Three women and their attending maids looked up as she entered, but she quickly sequestered herself near a corner where a basin and ewer of water had been arranged. The remnants of panic would linger for some time, she knew, unless she paid attention to her breathing. Closing her eyes and pressing a cool cloth to the back of her neck, Imogen did just that.
To her relief, Ronan had bitten back whatever questions he had about Silas. How long the reprieve would last, she wasn’t certain. And her parents would be arriving in London in a handful of days. Imogen pinned the inside of her cheek between her teeth. What if her father thought to renew his acquaintance with Silas? He’d been so distraught when his young steward had, as her father had put it, “lost his way.” Of course, he didn’t know the truth of the matter. Imogen had never told him what occurred, and she never would.
She squeezed the damp cloth in her fist, frustrated beyond words. She’d worked so hard, so relentlessly, to move forward from what Silas had done to Belinda. What he’d done to her. And yet here it was, rearing its ugly head, breathing fire at her.
She set the damp cloth into a basket on the floor next to the vanity. At least her heartbeat had slowed, and she felt marginally better. By now, Ronan would be waiting for her in the foyer with her cloak. She regretted not asking him to meet her outside of the retiring room but shook off the weak thought. She could make her way to the foyer alone. She would be perfectly fine. Thirteen years of independence would not be shattered tonight.
Imogen stood from the padded chair and moved in the direction of the door. Swiftly, she made her way down the vacant hall. And came to a dead halt. Silas stood in front of her. Imogen’s already thready pulse came to a complete, sputtering stop. Her body went cold.
“I thought I might find you here,” he said and, with a smooth motion, dragged her uncooperative body into a narrow corridor that seemed to lead to a deserted servants’ stairwell.
Her heart throbbed once before going still again. No. This isn’t happening.
“What are you doing?” she asked, voice breathy and cracking, her chest tightening with fear and dread. “Lord Dunrannoch will be looking for me.”
“That callow Scot doesn’t deserve you,” he said. “I’d forgotten about Lady Kincaid’s acquaintance with Lady Dunrannoch. It seems she has sought to strengthen the family bonds.”
Thoughts swarmed behind his eyes, the brown irises a touch too bright. He was angry. He couldn’t be jealous? But already, what felt like a thousand small bugs skittered over her skin as he looked at her with palpable longing.
“I’ve missed you, Gennie.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Have you forgotten, Gennie, that you were the one who invited me to address you familiarly in the first place?” he replied with a wry grin, his dimples creasing.
Once upon a time, the sight of them used to make her breathing race. He was still a handsome man, though his heart was rotted like the rest of him. He was a monster through and through. If things hadn’t happened as they had, she would have ended up married to him…chained to him forever.
Renewed nausea swirled. “At the time, we were”—she choked—“affianced.”
“Affianced,” he said, mocking the word. “In truth, we still are.”
“You’re deluded if you think you have any claim on me.” Her lungs seized in revulsion as she put some space between them. “Go, Silas. We are finished. The engagement, farce that it was, ended the minute you took what was not yours to take. I want you out of my life!”
“Most men would disagree. We were engaged to be wed, and you found yourself in that club of your own free will, if I recall. Others would see it that way.” His smile only widened as his eyes raked over her, his tongue slicking across his lips. “It’s been thirteen years. Much has changed. However, you… Well, you’re still stunning. I should have returned sooner.”
Silas stepped forward, his manner confident and predatory. She looked around her, searching for something, anything, she could use for a weapon. A flower pot, a candelabra. If he dared come closer she’d pick it up and hurl it at him.
“Don’t take another step,” she warned. “You know why I was at that club. For Belinda.”
“One glass of sherry and you couldn’t help yourself. You threw yourself at me, begged me to prove my love. Told me you were mine. A man can only have so much restraint, my love.”
“No, I didn’t…” But the denial was weak. Her throat closed up, the gaps in her memory more terrifying than what she did remember of that night. Seeing her internal struggle, Silas took another step toward her. Imogen blinked, her hand rising upward. “Please don’t.”
He paused with a sly, almost playful smirk. “Are you frightened of me? You’ve no reason to be. I only wish to speak to you.”
“Then allow me to pass. We can speak in the foyer.” Where there would be more people. Perhaps even Ronan, come to search for her.
Silas grimaced. “The matter is of a private nature.”
There was nothing—absolutely nothing—that could have tempted her less. “The duke is expecting me. Step aside, Silas.”
“The duke is who I wish to speak to you about.”
“I have nothing to say to you on that matter.”
“I went to great lengths to gain admittance to this ball, Gennie. Please give me a minute of your time. That’s all I ask.”
He spoke with such gentleness, such docility. When combined with his boyish looks, his large brown eyes and crooked grin, Imogen could easily understand why any unsuspecting girl would trust him. She despised him for the ruse; it was nothing but a lure, a worm on a hook. Perhaps at seventeen she had been gullible prey, but Imogen was a different person now. Her mind knew as much, and yet her body didn’t want to listen. She shivered uncontrollably, her breathing labored. She had to get out of there. Now.
“I’ve been in London for a month, and what do I read in the newssheets?” Silas asked. “An announcement for your engagement, to a Highlander duke. My Gennie, engaged.”
Voices rose in the adjacent hallway. Imogen’s heart leaped with hope and terror. Should she scream? Shout for help? Footsteps drew nearer and then fell away.
Silas didn’t so much as flinch.
“You say things haven’t changed. Perhaps you’re right. I haven’t ceased wanting you, Imogen. And the way you’re reacting to me… The fact that you’ve never married… I can see you’re still confused about your feelings for me as well.”
“You’re delusional. The only thing I want is for you to leave me alone!”
He shook his head, seemingly amused by her outburst. “You’re not going to wed that Highlander. We both know it. And we both know why.”
He took a step in reverse, rather than closer to her. She hadn’t expected the retreat, but it didn’t lessen Imogen’s fear one bit. No. She wasn’t going to marry Ronan, but not for the reason Silas believed.
“There is too much left unfinished between us,” he said. He propped one brow up. “Too much I know about the sainted Lady Imogen. You’re mine, Gennie, even if you do not wish to be so, and I am the only husband you will have.”
The color drained from her cheeks, and once again she felt ill.
“I’m not yours. Everything between us is finished.” Frustration swept over her. “There was no us to begin with! Only you and your sick, twisted games. You manipulated Belinda and me; she was my friend, and you used her, ruined her. Ruined me. We both trusted you.”
Her heart pounding, she could barely breathe, much less speak.
“Belinda was a mistake, you know that,” he said.
She clenched her jaw. “She died.”
“In childbirth.”
In the space of several thudding heartbeats, the horrifying images she’d kept bricked up and shut away in her mind all those years broke free.
The small room above the Golden Antler. The furnishings, the wrought-iron bedstead painted white, the smoke from cigars and pipes seeped into the papered walls
. Even the pattern of the paper, a repeated pattern of Danish windmills and haystacks.
She’d banged loudly on the door, having followed her pregnant governess in secret, and demanded entry. Relieved to see Belinda propped up in bed, she had confronted Silas.
“She sought me out, Gennie. To apologize for what she’d done, and then felt unwell. She’s only resting. Drink; she’ll wake soon.”
Imogen remembered sipping the sherry to calm her own frazzled nerves, thinking it tasted strange, and then smaller details had hit her. Like the fact that Belinda wasn’t moving. That Silas was sweating. That the walls were spinning. That she suddenly felt unwell, too.
He’d knelt before her, took her hands in his own. Kissed them.
“Your father put his trust in me, Gennie. You trust his judgment, don’t you? Please, just let me explain what happened. I know you care for her, but she seduced me. I was in my cups and unaware of what she planned. I swear to you. I love you. I love only you.”
She remembered thinking that maybe her fiancé might be telling her the truth. That perhaps it was truly a misunderstanding after all. Why else would Belinda have come to see him in this place? Imogen had wanted to believe him, more fool her.
And then the distortion of the room had started, the tipping of her head as her limbs went soft and slack. She’d had sherry before, but it had never affected her that way.
“Sleep now,” she’d heard Silas say, followed by a loud noise and then nothing.
Later on, she would learn that Mr. McClintock had kicked in the door. Apparently, her raised voice as she’d demanded entry had alerted a club member, who’d taken his concern to the proprietor. McClintock had asked her what had happened after having Silas dragged from the room, but even now she could barely recall details. Belinda had been drugged, too. McClintock had told her that it’d been laudanum.
If McClintock hadn’t arrived when he did or if that club member had ignored her shouting…Imogen did not know what else Silas might have done. Though Imogen had no idea how much time had passed in that room before her rescue, McClintock had haltingly informed her of the state in which she’d been found…her clothing in disarray, Silas on top of her. It made her sick to think he’d violated her while she’d been unconscious, but that hadn’t been the worst of it. Belinda had gone into labor, but neither she nor her child survived. She’d been unconscious too long. Imogen’s heart had died, too, that day, along with her faith in all men.
Silas had disappeared that very night.
And now, he’d returned to claim whatever rights he believed were his. That she was his. Oh God, he was truly mad.
“Go away,” she said. “I’ll scream.”
“You won’t.” Impatience shuttered his expression, wiping out his sly grin. “What would your dear father think if he knew the truth?” He cocked his head. “Of his precious soiled dove of a daughter, about to marry a duke. Goodness, what would the duke say if he knew about his intended’s lack of virtue?”
Imogen felt frozen with anger and frustration as Silas flicked an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. An image rose up into her mind of Ronan crunching his brawny fist right into the center of Silas’s face. It would be satisfying to see, but it wouldn’t be enough to silence him. He would see her ruined before everyone.
“Why?”
“Because I was cheated,” he said, smiling. “Of a bride, a fortune, of what I deserved.”
Imogen’s vision trembled and pulsed with battling emotions. Fear and fury and utter powerlessness. He threatened to expose her, hang out her deepest, darkest secret like dirty bed linens from a window. She didn’t worry for herself, but Haven would suffer, too. And her parents…the scandal would destroy them.
“What do you want from me?” Imogen asked.
“Is it not yet obvious? You. Reject the duke and marry me.”
She balked, bile filling her mouth. “I’d rather fling myself off a bridge.”
Like Lady Beatrice. Imogen felt a slap of instant guilt. The Marquess of Paxton’s daughter and what had happened to her was yet another buried nightmare, and she couldn’t allow herself to think of that right then.
“You’ll change your mind,” Silas said as he moved away.
“Never,” she replied, but he’d already disappeared like a wraith.
Weak-kneed, Imogen tried to go back to the retiring room, but her legs folded, and in the next second, she curled on the carpet of the corridor, her fingers digging into the fibers. She shook all over, the shivering impossible to subdue. It was everything she’d feared. That he’d snake his way back into her life and hold her own stupidity over her head. She never should have gone to that room, never drunk the sherry, never trusted him. If only she’d been wise enough to see him for what he was…before.
Stop blaming yourself! Imogen’s mind whirled and shouted all the instruction, all the advice she’d given the women at Haven. This isn’t your fault. You are not to blame. He’s the one who harmed you. Hurt Belinda. He’s the monster.
She knew what words to say. She’d said them often enough to others.
Believing them was an entirely different challenge.
“My goodness,” a concerned female voice gasped. “She’s collapsed. Come help me. Get someone, Lydia.”
A rustle of slippered feet and skirts approached her, and moments later, gentle hands lifted her from the floor, urged her the handful of steps into the retiring room, and settled her onto a sofa.
The duchess entered the room, her eyes wide and searching. “Imogen?” Briannon rushed to the sofa and took her hands. “You’re like ice. Ronan said you were feeling ill. I’ll call for a doctor.”
“No, please don’t. I’m better now. Ronan…the duke, I mean, he was fetching my cloak…”
Briannon frowned but nodded. “I’ll take you to him.”
And announce Imogen had been found crumpled on the carpet in the hallway? It wouldn’t do. She would already have enough questions from him to field about Silas Calder without explaining why she’d fainted.
“Don’t be silly, Your Grace.” Imogen stood, forcing her knees to lock. “Don’t let me tear you away from your guests. Really, Lord Dunrannoch is just outside, waiting for me.”
The other women had dispersed, but Briannon was more reluctant. Perhaps she could see through Imogen’s placating words.
As she extracted herself from the retiring room and Lady Briannon’s keen gaze, she considered Ronan. If he knew of her history with Silas, he might cry off. An earl’s daughter found in a compromising situation in a gentleman’s club with a man. It would be a scandal no peer would endure. In this, Silas was right. Ronan would have to break the contract.
But her parents’ reputation, and her own, would be irreversibly tarnished.
No, what she needed to do was redirect her strategy. And her target. She would deter Silas on her own, the same way she’d turned off every other suit, with the exception of the current one. Ronan. For a millisecond, Imogen remembered the way he’d interrupted Silas on the ballroom floor. How possessive he’d seemed. A bit of warmth trickled back into her body as she walked toward the foyer. Ronan had known something was wrong.
Silas had taken her by surprise, but she wouldn’t allow that to happen again. Now that she knew he was here and what he intended, she could plan accordingly.
Imogen spotted Ronan in the foyer, waiting with her cloak, his impatience and concern etched on his forehead as he scowled. Her tension released at the sight of him, a feeling of inexplicable safety descending over her nerves. The problem with Ronan Maclaren wasn’t over, but he was certainly the lesser evil.
And to get rid of Silas, she might just have to consider Ronan an unwitting ally.
Chapter Ten
Ronan tried to focus on the handful of cards in his palms, but the shapes and symbols blurred into indistinct lines. He couldn’t help that his mind was distracted. Mostly with the enigma that was his fiancée. The memory of her ashen face and completely frozen body a few ev
enings ago had yet to leave his mind. He’d seen terror like that on a battlefield, but never in a ballroom. The rawness of it had unnerved him.
If he hadn’t gleaned Imogen’s skill early on and that her vapid Lady Rosebud persona—as the newssheets in Edinburgh had named her—wasn’t just a brilliant act, he wouldn’t have been the wiser. But after weeks of provocation on his part, Imogen had been too committed to relinquish the role she’d been playing to perfection, and yet the appearance of that man had shocked her senseless…had made her forget everything, down to the core of who she was.
Ronan realized why he recognized the name only after they’d left the ball. It had been in Stevenson’s report on Imogen. Silas Calder was the name of her former fiancé. The solicitor’s notes had indicated the engagement had been broken, but no reason had been given. Clearly, after seeing Imogen’s reaction to the man, whatever it was had been grievous.
Placing his cards facedown, Ronan folded, yet again, and took a sip of the mediocre whisky that couldn’t hold a candle to Maclaren’s latest batch. “I’m out.”
“You’re like a bloody sieve tonight, my friend,” Archer crowed, eyeing the pile of his gains.
“Ye ken I dunnae like to gamble.”
The duke grinned. “Why do you think I asked you to join us?”
Unlike Ronan, Archer had been on a winning streak all evening. Even his friends were grumbling about the man’s luck.
The Cock and the Crown was a favorite of one of the men at the table, Lady Bradburne’s brother, Graham Findlay, the Earl of Dinsmore. Though he still went by his nickname from his courtesy title, North. He was married to a Russian princess who’d been the subject of some international political coup years before. The other gentleman was the Earl of Langlevit. Shockingly, the hardened ex-spy had wed the younger sister of North’s wife, a hellion by all accounts who had loved him since childhood.
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