“I-I…” she stammered, cursing herself for her stupidity. Her mind had been so clouded with images of Griffin and worries about their plan she hadn’t taken care of her soiled things.
Hannah dropped the pantalets and came across the room to take both Audrey’s shoulders in her hands. “Please tell me you cut yourself.”
“I cut myself?” Audrey repeated, but the words came out as a timid question rather than a solid fact.
Hannah held her gaze for a long moment, then sighed. “When did it happen? In the carriage or here?”
“Cutting myself?” Audrey asked, her voice suddenly very small. She couldn’t seem to make it stronger.
With a tilt of her head, her friend said, “No. When did you give yourself to Griffin Berenger?”
The blood rushed to Audrey’s face in a hot wave. Her cheeks tingled and head throbbed. The room was suddenly spinning, moving further and further away from her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She trembled as she turned from Hannah’s arms. At the window, cold air was reflected from the glass, but it wasn’t enough to calm her.
“Hmph,” Hannah grunted. “I used to lay on my back for a living, missy. You think I don’t know the sight of virgin’s blood when I see it?”
Audrey drew in a short breath at her friend’s blunt words, then spun around. The other woman had her hands on her hips, one foot tapping from under the hem of her plain gown. She looked every inch a schoolmarm who couldn’t be fooled. Truth was Audrey’s only remaining option.
With a hard swallow, she said, “Hannah, you and I have been through very much together, haven’t we?”
“Yes,” Hannah’s tone was wary.
“You’ve been my… my best friend.”
Hannah’s green eyes filled with tears at those words. “And you’ve been mine.”
“Then promise me you won’t tell Noah what you know.” She grimaced and quickly corrected herself. “What you suspect.”
“You think I’d tell the man? Are you daft, girl? He’d rip Griffin Berenger apart and then where would we be! No, I won’t tell your brother. What is said about this will stay between us.” Her face softened as she reached out a hand. When Audrey took it, she whispered, “I promise you, Audrey.”
“Today in the carriage on the way home from the reenactment.” Audrey dipped her head while heat darkened her cheeks. “That was where… it came about.”
Hannah dropped down into a nearby chair with a thud. “Oh, Lordy. Well, it was bound to happen.”
She cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
Her friend’s answer was a little burst of laughter. “The way you two eye each other, I would have wagered it would have happened much sooner.”
Audrey eyes widened. “That’s absolutely scandalous.”
“Well, I wasn’t the one losing my virtue in a carriage, now was I?” Hannah asked with a twinkle in her eye. “Don’t hold back now, how was it?”
“It was…” Audrey paused, searching for the right word. “It was amazing. Is it wrong to feel that way? I know some of my married friends describe it as awkward and as a duty, but I didn’t feel that way at all. I felt alive.”
A sad smile lifted the corners of Hannah’s mouth. “It isn’t wrong to feel like that, love. In fact, it’s more right than the way those prudes describe it.”
“Is that how it was for you?” she asked softly.
Her friend’s face went a shade paler, and a sadness came into her eyes that made Audrey want to weep. She’d never seen Hannah as fragile as she looked at that moment.
“No, Audrey. It most definitely was not like that for me.” There was an awkward pause. “But what will you do now?”
“Do?” Somehow she really hadn’t thought that far into the future. “I don’t suppose I’ll do anything. Griffin doesn’t love me, and now that he’s had me, his desire is likely out of his system, just as Noah’s desire always fades once he’s had a woman. I’ll continue on with our plans. In fact, my brother just gave me permission to entice Douglas Ellison further. I’m going to try to get him to propose to me.”
Hannah’s eyes went wide. “Even after you shared another man’s bed? How will Lord Berenger feel about that?”
Audrey shrugged one shoulder. How could she explain to her friend that she was ripped apart inside with the knowledge that Griffin would be furious? She wanted to enjoy the memory of what they’d shared, but now it was tainted with the knowledge of what she would soon be forced to do.
“Griffin will have no say in the matter. I may have been his for a short while this evening, but I am not his in reality.”
“You really don’t understand men, do you?” Hannah asked with a short shake of her head.
The laughter in her friend’s tone left Audrey feeling affronted. “What do you mean? I’ve followed Noah around for years, and played the distraction for dozens of men we were investigating.”
“Apparently you’ve learning nothing during that time. Griffin Berenger thought he had a right to comment on your life before you shared yourself with him completely. His interference will only worsen now. When a man loves a woman, he’ll do anything to protect her.” She stood and smiled at Audrey.
“It’s a very good thing he doesn’t love me then, isn’t it?” Audrey snapped back, though her heart gave a queer shiver.
“Mon Dieu,” Hannah sighed as she walked across the room to her door. “You and Lord Berenger certainly share one trait.”
Audrey tilted her head with a snide, “And what is that?”
“You’re both stubborn as the devil himself,” she said, shutting her door with a firm snap.
“Stubborn as the devil,” Audrey muttered under her breath as she flopped into a chair and stared at herself in the mirror. “That shows how much you know Hannah Pikard.”
But in the recesses of her heart, she acknowledged the truth. Stubbornness was one of her worst traits. It had driven her from her parents’ home and into a life of spying. It had forced her to love a man for half a decade, despite the fact he could never love her in return.
Yet Hannah said he did. Griffin, love her? For so long Audrey had believed that was impossible. Now she had to wonder if she’d been wrong all along. And if she believed he could and he let her down, would she be able to recover from the heartache that rejection would cause?
Chapter Thirteen
Griffin balled his hand into a fist and stared at his white knuckles in the fading light of the fire. A half-finished drink sat at his side, untouched for at least an hour. He had no idea why he was still awake. The only excuse he had was that sleep would bring him no peace. If his waking moments were so consumed with Audrey, his dreams were possessed by her. Caught in a web of sleep, he would relive their passionate joining over and over, only to wake alone, frustrated and wanting her more than ever.
“Just as I am right now,” he muttered as he downed the last swig of stale sherry with a grimace.
No, frustrated didn’t even begin to encompass how he felt. After they made love, he’d felt so guilty about stealing Audrey’s innocence that he’d been driven to send her away. Somehow he’d expected her to return to him with accusations and recriminations when the glow had worn off.
But she hadn’t.
Instead, she’d faced off with him in his very own foyer as if nothing had changed. She refused to see reason. She wouldn’t admit that she was in more danger than she knew. Her duties and his desire for her put her in equal peril, yet instead of avoiding them, she sought both out, with a blind belief that she would somehow be safe.
Despite all that, Griffin still had the most overpowering urge to kick in her chamber door and ravish her all night. He wanted to make love to her as she deserved. Not in some confined carriage, but in his bed, spread out across his sheets as he taught her all the different ways she could give and receive pleasure.
“Damn, damn, damn!” He slammed his glass down on the table beside him.
�
�Griffin?”
He stood and turned at the soft voice from the doorway to see Audrey staring at him. She was still in the plain gown she’d worn earlier that evening. While the simple cut and drab color would have made any other woman look dowdy, she looked alive. Her cheeks were rosy with warm color and her eyes darker than he’d ever imagined they could be. She shoved the curls that framed her face behind her ear while she chewed nervously on her lower lip.
He frowned as he realized Audrey had witnessed his outburst. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“Yes.” Her face darkened to an even more appealing pink. “I was having trouble sleeping myself. I didn’t think you’d mind if I went to your library and borrowed the most boring book you have.”
He laughed. “Well, all my father’s old coaching books are still in the West library if you’d like. If I recall you always said they were boring.”
“I can’t believe you remember that,” she said with a chuckle as she took what seemed to be an involuntary step toward him.
He stiffened when he caught a whiff of her scent. Soft and floral, perhaps roses. What he would do to see her in a bath of rose petals. They were still in season, perhaps if he made a few requests…
With a gruff shake of his head, he said, “I remember more than you imagine I do.”
“We had good times here.” She looked around the room. “When I was a girl, I believed this was an enchanted house. I was so very happy when I was here and I was certain that must be the work of fairies.”
He frowned, motioning for her to enter his office and sit beside his dying fire. “Were you not happy elsewhere?”
She sat down in one of the leather seats beside him and shrugged one shoulder. “At times I was very happy. And at others I wasn’t. As I got older I realized what my mother expected of me, and that I could never fulfill those expectations.”
Griffin’s heart ached at the small quiver in her voice. Though her face was calm and free from any indication that the subject was a painful one, her eyes and tone told a different story.
“Noah has told me a bit of what you experienced in your second season in London.” He narrowed his eyes. What would be her reaction to his prying?
She stiffened, turning her face toward the fire so he could only see her in profile. “Did he?”
“Yes, but I’d like to know more about it. Noah said there were rumors…”
“Rumors,” she interrupted, her voice suddenly shrill as she gripped the armrest with a steel fist. “Yes, there were some rumors. You know how people can get, especially in London. They want a story and when they cannot find a real one, they create one.”
“It was more than that, Audrey.” He ran his fingertips across her white knuckles. Immediately she relaxed her hand, and sent him a quick glance. “I know Luci started those rumors.”
A little strangled cry escaped her throat as surged to her feet and rushed across the room to the fireplace. For a long time she didn’t move or speak, just stared into the flames, her trembling back toward him. More than anything he wanted to rise and go to her, to hold her and tell her how sorry he was for anything she’d gone through by his late wife’s hand. Instead, he stayed where he was. He feared touching her would only make her feel worse.
“I wish Noah hadn’t told you that,” she finally murmured, her voice breathless.
Griffin squeezed his eyes shut. He understood that sentiment perfectly. He had always tried to keep his pains and embarrassments private, as well.
“I’m glad he did.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “How much more do you know?”
Arching an eyebrow, he stood slowly. “That you left London in some small level of disgrace. What more is there?”
A tiny shiver wracked her body, but she didn’t turn.
“Audrey?” He moved toward her to take her shoulders and forced her to face him. At the tears glimmering on her cheeks, he frowned. “What more is there?”
Her chin dropped. “Nothing.”
“It’s clearly not nothing.”
She shook her head. “Please don’t make me tell you.”
Taking care to move slowly, Griffin drew her against his chest and held her there, reveling in the way she fit so perfectly in his embrace. “I need to know.”
There was only silence for a moment as the woman in his arms struggled with the words. Griffin could tell she fought against revealing the truth. She wanted to protect him, didn’t want him to feel guilty for Luci’s ruinous slander. As if he couldn’t. If only he hadn’t been so obsessed with Audrey, or if Luci hadn’t been so hateful, perhaps he could have prevented Audrey’s pain.
“Luci… she arranged to have a man attack me. He caught me on a balcony and kissed me. He hurt me. But the way he held me, it looked like I was kissing him, pinning him against the veranda wall.” Her low whisper forced him to strain to hear her words. “When my mother and Luci came outside and found us there, Luci said it proved what a wanton I was.”
Griffin closed his eyes as white-hot hatred raced through his veins. He longed to break something, to wrap his hands around Luci’s lily-white neck and squeeze.
“Go on,” he choked out with as much control as he could muster. He didn’t want Audrey to think his anger or disgust was aimed at her.
“Luci told my mother that if she took me home immediately and never brought me back for another Season that the story wouldn’t get out. What was Mama to do? Your wife held all the cards. So, my mother agreed and we went home.”
A small sob escaped her lips as her fists came around his back and she held him closer to her.
Closing his eyes, Griffin held back a snarl of displeasure. “I never knew Lucinda would go so far.”
“I did.” Pushing back from his chest, she wiped her eyes. “I knew from the moment she told me she would have her revenge that she wouldn’t rest until I was destroyed. Even though I had no chance to be with you, she refused to see me happy. So she took away any chance I had to marry well and sent me home in disgrace.”
She pulled away, leaving Griffin empty in her wake.
“When did she vow to get you?”
“The day I… kissed you,” she said with a blush as she fiddled with the little clock on the mantel. “Your wedding day.”
“Damn her.” He turned away so she wouldn’t see his furious face. One by one, he clenched his fingers back into a fist. “Damn her to hell for all the pain she caused.”
Audrey shook her head as she spun on her heel to face him. Her face was free of any of the malice he, himself, felt.
“No, don’t say that. My troubles with her shouldn’t color your memories. You shared five years with her, and the baby who died with her would have been a gift. Don’t damn her now, try to remember how happy you were with her then.”
Shutting his eyes, Griffin tried to do as she asked and remember a happier time with Luci. To his surprise, he couldn’t. Not even their wedding day, when his focus had shifted to Audrey’s kiss.
His courtship with Luci had been swift and proper, and now it seemed like a dream. No, his memories of Lucinda were only of the grief she’d caused him.
He remembered his wife’s laughter when he’d discovered her infidelity. Her wickedly phrased threats and promises to ruin his reputation and his family name. Her smile when she told him she was pregnant with another man’s baby, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
“Griffin?”
He opened his eyes to find Audrey had come closer to him, holding out her hand to touch his arm.
“What is it?” she whispered. “You look so angry.”
“I’ll tell you,” he promised. He took the hand she held out to him to raise it to his lips. Her presence calmed his rage. “But not tonight. Tonight I want you to tell me why you ran away from the marriage your parents arranged for you after my wife spoiled your chances in London.”
Her face fell. “My brother has been talking.”
Leading her back to her chair, he sa
t down beside her. “Does that bother you? Does it bother you that I know so much about your past?”
“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “It troubles me that I know so little about yours, especially when there are so many innuendos. But if you say you’ll tell me another night, I trust you.”
A thrill passed through Griffin at those words. Audrey trusted him. Despite everything Luci had done to her and despite his own barbarian ways of protecting her.
Her sigh brought his focus back to her face. She stared at the floor as she plucked at the hem of her sleeve. Her voice was almost a whisper when she said, “When we returned to the country, my mother was very upset. She was determined to marry me off before my problems could hurt my sister Ginny and her chances to wed well. She and my father made an arrangement with Squire Jonas Teetle.”
“Jonas Teetle?” Griffin repeated, trying to put a face to the name Audrey had said. When he did, he winced. “Wait, Tepid Teetle?”
“The very one.” She sighed again. “Pale as snow, weak as lukewarm tea, Jonas Teetle. He needed a wife, preferably one with a fortune and a prestigious bloodline. According to my parents, I needed a husband without a hint of scandal… or personality… to him. In their eyes, we were the perfect match.”
She said it with such little feeling that Griffin had to chuckle. “You make it sound like heaven.”
After a surprised pause, Audrey joined him in the laughter. “Oh, heaven on earth.” The sarcasm dripped from her every word.
“So what happened to destroy your little utopia?”
She smiled. “By that time, Noah had returned from an assignment with a mild injury. He could see how miserable I was. To keep my mind off my troubles, he asked me to help him. It started off with my filing papers, then more. By the time he’d healed and was ready to return to fieldwork, I was aching to escape with him. So I did.”
The Secrets of a Lady (The Jordans) Page 14
