Willoughby 03 - A Rogue's Deadly Redemption

by Jeannie Ruesch

  Her eyes cast down, staring at his hand as it moved down her arm, entangled her fingers in his own. He lifted it, used it to keep her close.

  She shook her head. “Robert, you’re ill.”

  “I don’t feel ill.” He needed her. He had to feel the smoothness of her lips under his. He tugged again, and she was inches away.

  He placed a hand under her chin, as one of her hands came to rest on his chest.

  “It’s been an exhausting day,” she said. ”You don’t…you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  He tilted her head up until her eyes lifted, met his. In the depths of velvety brown, he saw uncertainty, fear.

  He wanted to see surrender.

  He leaned down and captured her lips with his. He felt her breath intake, the way she held herself stiff in his arms, even as his lips caressed hers.

  The horrors of the day faded away. The danger that loomed over their heads didn’t exist.

  Her lips gave way to his, opened just enough for him to press deeper. Then her limbs began to soften, to lean into him.

  Triumph coursed through his body and he crushed her to him, one arm slipping behind her back. Arms tangled. Tongues intertwined.

  He couldn’t get enough. Of her scent. Her feel. Her touch.

  He wanted her with a desperation so fierce, he wondered how long it had been since he’d had her.

  Suddenly, she yanked her arms away and pushed against his chest hard enough that he stumbled back.

  “Stop!” she cried. “I can’t…I won’t let you do this!”

  “What have I done? What is so wrong with kissing my wife? You have no idea how I feel…what my body is telling me. Perhaps my brain doesn’t remember you, Lily, but you can be damn sure my body does. My heart does.” It pounded in his chest, anxious, needy. Filled with longing.

  She stared, her mouth ajar, her brows wide. Then after a long pause, her shoulders squared. She swallowed. “Robert.” The word was an ache. “I don’t live with you.”

  The words hit like a punch. “What do you mean? You’re my wife.”

  “Yes, but…I’m not…We aren’t…” She heaved a frustrated sigh. “Not in any way that matters.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t.” She paced in a circle. “I am so sorry. I know you don’t understand any of this, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I live elsewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “At my family’s home, for the time being.” Her eyes grew round as she said the words, and the phrase caught at him.

  “For the time being. Where do you intend to live?”

  She stopped pacing, gestured down the street. “You need your rest. You’re exhausted. We need to find a cab and get you home.”

  “I need you to answer me.”

  “This is ridiculous.” The sheer pain in her voice pummeled him. “Whatever you are feeling, it’s false. It isn’t real. We never had that. You never felt that way. Not for me. Never about me.”

  Anger propelled to the surface. “I may have lost memories, but I damn well know what I’m feeling. I know I want you. My arms are aching, Lily. To hold you. I want to feel your skin, your hair. It’s a physical pain, so don’t tell me I am making it up. It’s real and it has everything to do with you.”

  She crossed her arms, shook her head over and over. “It doesn’t. You may feel grateful, you may feel…Well, I don’t know. But I do know one thing. You do not desire me. I am not the one you want.” She turned around.

  “Where are you going?” he cried, frustrated beyond belief.

  “To find a cab to get you home.”

  “But not your home.”

  She gave a short shake of her head. “No. It’s not mine.”

  Though only a foot separated them, the distance felt like miles and he had no idea how to cross it. But exhaustion had begun to seep into his soul. He knew he was on his last limbs. And he had to find out what happened to Cary.

  “This isn’t the end of it,” he warned her. “We will discuss this again.”

  But Lily had already retreated, taken her warmth and hidden it behind what appeared to be years of experience.

  Leaving him with an ache he didn’t know how to fill.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lily sat in the carriage, knowing she needed to go inside to her brother’s home but every bone in her body had filled with lead.

  They would ask questions, and right now, Lily didn’t know her own name, much less how to answer or speak about anything that occurred today.

  Overwhelmed was an understatement.

  Where did she start?

  With the fact that her husband was associated with those horrible criminals? That he might, in fact, be one of them?

  Or perhaps that her life had been threatened, and remained under threat?

  Or no…maybe she should start with the fact that the potentially criminal husband who preferred the company of hooligans had lost his memory and then decided he desired her.

  And that after such a declaration, she had shoved him out of the carriage to escape the pain of the desperate desire she felt to believe him.

  It was a coin toss as to which declaration might send her to Bedlam first.

  The door flung open.

  Lily closed her eyes for a brief second, then opened them to find—well, but, of course.

  The well-nursed grudge that tightened her shoulders was far too familiar.

  “Where in heaven’s name have you been?” Cordelia’s musical voice grated about as much as a bleating goat. “What are you doing sitting out here, when people are in there, worried sick about you?”

  “Not you, of course.”

  Cordelia huffed. “Don’t be silly. Aria is quite concerned. As is Blythe. I couldn’t care less where you go.” Her words lacked the usual bite, though, and the way Cordelia hovered at the door belied her argument.

  “Blythe is here?” Lily snapped to attention.

  She’d forgotten the other mind-boggling fact she’d discovered that day.

  Captain Keenan was a leader of aforementioned hooligans.

  “Is Ravensdale here as well?”

  Cordelia shook her head. “He and Adam are at Parliament. Where is your brain? Blythe brought the children to visit.”

  A houseful of females who had an uncanny ability to ferret out emotion.

  For once, Lily found herself wishing for the inscrutable men in her family who would rather muck out the stables than discuss anything that might make a woman cry.

  Cordelia sniffed. “What happened to you? You look awful, and truly, you smell like you rolled in garbage.” She stuck her head into the carriage and peered closer. “Good God, Lily, what have you been up to?”

  Lily was in no mood. She pushed Cordelia back so she could exit the carriage, aware that every inch of her body had begun to ache. “Never mind.”

  “Your skirt is ripped. You are filthy.”

  When Lily didn’t stop, she felt a grip around her arm and was yanked backwards.

  “Let me go.” She tugged her arm away.

  “What happened to you?” Her sister dogged her heels all the way to the door, which Lily shoved open.

  She heard noises, laughter, knew it meant that Blythe and Aria were in the parlor. She didn’t want to face them.

  She ran to the staircase.

  “Lily, is that you?” Her eldest sister, Blythe’s voice.

  Blast it.

  “I’m feeling grimy from the day,” Lily called out. “I’ll be down to visit as soon as I’ve changed.”

  She didn’t wait for a reply. Skirts in hand, she hurried up the stairs. She made it into her room and closed the door, only to have it flung open again.

  Cordelia strode in, arms on her hips. “Where have you been? Tell me or I will march back down there and tell them to come up here.”

  “Go away, Cordelia.”

  “Fine,” Cordelia snapped. “Have it your way. You may answer their questions, spend end
less hours soothing their concern.”

  “What do you care?” Lily snapped. The anger that threaded her words came with a matching sense of entitlement. She was entitled to be angry. She was entitled to never speak to her sister again.

  She was entitled to wash off the fear and shock of the day without her sister’s presence adding to Lily’s already abiding sense of failure.

  A sob erupted from her throat, and Lily bit her lips until her eyes stung. She was exhausted, that was all. And she had no guard against the pain that Cordelia brought with her.

  “Please,” she said with more begging than she wanted. “Just go. I don’t want you here.”

  A long pause was the reply. After a minute had gone by, Lily lifted her gaze to meet with Cordelia’s perfectly symmetrical eyes, her brows raised in a challenge.

  “Did you think that pitiful voice would work?”

  Anger flared. “Get out.”

  “No.”

  “Blast it, Cordelia, I—”

  “You’ll what?” Cordelia stepped closer, fury blazing in the tilt of her brows, the balls of her fists. “Refuse to speak to me? Refuse to attend any event you know I’ll be at, as though you were a bloody child? Refuse to forgive me for a moment’s decision—one which you shared equal blame for? You’ve done all that.”

  “Equal blame?” Lily stood up, hands on hips. “Equal blame? In front of our family, our servants, you screamed that you’d caught Robert coming out of my room. It was a lie, Cordelia, and you knew it. But you stuck to it and forced me into a miserable marriage.” She sucked in a breath, realizing what she’d admitted.

  The one thing she had never wanted Cordelia to know. It was one reason she had refused to attend events Cordelia went to. Why she had refused to have anything to do with her sister.

  Because if she had, Cordelia would know—as Lily knew every day—that she had won.

  Lily pulled in a shaky breath, letting it lift her chest, push back her shoulders and mask the pain, the insecurities, the uncertainty Cordelia seemed able to reveal with very little effort.

  “Why, Cordelia? Why did you do it? You didn’t care about him. You brushed him off; you flaunted your more prestigious suitors. After all these years, you owe me the truth. Why did you lie?”

  “He wasn’t supposed to be there with you. Robert was my suitor.” Cordelia’s face flushed with anger. “You are wrong, I did care about him, enough that I wanted to consider marrying him. You took that choice away from me. I also sent him a letter that night, Lily, a letter to my suitor. If anyone has a right to be angry here, it’s me.”

  Lily couldn’t breathe. Every time she tried to draw in air, it felt like an elephant had sat on her chest.

  Cordelia had wanted him.

  And he had known. Cordelia had sent him a letter.

  Who had he come to see that night?

  Lily had always believed that Robert had wanted her sister, but she’d thought it had been one-sided. Cordelia had been focused on gaining the best title, the best fortune and advantages marriage could buy her.

  Robert had none of those. He was third in line for a title he’d never see, and while they had never wanted for anything, they weren’t embroidering their linens with spun gold, either.

  Cordelia had wanted him anyway.

  “If we both sent him letters that night—” Cordelia stepped closer, years of unexpressed resentment and indignation stamped on her face. “—Who did he come to see? You or me?”

  Lily recalled that night with blindingly painful clarity. She’d replayed the course of events over and over in her mind.

  Their mother had announced her betrothal to Franklin Calebowe, which meant a move to America. Panicked, Lily had sent a letter to Robert to urge him to come see her. She had hoped that their talks, their quiet moments had meant as much to him as they had to her. She’d hoped the threat of her leaving would encourage him to declare his feelings.

  Robert had arrived in the early morning hours, when the sun had barely crawled out of its slumber. They’d talked, held hands, and he’d kissed her on the cheek. Alone, yes, but it had been innocent, until Cordelia turned it into something scandalous.

  Then Cordelia had thrown in Lily’s face that Robert had kissed her as well, and Lily’s world had crumbled. In the span of a few hours, she’d gone from believing that Robert had wanted a future with her to knowing he didn’t.

  By then, it was too late.

  “Afraid to answer that question?” Cordelia taunted. “Then at least tell me if Robert has recovered, or that you were attacked by wild puppies in a mud puddle, so I can leave you alone!”

  Cordelia wanted Robert.

  What would happen if she went to him? If he saw her? He was injured, his confusion real. He didn’t remember.

  But what if the woman he’d loved—who had loved him—arrived?

  The very thought turned Lily’s stomach.

  “Lily, I’m waiting for an answer.—”

  The door opened. Adam filled the doorway with his looming presence. His gaze took them both in, focused sharply on Lily’s state. “What the hell is going on here?”

  As he spoke, faces appeared around him—little ones under his arms, adult ones holding the same avid curiosity above them. He pushed them out and slammed the door behind him.

  “I could hear your voices downstairs.” He looked at Lily. “Is Robert all right?” But before she could answer, he continued. “I am sick of this fighting between you. I don’t care how it happened, I don’t care who started it. I do care that your feud has made things difficult for everyone. And I will not have this in my house. Not now that Aria’s expecting.”

  A not-so-muttered curse came from the doorway, and it flung open. “You told,” Aria accused her husband of just a year. “You promised.”

  Adam’s gruffness was measured only by the joy in his face. “Sorry, my love.”

  “Well, there is no taking it back now.” She raised her hands in irritated surrender. “There. We’re expecting. Surprise.”

  Lily sidestepped Cordelia and hurried to Aria, arms stretched out. She gave her a hug. “I am so happy for you.”

  Aria bit her lip. “You are all right?” she asked softly.

  Lily nodded. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “I so worried about telling you. I would never want to cause you a moment of pain.”

  “There is none, I assure you. Don’t think twice about it.” Lily’s joy was heartfelt, and she would never admit to the pangs in her heart. Their happiness had been hard fought for. Aria and Adam had almost lost each other, more than once. Their wedding last year had been more than just a joyous occasion, it had been a celebration of their love, their persistence and their faith in each other.

  She reached up and gave her brother an impromptu hug. “Congratulations, Papa.”

  He paled. “God.”

  Lily chanced a look at Cordelia who stood very still. She watched Lily with a frank understanding and a sad resignation in the set of her lips.

  She’d heard what Aria had asked.

  Lily had never told Cordelia about the miscarriage. They hadn’t been speaking at the time, and that wasn’t a good conversation starter by any means.

  Cordelia turned to Aria. “Congratulations,” she said. Hugs followed and teasing declarations about the hopes that the baby didn’t resemble its father. “If you’ll excuse me.” She strode toward the door, stopping next to Lily.

  Lily waited for her to say something.

  Cordelia reached out her hand and grasped Lily’s. With a tight squeeze, she continued out the door without a word.

  Lily could feel Adam’s gaze. “What?”

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

  “Not particularly.” It was far from the right time to tell her family anything that had happened today.

  Aria gave a sigh. “You’re on your own, Lily. It sounds like Adam has some lecturing to do.”

  As soon as she closed the door, Adam said, “As much as I cou
ld see you and Cordelia almost at blows, there is not a speck of dirt to be found in this room. So I know you didn’t earn that dirt and smell here.” He stepped closer, until she could no longer avoid looking at him. “Is Robert all right? Has he recovered? Did he do something to hurt you?”

  The barrage of questions caught at the gaping hole that exposed her emotions. Tears pressed against her eyes, and an ache filled her throat, shoving to the surface.

  “No, if you can believe it, I think I hurt him.”

  How was that even possible? After three miserable years of marriage, it took one accident to turn him into a man who would show hurt in his eyes at her rejection?

  But she couldn’t get the day, any of it, from her mind. Each scene was fresh, like a wet painting that glimmered with memories.

  She opened her mouth to tell Adam everything. But nothing came out. “I don’t know where to start.”

  Adam gave her a gentle push toward the chairs by the fireplace, and another one to shove her down into one. “The beginning is a good place.”

  Lily’s heart thudded a staccato reminder that she had yet to tell Adam about the passage she had booked. She hadn’t told him she was leaving for America. She hadn’t told anyone in her family she was leaving.

  Well, no, that wasn’t true. She’d told Robert.

  And he couldn’t remember.

  A laugh escaped. She couldn’t help herself. It seemed so absurd, so ridiculously—another laugh burst out—absurd.

  And before she realized it, the laughs had turned to sobs.

  “Lily.” The torture she was inflicting on her brother was clear in his pained tone.

  She sucked it up. “I know, you can’t stand to see a woman cry.”

  “It makes me want to go find someone to browbeat into submission until they fix whatever caused it. Robert would prove handy.”

  She laugh-sobbed even harder. The image of her stubborn, lovingly controlling brother facing an injured Robert with no memory…it would almost be worth not telling him.

  But he eyed her now with a wary uncertainty. “Are you going to cry again?”