There was a rustling and then another moan. Katherine curled a fist into Giles’s shirt. So much for his cravat. At least now he could put it to other uses—like stringing up Rayne. Hell, if it were only Rayne who would face consequences, he would have already thrown open the door.
“Promise,” Rayne commanded.
“Yes, Rayne,” Julia answered. “I swear I will not enter dark places…unless it is with you.”
Rayne made a harsh noise—the frustrated sigh of a man close to his edge.
“What happens now?” Julia asked.
“Now, you will go to your room…and you will bar the door.”
“But Rayne—”
“Go, Lady Julia.”
“Stop pushing. You could hurt me.”
“I’m hurting.”
“What do you mean? I didn’t…oh!” Julia muffled a giggle. “I understand.”
“If you truly understood, you wouldn’t play with fire. I’ve a mind to wake your sister.”
Katherine’s body went rigid. Giles spread a comforting hand against the small of her back. He knew an empty threat when he heard one.
“Please don’t bother my sister.”
“Then, go to bed.”
“Very well,” Julia replied. “Sweet dreams, Rayne.”
“Goodbye, minx.”
A door at the end of the wing creaked. Giles pressed his ear to the panel, waiting until he heard the sound of Rayne’s boots as he descended the stairs.
“What am I going to do?” Katherine asked.
“You will do nothing,” Giles replied. “I will escort Rayne back to The Pillar of Salt. And make sure he leaves for London before Julia wakes.”
“Do you think he’ll leave?”
“Yes.” Giles kissed Katherine’s forehead. “Though I must talk to him now, before he deludes himself into thinking he handled the situation the best he could.”
Katherine rested her cheek against his chest and shuddered. “Rayne is your oldest friend. I do not wish to come between you.”
Giles cradled the back of her head. “Farring is my oldest friend. Rayne is…” Well, Rayne was the closest thing he’d had to family. “Rayne is just a friend.”
“I still do not wish to come between you,” she said.
Giles touched her cheek. “I will continue to say this until you feel it; you no longer have to take care of everyone alone.” Once he released the lever, he’d lose the comforting presence of her heat. He inhaled her scent one last time. Then, reluctantly, he swung open the door.
Light from the downstairs sconces cast shadows over Katherine’s worried features. He cupped her neck with a gentle hand and placed a light, reassuring kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“Trust me?” he asked.
Katherine nodded. “I do, Giles. I trust you with all my heart,” she said.
At her promise, his insides went tender. Her muscles relaxed under his hand, and he claimed her soft, pliant lips once again. When he drew back, the worry had vanished from her brow.
He prayed he would one day be worthy.
Chapter Eleven
Giles arrested his stride just before entering the library. He had just witnessed the dishonoring of a young lady under his protection, and by Rayne of all people. Rayne, whom he once would have trusted with his life.
For the sake of Julia’s honor, Rayne must leave. That much was clear. Two facts, however, balanced on the pin-prick of Giles’s conscience: he’d trespassed against Rayne’s sister and Rayne had trespassed against his. The salt causing his conscience to totter was too obvious to have appeared entirely by chance.
Giles may have understood Rayne’s justification, but he’d be damned if he’d excuse it.
He took a deep breath and then crossed the threshold into the library. Gently, he closed the door. Markham and Farring need not be part of what was to come. It was, in fact, far better they were not.
Rayne stood by the fireplace, one hand on the mantel, neck bent toward the flames, face flushed. His foot-tapping ceased, and then he glanced up.
Rayne’s face was long-familiar. The fury in his gaze, less so.
“I find it hard to believe,” Giles said quietly, “that Julia possesses charms powerful enough to overcome a practiced rake’s moral misgivings.”
A chilling mask descended over Rayne’s features. “And I find it hard to believe you discarded my sister for—for this.” He waved his hand with disgust.
Giles raised his brows. “Are you admitting your little performance upstairs was solely for my benefit?”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“Come now, Rayne. We operate under the same strictures. An eye for an eye. The pattern is hardly unclear; I disappoint your sister, so you go after mine.”
Rayne’s posture grew deathly still, much like a cat with his eyes on a bird.
There was, of course, some chance Giles had misjudged. Perhaps Julia had roused Rayne’s interest. Yet, if Rayne’s struggle with passion had been genuine, why was a malevolent sneer tugging at the corner of Rayne’s mouth?
An uneasy shudder tripped up Giles’s spine. Even if Rayne hadn’t feigned attraction, Giles must stand in defiance of Rayne’s actions as Rayne had stood in defiance of his. The cause and effect was dreadfully familiar. When one man insulted another, remedy must be demanded. For most men, that meant a duel. But could pistols prove honor?
Courage in the face of death would have been easier than this—exchanging the ugliest of truths with someone he’d cared for as a brother.
“You desired revenge,” Giles said. “That, I understand. But your carelessness disappoints.”
Rayne raised his right brow.
“Had I not possessed the presence of mind to withdraw behind the paneling,” Giles continued, “you would have landed right in the springy center of a parson’s trap.”
“Hardly,” Rayne scoffed. “Hades himself could not force me to marry that—”
Giles narrowed his gaze.
“That minx.” A muscle twitched in Rayne’s jaw, suggesting he was not as unaffected by Julia as Giles had first supposed. “If you did witness my display, then you must have heard her goad.”
Giles stilled, trapped between his friendship with Rayne and his concern for his future sister. Then, he remembered. Julia had trapped him in the priest hole, but she hadn’t considered her actions could have resulted in a forced marriage. Julia had flirted with a farmer boy, but nothing in her life could have prepared her for the very real danger of a man like Rayne.
“Yes, she was an aggressor, but you have extensive experience. To Julia, a kiss is just a kiss, whether she believes herself besotted or not. And from what I heard, you did not try very hard to escape.”
“Were you listening carefully? I was. You were not alone, were you? I swear I heard a distinctly feminine gasp.”
Giles’s cheeks darkened.
“Really, Brom,” Rayne seized his hesitation, “are you that taken with your prize that you cannot resist mauling your betrothed just days before you are to wed?”
“You had better measure your words.”
Rayne rubbed his forefinger against his chin. “I cannot blame you, of course. What, with her past, it’s best to ensure she was in working order prior to proper conveyan—”
He lunged at Rayne, pinning him up against the wall. Rayne choked for air as Giles curled his fists in the fabric of Rayne’s coat. Good God. He hadn’t chosen to advance. The violence had simply been present, just beneath the surface. Slowly, Giles released Rayne’s lapel.
“Christ.” Rayne cursed. “You truly are unhinged, aren’t you?”
Giles took a step back, baring his teeth. “You are an ass. No matter what my sins—or Lady Katherine’s for that matter—you had no right to trifle with an innocent.”
“Innocent?” Rayne made a dismissive sound. “Lady Julia is no innocent. She was the one who accosted me. I imagine she aspires to be just as infamous as her sister.”
“Woul
d you also have me believe you were unaware of her fascination with you?”
“Of course, I was aware. The minx was obvious enough.”
“Do not even try to tell me you cannot tell the difference between a practiced coquette and an enthralled innocent.”
Rayne pursed his lips and then turned his face sharply toward the fire.
“I’ll take your silence as admission,” Giles continued. “Rayne, your treatment of Lady Julia was beneath you.”
“Beneath me?” Rayne laughed a bitter laugh. “You’re one to talk, Brom. Beneath me.” He snorted. “Yes. She is just as beneath me as the tarnished piece of mutton you are about to marry is benea—”
Giles arrested his fist a mere inch from Rayne’s jaw. God help him, he was close to becoming unhinged.
Rayne’s gaze met his, full of challenge and defiance. “Hit me and confirm everything I already know. The starker the truth, the greater the violence in resistance.”
Giles lowered his hand. Fissions charged with the damage he could have inflicted sliced his veins.
Rayne slowly shook his head. “None of this makes any sense, can’t you see that? You—the paragon of Eton, the pride of the Tory party—embroiled in a series of scandals that would make any one of Prinny’s look tame.” He held up his fingers to count. “First, you fail to follow through on a long-anticipated betrothal, insulting both Clarissa and me and losing out on the fortune my father agreed to as dowry. Then you nearly gamble away your estate, and now you’ve tied yourself to a merely passable spinster whose family you would have counted beneath your notice just a few years ago.”
Rayne wasn’t wrong. Shit.
“A litany of my faults,” Giles said, “does not excuse your own.”
“What are you so desperate to hide?” Rayne replied. “What turned the venerable Marquess of Bromton from the most steadfast, honorable man I’ve ever known into,” his face twisted with disgust, “this?”
“I will not allow you to goad me into further violence two days before I am to wed.”
Rayne tugged on his waistcoat and adjusted his cravat. “For your information, what happened upstairs had nothing to do with you.”
“Really…?” Giles’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Rayne shook his head back and forth in pantomimed disbelief. “We’ve spent more time in each other’s company than brothers. Hell, I thought you would one day be my brother. Then, first you cast aside Clarissa, and now, me.”
The muscles in Giles’s jaw tightened.
Rayne slammed his fist against the table. “I forgave you, at first, but only for Clarissa’s sake. Have you even thought about what your marriage will do to Clarissa? Were it not for the strength of her character and the depth of her friendships she would be an outcast. What do you think will happen to her tenuous position when she meets Lady Katherine?” Rayne waited a moment before continuing, “I’ll tell you what will happen. All eyes will be on them, and the boldest of the ladies will be snickering behind their fans. Any hint of rivalry or discomfort and they will both be shamed.”
Giles flinched. No, he hadn’t imagined their meeting. He hadn’t even held Katherine and Clarissa in the same thought. They would become forever joined in gossip and scandal with him at the center. They’d be planets doomed to revolve around his sin and his mistakes.
Could Katherine bear any more shame? And Clarissa. Vivacious Clarissa… He had always cared for her in his own way, though neither had held any illusions about the kind of marriage they would have had. Practical. Expedient. Dynastic. When he’d broken with her, he’d known her heart was intact. He hadn’t considered that his actions would leave her open to the kind of speculation that had so devastated Katherine.
“Is there not,” Giles swallowed, “an impending announcement between Clarissa and the Duke of St. Alden?”
“You are a fool, Brom. I started that rumor. I was tired of watching her standing on the outskirts of every assembly. Tired of hearing the talk of her that was swiftly halted when I walked into the room.” Rayne rubbed his brow. “At least now the bucks have some other bit of gossip with which to occupy their limited attention.”
Giles stared as Rayne came in and out of focus. So many wrongs and disappointments. He cast about for a line to hold him still. In all of this, there was still the matter of an innocent.
“I am—” He halted. “Again, I apologize if I harmed your sister in any way. And I will do whatever is within my power to make amends…but you must leave.”
“Hypocrite,” Rayne accused. “This display is more than a little disingenuous. Lady Julia is not even your sister.”
Giles’s gaze sharpened. “You tread on dangerous ground. You will leave now, or I will reveal the exchange I overheard to Markham. You know as well as I, your choices would then become the parson, or pistols at dawn.”
“You will not alert Markham,” Rayne sneered, “because if you do, I’ll tell your beloved about a little card game where you bet the whole of your inheritance and somehow ended up betrothed to her instead.” Rayne rubbed his chin. “Markham goaded you into taking the harpy off his hands, didn’t he?”
Rayne had read his vowel pledging the estate, of course. He must remember everything else on Rayne’s part was speculation.
“You don’t have to confirm; the truth is plain enough on your face. Markham was so desperate to rid himself of his spinster, he traded the possibility of owning Bromton Castle. That should have told you something.”
“I told you to leave,” Giles repeated. “Julia may be intemperate and inexperienced, but she was, until tonight, untouched. You will go, because you know you are in the wrong.”
“I am in the wrong? All I did was allow a relentless minx to hound me into a single kiss, after which, I sent her directly to bed, virtue intact. Which, by the way, I did not have to do. I wager she would have let me lift her skirts right there on the landing…and I am sure I would have found her wet and—”
Fury exploded behind Giles’s eyes in a sea of red. His fist met Rayne’s jaw with a jarring thud.
Rayne squeezed his eyes closed as he shook off the impact. “Remember that feeling.” His voice was gravel and sand. “Remember the moment that cost you this friendship.”
Giles could hardly breathe. “Go back to The Pillar of Salt, pack your bags, and go home.”
“Home to my devastated sister?”
“Go to London,” Giles growled. “Go to Moscow. Go as far as the Gobi Desert, for all I care. Just stay away from Lady Julia. I will not ask you again.”
“You do not have to,” Rayne replied. “It’s with deep pleasure that I abandon you to the bed you’ve so poorly made. You can cast us all aside. Lady Bromton. Clarissa. Me. But you cannot outrun truth. Soon enough, you’ll stand alone, and then you will finally understand the cost of discarding people as if they were dirt beneath your boots.”
Rayne’s footfalls echoed down the hall. Giles remained still until he heard the sound of Rayne’s horse galloping into the night. Then, he sunk down into the nearest hard chair, rubbing his stinging knuckles.
Rayne may have gone, but he’d left behind a mirror crisscrossed with cracks and spots. Rayne’s mirror was macabre, but the reflection he saw was not wholly inaccurate.
When Giles held Katherine, he could not believe everything had fallen so beautifully into place. When he had faced his mother, and now, Rayne, he could not believe how twisted he’d become.
He held his forehead, and his skin singed with heat. Means and ends and justification aside, which version of himself would win?
In the dark of his soul, the hellhounds raised their noses, once again catching his scent.
…
The garden bench where Katherine and Julia sat might as well have been made of ice instead of stone. Cold seeped through Katherine’s petticoats, stinging her thighs. She’d joined Julia at least an hour past, but her presence had failed to provide any comfort. Markham, at least, accepted the explanation that Rayne had been called home t
o attend to family business. Julia, on the other hand, had stalked outside, and had yet to utter a word.
Katherine wrapped an arm about her sister. Julia remained stiff.
Julia must have felt cold, too, but, if she did, she showed no sign. Instead, her eyes remained fixed on the horizon, with a resolute expression that made her look as if she were making a mystical attempt to conjure Rayne. Katherine could almost feel the incantations rising out of Julia’s heart.
She’d been this way all morning.
Katherine smoothed her sister’s hair. “You’ll have to speak sometime,” she said gently.
Julia’s bottom lip quivered for an interminable moment, then stilled. Her expression hardened, and then she shrugged.
“Really, Julia.” Katherine sighed. Julia was just stubborn enough to remain silent for months. “You knew the man for a day. You cannot truly be in mourning.”
Julia whipped around. The accusation in the depths of her eyes sent a shiver up Katherine’s spine, hips to neck.
“Lord Bromton,” Julia pointed out, “decided he wanted to marry you in even less than that time.”
Katherine released an incoherent stutter of sounds. “What,” she stammered, “gave you that impression?”
Julia glanced heavenward. “Lord Bromton, of course.”
“You must have misunders—”
“Oh, for goodness sake. I locked Lord Bromton in the priest hole and demanded his intentions the night he kissed you in the billiards room. And by the way,” Julia raised a brow, “I, too, am vastly curious about this demimonde.”
“Julia,” she said warningly. “I was trying to frighten the marquess into leaving. Which, may I remind you, was your suggestion.”
“Your efforts were exceedingly effective,” Julia replied drily.
Katherine stiffened. “The marquess had honorable intentions. Lord Rayne did not.”
Julia’s face crumbled. “Did he say he did not?”
Katherine cursed inwardly before choosing her words with care. “From what I understand, when Lord Bromton confronted Lord Rayne, Lord Rayne acknowledged his wrong.”
“Impossible.” Tears filled Julia’s eyes. “I know he felt what I was feeling. He had to.”
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