“Don’t you touch me. Don’t you dare.” She took a deep breath and struggled to gain control. “How am I supposed to believe you when you’ve lied to me from the very first?”
“He’s telling you the truth, Amelia,” Philip said.
She swung her gaze to her brother. “And I am to believe you? You, my own brother, who apparently knew this secret all along but helped him keep it a secret.”
“Don’t be mad at your brother. I’m sure he thought I told you,” Colin said.
“Actually, I suspected you hadn’t,” Philip mumbled. “But it seemed harmless enough to me that you didn’t know, Amelia.”
“Harmless?” she huffed. “You thought it harmless to not know that I was no more than a pawn for the duke to not lose his fortune?”
She balled her hands into fists, wanting so badly to box Philip and Colin’s noses, but she was sensible. Or at least she used to be. Her chest tightened unbearably as she focused on Colin. She stepped toward him, wanting him to hear clearly hear every word.
“Well, Your Grace, you will be pleased with yourself to know I have changed as you predicted just not the way you predicted. I will never marry a man with a title. You are a twisted, dishonest group who wouldn’t know true love if…if…if it slapped you in the face!”
And with that, her sensible side fled, and she smacked Colin as hard as she could before abruptly turning on her heel and marching toward the house.
Behind her, footsteps pounded, so she swung around to be met with the sight of Colin racing toward her. She held up her hand to stay him in his progress. Thank goodness he listened for once and stopped. “Do not come near me,” she said, her voice quivering. “There is not a word you can utter I will believe. I am going home, and I don’t want to ever see you again.”
Philip started to move, but she shook her head. She was so angry with her brother that she didn’t want him around, either. “Please stay here, Philip. I know I cannot order you to, but I am so angry with you that I simply wish to be alone for a bit.”
Philip nodded.
With her heart wrenching in her chest and tears blurring her vision, she hurried up the stairs to find Lady Langley and request Colin’s aunt lend her coachman and carriage to take Amelia home. Now. This instant. She had to get away. She didn’t care about leaving with any of her things. Philip could bring them back eventually. All she cared about was putting distance between herself and Colin immediately.
Colin started after Amelia once again, but someone grabbed him from behind. He swung around and glared at Harthorne while ignoring Scarsdale, who was standing there, as well. “Let go, damn it.”
“I wish I could, but you have to adhere to her wishes. Just as I do. Besides, there is nothing you could say at this moment that she is going to believe.”
“I have to try. I love her. I swear I do.” Colin jerked his arm away, but as he turned back toward the house, someone tackled him from behind and crushed him to the ground. With a roar, he tried to flip over, but a knee dug into his spine.
“Give her time, Aversley,” Scarsdale said from on top of Colin.
Colin yanked his head out of the grass, and as he did, he caught sight of his aunt’s carriage pulling away down the side drive. His pulse exploded with the surety that Amelia was fleeing from him at this very moment. He bucked up and threw Scarsdale off him. Colin sprinted toward the house and didn’t stop. He threw open the door from the garden and raced down the hall toward the front door, almost colliding with a servant as he ran. Behind him, footsteps pounded. He’d bloody kill Scarsdale if the man so much as breathed on him again.
Colin rounded the corner into the foyer and went sliding on the slick floor, almost crashing into the door, and unfortunately, colliding with the footman. By the time Colin was up again and out the front door there was nothing to see in the driveway except the dust from the carriage wheels and his aunt, who, turning to look at him, simply shook her head and brushed past. “Give her some time, Aversley,” she murmured. “Give her time. But truly, when you do go to her, please do try complete and utter honesty.”
Colin was left standing in the driveway alone. For a moment, he couldn’t seem to move. Hopelessness rooted him to the spot. Even if he went after her she wouldn’t believe him. He should have told her of the will from the very start. He knew that, but knowing it now didn’t do him any good.
A question burned his mind as he stood there. Had Scarsdale been referring to the will? He hadn’t seemed surprised when Colin told Amelia of it. If Scarsdale had known about the will,
Harthorne had to have told him. But why would Harthorne do such a thing?
Behind him, footsteps thudded down the stairs and then clopped against the pea-gravel drive. Colin tensed his fists by his sides, his body screaming. He knew it had to be Harthorne or Scarsdale or both behind him.
Turning slowly, he concentrated on Harthorne. “Did you tell Scarsdale my private affairs?”
Harthorne nodded. “I’m sorry, Aversley. I was only trying to help, but I’ve mucked everything up. I ran into Scarsdale at White’s, and it was clear to me that the man truly wanted to make amends with you, and I thought perhaps he was just the man to make you realize you didn’t want to lose Amelia or marry her, as it seemed you had convinced yourself from the beginning, simply not to lose your fortune. So I told him of the wager and of your father’s will. It never occurred to me that you hadn’t told her. I, well, hell…” Harthorne shook his head. “I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have never thought to manipulate you and my sister to bring you together.”
Colin couldn’t make himself stay angry at Harthorne. Everything the man had done had been in an effort to help his sister and Colin. But Scarsdale…
Colin narrowed his eyes on the man who had bedded his mother, and a welcome fire spread through his body. “You.” He spat the word. “It’s high time you got the beating you so richly deserve for sleeping with my mother and now for destroying any chance I had with Amelia.”
Scarsdale’s nostrils flared. “I never meant to―”
“Shut up,” Colin barked, stripping off his coat.
“Aversley, you can’t mean to fight Scarsdale.”
Colin yanked off his cravat, the material burning his skin with the vicious jerk. “I mean to beat him to a bloody pulp,” he said, never taking his eyes off Scarsdale. “Unless you’re scared?”
Scarsdale answered by pulling off his coat and cravat, as well.
Within moments, both men stood shirtless with their fists up. “Harthorne, go inside and make sure my aunt is occupied, if you please. This is between me and Scarsdale.”
“Aversley, you cannot be serious.”
Colin’s heart hammered, the beat drumming in his ears. “Deadly.”
“Scarsdale, surely you have more sense than this?” Harthorne demanded.
“Not a bit. If he wants a fight, I’m more than willing to give him one.”
Colin curled his lips back at the duke. “You always were so willing to give.”
“At least go to Gentleman Jackson’s and box each other with gloves,” Harthorne begged.
“No,” both men replied at once.
Harthorne threw up his hands. “All right, you imbeciles. I sincerely hope one of you doesn’t kill the other. I’ll be inside having a glass of whiskey while the two of you are out here pounding each other in the face. I always knew I was the smartest of the three of us.”
As Harthorne stomped off, Colin faced Scarsdale. “Ready?”
“For years now,” Scarsdale replied.
Colin threw a punch, straight, fast, and bone crushing, and Scarsdale’s nose immediately spurted blood. “That was for sleeping with my mother.”
Scarsdale wiped a hand across his face, leaving a smear of blood. He spit and then smiled gruesomely at Colin. “I deserve that. And much more.”
“Shut up and fight me. If you’re going to stand here talking I’ll simply start punching you.”
Scarsdale swung out an
d connected with Colin’s lip. Blood filled Colin’s mouth, and numbing pain danced across his tingling lips and his jaw. The expected throbbing immediately set in.
As Colin spit out a mouthful of blood, Scarsdale said, “I vow never to try to talk to you again if you can best me right here and now. But if I win, you must listen to me for no more than five minutes. Give me the chance to apologize and explain some things.”
“What the devil needs explaining?” Colin growled, dancing left and right before sending his fist into Scarsdale’s gut.
The duke doubled over, wheezing. After a second, he came up grim faced. He took a short, ragged breath, and said, “You’ll never know if you don’t agree to my terms.”
“Since there is no chance in hell you could best me ever, you have yourself a d―”
Scarsdale’s fist crashed into Colin’s right eye before he could complete the sentence. Bright stars appeared in his eyes for a second before his vision turned blurry then black. The dizzying pain consuming the entire right side of Colin’s head made him sway. He gripped his head for a moment, sure the bloody thing was about to come unhinged from his body. Once he felt certain he wasn’t going to fall over, he tried to open his eye to no avail. “You jackanapes. I should have known you’d use tricks.”
“You should have,” Scarsdale agreed. “But you always were the more honorable of the two of us. Do you want to keep going or call me the winner?”
“What do you think?”
Scarsdale pressed his lips together. “You cannot see out of one eye. I’ll kill you.”
“That might be a good thing, since you’ve driven away the only woman I have ever and will ever love.” Taking a ploy from Scarsdale’s fighting book, Colin delivered a hard strike to the man’s jaw. The duke teetered, looked about to fall over, but somehow came up fast and swung out, connecting with the right side of Colin’s head again.
The blow knocked Colin to the ground. A high-pitched noise commenced in his right ear as he struggled to sit up. Suddenly, Scarsdale thrust his hand at him.
“Your aunt is running this way. I do believe our match is up.”
Colin nodded. His aunt would bodily fling herself between them if she had to in order to stop the fight. “Draw?”
“Only if I can have my five minutes.”
“It will be the only five minutes you ever get, but since it’s a draw, it is only fair.” Colin waved to his aunt, who was still some distance away, to a stop. “We’ve quit, Aunt Jane.” He swayed as he spoke. That last blow had done something odd to him. He felt as if his mind was slowing down.
“Say what you will quickly,” he said, trying to focus on Scarsdale.
“I’m not offering excuses for what I did. It eats at me every day. But I want you to know that your mother… Well, I don’t think she was in her right mind that night. I’ve thought about it over the years, and she’d had a great amount to drink, and she kept calling me by your father’s name and talking to me as if I were him. I, well, hell…”
He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, or at least Colin thought he did. Colin’s vision was tunneling in the one good eye.
“I was lonely. So was she. It just happened, but it never should have and I have regretted it every damn moment since. I’m sorry.”
Colin nodded, and when he did pain shot out from the base of his skull to the entire right side of his face, down the slope of his neck and then burrowed into the muscles of his shoulders. A sudden wave of nausea rolled through him. He couldn’t see Scarsdale very well, but the anguish in his voice was clear, and it was the man’s agony that pierced through Colin’s hatred. It was time to let it go.
“I forgive you,” he said right before his vision went completely black, and the outside world seemed to disappear.
Colin heard voices as the blackness receded. He opened the one eye he could and― What the devil? He stared at his mother standing above him and shut his eye again. He had to be hallucinating. He slowly opened his left eye, but his stomach seized on itself. Saliva filled his mouth along with the bitter taste of sickness. When the feeling settled, Colin attempted to push himself to a sitting position, but his arms refused to cooperate, and dizziness overcame him from the attempt. He collapsed face-first into the pea gravel and, grunting, rolled himself onto his back. His head pounded so fiercely his teeth ached.
He pinched the bridge of his nose as he struggled to breathe. Suddenly, a soft hand touched his cheek. “Darling, what have you done?”
Darling? His left eye flew open, causing intense pain to seize his head once again, but he forced himself to try to focus on his mother. Mother? Had she just called him darling? She had to have been at the bottle.
“What are you doing here?” he managed to ask, though his throat felt as if someone had rubbed sand in it.
“I was looking for you. My butler told me you had stopped by. Why are you doing this now, after all these years?”
“Needed to be done,” he forced through gritted teeth. Ringing had commenced in his ears, making it hard to think.
“Oh, Colin, my sweet boy. How I failed you.”
Colin squinted up at his mother. All three of her. “Colin? Sweet boy?”
She flushed but nodded. “Why didn’t you quit after―” She pointed to his eye.
He blinked, trying to push back the black spots appearing in his vision again. “Wanted the pain.”
“But your face, darling.” She touched his eye, and he jerked away.
“You’ll have a scar.”
“Good,” he muttered, his vision almost totally black now. Jesus, he hoped he wasn’t going blind. The ground seemed to be swaying under him, but at least this time he was already on his back. He pressed his hands into the gravel, letting the coolness seep into his palms as he struggled to push back the consuming darkness. “Maybe they won’t want me anymore.”
“Who, darling? Who won’t want you?”
Who indeed. He didn’t know. His thoughts were too cloudy. Pictures floated in his mind one by one. Women. Countless women he had slept with. The noise in his ears roared, and his vision was black as pitch now. He gave up the fight and shut his eye. Amelia’s face floated before him―sweet, smiling, lost to him forever. Her face faded, and when it was gone, he let his body relax.
Amelia plodded up the steps to her home bone weary and with a heart that felt significantly heavier and smaller than the day she had left for London. Colin had lied to her, and she had left him. And he had said he loved her. Her throat tightened, but she pushed back the tears that had plagued her for the past two days of travel. Surely, he had just been saying that out of fear that she was going to flee. Surely, he had not really meant it.
Thank goodness, she was home. Hopefully, her mother would be feeling immensely better and be her old chattering self.
Amelia sighed. Being alone had left her with entirely too much time to analyze everything when her goal had been to forget. Yet, try as she might to fight it, the doubt that had gnawed at her every moment since she had hastily jumped in Lady Langley’s carriage seized her again. What if Colin is telling the truth? She tried to silence the inner voice, but it was having none of that. Would you have told yourself the truth if you were in Colin’s shoes?
She shivered as she opened the front door, though the house was rather warm. Ever since she had fled, she had not been able to get warm. Her teeth chattered in response to her thoughts. Would I have told me the truth were I him? Blast that voice.
“Mother,” she called, but only silence greeted her. Amelia plodded up the stairs but paused midflight. You pride yourself in being so sensible, that voice sneered.
“All right,” she muttered, as she continued up the stairs. “I will think sensibly.” If Colin loved her why had he not followed her? You told him not to, the voice reminded her. Yes, but if he really loved her, he would have followed anyway. He would have done everything in his power to explain. That’s what she would have done if she were him and she had hidden such a thing.
&
nbsp; If she were being logical and not thinking purely with her emotions, she could possibly understand why he might have been wary to tell her about his father’s will when he had told her of the wager. A pang of regret filled her.
She paused at her mother’s bedroom door. Inside, she could hear the sound of someone scurrying back and forth. Pushing open the door, she frowned at her mother, who was standing over her bed, gazing down at a pile of dresses. “Whatever are you doing?”
Her mother whirled toward her, her eyes glassy. Deep creases appeared in her brow. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s a long, sad tale and one I would rather not go into right now,” she said, plopping on her mother’s bed.
“Has Philip won the wager?”
Amelia shook her head. “The wager has been called off, Mother.”
All the color fled from her mother’s face. “You have to leave at once!” her mother said, reaching out and tugging at Amelia.
“Have you been in the laudanum?” Amelia demanded, shocked that her mother was trying to get her to leave and didn’t even have any questions for her.
Mother shook her head, tears pooling in her eyes.
Amelia allowed her gaze to drift around the room. The chamber was in a shambles. Rumpled bedcovers. Dead flowers in the vase. Stale water, by the smell in the air. And on the stand beside the bed several bottles littered the dark wood. The clear bottle with the red laudanum label made Amelia’s stomach clench, as much because it was empty as the fact that there were two more beside it. “Mother, how much laudanum have you been taking?”
Her mother’s mouth opened and closed as if she did not know what to say, and the tears in her eyes started to trickle down her cheeks. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, Mother!” Amelia cried, embracing her.
But her mother squirmed out of her hold. “Amelia, you have to leave.”
“No,” Amelia said. “I just got home, and I am very tired. And by the looks of it”―she glanced around the filthy room with a shudder―“I’m here none too soon. I will not move even an inch until you tell me what is going on.”
My Fair Duchess (A Once Upon A Rogue Novel Book 1) Page 26
