“If you’d just give me a chance to explain, I’m sure—”
She held up a gloved hand, cutting him off as crisply as a general dismissing a raw recruit. “Explanations are always plentiful after a man has been caught in some wretched business or another! It’s a marvel to me that your sex doesn’t think about explaining themselves before your schemes are uncovered and you look like the worst and vilest creatures on the earth. Why is it that eloquence only comes when it’s too late?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t say.” Galen winced at the inadvertent irony and almost groaned at the agony of knowing that he’d just made it so much worse than he’d ever thought possible by appearing glib.
Mrs. Shaw’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You think I’m some elderly dupe? Did you think I was just blindly giggling at my lovely luck to be a small cog in the romantic machinations of your masculine plans?”
Galen could only shake his head, not trusting himself to answer without adding more fuel to the fire in her eyes.
“I’m not new to the game, Mr. Hawke. But I liked you, and I allowed you to insert yourself into my niece’s life because you seemed so . . .” She sighed in frustration before going on. “I had hoped that Haley would find the love she deserved and make a better life for herself. Frankly, I’d have done the same if you were a penniless tinker, but only because I thought I was dealing with an honorable man.”
“I never—”
“I have no interest in hearing your denials!” Her chin lifted an inch, and she marched up until he was forced to look down directly into her eyes. “What I am interested in, Mr. Hawke, is obtaining possession of every libel-covered page from that desk of yours!”
He nodded dutifully, a sick twist in his gut at the thought of Haley seeing them again. “Of course. If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t going to . . . no one has ever seen them, Mrs. Shaw. It was a misguided plan that my heart overruled weeks ago, and I never—”
“The papers, Mr. Hawke.” She poked him in the chest with one bony finger and then held out her hand. “I’ll take them now.”
He left her to retrieve them, overriding the instinct to hold the envelope like a snake in front of him. I should have destroyed them when Michael came upon me that first night! And then later . . . but I was too stupid to even remember they were still in my desk!
He held it out to her. “Here, this is everything.”
She took the envelope from him and then glanced at the contents to assure herself that this was no trick. “Burn it. I want to watch you burn it,” she commanded.
Galen felt like a coward. It was easy enough to find matches and comply with her wishes. He threw the burning packet onto the fireplace grate and watched as the only evidence of his villainy disappeared into black leaves and embers.
Would that the deeds could be erased so easily . . .
“Are there any other copies? Is there anything else that she didn’t accidentally uncover?” Mrs. Shaw asked behind him.
“No, that was everything.”
“Good. Then I will bid you farewell, Mr. Hawke.”
“Mrs. Shaw, wait, I beg you.”
“Beg?” She halted her steps, giving him a look of astonishment. “Well, you don’t know the game at all, do you?”
“It’s no game, Mrs. Shaw.”
“Of course it is! Allow me to refresh you on your next few moves! You pretend to be angry at this misfortune of being misunderstood! You insist on your innocence! You even go so far as to make foolish threats to prevent us from saying anything about this matter in public, although you know full well we can’t without endangering poor Haley’s status! You huff and puff, and then you pick up your manly pride and decide what lovely girl will next have the honor of falling for your obvious charms and finding herself completely destroyed as an unhappy result. That, Mr. Hawke, is the game. And if you’re going to choose the black pieces on the board, then you’d better learn the rules!”
She sailed out of the room and then past a horrified Bradley, who barely managed to get the door open in time for her stormy departure.
She returned to find Haley, still prostrate with tears across her bed.
“How could anyone be so hateful? So horrible to . . .” She lifted her head to look at her aunt in miserable supplication. “He deliberately set out to ruin me! He never had any intentions of . . . and I was so blind and stupid, I never saw the danger!”
Haley put her head back down, closing her eyes. “No, that’s not true,” she corrected herself in a broken little whisper. “I saw the danger. I just convinced myself that somehow it didn’t matter. That he . . . wouldn’t let me be hurt.”
“Did he promise to marry you, dearest?”
Haley sat up quickly, like a wounded tigress, lashing out at anyone foolish enough to draw near. “I want you to know that I blame you in some small part for this!”
“Me?” Alice sat down, astonished. “What did I have to do with it?”
“You! With your bells and your adventures, telling me to use both hands to reach for my happiness!” Haley lifted up from the bed, her face red from crying.
Alice shook her head slowly. “I thought . . . they say it is better to lose your heart than to not know your own heart, and I . . . I only wanted your happiness.”
“Well, I should have remembered that if you use both hands to reach for what you want, then everything else is dropped, isn’t it?”
“I only wanted the best for you! You’re too young to—”
“And when am I too old, Aunt? When do I put the bells away in time to realize that there are no more adventures and that I have no husband and no future? When did you realize it? When did you realize that you’d held onto the wrong things with both hands and ended up with nothing and no one?”
Alice gasped, the words finding their mark. “I . . .”
Haley’s malice crumbled into regret in a single breath and she threw herself against her dearest aunt, embracing her tightly. “Forgive me! Forgive me for being so monstrous!” Hot tears stained her aunt’s shoulder as she sobbed. “I’m so . . . wrong at every turn that I don’t know what to do or say! Please . . .”
Soft hands reached up to smooth her hair, and Haley was sure she would die with relief. “There now, my dearest girl. There’s nothing to forgive! I’m a fool, and the world’s worst chaperone, but—” She stepped back to lift Haley’s chin and meet her eyes. “I am still your greatest ally, and no one can ever convince me that I do not love you the best.”
“I’m ruined.” Haley tasted her own heartache as she spoke the wretched words aloud.
“You are not ruined!” Aunt Alice gripped her shoulders, a new strength coming into her face that Haley had never seen before. “I’ve always hated that word! It’s a man’s word to set you back on your heels when you’ve defied them and chosen your own path.”
“Aunt Alice?”
“To hell with ruined!” The older woman stamped her foot, her eyes blazing. “And damn any man who tries to say such a thing in my presence!”
Haley’s mouth fell open in shock to hear her precious Aunt Alice curse for the first time in her presence.
“And no one will, Haley. No one will say it, and we will go on as if nothing has happened. You’ve ended an engagement to Mr. Trumble. Nothing more. Not as far as anyone beyond this room need speak of—and as for him, he’ll say nothing if he values his life.”
Haley shook her head, managing a weak smile through her tears. “You’d make a terrible assassin, Aunt Alice.”
“Well, I meant it figuratively speaking, but . . . the rest of the sentiment holds true. He made false promises and we shall certainly threaten him with a libel suit if he so much as—”
“He—he never lied to me,” Haley whispered.
“What? Well of course he did! He must have—”
Haley shook her head sadly. “Not a single untrue word. I’ve relived every conversation this morning, and . . . I . . . heard what I wished to hear.”
; “Well, that’s no matter! You’ll not miss a single party and there won’t be a ripple of scandal connected to your good name, Haley.”
“I don’t know if I can just pretend that nothing has happened.” Haley sank back down on the bed. “How can I just go on? I . . . love him. I love him with every fiber of my being, and I was so blind and stupid. How is it that I could have been so blind? I’ve spent years fussing at my father about his foolish romantic attachment to mother’s memory and now . . . I swear if someone offered me laudanum, I’d take it!”
“Now you’re truly talking nonsense!” Aunt Alice sat down, more like her usual self as she took command. “And I am an authority on nonsense, as you may have noticed.” She smoothed out her skirts. “But we’ll let you have this afternoon to finish up with these tears, and so I’d recommend that you cry until you cannot cry another drop! It’s a luxury you won’t always have, dearest.”
“A luxury . . .” Haley echoed softly.
“I’ll tell the maids you have a headache and that your rooms are off-limits. I’m sure I can manage a tray with something to tempt you to keep up your strength for it.” Aunt Alice nodded her head. “A good old-fashioned bout of hysteria should do the trick!”
“What trick?”
Aunt Alice ignored the question. “And then we’ll see about picking out just the right dress for Somerset’s dinner party tomorrow night.”
“I can’t—”
“You can and you will!” Aunt Alice stood. “You’ve never been one to break when things become difficult, and I don’t see how that could have changed. Men take only what you allow them to take, Haley. If he has your heart, even now, then it is because you allow him that gift. You can reclaim it whenever you wish. Your pride, your self-confidence, your honor . . . it’s the same. Do you see?”
My heart. My pride. My honor. Mine to give and mine to retake. Yes, somehow I see it. A little late, but it’s a good lesson all the same. But oh, would that I were getting them back in the same condition and not so battered and bruised!
Chapter 21
Galen left the house within minutes of Mrs. Shaw’s dramatic departure, desperate for advice from a friend after the verbal lashing he’d taken. He’d bungled everything so completely that he wasn’t sure how he could recover even a fraction of Haley’s affections—but he was determined to try. Of all the Jaded, it was Rowan who always seemed to keep a level head and an unshielded heart, and it was because he was the least cynical among them that Galen sought his opinion now.
But when he arrived at the haven of West’s small home, it became clear that Rowan might have other distractions on his mind. The servants showed him in quickly with baleful faces, and Galen froze in the doorway of his friend’s beloved library.
It was in shambles.
Precious books were scattered over the floor, furniture overturned, and cushions torn open, transforming the haven into a room that spoke of violation and violence. Galen was sure that if he’d been punched in the stomach, it would have felt the same. A slight movement caught his eye, and he moved to find Rowan behind the overturned desk carefully gathering up the broken shards of what he’d once joked was the world’s ugliest vase. But now, he was handling it as if it had been a porcelain Ming.
“I think I may be able to have it repaired.” Rowan looked up at Galen, his eyes reflecting relief at the sight of his friend. “I’d offer you a chair, but . . .”
“What the hell happened?” Galen asked.
“Well, it wasn’t burglars. Mr. Cotton may be losing a little of his hearing, but I would never insult him or the staff to even jest about them sleeping through this.” Rowan stood slowly, holding a tray level with all the broken bits of pottery on it to set it on the side of his overturned desk. “No, you’re actually looking at the remnants of a legal search.”
“What?”
“The local police received a tip that I was the leader of a vast fencing ring . . . or was it smuggling? I wasn’t here, and frankly, poor Mr. Cotton may have misheard them.” Rowan shrugged. “The result is the same. Though you should see the bedroom! They cut open my feather mattress and I think the entire third floor is covered in down. It looks like it snowed up there.”
“A tip? From whom?”
“I would say an enemy of the Jaded who wanted to see if a thorough toss could uncover anything of interest.” Rowan crossed his arms. “They failed to leave a warrant in the confusion, but I don’t think I’ll be marching down to the authorities to make any claims.”
“I had an encounter with an Indian mugger last night, but now, I think I’ll consider myself lucky. I sent word to Michael but it never occurred to me that there might be more going on. . . .”
“Let’s just hope the storm is over.”
“You’re taking this remarkably well.” Galen bent down to retrieve one of the books and uncovered a small painted gourd that had survived the upheaval.
“They didn’t tear the books apart, so it’s just a matter of sorting. As for my family’s things . . .” His voice trailed off, battling the heartache of seeing the trinkets and treasures of lifetimes reduced to trash beneath his feet. “I’ll recover everything I can.”
“Did they find any of your jewels?”
Rowan shook his head. “I hadn’t hidden them in the house. There’s a bit of irony, eh?”
“Damn!” Galen overturned one of the leather chairs, his rage finally finding a single focus at the sight of the cut and ruined thing. “My favorite chair!”
“Let’s talk about something else, Galen. Ashe tells me that you’ve lost your heart to a debutante after all. And not just any debutante!”
“I don’t think I want to talk about it right now.”
“I need the distraction, Galen, and from the look on your face, I’d say this is definitely a case of misery loving company.” He began to rummage through the bar, discovered a single unbroken glass, and then poured himself a brandy from a bottle still hidden safely inside one of the covered nooks in the wall. He lifted his glass, toasting his friend. “To you and your . . . misery?”
Galen shook his head. “I’m past misery, Rowan.”
Rowan set the glass down and came around the desk. “That was a stupid jest. You came to tell me something, or you wouldn’t be here. Ashe made it sound as if you had gotten into a feminine tangle of some kind, but I didn’t pay too much attention.”
“A feminine tangle”—Galen sighed—“now there’s a phrase you don’t hear every day.”
“Is it true?”
“Rowan.” Galen took a deep breath, wondering how to ask for advice without being forced to reveal too much of his villainy to such a respected friend. “I’ve won and lost her, through my own stupidity.”
“You’re not a stupid man, my friend.”
Galen managed a weak smile. “You’d be surprised.” Galen knelt back down to gather up a few more books, handing them up to Rowan to place on the shelves, the physical act letting him frame his words as he continued. “I pursued her under false pretenses, and for all the wrong reasons. I hated her, Rowan, and I wanted to bring her down.”
“Hated her? Why?”
“Because John Everly had loved her, and she’d repaid him by forgetting that he ever existed.”
“Oh.” Rowan was struck speechless, but he continued to take the books that Galen held out, and for a few moments they worked in silence until Galen continued his tale.
“After I had her, after I knew she was mine, heart and soul—I forgot to hate her, Rowan.”
“It’s no black mark against you, Galen, to forgive someone. To forget to hate them and discover that you love them, instead. John would have understood,” he offered calmly.
“God, I miss him, but I’m not sure what John would say.”
“Is that what’s distressing you? Do you feel guilty at finding happiness with this woman, because of her connection to John?”
Galen closed his eyes, the sharp pang of a hundred emotions stilling him. “I’m distres
sed because she ended it with me. I’m distressed because she found out that I had intended to harm her, and I’m not sure how a man denies a truth, admits he’s a liar, and has any chance of still earning her trust.”
“You intended to harm her?” Rowan’s voice had an alarmed edge.
“Her reputation, good doctor. I was going to expose her publicly in the press as a faithless, moneygrubbing whore. How does that sound for noble schemes and lofty plans?”
Rowan dropped the book in his hand on the desk and took a seat on an overturned chair’s back. “It sounds. . . like another man I’ve never met. Suddenly, our conversation the other day begins to make sense. But Galen, you—you couldn’t have done it.”
“No, I couldn’t. No matter how blackly appealing the cursed idea was before I met her, once I knew Haley . . . and then it was too late to tell her the truth. And then I convinced myself that she didn’t have to ever know. I’d pursued her and won her. Why would that seem different from any other illicit courtship that ends in respectable matrimony? Except—”
“Except she found out your secret, and now it seems too different to ever be believed that you’re not Lucifer himself,” Rowan finished, retrieving his drink to take a steadying sip or two. “Well! This is starting to put my day into perspective.”
“I should take comfort that she has a respectable and honorable man waiting to marry her. But I don’t think I can live knowing that fat mud troll, Trumble, is going to be her husband.”
“Ah! There’s one problem solved.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard from Lady Pringley that the engagement is off. Apparently the fashionable Miss Moreland, for reasons unknown, broke off their agreement, but the gossips are convinced it’s because Mr. Trumble may have met someone else.”
“Off?” Galen felt numb. “When?”
“For some time, now.” Rowan knelt next to his friend. “I’m surprised you hadn’t heard.”
“No. I’ve been so caught up in my own head, and . . . so distracted by . . .” Galen wasn’t sure what was worse: the sick relief that Trumble would never touch her or the additional guilt of knowing that he’d callously and completely disrupted her life. The illusion that everything that had happened had been just between the two of them was shattered. “Any advice, Dr. West?”
Revenge Wears Rubies Page 24
