood drained from Hart’s face. “Your brother is dead?”
That caught her off guard. “You didn’t know?”
“How could I? I’ve been on James Island off the coast of Africa for the p
ast year. The last time I saw him was right before I left town, when he showed up with the money he owed me. I never dreamed—”
“That losing so much might drive him to suicide?” she said bitterly.
“Suicide?” Warren laid a hand on her arm. “You don’t know for certain that Reynold killed himself.”
“I do. Because Reynold left a note for me, telling me why he killed himself.”
Shock suffused Warren’s face. “You never told me that before.”
“You may not believe this, but I worry about scandal, too, sometimes. Especially when it might taint my nephew’s future. I didn’t even tell Brilliana. I figured she’d suffered enough.”
“Who the devil is Brilliana?” Hart asked.
“Reynold Trevor’s wife,” Warren said.
Hart dropped into a chair. “The man had a bloody wife, too? He didn’t mention her.”
“Now that I know is a lie,” Delia said. “He always talked of her.”
“Not to me, he didn’t,” Hart muttered.
“What did the note say?” Warren asked her.
Delia crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you think it said? ‘I’ve lost everything, so there’s no more reason to live. Take care of Brilliana and Silas for me. I can’t bear it anymore. Forgive me.’ If that’s not proof of suicide, I don’t know what is.”
“It’s proof, all right,” Warren said in a hollow voice. “So you didn’t know until then that he’d lost everything.”
“Of course I knew. He told me the moment he returned from London. That’s how I found out he was cheated by a man with a tattoo.” She stabbed a finger toward Hart. “Your brother. Who claims that he took all my brother’s money over some nonsense having to do with . . . with . . .”
And just like that, the truth hit her.
Lord Margrave. Brilliana. Oh, Lord.
All this time, she’d assumed that Reynold’s reference to what he’d lost had been about the money, the estate. But what if he’d meant something else entirely?
Someone else entirely. His wife.
What if Reynold had decided that Brilliana couldn’t love him because she loved someone else? Could that be why he’d come to London, demanding to know where Lord Margrave was? If Brilliana really had been . . . romantically involved with the earl in the past, and if somehow Reynold had found out about it . . .
“No, no, no! It isn’t possible.” To believe that, she’d have to take Hart’s word over Reynold’s. But how could she?
She whirled on her husband. “I have to go to Stoke Towers. I have to talk to Brilliana.”
“Brilliana?” Warren exclaimed. “What can she possibly add to the discussion?” When Delia flushed under his scrutiny, his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. You think this has something to do with the odd way Niall and Brilliana behaved when they saw each other.”
Blast him for always reading her mind. Now he would be even more determined to believe his brother guiltless of everything. “Don’t be ridiculous. You heard the two of them—they were barely acquainted with each other.”
Warren snorted. “Right. You and I both know that was a lot of rubbish. Perhaps it’s time we sat them down and got the real truth. I agree—let’s talk to Brilliana. We’ll all go.”
“The devil we will!” She gestured to Hart. “I’m not going anywhere with that . . . that murderer. Nor with you, either, if you mean to blindly defend him.”
“Now see here,” Hart put in, “I realize you’re upset about your brother, but I had nothing to do with his suicide.”
She glared at him. “Nothing? Really? My brother was a brilliant card player. The only way he would have lost is if you cheated.”
Was that guilt she saw flash over his face? Or did she just want so badly to believe it that she was grasping at straws?
“I’m a damned good card player myself,” Hart said sullenly.
“It’s true,” Warren put in. “And Reynold was delving into matters he should have left alone.”
“That’s what your brother claims.” She scowled at her husband. “But of course you would believe him over me.”
“I’d damned well believe him over your brother.” When she shot him a look of sheer betrayal, he cursed under his breath. “It’s Hart’s word against Reynold’s, and we can hardly question your brother. That’s all I meant to say.”
“I know exactly what you meant to say—that somehow this was entirely Reynold’s fault. Well, since he’s dead and can no longer defend his actions, I have to defend them for him.”
Warren’s eyes glittered at her. “And what does that mean, exactly? That you’ll brand Hart as a card cheat to one and all? Ruin his reputation solely because of your brother’s angry rants after losing a lot of money at the gaming tables?”
Her heart sank into her stomach. “Of course not.”
“That’s what you said you’d do if you ever found Reynold’s card cheat.”
“That was before I knew that the card cheat was your brother, for pity’s sake!”
“I’m not generally a card cheat,” Hart grumbled.
“Shut up!” she and Warren cried in unison.
“Listen to me,” Warren told her in that placating voice that rubbed her raw. “Let me go with you. Just me. We’ll talk to Brilliana together and figure out what really happened.”
“I know what really happened. Your brother cheated mine, and now he’s trying to put a good face on things. And you mean to overlook that because he’s family.”
“You’re family,” Warren said hoarsely. “My family. My wife. I will always support you. That’s why I want to be there.”
“No, you want to be there because you’re afraid I’ll expose your brother’s perfidy. You want to smooth everything over, give me no choice in the matter, protect your brother at all costs.”
His jaw hardened. “Look, I know how you get when it comes to Reynold and his actions. You tend not to think rationally. I can’t let you march in there demanding answers and making wild accusations, and to hell with the truth!”
“The truth? You may not have noticed, but your brother hasn’t yet explicitly denied cheating mine.”
Warren blinked, then whirled on his brother. “Did you cheat Reynold Trevor at cards?”
Hart blanched, his gaze darting between hers and Warren’s. “I . . . um . . . kind of didn’t have . . . a choice . . . exactly.”
Judging from the flush rising over her husband’s cheeks, Warren hadn’t expected that answer. “What the bloody hell does that mean?”
His brother jumped up. “Well . . . the wager was that if I won, he’d give me three thousand pounds, but if he won, I’d . . . sort of . . . tell him where Niall was.”
“Damn it all.” Warren scrubbed a hand over his face. “And you took that wager? Knowing that if you lost . . .”
“I didn’t expect to lose! And it was three thousand pounds, after all. But . . .” He cast a sheepish look at Delia. “As she said, he was really good at piquet. And when I realized he might win, I . . . got desperate.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “By that point I honestly thought, after the way he was going on and on about Niall, that he wanted to hunt him down and kill him.”
“Now you know why I want to speak to Brilliana,” Delia said softly. “Three thousand pounds is an awful lot of money to wager to find out where a man is.”
Visibly shaken, Warren nodded. “We’ll go talk to Brilliana.”
He started for the door, and Delia caught him by the arm. “No. I meant what I said: I want to go alone. You always insist on doing things your way. Mucking up my attempts to find Reynold’s card cheat. Marrying me to squelch scandal.” Her throat tightened, and with a furtive glance at Hart, she lowered her voice. “Handling certain . . . difficulties of yours the way you see fit, without considering other methods.”
His gaze bore into hers. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“I know! And your brother. And everyone in your whole blasted family.” She softened her vo
ice. “And I realize that’s because no one was there to protect you when you most needed it. It’s what has made you who you are. But you don’t see that in trying to protect the ones you care about, you’re telling them you don’t trust them to handle things themselves.”
She fought for the right words. “That you’re telling them you can’t trust them with your secrets. That you don’t believe them when they say . . . things like ‘I love you.’ You want to protect them from finding their own way. Even when your ways of handling things aren’t really working.”
He stared at her, stark, unmoving, seemingly unemotional. Until she saw hurt flicker in his eyes.
“So I’m going to talk to Brilliana alone, without you and Hart there to badger her or frighten her or make her close up, as she always does. And you are just going to have to trust, for once, that I love you too much to harm you.” She cast Hart a quick look. “Or your family.”
With that, she strode for the door. “I’ll be back before dark, if I can.”
He did nothing more to stop her.
Thank heaven. She needed to be away from him right now, to decide how she felt about what Hart had revealed. She needed to learn the truth about Reynold without seeing it through the eyes of either Warren or Hart.
Because in her heart, she feared that her brother had lied to her about more than the gambling. That Brilliana had hidden the truth, too. That there was no one she could trust in the whole wide world except Warren, the man who couldn’t even bring himself to love her.
And the thought of that was killing her.
“You should go after her,” Hart said.
Warren stared out the window as his wife rode off in his carriage without him. “She doesn’t want me there.”
“I know, but if she really means to accuse me of being a card cheat publicly, when neither of us is there to defend what I did—”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Warren asked. “My wife is riding away with her heart breaking because I stood up for you, and that’s all you can say?”
The Danger of Desire Page 25
