She stiffened beneath his caress. “You were her betrothed.”
Not by choice, he nearly said aloud. But he swallowed the words. What good would his protestations do him now? She was determined to cast him as the villain of their little tragedy, when the true villain no longer walked among them.
“I was Lady Amelia’s betrothed,” he reluctantly agreed, permitting himself to continue touching Sarah.
Just his hand cupping her left cheek, nothing more. But after so long, so many nights spent aching and wondering, now that he once more knew the supple smoothness of her skin beneath his, he could not bear to disengage from her. Not yet. In his dreams, not ever.
But dreams, too, were a pestilence. In sleep, a man could not govern his own mind. In wakefulness, he had a bloody chance. Though it seemed he could no more rule himself now than he could trapped in the abyss of slumber.
“No one other than you could have been responsible for the desperate circumstances in which she found herself,” Lady Sarah argued. “She told me, after all. She told me you had ruined her.”
Of course Amelia would have done so. He ought to have guessed as much.
“Your sister was not precisely well-versed in the art of truth,” he said bitterly, unable to help himself.
Sarah gasped. “I ought to have known you would lie when confronted.”
“I am telling you the truth,” he argued, outraged at the injustice of it all. Not only had Amelia’s manipulations kept him from Sarah, but she was even playing the bloody puppet master from the grave. “I would never have bedded her. After what she did to me, I could scarcely even look upon her, let alone desire her.”
“After what she did to you?”
His patience fled. He longed to see Sarah’s face, all of it, without the encumbrance of her mask. Fitting his thumb beneath the scrap of fabric keeping him from the sight of her, he captured the silk and tugged. It loosened and fell heavily to the floor, weighed down by the jewels covering it. The sight of her, all at once, hit him with the force of a fist.
He swallowed. Tamped down his raging need. He had never wanted to kiss her more. But he knew he could not.
Philip made a rash decision then. Honesty. He would tell her what she had refused to hear two years ago, allow it to spring free between them. Let her decide what she would. “Regardless of what you believe of me, I did not intentionally compromise your sister, Sarah. I was not in love with her. My heart beat for another. It still does.”
Ask me, he begged her with his eyes. Ask me who owns my heart.
After all, she had come to him, invading his ballroom first and then his private sphere—the only place where he could be alone with his thoughts and his endless regrets. Though she had come in anger and hatred, determined to believe the worst of him, she had crossed the unspoken boundaries they had erected between each other.
But she did not ask.
Instead, she jerked away from his touch, her eyes flashing with fire, darkening in her anger. “How do you dare, my lord?”
“I dare, my lady,” he returned, “just as you have done, at great risk to yourself. It was most unwise of you to come here and to follow me into my private quarters. You ought to go.”
“You seduced her,” she accused, ignoring his warning.
He was drawn to Sarah. Restless. Wrought with pent-up energy and confusion. He had spent the last two years in misery. And he had not expected her here, within his private chambers, this very evening. Indeed, he had supposed to never see her again. The shock of her to his senses continued to undo him.
“I seduced no one,” he denied angrily. Hell, the last woman he had kissed had been Sarah, and the only reason he had held this damned ball tonight was because his good friend Monty had insisted he needed more distraction. “I can assure you that, whilst I may have compromised her, necessitating our betrothal, I never did anything untoward where she was concerned. I did not desire her in such a fashion.”
“You did not desire her?” Sarah laughed then, as if he had just issued the most ludicrous statement she had ever overheard. “What rubbish. Everyone desired her. She was more beautiful than anyone I have ever known.”
Indeed, Lady Amelia had been lovely, but her cunning had outshone her beauty. “There was another who captured my eye, who was not just every bit as exquisite, but even more so. A woman who was daring and bold, intelligent and witty, as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. She held me in her thrall then, just as she does now, and I can assure you the woman in question was not your heartless witch of a sister.”
Sarah looked at him as if he were a criminal who could not be trusted to avoid riffling through her reticule for loose coin. She did not trust him. Not one whit. He could not blame her. He knew better than anyone how betrayed she must have felt. He had spent three blissful weeks courting Sarah, after all, only to find himself miserable and betrothed to her sister instead.
“Who?” Sarah asked then, her tone harsh. “Who was it who stole your attention, my lord?”
He could not have what he wanted. And regardless, Lady Sarah had made it apparent she did not want him. She loathed him, thanks to her sister’s coldhearted deceptions. He could not fault Lady Sarah for her poor opinion of him. She was kindhearted and good, always believing the best in everyone. Of course, she would believe her beloved sister over him, the man who had seemingly betrayed her.
“I do not owe you my confession, my lady,” he forced out. “Suffice it to say my impending union with your sister was not a love match. If she was indeed with child, I must only consider myself relieved to have avoided the burden of a faithless wife I little wanted in the first place.”
The stinging slap Lady Sarah delivered to his face took him by surprise. Though she possessed an impressive amount of strength and her attack smarted, he ground his molars and forced himself to remain calm.
“How dare you suggest Amelia was anything but true to you?” she demanded.
He did not miss the tears swimming in her hazel eyes. The sight of her pain diminished his, filling him with a punishing waterfall of regret. His intent had never been to hurt her. He still recalled the pained expression upon her face that awful day, had dreamt it in a hundred nightmares since.
No, even if she was furious at him—and wholeheartedly wrong in her every opinion of him—he would never, ever cause her further heartache. He had only ever wanted to protect her. To love her. To make her his countess.
“I do not suggest your sister was untrue,” he said, gentling his voice. “You have come to me tonight with accusations, casting aspersions upon my character and honor, my lady. I will own my sins, every last one of them. But I promise you, I never so much as kissed Lady Amelia during our betrothal. I tell you this truly—if she was with child, I was not the sire.”
She stared at him, her expression as impenetrable as if she still wore her mask. “More lies. You truly expect me to believe you never kissed her when I have knowledge of the ease with which you bestow your kisses?”
Her blow hit him as she had intended, delivering a stinging pain to him just as surely as if she had slapped him a second time. To hell with being polite. He was fast losing his control.
His inner fury made him break. “I have not kissed another woman since you.”
She flinched, her face paling. “It is my deepest regret that I was as weak to your predations as I was.”
How had they found themselves here, two bitter shells attacking each other? Separated by years of loneliness and despair, by lies and rage?
He found his voice once more. “Regardless of your regrets, Lady Sarah, what happened cannot be changed to suit your whims. I cannot bend it to match the lies your sister fed you.”
“Amelia did not lie,” she insisted. “She told me you had seduced her.”
Philip’s mind struggled to make sense of the information she had just imparted. If she said her sister had been with child when she died, and that a miscarriage had been the true cause of her death, he be
lieved her without question. Her rancor could not be feigned. But there was a mystery begging to be unraveled. Who had been the father of Lady Amelia’s child?
No part of the convoluted tale Lady Sarah had confronted him with made sense, and now that the past had been reawakened, he could not deny the part of him that wanted answers. His life had been upended by the selfish deceptions of one woman, which had ruined his chance at happiness with another. Surely there was a reason Sarah had come back into his life now. If nothing else, perhaps he could at last find the peace that had been eluding him for so long.
“I was told Lady Amelia was ill,” he remembered. “A lung infection. Your father met with me himself. He told me she suffered from chronic lung infections her whole life, and that the last one had been too forceful, claiming her.”
“Father told you Amelia suffered from lung infections?” she asked.
“That is precisely what he relayed to me.” A grim weight crept over him. “His Grace was over-wrought at the time, but I am quite certain my memory is not so tarnished that I cannot recall what was spoken to me two years ago.”
“Are you suggesting my father prevaricated as well as my sister?” she asked, her tone accusatory. Her eyes flashed with some indefinable emotion. “And I am to believe you, the roué who courted me and then compromised my own sister?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “I am, and you are. If your sister was with child, I was never informed of her state, and nor was I the cause of it, my lady. In truth, your sister pretended an injury and then tripped me, pulling me atop her. I am to blame for being foolish enough to believe her. But that is the truth, plain and simple, and everything you have told me this evening suggests the reason—at long last—why your sister would act as she had. She was with child, the father was either unsuitable or would not wed her, and she was desperate.”
The fight seemed to flee Lady Sarah. Her shoulders sagged. Her lips compressed. The vivacity leached from her countenance. “If what you say is true, then everything I have believed all this time has been a lie.”
Before he could answer, she spun away from him and disappeared through the hidden door, fleeing back out into the ballroom without her mask.
Cursing, he bent down and retrieved it before snapping on his gloves and chasing after her.
Chapter Three
Sarah realized her error too late.
Her mask was gone, leaving her face open for the curious gazes of her fellow revelers behind the safe anonymity of their respective masks. The crush of the guests in the ballroom suddenly seemed to make her feverish. Perspiration left her palms damp as she gripped the silk skirt of her gown. The burning chandeliers overhead were unnaturally hot, the evening gowns of the ladies in attendance garishly bright. Everything blurred before her, a roaring sound rushing in her ears.
Murmurings rose up around her.
Is not that Lady Sarah Bolingbroke?
Such a dreadful tragedy, her sister Lady Amelia.
The last words that reached her made her stomach clench.
She has already taken Lady Amelia’s place in society. Mayhap she is aiming to wed the earl as well?
The Earl of Markham? Do you suppose?
I thought he was in mourning for Lady Amelia.
Trading one sister for another, perhaps?
The ensuing titters made her blood boil.
Why had she allowed Markham to touch her? More importantly, why had she let him remove her mask? She had known the risk to her reputation in attending his masque unchaperoned. She had understood it was dangerous to seek him out, to confront him, and yet she had anyway, putting her very future at risk.
Why?
Because she had burned with the need to make him pay for what he had done to Amelia. Her sister had been her closest confidante, her sole source of female support aside from their mother, and Sarah would not ever truly recover from Amelia’s loss, just as she would not recover from Mama’s, a scant few months following Amelia’s. Her desire for vengeance had been all-consuming. It had been her motivation for facing each day, for carrying on, even with Amelia gone.
Sarah moved blindly through the ballroom, seeking an escape, and finding only more stares and whispers, more bodies in her way. And she could not stave off any longer the questions churning through her, either.
What if what Markham had claimed was true, that he was not the man who had seduced Amelia? What if all the hatred festering inside her, the determination to bring his fiery reckoning down upon him, had been for naught? What if all the anger had been misplaced?
Did she dare believe him, a man who had proven himself nothing but inconstant? A man who had kissed her so sweetly, then courted her, and promised her his undying devotion, before compromising her own sister? A man who her sister claimed had ruthlessly seduced her?
Unless…
Unless, Amelia had lied.
No. Sarah could not believe her sister would deceive her in such a fashion. Amelia had known how swiftly and deeply Sarah had fallen for Markham, because Sarah had told her the night of the Bellingham ball.
“And why do you look as if your head is nestled in the stars?” Amelia had asked, her tone slightly stinging. “I noticed no suitors surrounding you this evening.”
The smile on Sarah’s lips had been full and true. “I received my first kiss tonight.”
“From?”
She had sighed. “The Earl of Markham.”
Suddenly, as if conjured from her tortured musings, there he was, his tall, imposing figure blocking her path. He still wore his mask, but she could discern him from his fellow lords with ease. There was only one man who could command the ballroom with his mere presence.
“Dance with me,” he ordered her.
How dare he? Even with the confusing riot of emotion coursing through her, she would sooner accept such an offer from a footman. “No.”
He bowed to her with a courtly elegance that belied his brawny body and stole her unwilling admiration. How she despised him, how handsome he was, how effortless his manners. How she detested her body’s sinful reaction to him, even after all this time and all that had happened. Shame washed over her, dousing even her anger. He was forbidden to her now just as always. Why did he have the power to make her want him? To make her weak?
“Please, my lady,” he entreated, his voice low. “Everyone is watching.”
A cursory glance over his shoulder proved the ladies and gentlemen in attendance this evening had parted to observe the spectacle she was creating. Surely, a lady, unmasked, was not that rare a sight at the Earl of Markham’s ball. But she was also unchaperoned, dressed as a ghost, and Markham had once courted her until he had compromised her sister and thrown her over.
She was the ugliness of the past unearthed and torn from the grave.
And perhaps, worst of all, she was mistaken. Perhaps she had just ruined herself. Still, she had her pride. She also had the hope no one would realize she had materialized this evening, uninvited and unaccompanied both.
Then again, if she ruined herself, what would it matter? What did she have to lose? A loveless society match Father would foist upon her?
“My lady,” the earl persisted, interrupting the inner battle she waged.
“I will not touch you, my lord,” she spat. “I would not dance with you if you were the last man in Christendom.”
“After your recklessness this evening, I may indeed be precisely that for you,” he warned, his jaw clenched. “You must dance with me or lose any hope of salvaging your reputation. If you cut me now, it will be noted. And if you are here alone, it will also be noted.”
“Dancing with you would only further ruin my reputation,” she charged, “but regardless, I do not care about my reputation. I care about my sister.”
“And if what you told me this evening is true, then there is only one way in which you can get justice for her,” he charged softly. “I can help you, Lady Sarah. Let me, I beg you.”
Him? Help her? Sara
h’s nostrils flared. Her lips opened to deny Markham’s entreaties. For so long, she had battled her feelings for this man—first, a blinding, all-consuming love. Then, betrayal and rage when he had compromised Amelia. And later, hatred for the man she believed had seduced her sister, ultimately leading to her death.
But his protestations returned to her once more, haunting her.
What if he was innocent?
What if he had not been the father of Amelia’s child after all?
What if the man responsible for her death was gadding about London in blissful anonymity, and she had cast her need for vengeance upon the wrong person? Sarah had to admit it was possible. Amelia had never confided in her entirely. She had fed Sarah scraps of information, and she had willingly accepted them. Amelia’s journals had been packed away with her belongings, and they perhaps contained more of the story, but she had been too torn apart by Amelia’s loss to read them. The story had seemed quite obvious, the villain clear.
“I do not want your help,” she told him.
Before he could answer, the orchestra struck up a waltz with a sudden vehemence, disrupting her musings. The dance was from the Continent, largely frowned upon in London. Of course, Markham would see that it was played at one of his balls since he possessed not a modicum of decency. Sarah did not dare dance it with him.
Markham, however, was not inclined to wait for her to puzzle over her decision, or to attempt to find clarity in the murky situation in which she now found herself. He took her in his arms.
She gasped, clutching at him, before she attempted to wrest herself away.
But the earl held firm, his large hand splayed over the small of her back, and his other hand holding tightly to hers, a smile that did not reach his distinctive eyes ever-present upon his lips. “I would strongly caution you to rein yourself, my lady. Whatever you believe me guilty of, your reputation is currently dangling by a very fine thread, considering the nature of my guests this evening.”
She swallowed at that. “The nature of your guests?”
The Midnight Hour: All-Hallows’ Brides Page 18
