Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

  Chapter 15

  Tell him…Tell him, so that when he discovers the crime I’ve committed, he might at least know why. Tell him, because he deserves that truth… She curled her fingers tightly into her night-rail.

  Derek stepped up to her and ran his knuckles down her jaw and warmth stirred to life within her. In all the ugly, vile couplings with Sir Henry, and even George’s rushed, thoughtless attentions, never had she been touched with the tenderness Derek now showed. Her lashes fluttered and she turned into his butterfly-soft caress. How could one of his size and commanding power be capable of such gentleness? This man, called The Beast, who snapped and snarled, who’d also become her defender against his condescending man-of-affairs. Shame lapped at her conscience. A defender when she’d not deserved it. Not this time. Mayhap at some other point in her life when she’d been pure and unsullied and worthy of that protection. “Lily?” he prodded.

  The weight of her lies pressed down, threatening to drag her under with the crimes she’d commit against this man. And his ward. For he was no longer a means to her security…he was a man of courage and valor who by the marks he bore had given of himself upon the fields of battle, who knew great hurt and—she would betray him.

  Lily took a step away and broke that mesmerizing, whisper-soft touch. She hugged her arms close but her efforts proved futile at driving it back. Where did one begin when confessing the shameful, sinful person they’d become? Where, when it would ultimately mean her ruin, proving her a naïve, stupid, chit, once more.

  A charged energy blanketed the room, as Derek fixed his intent, piercing stare upon her.

  “I am not a lady.” He stilled. “I am…was, just a vicar’s daughter.” It was the first time she’d breathed that truth to anyone since she’d boarded that mail coach. An aching poignancy filled her. That part of her story had died, when she’d been snipped from the fabric of her family like a bothersome thread at the edge of embroidery. Unnerved by Derek’s singular focus, she strode over to the hearth. “I never dreamed of…of…” She shot a look over her shoulder. “Lofty titles and expensive baubles.” Lily returned her attention to the fire. Self-loathing tightened her throat and she struggled for words. “I was content to bake in the kitchens alongside the handful of servants and wander the hillside, collecting wildflowers.” A grimace pulled at her lips. God, what a pathetic creature she’d been. “I was quite fanciful,” she said softly, staring down into the dancing flames.

  The hardwood floor groaned. Her body tingled with awareness as his broad frame brushed against her back. He said nothing, but through his quiet, reassuring presence she found the courage to continue. “My father called me a dreamer,” she said bemusedly. Among the uglier, more damning charges he’d leveled. Then, her father had always known the manner of person his eldest daughter was. “And I was.”

  Derek settled his powerful hands on her shoulders and she borrowed from his strength; another theft she committed. “We all begin that way.” His breath stirred against her cheek and a fluttering danced in her belly. “We are hopeful and optimistic and naïve and fail to see the perils of life, until we are scarred by them.”

  His words offered a window into what he’d been and she wanted to shove it open and know even more. She tried to imagine him as the young, grinning boy in his portrait.

  Derek limped over to the spot opposite her. He caressed her cheek. “But the truth is we are capable of dark, ugly deeds, all to survive, aren’t we?” The unerring accuracy of those words raised gooseflesh on her arms. For there was no darker act than having deceived a broken man and young child, all in the name of security.

  Lily mustered words. “You speak of your experience on the battlefield, Derek. What I did to survive—” A spasm racked her heart, threatening to crush her chest from the pain of it. “There was no honor in it.”

  “I killed,” he said flatly. His words spoke of a man who knew. A man who’d done horrible, ugly things, all in the name of survival. Anyone who’d merely heard that detached utterance would have taken them as more proof of the Duke of Blackthorne’s ruthlessness. It would have fueled the myths and whispers about a duke more monster than man. “I killed men and boys. I turned wives into widows and made mothers childless.” There was such a cool, emotionless thread to his words that raised the gooseflesh on her arms once again. “Surely what you did can never be worse than that?”

  And she looked past his words and on to the tight lines at the corners of his mouth; one corner badly burned from the hell he’d lived and even now suffered through. His eye bled the same familiar agony that stared back at her each night in her vanity mirror. No, the Duke of Blackthorne was no monster. He was a very real, broken, man who had more honor than all the other men she’d had the misfortune of knowing in the course of her life. Sadness weighted on her chest. The greatest tragedy is that he saw himself in the same, dark light as the other men of his world and not the gentleman of honor and courage and valor. One who, with his words and defense of her actions, continued to defend others.

  “Tell me, Lily,” he demanded.

  How did he know she needed to speak the words aloud? How did he know those secret pieces she’d not even known of herself? He touched his lips to the shell of her ear and her breath caught at the butterfly soft caress. The moment, however so slight, so fleeting, she might have very well imagined it. She gave a jerky nod. “I met… I met…” Lily layered her palms to the smooth, cool marble mantel, borrowing support. That slight shift broke the contact between their bodies and she welcomed the heat thrown by the blazing fire. Her throat worked. I met your brother…

  Why could it not have been you instead? Her body jerked. God, in Heaven. That silent yearning was illogical and irrational. It was based on but a handful of meetings and exchanges and his kiss and his willingness to defend her in need and—

  “Who did you meet?” The gravelly question rumbled up from his chest and she gave thanks as he yanked her back to the moment.

  Under his questioning, unease stirred within her belly. She’d been fooled by a lord once and proven herself the biggest, naïve fool. Time had aged her. Made her wary. She was not the same innocent she’d been then. She drew in a breath through her lips. “I met a nobleman. A—” Duke. “A powerful lord. I was nearly sixteen. Young and foolish and hopelessly optimistic. I believed myself in love and the promises made, and—” She forced her inane ramblings to an abrupt cessation.

  He growled and in his seething, there appeared a quiet fury far more menacing than he’d been any other moment prior. “What did he do?” For his sharp inquiries earlier, these four words revealed so much more than a powerful duke expecting a glimpse into her past.

  What did he do? So vastly different than “What did you do?” For when she’d been discovered with George rutting between her legs by the town gossip, not her mother, nor father, nor George’s mother had seen her as blameless. Instead, she’d been found guilty as the wanton harlot who’d seduced a nobleman who’d never bind himself to a vicar’s daughter. And in Derek’s question, that slight, but very meaningful, difference set him apart from all others she’d ever known.

  He did not press her to continue but allowed her to find the words in her own time. How had she ever believed him to be a beast? “He promised me marriage.” Her lips pulled in the corners in a bitter smile. What a naïve fool she’d been. “I was fifteen, which is hardly an excuse,” she said on a rush. “And…I believed him when he promised to go off to Gretna Green with me. He left.” She grimaced. “Business to see to in London. While he was gone, what I’d done…we’d done, was discovered and my father turned me out.”

  The old horrors of those long ago days came rushing back with the same potent fear that had gripped her then. Her sister and brothers crying, blending with her pleading, as she’d been ushered out the front door and forever sent away. Desperate to have the telling done, she hastened to finish. “Afterwards, I went to him…” Her mind balked. For even with this fragile moment of intimacy s
hared between them, Lily could not drag forth the words to tell the darkest, most painful part of that night. The bite of rain as it stung her skin. The pain of being thrown onto the pavement like rubbish to be swept away…and then climbing into that stranger’s carriage. For no respectable man or woman could ever be forgiving of a woman who’d gone from maid to mistress.

  Agony threatened to tear her apart and she struggled to breathe from the pain of that. In those series of irreversible mistakes, she’d lost all right to the only thing she’d ever wanted in life—a family of her own. Giggling children. A husband.

  Except, Derek would not allow her those secrets. He guided her slowly around and she braced for his harshly probing stare. Instead, the tenderness of his gaze threatened to shatter her. “What happened when you went to him?”

  Her heart trembled, at the gentle insistence in that question. Why could he not be the bellowing, jeering duke she’d first met? Or even the one from moments earlier who’d probed her, seeking the secrets of her past? With the sick shame of her greatest mistakes stabbing at her belly, Lily lowered her gaze to his snowy white cravat, wanting to be free of it. Nay, needing to be free of it. “I discovered I was nothing more than a plaything.” The shame of that day assaulted her with the same hot humiliation and agonized hurt as years ago. “I arrived in London, at his doorstep.” A little moan escaped her and she bit her lip hard to stifle any further telling weaknesses. “The butler tried to send me ’round back for scraps.” She spoke so quickly her words ran together. “I had traveled for six days. I was hungry and scared and I barged inside. I knew if I saw him…” She closed her eyes. The foolish hope of George had sustained her through fear.

  Derek settled his hands on her shoulders and gave a slight squeeze; an unspoken encouragement that brought her eyes open. “He did not even remember me,” she whispered into the quiet. “He did not know my name or care that I’d given him my virginity.”

  “Oh, Lily,” he said quietly, just that, two words.

  A tear slipped down her cheek and Derek brushed his thumb over the single drop. “It was the night of his betrothal ball.” A sound half-laugh, half-sob burst from her lips and she buried it in her fingers. “Rotten timing. As such he was eager to have me gone. He and his mother,” your mother, “turned me away. They handed me a purse.” As if she’d been a whore in the Dials. Three pounds had been her value. “I was instructed to never again darken their doorstep.” And she hadn’t. Until now.

  She expected a rush of all the oldest hurts and regrets and bitter anger at reliving those moments. Now, dwelling in these walls with Derek and knowing they’d spurned their own son and brother opened her eyes—George and his mother had been soulless. There had been a deficit of their character that was a thing to be pitied. The tension in her chest eased. For the pain of reliving those agonizing moments in her life, there was something freeing and cathartic in breathing the words aloud. Forgiveness: for herself. She slid her eyes closed briefly under this absolution she’d believed to never know.

  The ormolu clock atop the fireplace mantel ticked away the passing of the moments. Derek’s soft curse echoed from the walls and she flinched, braced for his icy disdain. This is why he’d inquired. To know, as he should, about the woman whom he’d turned the care of his niece over to.

  Then, the man whispered about as a cold, unfeeling monster pulled her tenderly into his arms. Drawing in the deep, sandalwood scent that clung to him, she pressed her cheek against his chest, taking what he offered, selfishly. Taking for once in her life, because she deserved it. “It was my own fault,” she said, at last claiming ownership of those mistakes. How many years had she spent holding George to blame when, with her impulsivity, she’d proven equally to blame?

  He palmed her neck and guided her gaze up to his. “It was not your fault. He was a heartless cad and you were but a girl.” The icy fury emanating from within his blue eye bespoke of revenge and the threat of retribution. Because of her?

  When was the last time anyone had believed her worthy? After all, she herself had long since ceased believing in her own value. A chill racked her spine. In a moment, when the ugly truths were told, that fury would be appropriately turned on her. Even knowing that and aching at the thought of his loathing, she owed him even more. Lily stepped out of his arms and when he made to reach for her, she held her palms up. She did not deserve Derek’s defense.

  Then he asked the question that had been inevitable. The one he most deserved an answer to. “Who was he?”

  Lily looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “That man was your brother,” she strained herself to hear those faintly whispered words.

  Chapter 16

  The moments ticked by and those five words danced in the air. For their potency, they may as well have been the distant cannon fire from long ago that still haunted him.

  Derek stared dumbly at Lily, not processing that whispered admission. She rubbed her hands over her arms, back and forth, as though chilled. He let his arms fall to his sides, a hollow emptiness in his belly. The man who’d deceived her, despoiled her, and ruined her had been—“He was my…” His voice emerged raspy to his own ears.

  “Brother,” she said, her words stronger. She spun away from him and danced like a fey creature avoiding discovery. “George,” she added, as though he needed the name, as though there was another brother.

  George.

  The man she’d loved and given her heart and virtue to had been—George. Perfect, flawless, and charming while living, George had been very much the sought after nobleman. A cold numbness went through him as he sought to work through the complexities of that very truth. He took a step away. And then another. Then another. Until he found himself at the edge of the stone hearth. Numbed by her revelation, Derek stared down into the fire and this time, did not think of the lick of flames on his skin. His breath came hard and fast imagining Lily, a girl of sixteen, alone, at the mercy of his merciless family, and they’d turned her away. He gripped the edge of the mantel and welcomed the sharp bite of wood into the soft flesh of his palms. How she must have hated every member the Winters family—and deservedly so.

  “I was young,” she whispered, misinterpreting the reason for his silence. Dazed, he turned slowly back. “Though that is no excuse.” Not meeting his eyes, Lily clasped her hands together and studied the interlocked digits. “I believed he’d marry me.” Color slapped her cheeks. Did she love George? Did she love his dead, caddish brother, even now? His insides twisted. “It was never about being a duchess, it was foolishly about…” Her words trailed off and she slid her gaze away.

  What had it been about? The question screamed around his turbulent mind. With wooden footsteps, Derek returned to her side. “It was about what?” he urged harshly, tipping her chin up and forcing her eyes to his.

  She winced and agony stabbed him. Did she believe he’d condemn her in this moment? Then why should she not? Everyone else before, including her own parents, who should have protected her, had instead turned her out. “I thought I loved him.”

  “Did you?” That gravelly question ripped from somewhere deep inside his chest where jealousy dwelled for the brother who’d possessed her heart; that blinding emotion lived with a rage for the man who’d stolen her virtue.

  “I was in love with the dream of a man who did not exist.” A bitter, broken laugh escaped her. “Isn’t that the greatest irony? I gave up all for him. A man I hardly knew. Outside, like the cheapest of whores.” Her speaking made what they’d shared real in a way that knifed at him. George had known her smile. The taste of her lips. Except…some of the agonizing pressure weighting his chest eased.

  George had not known the depth of her soul. Not the way Derek did. Lily glanced down at her hands and spoke, drawing him back from his jumbled musings. “I built those moments into something they had never been.”

  And something they could never have been. Not with George who’d taken his pleasure where he wished and then moved on to the next. Women had
been no different. Derek thought of Lily, as she would have been; a girl of fifteen, meeting his older brother. With his ducal arrogance and charm, she would have been helpless against George’s seduction.

  What if I had seen her first? What if all those years earlier, he’d actually seen the world in front of him? Lily would have been a bright-eyed girl with a riot of midnight curls, unbroken by life. She would have been a reason to remain in England.

  A vise-like pressure squeezed at his chest. Then, he’d been too blinded by his pursuit of greatness and fleeting moments with skilled courtesans, to notice the vicar’s daughter. And through that folly of his youth, George had been there all the while, noticing her…and then, ultimately robbing Lily of her innocence. A heavy curtain of rage descended over his vision, momentarily and completely blinding him to his earlier jealousy and shock. He’d always known there was blackness to his soul; standing here with his mother and brother dead, wishing them to the devil, was now proof of that.

  A black curse escaped his lips.

  Lily recoiled. “F-forgive me.” She made to rush around him.

  “Stop,” he barked. She immediately complied, her shoulders proudly straightened, even as she avoided his gaze. He studied her through hooded lids. Did she truly know him so little that he’d condemn her for her crimes the way others had? This woman who’d seen beyond the beast and scars to the man? Did she believe him incapable of that same gift she’d given him? “What happened after my family turned you out?”

  She wetted her lips and skittered her gaze about. “What happened?” Her wide-eyed stare put him in mind of a fragile deer trapped in the hunter’s snare.

  “Tell me.” Coward that he was, he didn’t want to hear the truth. Yet he needed it, anyway.

  Lily threw her arms up. “What would you have me say?” she spoke in pleading tones and stalked forward in a soft swish of her night-rail, emotion burning deep inside her expressive eyes. “Would you have me tell you all the vilest, most horrible details?” Her lower lip trembled. “Would you have me tell you that I was found outside this very townhouse on the street by a powerful gentleman who offered me employment as a maid?”