“Livy?” he croaked.
Through his stinging eyes, he saw that it was her. She was sitting by his side, her hair hanging loose over her shoulders. She was clad in a tunic and set of trousers that looked too big on her. He was lying on a bed in a Spartan room that was familiar…Chen’s clinic?
“What am I…how did I get here?” Ben asked in confusion.
“You nearly drowned last night in the Thames. We brought you here so that Mr. Chen could tend to you,” she said gently. “You’ve been unconscious for several hours.”
Memories returned in flashes. The party. Playing billiards with Thorne. Drinking the whisky…whisky that had been laced with the Devil’s Bliss. He remembered the rush, his inability to fight off the drug, that hopeless, euphoric weakness he’d sworn never to feel again.
Now he felt the drug withdrawing from his system, bringing with it that despicable low. The cancerous emptiness for which the cure was more poison. Soon weakness would take over, make him chase relief from the craving, even as he hated himself more. His stomach roiled, and he was sick again, this time into a bucket that Livy hastily shoved toward him.
When he was finished, he took the towel she handed to him. His face burned with humiliation as she used another to wipe up the mess he’d made on the floor. He felt like shite, his head pounding like the devil. He didn’t want her to see him like this. Didn’t want to be near her in his present state. A state to which he’d vowed never to return…and yet here he was again.
A leopard never changes its spots.
“Do you know who did this to you?”
It took Ben a moment to focus on Livy’s question. To his everlasting shame, he realized that he didn’t know who the villain was. He’d been too far gone, soaring so high on the Devil’s Bliss that he couldn’t be sure who had been speaking to him. Or if he’d imagined it all.
Arabella and my babe are dead because of you…and now you will pay the price…
He saw the vinaigrette swinging like a pendulum. The glittering of peacock feathers. Felt himself moving in darkness, rough hands shoving him into a carriage.
Make it look like a suicide.
Had any of that happened…or had he been hallucinating? It wouldn’t be the first time that a drug twisted his mind, mixed reality with fantasy, and this Devil’s Bliss had been ten times more potent than opium.
Realizing that Livy was watching him, waiting for an answer, he said gruffly, “I think I was drugged, but I do not know who did it.” Even as he cursed his own ineptitude, a thought occurred to him. “How did you find me?”
Livy bit her lip. Strangely, she remained silent.
“Livy?” he prodded.
She drew a breath, as if she’d come to some internal decision. “We were following a lead that brought us to the lair of Master Fong. It turns out Fong is a façade: there is no Chinese mastermind. We believe the villain is one of your ex-cronies…and he was having an affair with your wife. I’m sorry, Ben.” She paused, then went on, “We found a letter that Arabella wrote to him. She, um, wanted to run away with him, and she…she intimated that the child she was carrying was his. Knowing that whoever was posing as Fong might have an axe to grind with you, we came to warn you. At Bollinger’s, we saw you being loaded into a carriage by brutes, and we followed you to Waterloo Bridge. They threw you into the water—to make it look like a suicide or accident, most likely—and I went in after you. Luckily, I found you, and we brought you here to Mr. Chen.”
As Ben tried to comprehend the astonishing summary, questions proliferated like weeds.
“By we, who are you referring to?” he asked in confusion.
She took another breath. “The Society of Angels.”
“Lady Fayne’s charity?” His brain felt thick and overgrown, slowing his ability to take in the information. “I…I don’t understand.”
“It is not a charity. At least, not in the traditional sense.” She averted her gaze, fiddling nervously with the folds of her tunic. “We do help people but not through the usual benevolent means. Our approach is, um, more investigative in nature. Charlie has been training us to…to do detection work.”
Suddenly, he understood. The suspicions he’d had…the gut feeling that Livy was hiding something from him. He’d convinced himself that the problem lay with him: that his past with Arabella had made him distrustful. Now the truth blazed, igniting a scorching rage.
“You have been lying to me this entire time?” he bit out.
Livy’s silence was damning.
“The Black Lion Inn, Cremorne Gardens…bloody hell, the Hellfire Club.” He pinned her with a stare, daring her to lie to him. “You were there, weren’t you? Spying on me?”
She gave a small nod. He didn’t know why that pushed him over the edge, but it did. The guilt he’d harbored, the shame…and she’d seen him at his goddamned worst. When he shoved aside the blankets, surging from the bed, she jumped up with a startled gasp. A wave of dizziness overcame him, and he had to steady himself against a wall.
“Be careful, my love. You’ve only just recovered—”
“I am not your love,” he snarled. “If you loved me, you would not have lied to me for the entire length of our relationship.”
She looked as if he’d struck her, her eyes wide in her pale face. “Of course I love you. It is because I love you that I had to hide the truth. I knew you wouldn’t understand my desire to be an investigator because you’re always trying to protect me. I didn’t want to give you up…but I couldn’t give up my work either. And when I joined the Angels, I took an oath of secrecy.
“Ultimately, though, it was fear that paralyzed me. Every time I thought about telling you, I panicked. I was afraid you would end things between us.” She gripped her hands in front of her, her gaze pleading. “I kept putting it off, telling myself I would wait for the right moment. I know it was cowardly of me, and I am sorry. So sorry. Please try to understand…”
“I understand perfectly,” he said acidly.
Bitterness welled inside him. It was his marriage all over again. Only this time, the betrayal cut deeper, for his love was deeper. The shock of learning that Arabella had been carrying another man’s child—that she had died from taking a drug during her pregnancy—paled in comparison to that of discovering that his Livy, whom he’d believed to be his soul mate, was just another deceptive bitch. How could he be such a damned fool again? How had he let himself believe that a man like him was worthy of happiness?
Fury hardened his heart and his tone. “You’ve been playing me for a dupe this entire time, and it is my own fault for letting you do it.”
“I didn’t want to lie to you, but I was scared to tell the truth,” Livy whispered. “Please forgive me.”
Tears were trickling down her cheeks, and he hated that his first instinct was to wipe them away. To soothe and protect his little queen…who was obviously capable of taking care of herself. Who had no qualms about doing whatever the hell she wanted.
“I could forgive you most things but not this,” he said flatly.
She took a step toward him, her hands outstretched. “You cannot mean that…”
“Do you remember what I said to you after I took you to my bed?” The memory of that night, once a cherished gift, now felt like a blade jammed between his shoulder blades. “What I told you I expected from marriage?”
Rivulets ran down her cheeks. “You said you expected my loyalty, honesty, and obedience. But while I may have deceived you about my work, I never lied to you about my feelings. My love is true and real—”
“I don’t want to hear another word about your love,” he clipped out. “I am done with it.”
“D-done?” she asked, her voice cracking.
“I would be done with you, too, if it were not for my honor. I took your virginity, and I will pay the price for it.” Resentment frothed to the surface, covering the agonizing undertow. “We will be married, Olivia, and when you are my wife, there will be no more of this invest
igating nonsense. This time around, I will be the master of my own house, and you will do as you are told—even if I have to keep you under lock and key.”
Her eyes were wide, her features frozen in shock.
Good, he thought with vicious satisfaction. Let her see that I mean business. Let her know that I will not be played for a fool again.
“Charlie was right,” she said in a whisper. “I just didn’t want to believe her.”
What rubbish was Livy spouting now? Ben’s temples were throbbing, and a queasy feeling rocked his gut, as if he might disgrace himself again. It hurt to think, to feel…he wanted her gone. He didn’t need a witness to his pathetic misery.
“What was Lady Fayne right about?” he said curtly.
Livy raised her gaze, and the resignation in her eyes cut him to the quick.
“She said the cost of love would be my freedom. I didn’t believe her. I defended you, told her you were different from other men, that you understood me.” Her voice trembled. “I told her you would not make me choose between my love for you and my calling, yet here you are, issuing me an ultimatum.”
His hackles rose. She had the gall to accuse him of being unreasonable when she’d been deceiving him for the duration of their affair?
“Stop twisting things around,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m not giving you an ultimatum; I am telling you the way things are going to be. When you are my wife, you will do as I goddamned say. Those are the terms.”
“If those are the terms,” she said with vibrating emotion, “then I will not marry you.”
Her words plowed into him like a fist. Not once had Livy wavered in her desire to be with him. Since the outset, she had been steadfast in her so-called love for him, in her certainty that they were meant to be together. Of course, she had been lying the whole time, he thought savagely, so who knew if her feelings were genuine?
Now that he’d uncovered her web of deception and was trying to set things right, to sort through the rubble she’d made of their relationship, she was trying to force his hand yet again. Unluckily for her, his marriage to Arabella had made him an expert in dealing with this kind of manipulation, and he wasn’t about to back down.
“That is, of course, your choice,” he said coldly. “If you turn down my offer, I will not ask again. I mean it, Olivia.”
Her eyes glimmered with pain, but her chin didn’t waver from its obstinate angle.
“You saved my life once,” she said, her voice choppy, “and I vowed to myself that I would return the favor. After last night, I have paid my debt.”
“You never owed me anything,” he snapped.
She gave a tight nod. “Good-bye, then.”
He curled his hands as she exited the room, leaving him alone.
The way he’d always been.
Walking away from Ben was the hardest thing Livy had ever done.
It was not her habit to retreat from anything. To give up. Yet now even she had to admit defeat.
She managed to keep her composure until the carriage came round. She had to look away from the sympathy glinting in Hawker’s exposed eye for fear that she would break down. When he handed her up into the carriage, she saw that Charlie had come.
She sat stiffly beside her mentor.
Charlie studied her with calm grey eyes. “How did it go when you told him the truth?”
The irony didn’t escape Livy. After finally getting the other’s permission to tell Ben about the Society, the truth no longer mattered. The years with him flipped like pages through Livy’s mind: their friendship that had transformed into passion, their affection that had deepened into love. She’d been convinced that there would be a storybook ending for them, yet the pages of their future were…empty.
If you turn down my offer, I will not ask again.
“It’s over,” Livy said numbly. “You were right. I told Hadleigh, and he…he...”
The pain and grief came in a rush. Suddenly, she was sobbing.
“Oh, my dear. I am sorry,” Charlie said.
Charlie put an arm around her, and Livy wept for everything that had been and would never be. For herself and Ben. For the discovery that, no matter how hard one strived, some dreams could not be spun, nor some battles won.
36
After Livy’s departure, Ben was ill again, his body purging the remnants of the drug. He didn’t know which was more ragged: his emotions or his physical state.
Livy had broken things off with him. Left him.
After everything they’d shared, she was gone.
He sat at the table, his head in his hands. He speared his fingers through his hair, the small pain a welcome distraction from the aching hollow inside him. He felt…gutted.
How could Livy deceive me? His fury had slowly faded and in its place was something far worse. A feeling he was more than familiar with, but one he’d never thought to see in Livy’s eyes: resignation. The death of hope.
A knock sounded, and he dragged himself over to open the door.
It was Chen, looking crisp and dapper in a blue suit.
“I thought you could use a bath,” he said.
Servants carrying a tub and buckets of steaming water followed the healer into the room. After they set everything up behind a bathing screen, Ben gave himself a much-needed wash. It felt good, scrubbing away the accumulated grime. He felt nearly human again when he emerged, washed and dressed in a new set of clothes.
Chen waved him over to the table and felt his pulse.
“Better,” Chen said with a nod. “I still feel disturbance in the flow of your qi, however. You are blocked in some way, my friend.”
“I feel like shite,” Ben said grimly.
“After being drugged and nearly drowning, it is to be expected.”
Ben’s chest tightened. “Not only because of that.”
“Ah.” Chen poured tea into cups, his movements precise. “I saw Lady Olivia when she left. She did not appear herself.”
“How did she appear?” Ben couldn’t help but ask.
“I do not claim to be an expert when it comes to the emotional state of young ladies, but if I had to guess…” The healer sampled his tea. “Heartbroken.”
The reply twisted a knife in Ben’s gut. He hated the idea of Livy hurting…which frustrated him even more. After all, she was the cause of her own pain, not to mention his.
“It is her own bloody fault. She lied to me, Chen,” he said bitterly. “After my marriage, you know how I value honesty. Livy promised to be truthful and obedient, and she’s been neither. She’s been keeping secrets from me this entire time.”
“I hope I do not regret asking.” Chen sighed. “What sort of secrets?”
As Ben told his friend about the Society of Angels and Livy’s shenanigans, his righteous indignation grew. How dare she take such risks, put herself in danger? Did she have no bloody sense at all? Obviously, he’d had no choice but to put his foot down.
“Can you believe Livy was doing all of that and behind my damned back?” he concluded.
Chen’s mouth gave an odd twitch. “It does explain her proficiency with daggers.”
“That is not amusing,” Ben said, scowling.
“Not at all.”
Ben clenched his jaw. “And she had the nerve to accuse me of limiting her freedom. She is a gently bred young lady—a duke’s daughter, for God’s sake! She knows full well her behavior is beyond the pale. Was I supposed to just stand there and allow my future bride to run around pell-mell, courting disaster at every turn?”
“To be fair, Lady Olivia seems quite capable of taking care of herself.” Chen cleared his throat. “And, if anything, she prevented a disaster last night. She saved your life, and from what she told me of her group’s undertaking, they have discovered some critical facts concerning the true identity of the villain behind the Devil’s Bliss. ‘Master Fong’ was a subterfuge.” The healer paused, muttering, “Why am I not surprised that it is an Englishman spreading the opium?”
“You are taking her side?” Ben asked in disbelief.
“I do not see sides in this situation. Merely perspectives.”
God save him from Chen’s philosophizing.
“From my perspective then, Livy betrayed my trust,” Ben said savagely. “I told her from the start that I would not tolerate a relationship built on lies. Indeed, that was why I hesitated to start things with her; in my gut, I knew she was not a biddable sort, yet I let her convince me otherwise. Which makes me the biggest fool alive.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps your gut knows something that your brain does not,” Chen said.
“Hell’s teeth, stop talking in riddles.”
“Love is a riddle, but I shall do my best to lay it out clearly. I believe that you fell in love with Lady Olivia not in spite of who she is but because of it. You have known her from the time she was twelve years old; I have known her for less than a fortnight. If I am not surprised that she is a spirited and independent female, how can you be?”
Flummoxed, Ben thought it over. “I suppose…well, I am not surprised, exactly. Even so, she should not have lied to me.”
“Why do you think she did?”
Ben’s first instinct was to say that Livy wanted to twist him around her little finger and manipulate him…but the explanation struck him as false. He’d known her too long and that had never been her character. He forced himself to dig deeper, past his anger and the bitterness of betrayal. Why would Livy lie to him?
He realized with a flash that she, herself, had given him the answer.
I didn’t want to lie to you, but I was scared to tell the truth.
Why would Livy be scared? She was bold and fearless, the most determined female he’d ever met. Understanding prickled through him like sensation returning to a limb that had fallen asleep.
“Because she loves me,” he said hoarsely. “And I made her obedience a requirement of being with me. I made her think that she…she could not be herself.”
Remorse throbbed in his chest. How could he have been so unfair? If he truly thought about it, he adored her spirit and independent ways. Yet he’d been afraid too, he recognized. Of repeating his past. Of losing someone he loved, the way he’d lost his sister, his parents…and even his wife.
Olivia and the Masked Duke Page 28
