by Monica Burns
“Percy, it’s good to see you,” Blake said quietly. Tension had tightened the viscount’s mouth to a thin line giving him an austere look. “I don’t know how we’ve managed to keep missing each other these last few months.”
“I would imagine between your duties in Parliament, your new wife, and my own affairs in the country and here in town it’s quite understandable why we’ve not seen each other.” Percy smiled at him. “So I’d like to offer my congratulations on your recent nuptials. I regret I was unable to attend the wedding.”
An odd look crossed the viscount’s face as he acknowledged Percy’s words with an abrupt nod. Almost as if he were eager to change the direction of their conversation, Blake jerked his head in the direction of the mat.
“Would you care to go a few rounds?”
“If I recall correctly the last time we sparred you indicated you wouldn’t do so again anytime soon,” Percy said with a chuckle.
“Circumstances change,” Blake said coldly as if angry. Percy arched his eyebrows at his friend but didn’t question him.
The viscount walked into the center of the ring and turned to face him. With a slight shrug of puzzlement, Percy moved forward and barely managed to dodge the viscount’s initial punch. As the two of them danced and parried with each other on the floor, Percy deflected a blow to the head and darted back a few feet. Blake followed him, forcing Percy to continue dodging and deflecting his friend’s punches. The intense look on the viscount’s face made Percy think his friend had to be battling not only him, but an army of invisible demons as well. Another one of Blake’s punches slammed into his shoulder, and Percy grunted. The exercise was beginning to hurt.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” His disgusted tone sent a flicker of remorse sliding across the viscount’s features before his expression hardened again
“If you prefer, I can find someone else to spar with me.”
The viscount’s words made Percy expel a harsh breath of air as he shook his head. The moment he was back on his feet, Percy threw a hard punch that connected with his friend’s jaw. Blake’s head snapped backward from the jab, which sent him staggering backward. Immediately Percy grimaced with regret at the strength of his blow. The viscount came back at him a moment later with a blazing flurry of punches. It took every bit of skill Percy possessed to keep from losing ground.
They’d been sparring for almost five minutes when Blake held up his hands in a silent request to end their physical blows. Hands on his hips, Percy bent over at the waist and dragged in deep breaths of air into lungs that were burning from his exertions. Still bent over, Percy turned his head toward his friend. Blake was also bent over and breathing hard. Percy slowly straightened.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you are having wife difficulties.”
“Would you care to clarify that remark,” Blake snarled. The air crackled as if the ground beneath Percy’s feet was a thin layer of ice. The viscount’s stony expression made Percy shake his head in disgust.
“It was just a bloody observation. Whenever my brother is irritated with home life he spars like you do. Although, given your wife’s pleasant company—”
It was as if a brick had slammed into Percy’s jaw. He staggered backward then crashed to the hard mat. Dazed, he stared up at the viscount. A menacing look on his face, Blake bent over him.
“How do you know Arianna?”
“I met her the other day when I called on your sister-in-law,” he said irritably as he gently shifted his jaw and spit blood out from inside his mouth.
“Rhea?” Blake said hoarsely. “You know Rhea?”
“Yes. Did you think I would call on your wife without you being present?” Percy snapped as he rubbed his jaw and looked up at his friend. The expression on Blake’s face made him grunt with disgust. Regret crossed the viscount’s face before he stuck out his hand to assist Percy to his feet. Percy hesitated a second before accepting his friend’s silent gesture of apology. When he was standing again, he scowled at Blake.
“You need to have a little more faith in your friends and your wife. You chose well.”
“Did I? I wonder,” Blake said in a voice dark with pain.
“I have no doubts about the woman I met being in love with you.”
“I’m no longer sure of that.”
“Then you clearly have a problem.”
“One I don’t think I can solve,” Blake said in a tight voice.
“I don’t recall you ever being at a loss for a solution, especially where women were concerned,” Percy said with a touch of irony as he removed his sparring gloves.
“This is different,” Blake muttered. “She’s my wife.”
“Do you love her?” His question made the viscount stiffen for a moment before he nodded.
“Yes,” Blake said quietly. “But what stands between us is something I don’t think I can easily dismiss.”
“Perhaps it would help if you considered things from her point of view.” Percy narrowed his gaze at his friend as anger darkened the viscount’s face.
“That sounds as if you know what’s come between us,” his friend bit out with a look of restrained rage.
“I have no knowledge of why you and the viscountess are at odds, but if you love her, you'll work to overcome this problem that stands between you both.”
Blake didn’t answer him. Instead he began to remove his leather sparring gloves. Percy proceeded to do the same as silence filled the space between them. He’d removed his gloves completely when Blake jerked his head toward him. The scowl on the man’s face made Percy shake his head in disgust.
“What?”
“I’d like to know your intentions where Rhea is concerned.”
“I intend to make her my wife,” Percy said without hesitation.
“Do you love her?” At the question, he hesitated, unable to answer. He simply wasn’t willing to step out onto that limb at the moment. When he didn’t reply, Blake eyed him with contempt. “If you can’t answer the question, Percy, it means you’ve decided to marry her for other reasons, and she deserves better than that.”
The contemptuous note in his friend’s voice stung, and Percy clenched his jaw as anger surged through him. It wasn’t his place for his friend to judge him.
“My intentions where Rhea are concerned is none of your affair.”
“You’re wrong. As my sister-in-law, I have every reason to care about her happiness,” Blake said in an icy voice. “So help me God, Rockwood. If you hurt her in any way, you’ll answer to me.”
For a long moment, Percy stared stoically at his friend. Then with a breath of disgust passing viciously past his lips, he turned and walked away from the viscount. Blake was right. Rhea did deserve to be happy. He just wasn’t sure love was part of the bargain, for either one of them.
Chapter 13
“Is there nothing I can say that will make you change your mind, my darling?”
“No.” It was a short, abrupt response that made Beatrice flinch.
Beatrice eyed Arianna with concern. Her niece had arrived on her doorstep only hours after Blake had left Sherrington House. When he’d sent word he intended to stay at his club overnight, Arianna had come to Beatrice. Her niece shook her head in reply to Beatrice’s question as she rocked Lucy in her arms. The child was sound asleep, and Beatrice understood Arianna’s need to keep Lucy close, particularly when the viscount seemed to have rejected her.
“Arianna, I should not—”
“You are not to blame, Aunt Beatrice. Rhea warned me to tell Blake everything before the wedding.” Arianna shook her head in despair. “I made the wrong choice, and I have no one to blame except myself.”
“Blake loves you, Arianna. I’m certain of it.” Beatrice hesitated, reluctant to suggest the obvious. “He will come around.”
If there was one thing Beatrice was certain of, it was the viscount’s love for Arianna. Only a man deeply in love was capable of marrying a woman with her niece’s backgr
ound. An image of Alfred’s kind features filled her head. She understood better than most how love could make someone do things others couldn’t. Her late husband had married her despite the fact that she wasn’t in love with him and had borne another man’s child out of wedlock. Although she’d tried to make Alfred understand she could never love another man, her dead husband had persisted in his marriage proposals. He’d made it clear that his happiness was based on caring for her and making her happy. Over the years he’d become very dear to her, and when he’d died, she’d mourned him as she would have a beloved friend.
“Even if Blake loved me enough to marry me, he might not have loved me enough to accept Lucy. I should have trusted him—had more faith in his love for me,” Arianna replied softly. “Especially now when I realize I can never let Lucy go again. If Blake cannot accept her then I will have no choice but to leave him.”
Arianna’s words made Beatrice draw in a sharp breath. If her niece’s marriage ended because of her insistence that Blake be told the truth about her great-niece, she would never forgive herself. The despondency in Arianna’s voice made her shake her head.
“I cannot leave you like this. I’ll send word to Melton House that we’re both unwell.”
“No. You will go,” Arianna said with a firmness reminiscent of Rhea. “It will be insulting enough to Lord and Lady Melton that I’ve declined their invitation at the last minute. I’ll not have that compounded by you feeling obligated to remain here with me.”
“You cannot possibly expect—”
“Yes, I can. I’d prefer to remain alone here with Lucy. Now go or you’ll be late.”
“I don’t—”
“Go.”
It was a sharp command that emphasize Arianna’s desire to be alone with her daughter. Beatrice nodded and reluctantly left the nursery with the door closing softly behind her. For a long moment, she stood motionless in the narrow second floor hallway. Like Arianna, she’d made far too many wrong choices in her own life. One of the worst was not trying hard enough to discover why Olivia had stopped answering her letters.
When she’d finally realized something was terribly wrong, it was too late. Her sister had been dead for several months. The memory of Thomas Bennett’s coldly worded letter informing her of her sister’s death made Beatrice’s heart ache with grief. There had been a distinct note of smug satisfaction in her brother-in-law’s communication. Beatrice had no doubt Thomas had taken pleasure in writing the letter. A cruel man, she’d never understood why Olivia had married him. Beatrice could only assume her sister had loved her husband.
Almost as terrible as the cruelty in the wording of his letter, Thomas had refused to let her see her nieces. He’d even gone so far as to inform Arianna and Rhea she was dead. Even if she’d tried to see the girls, Thomas would never have let her set one foot in his house. She had no doubt that a large part of his behavior was retaliatory in nature. The man had loathed her for refusing his advances.
When her brother-in-law had propositioned her not long after he’d married Olivia, she’d been horrified and sickened by his revolting attempt to seduce her. She’d found his desire to enter into a liaison when he was already married despicable. But that he would attempt to enter into a liaison with his wife’s sister was beyond contemptible. Even if she’d been inclined to take another lover after Lionel, she would never have betrayed her sister. The memory of Thomas’s insulting proposal still had the power to make her shudder. It was one of the reasons she’d not fought harder to see her sister or the girls.
As much as she hated admitting it, she’d been afraid of Thomas. The man had been capable of great cruelty, and she’d instinctively known he would have found a way to divide her and Olivia in the cruelest way possible. But her failure to stand up to the man had prevented her from seeing her sister one last time. Worse, her inaction had done nothing to save her nieces from a terrible fate.
The fact that she’d failed to pursue her attempts to see the girls still haunted her. He’d already sold Rhea and Arianna into bondage by the time he’d replied to her insistent queries. By then he’d become a profligate drunkard. It had taken more than a year after his death for his solicitor to locate her about his estate, which had delayed her efforts in finding Arianna and Rhea.
The quiet sound of a man’s voice echoed up the stairs and into the hallway to break through her thoughts. One hand pressing into the base of her throat, a flame of hope flared to life inside her. Had Blake come for his wife? Optimism flooding through her, Beatrice hurried downstairs. Biggs was just emerging from the salon as she reached the foot of the steps.
“You’ve a guest, madame. A Lord Foxworth,” the butler said quietly. Panic held her rigid for a moment as she took in Biggs’s announcement, before she turned to retreat upstairs.
“Tell his lordship that I’ve a dinner–”
“I’m well aware of your plans for the evening, Beatrice. Melton told me you were dining with his family this evening, and I offered to escort you to dinner,” Lionel’s voice echoed quietly in her ears as he appeared in the salon doorway.
Beatrice swallowed hard as she slowly turned to face him. Framed in the doorway, he seemed even more powerful and dangerous than he had the other night. His bearing one of purposeful nonchalance, he eyed her as if she were a morsel he was contemplating eating.
Something old and familiar stirred inside her. Despite her efforts to control her reaction to him, she failed. She’d thought her response to him at the Melton affair had simply been a remembrance of the past. But she knew differently now.
Lionel had always been able to set her heart racing, and nothing had changed. Dismayed at the way her heart was pounding, she forced herself to assume an expression of indifference. With a polite gesture, she directed him to return to the salon.
“May I offer you some refreshment?” she asked as she moved toward the doorway.
For a moment, she thought he might not allow her to pass, but he stepped out of her way just enough that she was forced to brush against him as she entered the salon. As she slid past him it was impossible not to breathe in the warm male scent of him. It assaulted her senses in the same way it had done all those years before.
Eager to put physical distance between them, she quickly moved deeper into the room and jumped at the sound of the salon door closing. Whirling around, the determined look she saw hardening his features caused consternation to send tension spiraling through her. It was obvious he was a man on a mission. But what terrified her was not knowing what tactics he would employ to achieve his goal. Suddenly in need of something to fortify her, Beatrice turned away from him and went to the side cart that held cognac and Madeira. Hands trembling, some of the wine she poured spilled out onto the top of the small sideboard. She drew in a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves.
“Shall I pour you some cognac?”
“Not at the moment.”
The quiet response only made her more nervous. Lionel had always been at his most resolute when he was quiet. It meant his plan of action would be either verbal or something far more dangerous. God help her if he decided to use seduction as a means of achieving his objective. She reached for her glass of wine only to find her body engulfed with heat as he reached around her and forestalled her. Dear Lord, he’d chosen seduction.
“In fact, I think I’d prefer something a bit more flavorful.”
The husky sound of his voice filled her ear and reminded her of other times he’d used persuasion to secure her agreement to do as he commanded. Although his body wasn’t touching hers, it still felt as though she was pressed into his chest. The sudden desire to lean back into him made her heart skip a beat. No sooner had the thought entered her head than his mouth was caressing the side of her neck.
It was the only part of him that touched her, yet it was as if he’d bound her to him with an invisible rope. Alarmed by her growing desire to simply lean backward into him, she drew in a sharp breath. Beatrice knew she was in great per
il, and she quickly darted away from him. The fact that she was able to do so without him stopping her made her realize he’d allowed her to do so. Facing him, Beatrice eyed him warily.
“Why are you here, Lionel?”
“I think you know why.” Steel could not have been more inflexible than his voice as he studied her from across the space separating them. His assessing gaze sent a tremor through her. As quickly as she could, she hid her trepidation behind a puzzled expression.
“No, I don’t. I thought we’d settled things between us the other night.” She arched an eyebrow at him, and he muttered something unintelligible.
“I’m here because you owe me an explanation.”
“An explanation,” she gasped in disbelief. The arrogance he projected as he scowled at her emphasized his height and strength. Even after all these years he still reminded her of a sleek, dangerous tiger. Even the smallest of gestures he made reflected power. The fact that he could still affect her so easily caused a long-buried anger to slowly rise to the surface. “I owe you nothing.”
“Don’t you?” he snarled as he took a step toward her.
“No.” Beatrice tilted her chin upward in outrage refusing to retreat in the face of his anger. After all these years, he believed he was owed an explanation. She was the one who’d been left waiting at the chapel hoping he had only been delayed and not abandoned her. She was the one who’d suffered the agony of losing not only him, but their child as well.
“I think you should go, my lord. As I said the other night we cannot resurrect the past.”
“I’m not trying to resurrect the past, Beatrice,” he said in a voice tight with anger. “But I do want the truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” she exclaimed with a bitterness that sliced open wounds she’d thought were long healed.
