Beau shrugged. “Apparently, Kenneth and Bernard had been sent ahead the night before to scout out the proclaimed courtesan, and this is the girl they were shown—the one Elisabeth favors. One can only guess she was also ginger-haired. Kenneth hardly seems like a chronicler of subtle detail. Oh,” Beau added, “the fiction is complete with this bit. I can’t believe I forgot. Kenneth claimed you were there too.”
“What?”
Beau nodded, chuckling. “According to Ken, they’d abducted you from your bed and hauled you along purely to torment you. To parcel you off with some experienced ladybird . . . to ‘make a man of you,’ that sort of nonsense.” He looked philosophical. “Actually, it’s the only part of the story that rings true, sadistic bastards.”
The story went on, Beau filling in more details, but Bryson had stopped listening. A distant buzzing rose in his ears, drowning out all other sound.
Parcel you off to bed with some experienced ladybird . . .
To ‘make a man’ of you . . .
Bryson’s head shot up.
He looked at the door through which Elisabeth had entered, then back at his brother, and back at the door. In his mind’s eye, a memory unfurled. Long buried—long forgotten, purposely forgotten. It came slamming back now with a vividness and clarity that mocked real life.
He remembered.
Oh, God.
It was her.
“Beau?” he managed to rasp. His voice sounded strangled. “Who else heard Kenneth? Who?”
Beau studied him cautiously. “I told you; no one, really. It was a long rambling story, his speech was slurred, and I was hustling him out with due haste. Someone would have had to follow us to piece together the whole thing, and no one did. Why? My God, but you’ve gone white. What’s wrong? Bryson—stop. Wait!”
He was already walking away. Slow, steady strides. Hands clenched into fists. It was all he could do not to break into a run. While he walked, he conjured up an image of the girl in his room that night. Red hair. Turquoise eyes. A brand on her shoulder. She had been beautiful, but oh, so young. A girl.
He stopped in front of the door to the map room. Beau rushed up behind him, reaching for him, but he jerked away. “Leave us,” he hissed. “I wished to be alone with my betrothed.”
Working to steady his breathing, he swallowed hard and stepped inside, slamming the door behind him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Elisabeth hadn’t expected the door to slam, and her head shot up.
Bryson strode into the room, not looking at her, not speaking—he did not even acknowledge her aunt.
Inexplicably, she stood.
She watched him prowl the room, the sound of his boots on the marble tile barely audible over the pounding of her heart. His expression was granite.
“Lady Banning,” he said suddenly, partially turning. “Please, remain.” Elisabeth jumped at the bite in his voice.
“Not tonight, Rainsleigh,” Aunt Lillian declared lightly, pushing up from a chair. She gave Elisabeth’s arm a squeeze and bustled toward the door.
He began, “It wouldn’t do to be secreted away alone—”
“You are engaged to be married now,” she called over her shoulder. “This affords you ten minutes alone, I should think. Especially if I acknowledge it. I will not go far. The nearest corner of the ballroom. And I shall leave the door standing open, just a little. Elisabeth is not seventeen, and you are hardly a dandy.” Without a backward glance, she slipped into the hall. They were alone in the silence.
Elisabeth looked down at her twinkling engagement ring. It seemed odd now that a hard, twinkling stone would be her only reminder of his affection, but he would not meet her eyes. And his demeanor was off. Closed and dark. The unexpected distance was like an intrusive third person in the room.
She had planned to go to him, to take him by the hand and lead him to the settee so that they might have their talk. Now she forced herself to venture one step in his direction. She cleared her throat. The secret could not wait. Not even five minutes more.
“Bryson,” she began, “there is something I must—”
“Let me see your shoulder, Elisabeth,” he suddenly said, looking up. His eyes were ice-blue and hot with anger at the same time.
“I beg your pardon?” She shuffled one step back.
“Your shoulder. On the right. Let me see it.”
“Wha—” she began, but then his awful request sank in. She felt the blood drain from her face.
He knows.
Oh my God.
He. Knows.
She looked again. His face was tight with agony, hard and closed off. She took a cannonball to the belly with that look. She reached for a chair to support her, struggling to stay upright.
He knew.
Not her way, not by her words or memories—but still, he knew. Tears shot to her eyes, and she felt her cheeks go warm, despite the clammy sweat of shock. Her mind leapt to the defensive, a wheel spinning for the most appropriate, diffusing thing to say. Her first impulse was to explain herself. Her defense was weak, perhaps, but legitimate. And he was a decent man—thoughtful and fair—and she had rehearsed this much with Jocelyn and Aunt Lilly. If they could but remain calm, if she could find the words. She lifted her head to implore him and—
The hardness of his gaze struck her mute. Anger, hurt, disbelief—she saw it all, plainly on his face. All of her solutions and excuses felt suddenly flat and one-note. She resorted, lamely, to shaking her head.
He started to her. “Perhaps you did not hear me,” he said, rounding a desk. “I want to see your shoulder.” His voice belonged to a stranger.
“You would have me disrobe?” she managed to say. “Right here?”
“Do it. Do it, or I will peel the gown back myself.”
She scuttled behind an adjacent chair. “You most certainly will not.” Now her own outrage flared, eclipsing her shock and shame. “You will not touch me.”
He kept coming, and she darted behind the next chair and the next. “What is wrong with you, Bryson? You are behaving like a madman.”
“Mad, am I?” he bit out. “Perhaps that’s the result of learning I’ve been lied to. For weeks. Do not ask me what is wrong.”
“I will ask you. I don’t care what you think I have done. I haven’t lied, and I do not deserve undefined aggression from you.”
“Undefined?” He laughed bitterly. “What an accurate term. How very undefined the nature of our relationship has been.”
“What’s happened?” she asked again. “What did your brother say to you?” She darted behind an easel of maps. She was nearly to the wall. She looked at the fireplace behind her and then back at him. Would he really dare touch her?
She gambled and stepped out from behind the chair and stood tall. “Watch your tone, Rainsleigh,” she said. “I will not be dominated by you simply because you are incensed. Rest assured, I will scream if you touch me.”
“My tone?” He stopped in front of her, and she held her breath. She found the courage to raise her chin.
“What do you discern in my tone?” he asked quietly. “Pray, define it for me, because what I feel is adrift.”
“You are not adrift,” she said as levelly as her voice would allow. “You are angry. But how can I address your anger if you do not say what is wrong?”
He studied her a moment, and she had the thought that she must suddenly look like a stranger to him too. Her chin went higher still. Let him look. She willed him to see that she was the same woman from the happy weeks before. “What did your brother tell you?” she whispered, staring into the narrow blue slits of his eyes.
“Oh, he explained the most unthinkable circumstance.”
“Unthinkable?” She took a step toward him. “Also unspeakable, I presume. Can you not even say it? I cannot defend myself if we do not say the words. But perhaps that is what you want.”
He threw out his arms. “What defense can there be for lying to me for weeks—for weeks, Elisabeth?”
�
��I did not lie,” she corrected firmly, loudly—possibly too loudly. “I have never lied. I simply have not . . . I didn’t . . . ”
He shook his head and turned away. He began to pace. “Now who cannot say the words? How could you keep this from me? My God . . . ” He stopped pacing and leaned over a desk, planting his hands wide. “Did you remember me? When you saw me at your aunt’s party last month? Did you remember me from”—he cleared his throat—“my father’s trip to the brothel?”
She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it. She met his eyes and nodded.
“When?” he demanded lowly. “When did you remember me?”
“I . . . I have always known you.”
“Your long, glowing monologue to the marchioness at your aunt’s dinner that night?” he said, realization dawning. “You leapt to my defense because you knew my life. You knew me then.”
“Yes,” she whispered. But then, louder and stronger, she said, “Yes, I knew you then. But I deserve to know what your brother said about my past. We may not even be talking about the same thing.”
“Oh, judging from your reaction, I think we are.”
“You think, but you don’t know—listen to yourself! There is too much at stake not to have an honest conversation. This is the reason I wanted to speak to you after the betrothal.”
He let out a sad, angry laugh.
“Laugh if you must, but it was. Why else would I immediately insist that you come away from your friends and this party to a private room?”
“I don’t know,” he said coldly, looking her up and down. “Why else might a woman of your previous vocation ask to come away to a private room—”
“How dare you,” Elisabeth gasped. Adrenaline shot through her veins like a lightning strike, and she charged on him, striding across the room with fists clenched.
He watched her come and went on. “According to your aunt, there is leniency now that we’re promised to each other. I’m sure that door can be locked.”
She made a shrill sound of frustration and rage and stopped dead. His words opened up a chasm between them that could not be crossed. With shaking fingers, she reached for the betrothal ring that now pinched the skin of her left hand. Pulling to the point of pain, she worked it off.
“You are mad if you believe you will ever touch me again. I have seen a lot of unfeeling cruelty in my life, Bryson Courtland, but your behavior here tonight is cruelty unmatched. You are merciless.”
“Mercy?” he growled, rounding her, staring at her naked hand. “You wish for mercy? Here is mercy: Replace the ring on your finger, miss, because the betrothal still stands. I will not be jilted by you and become the subject of endless, speculating gossip. Not after I have toiled my entire life to avoid such talk.”
“Oh, and you’re so certain that being jilted is worse than being married to a liar.”
“Would that you had merely lied,” he ground out.
“Meaning what?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a calming breath. When he spoke again, his voice was low and emphatic. “When we go through with the marriage, no one need know that you were a—”
“Do not say it,” Elisabeth rasped. “You have no idea about that which you speak.”
“I saw you, Elisabeth—that night. I saw the brothel. I know what my father likes. I think I have some idea.”
“You are sorely mistaken, my lord,” she said, her voice barely under her command, “if you think I would ever bind myself to a man who would treat me so cruelly.”
“Cruelty? Where is the cruelty in offering marriage to a thirty-year-old spinster with no other prospects?”
“Oh, now flattery on top of all else!”
“And who runs a scandalous charity that I now know was founded from personal experience. My God,” he said, sounding inspired. “You had the opportunity to tell me the day of the tour. When you explained the history of the foundation. We spoke about it at length. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it is excruciating to discuss it, and I never speak of it! Not with anyone. It is my own private pain, and I would not casually bring it up to a man who just happened along. I had every reason to believe that you would happen away very soon.”
“I wasn’t simply a man, Elisabeth. I was . . . ” He let the pronouncement fade away and tried again. “You would conceal it even from me?”
“By all means, I could conceal it from you. Until recently, I had not even revealed it to my aunt. It is a devastating, mortifying thing to put to words, Bryson. I wanted to be certain of your affections—certain enough that you would not respond as you have tonight. And besides, we were busy becoming acquainted. The time was never right. And I was afraid.” Her voice broke, but she spoke through the unshed tears. “Do not think I have kept this from you lightly. I have agonized over it since my aunt forced us together at her dinner. For what it’s worth, I was going to tell you tonight.”
“Fine—good,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “Tell me now.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Bryson, it’s over—it’s too late.”
“Why, Elisabeth? Why is it too late?”
“Because you’ve been wretched to me, and accusatory, and unfeeling, and hateful. And after tonight, I will refuse to see you ever again.”
“On the contrary. After tonight, we will marry.”
“Stop saying that; we will not marry.”
“Some women in your position might consider it a great generosity to take you as my wife.”
Elisabeth took in a sharp breath. His words were like a knife, cutting each time a little bit closer to her heart.
Rainsleigh spun away and strode to the mantel over a low fire. He shook his head, staring into the flames, and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.
They were achingly familiar mannerisms; she had seen him do it fifty times before. Like a fool, she had the reflex to comfort him, to run to him and seek comfort from him in return. She would not—not now, not ever again—but to go against the impulse put a crack in her heart. She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Why, I wonder, did I believe I deserved more than this?” he suddenly said, speaking to the fire. “Considering my parents? Considering the squalor from which I came? There are things one may never overcome.”
Elisabeth let out a small sob. “You feel sorry for yourself? Because you’ve been saddled with me?”
He looked at her. The pain on his face was clear and deep. “You’ve won no prize in me, either, Elisabeth,” he said gravely. “I have a fortune but little respect.”
“I don’t care about your respect. Find your own happiness, Rainsleigh, independent of how the lords and ladies of bloody Mayfair regard you.”
“There is no happiness without respect. This I know.”
“Oh, God,” she rasped, feeling the crack in her heart split completely. “I can’t believe I held you in any measure of affection all this time.”
“Affection is not necessary to our union.”
“This offer improves every time you open your mouth. If you think I should fall at your feet in gratefulness simply because you’ll have me . . . because you are rich, and powerful, and it will save me from eternal spinsterhood . . . you do not know me at all.”
“Oh, I think we’ve well established that tonight.”
Elisabeth blinked, determined to keep the tears from rolling down her cheeks. “Bravo,” she said brokenly, “and perhaps we have. But pray, do not fret. I can describe myself in one breath: I live a very full life. My work is important. I have enough money, all on my own. I can be perfectly satisfied devoting my life to saving innocent girls from attitudes likes yours.”
He made no response, and it occurred to her that she was finished here. He would hurt her more, the longer she remained. She had only one more thing to say.
“Your proclamations are not law, my lord,” she told him. “Not to me. I will not marry you; you cannot force me. I couldn’t ca
re less about the gossips.” She reached out and took up his hand. Without looking away from his sad, blue eyes, she dropped the engagement ring in his palm.
His fingers had not even closed around it when she turned and strode to the door.
“Oh, no you don’t,” he said through gritted teeth, and she heard him lunge.
She broke left, skirting a table. He went the long way around but was faster. She pivoted right and sprinted a diagonal line. He anticipated this and caught her around the waist, pulling her to him.
“Elisabeth,” he whispered against her hair, “please.” There was a new note of desperation in his voice.
She shook her head against his mouth. “Let me go.”
“You are upset,” he continued, not budging. “I am upset. I feel blindsided and betrayed. I have handled this wrongly, possibly unforgivably. But please, do not do this. It was ambitious, perhaps, to indulge in the fantasy of a marriage with cheerful affection. Life is not so fanciful. We can still marry and succeed.”
She wriggled, trying to break free. “I am already a success. Even better, I am free. It was the only saving grace that came of my parents’ deaths. I have the money to do as I please. You are mad if you think I will marry you.”
“Freedom,” he said on a breath, “is one of the few things that money cannot always buy.” He loosened his hold but did not let her go.
“Oh, yes, how restricted you are.” She gave her arm a yank and pulled free.
“If I intend to build a new reputation for the viscountcy, which I do, then I am very restricted indeed.”
“If you’re so concerned about your reputation, then tell everyone you jilted me. I don’t care. There is your freedom. You invest too much in what these people think about you, Bryson. You are a slave to a way of life that is almost impossible for a flesh-and-blood human to maintain.”
“You’re wrong,” he shot back. “It is entirely possible. You don’t know the value of it, because you were not brought up in the stench and shame of the opposite. Whatever . . . happened that landed you in the brothel that night must have been a mere dot on the chronology of your life. I cling to high standards now because I mucked around in the gutter for too long—for years. Half my life.”
A Proper Scandal Page 18
