“Some of us have learned to listen.” Bliss’s tone was gentle. “In addition, you seem to have been focused on other matters for some years now.”
The husband hunt, she meant. The all-consuming meaning of Elektra’s existence. “It was all I’ve ever cared about. I threw it away tonight, simply tossed it to the winds—all for a kiss from a heinous liar.”
“Oh, I know why you threw it away. I simply wonder why it consumed you in the first place.” Bliss tilted her head, her summer-sky eyes as ingenuous as ever.
“Why?” Elektra stared at her cousin. “You know the state of the manor! You know the wealth it will take to restore it!”
“Yes, of course I do. But why must it be you who sacrifices yourself to rebuild the manor? Why not I? After all, I was just as responsible for the fire as you were.”
“I—what?” It couldn’t be. It wasn’t possible.
It would explain everything. She shook her head, rejecting that thought. “I don’t know what you speak of.”
Bliss folded her hands in her lap, her pose mirroring Elektra’s perfectly.
“I speak of you and me, playing in the drawing room. I speak of two curious little girls, encouraged in their curiosity, I might add—investigating the mechanics of a carriage lantern taken from the stables.”
Elektra stared at her cousin with icy horror rising in her throat. She swallowed desperately, trying to rid herself of that growing realization. “I don’t remember.”
“Just as you don’t remember me. Just as you don’t remember what set you on this path of ruthless self-sacrifice in the first place.”
“But the fire … It consumed everything, not just the drawing room.”
“This may be hard for you to hear now, cousin.”
“Tell me!”
Bliss sighed regretfully. “We did not alert anyone to the fire. We ran away and hid in the woods across the meadow.”
The woods. Huddling in the great branching roots of an oak. Shivering, breathless fear. “I hate those woods. I would never go into them voluntarily.”
“That is how you feel about them now. You used to like them.”
Elektra shook her head violently. “I would never do such a thing! I would never run away and leave my family in danger!”
Those summer-sky eyes gazed at her with pity and understanding. “We were five years of age, cousin. We were infants. No one held us responsible for what happened. Except you, evidently.”
Elektra’s breath left her and would not come back. She covered her face with her hands and bent low over her lap. A shock-filled keen rose in her throat and stayed there, choking her.
It was me. It was always me.
I’ve always known it, haven’t I?
It’s all my fault.
Bliss leaned forward to gently pull Elektra’s hands from where they threatened to tear her face. “It was an accident, cousin. Accidents happen. No one was to blame.”
Bliss wasn’t going to go away until she calmed herself. With every shred of iron will she had developed in this household of strong wills, Elektra forced air in and out of her lungs. She straightened in the chair and relaxed the fists still held in Bliss’s grasp. “Thank you, cousin. Of course, you are quite correct. I understand everything now.”
Bliss released her slowly. Her wide-eyed gaze might seem vapid, but Elektra had the feeling that her serene cousin missed nothing. However, she did nothing to refute Elektra’s words.
“That is good news, cousin.” She stood. “Now, if you will excuse me, I must be off to bed. I am exceptionally weary, for I danced every dance.”
Elektra blinked. I only danced one.
The strange mad giggle threatened once more. Points for Bliss.
At the door, Bliss paused and turned back to her. “I know you are disappointed in yourself for succumbing to such a terrible man. However, he did save my life. I liked him, too. We all did.”
“Except for Dade.”
Bliss nodded. “Except for Daedalus. I expect that that is not so unusual.”
Elektra used the very last of her self-control to offer some kindness back to Bliss, who was not who she’d thought. “I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Bliss. You have been very charitable to me. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
Bliss blinked. “People often do. I imagine you know how that feels.” She turned to leave once more, then turned back again. “As does poor Lord Aaron, I’m sure.” Then she was gone, leaving Elektra in her chilled pit of turmoil.
I have done so much damage in my life—and I am only nineteen! Please, someone stop me before I rain down the end of the world.
She would trade that world for one opportunity to fix what she had broken. She would go back in time to that single moment, the moment when she knew she had passed the point beyond which there was no return.
When was that? When you started the fire, or when you first kissed Lord Aaron?
* * *
Aaron’s body hit the rippling surface of the Thames with hardly even a splash to give away murder in the act. Not that there was anyone near at all. Cas had directed the brothers to a stretch of riverbank off Vauxhall Gardens, currently deserted at this near-dawn hour. Too late for the respectable to be out, too early for the dishonorable to be awake.
As his head slipped beneath the icy, muddy water, Aaron wildly wondered how the Worthington twin had known precisely where one might dispose of an inconvenient soon-to-be dead body.
There would be no rescue, of course. If anyone in London knew what transpired, they would likely gather ’round to watch the death of Black Aaron, nibbling on candy floss and cheering when the bubbles of his last breath rose to the surface.
His wrists were bound with rope, as were his ankles. Feeling himself roll in the water, he flexed his body violently back and forth, fighting for the surface. He’d taken one last good breath as they’d tossed him from the bank, but he’d lost half of it in shock at the freezing water.
Panicking now, he struggled senselessly, his body taking over for a mind frozen with impending doom. He simply writhed in protest, in soundless vehement protest that it wasn’t yet his time, that he didn’t want to die. Twisting and rolling, he lost track of up and down, of surface and distant, filthy bottom.
Then, like a miracle accompanied by angel song, the ropes about his wrists simply parted and fell away. He clawed his way up and up—at least, he prayed it was up!—until his head broke the water and he sucked in a great gasp of fetid river air.
Beautiful.
He kept himself there for several seconds, taking in one great lungful after another of lovely, dank air. Then, he held his breath once more and let himself roll beneath the lapping waves to tug at the ropes around his ankles. They, too, fell away like magic.
No, not like magic. Like a trick knot. The Worthingtons knew their knots, after all. It had been Lysander who had taken the rope from Cas to tie Aaron’s hands in the house, and again to tie his ankles in the carriage.
As Aaron stretched out to swim to the bank in long, powerful strokes, he pondered that notion, but he could think of no other explanation.
Silent, mysterious Lysander, it seemed, was on Black Aaron’s side.
* * *
Aaron was quite sure he was risking another dunking—or worse!—by going back to Worthington House, but every time he considered the alternative, he saw her face in Dade’s study—her chilled, proud expression that in no way hid the slight tremble of her bottom lip.
He had to tell Elektra … something. He couldn’t tell her the real truth of Black Aaron, obviously. He simply couldn’t bear to part ways with her thinking that he’d lied and finagled and kissed her—
You did lie and finagle and kiss her!
Yes, but not for the reasons she thinks!
Those reasons mattered to him. He only hoped they would matter, a little, to her.
Besides, those Worthington louts had kept his horse.
So after he’d climbed out of the revolting river and squeezed
out his clothing, he set out. He crossed the section of London between the Thames and Elektra on foot. By the time he found his way, the sun was well up. Thankfully, his clothing was mostly dry by then.
As he approached the house, limping in the shoes he’d borrowed for the ball the night before, cursing all the Worthington males to the fires of hell, he saw the old family carriage waiting out front. The gray-muzzled team drooped resentfully in the traces, and the clear morning light was not forgiving to the tarnished brasses.
He’d thought his old carriage had been a collection of sticks and varnish, but this one had to precede his by a couple of decades! Cas and Lysander appeared. Aaron stepped back into a shadowed doorway on the other side of the street.
The Worthington lads lugged a battered, strapped trunk between them. When they hefted it carelessly onto the carriage’s baggage rack, the entire conveyance shook like old kindling.
Then Aaron saw Elektra exit the house. She wore a mint-green gown, topped with a dark green spencer and a bonnet trailing hunter-green ribbons.
Her eyes must look like emeralds, wearing that.
Her lethally fashionable ensemble, along with her natural grace, made her look like a princess among the peasants. Her brothers could dress well when required, and Cas’s formal weskit last night had been either fashion-forward or delusional, but today they wore nondescript browns, rather like his own third-best suit.
Then Iris and Archie appeared. Archie was stuffed into the same fine, if slightly shiny-in-spots suit that he’d worn to the ball the night before. Iris wore layers of blue diaphanous fabrics that trailed behind her and fluttered about her so that Aaron got the distinct impression of medieval banners flying. It would have been rather impressive had Iris not wandered dreamily into the street and required Cas’s quick reflexes to snatch her back before someone ran her over.
The whole clan emerged from the house, including Attie and Bliss, and even Philpott, who looked remarkably lucid. Then again, it was early yet. Iris and Archie, along with Elektra, distributed kisses and hugs and then boarded the carriage. Lysander listened to some murmured instructions from Dade, then climbed easily into the driver’s seat. The rickety carriage rolled away with a clatter as the crowd on the walk waved good-bye until it was out of sight.
Aaron drew back into the shadows. A journey of some days, by the looks of the trunk. This could be very good. There would be only one Worthington lout between him and Elektra. If he could discover their destination, he could easily reach it on Lard-Arse before they did.
He didn’t want to cause trouble. He only wished to speak to her for a moment. To apologize, to explain, to beg her forgiveness …
That was all. Truly.
Until Dade put his arm around a sulky-looking Attie. His deep voice came clearly across the street.
“She isn’t getting married quite yet, Attie. She has to accept the proposal first. They are simply going to the Duke of Camberton’s estate to work out the details. She’ll be back in a week.”
Aaron’s jaw hardened. Despite Dade’s words, Aaron knew a formal engagement was as binding as a wedding vow. If Elektra actually accepted the duke, she would have to marry him or be socially destroyed.
Neville, if you sign that betrothal, you will be signing your death warrant. I will never let you touch her.
Well, then. Perhaps he wanted to do a bit more than talk.
* * *
Some minutes later, Aaron had slipped into the stables behind Worthington House. He found that his abductors had thrown his small valise into the stable for Lard-Arse to trample, roll upon, and otherwise violate.
Aaron gratefully changed into his own boots, then saddled the recalcitrant Lard-Arse, who like his new home just fine, thanks for asking. The rangy bay gelding snapped big yellow teeth, managed to step on Aaron’s foot more than once, and delivered annoyed kicks to the crumbling wooden wall of his stall. Aaron cursed the beast quietly and hoped that the Worthington household would merely think Lard-Arse was being his usual obnoxious self.
There were a few close calls as he tried to lead the horse out of the stables into the alley behind the house. Lard-Arse seemed to realize that Aaron meant for him to leave his beloved Bianca behind.
Finally, mounted safely beyond the range of those teeth, Aaron kicked the furious beast into a gallop. For once his luck seemed to be turning, for he made his getaway without anyone the wiser.
Or so he thought.
From the shadowy rafters of the stables swung a pair of skinny, pale legs with scraped knees and boots too large that threatened to drop right off.
Attie chewed the end of one of her many braids and gazed thoughtfully at the open stable door. If she told Dade, then he would ride Icarus out at great speed and stop old Pasty Hastings from ruining Elektra’s betrothal to the duke. Or she could not tell Dade, and let matters develop as they may.
Elektra would surely be furious if her betrothal were mucked up.
Attie lay back on the wide, dusty rafter and chewed a piece of straw. Once upon a time, she had liked nothing better than to enrage Elektra. That was before Callie had left to marry that mad hermit and Attie had begun to realize that her siblings could actually slip away from her.
And it wasn’t as though she disliked Hastings, or Black Aaron, or whatever his name was on Tuesdays after breakfast. Actually she liked him quite a bit, mostly because she detected evident liar and ne’er-do-well about him. She did have a fondness for a fellow mischief maker.
Unfortunately, she had recently come to suspect that this Hastings fellow had nefarious designs upon Elektra’s spinsterhood.
How else did one interpret the way his eyes had followed Elektra around the room? How else to explain the way his hands twitched as her sister walked by, as if he wanted to reach out and brush his fingers across Elektra’s skirt as she moved past him.
There was no possibility of Atalanta willingly giving up another sibling to marriage. She had already proven her determination in that regard. She’d tried projectile weapons, but that had not gone well at all. Poor Callie! Attie’s thoughts shied away from the memory of her beloved eldest sister lying bloody on the moor.
She’d even tried poison, which had gone awry. Callie still lived far away with her rotten Sir Lawrence Porter!
When her darling twin brothers Cas and Poll had fought over a pretty widow, Attie had then attempted benign interference, which had made a bit more progress. That strategic counter-matchmaking, aided by her good friend Button, had gained her a new sister and an incoming niece—which did not precisely even her score but at least did not entirely lose her a brother.
It was all so stupid! No one needed to grow up. No one needed to go away. And certainly, most very definitely, no one needed to go start new families of their own. They were Worthingtons! They had a family—the family that belonged to her.
The very fact that she was gradually being left behind, by sister after brother after sister, was enough to give Attie wakeful nights and lonely afternoons, wandering her swiftly emptying house and considering her options.
If her options in this case meant a choice between some stupid, stuffy duke or good old Black Aaron as a future brother-in-law, at least she knew that Aaron could handle the Worthington world. And even—a fact she admired greatly—sometimes get the upper hand in it!
Chapter Twenty-two
Even as Attie was deciding not to interfere in Aaron’s quest, another set of eyes widened at the sight of the infamous Black Aaron, bruised almost beyond recognition, wearing a filthy rumpled version of formal attire, erupting from the mouth of an alley mounted upon a large, ugly bay horse.
Carter Masterson, on his way to urge Daedalus Worthington to join him in his quest for brotherly vengeance, reined his horse about and took off down the London streets after his enemy, the embodiment of all evil, Lord Aaron Arbogast.
* * *
Elektra chose to ride in the driver’s seat with Lysander. It was a lovely summer day and although a duchess would
never do such a thing, she wasn’t a duchess yet, was she?
Furthermore, Archie and Iris were feeling frisky. Elektra could tell by the way her father kept stroking her mother’s wrist above her glove and the way her mother kept flipping her shawl fringe at him in mock reproach.
The poorly padded driver’s bench was a far more comfortable place to be at the moment.
Love was the last thing Elektra wanted to think about. The heavy weight of her sadness fair to stopped the carriage horses in their tracks. Her poor little beginner heart would be stunted forever, bound in wire, forced back into the shape of Elektra-that-was.
Thank heaven for her brothers, discovering that miscreant in their house before she’d done something irreparably silly, like run off to Gretna Green for a quick, shady ceremony!
It’s lovely there this time of year.
Oh, shut it.
Thank heaven for her brothers. She only hoped they hadn’t been overzealous.
She cleared her throat. “Zander, what did you do with him?”
He did not look away from the road. “Thames.”
Elektra lifted her chin. “Ah.” Then, because she couldn’t be sure, “You tied him up before threw him in, didn’t you?”
Lysander didn’t respond.
Elektra turned to pin her brother in the full force of her gaze. “Zander, you did use the trick knot, didn’t you?” It was the twins’ favorite scare tactic for fellows who owed them winnings.
He didn’t answer for a long time. But even Zander wasn’t immune to her stare. She was aware that her eyes were an unusual color, and their focused intensity could be unnerving to some. It was most useful doled out sparingly, so she saved it for the direst of moments.
He gave a short, tiny nod, his gaze dropping to his hands.
Relief swept her. She had no issue with giving that liar a good fright, but, for a moment there she’d feared her dear brothers had actually killed him on her behalf.
Then, Zander, quietly. “Dade told me not to.”
With This Ring Page 20
