by The Rival
“Garrick,” Eleanor said from behind him, her voice low and strained. “May I join you?”
He whirled, not having heard her approach, and saw her standing in the doorway, somewhat teary-eyed. “How can you live with him?” he asked. “How can you let him talk to you, and in front of you, the way he does?”
She entered the room, closing the two doors behind her. “He is my husband,” she said simply. “Like yourself, I was not given any choice in the matter.”
“And do you have regrets, Mother, about being denied the right to decide your own future?”
She sat on the sofa, arranging her full skirts about her. “It would be silly of me to entertain regrets after all these years. He is not a bad man, Garrick, surely you know that. Difficult, yes, very difficult, but …” She hesitated. “He does love me, in his own way.”
Garrick was so stunned to hear his mother speaking about love in reference to the earl that he could only stare.
“You do not think so,” she said, low.
“I think,” he said carefully, “that he considers you his family, as he does me. But I am quite sure he has no concept of what the emotion you are discussing is truly about. What interests Father is the earldom and its perpetuity, nothing else.”
Eleanor bit her lip. “All peers are interested in perpetuity,” she said.
“You defend him. You have always defended him. I admire you, Mother, for your loyalty,” Garrick said, saluting her with his glass.
“He loves you, too!” she cried.
Garrick made an inelegant, scoffing sound. “Please. Would you like something to drink?” he asked, even though he was quite certain his mother was on the near side of being foxed.
She nodded, looking up. “Susan is young,” she said gently. “Give her some time. Please try, Garrick, for all our sakes. You must wed and have an heir.”
Garrick stiffened. He was being blackmailed into doing his duty, and he supposed that said quite a bit about his character—or lack of it. He thought of Lionel with the same guilt as always, and then, grimly, he recalled his bride-to-be. No amount of time would change Susan Layton into a woman of fire and courage, a woman he might admire and one day love. He shoved aside Olivia Grey’s image with real determination. She had been creeping into his thoughts, against his will, ever since he had met her that afternoon.
“I will try for your sake, then, Mother,” Garrick said finally. He handed her the port. “Did you leave him alone at the table?” he asked. The idea gave him some satisfaction.
Eleanor shook her head. “He left before I did and has already gone out.”
Garrick wondered who his current mistress was and said nothing.
They sipped their drinks for a moment in silence. Then Eleanor set down her glass. “If only there could be peace between you and your father,” she whispered.
Garrick stared at her. “We are never going to get along. What he sees as black, I see as white.”
“I know,” she whispered, staring into her glass. “I have missed you so much, Garrick, all these years.” She suddenly looked up, her gaze startling in its boldness. “You are not happy, are you?”
He stiffened, and suddenly he was thinking about Sugar Hill and Lionel. His brother was the reason he had gone away, no longer able to stand the pain of not knowing whether Lionel was dead or alive, whether he might one day come back. His father had also been part of the reason he had exiled himself to that tiny, peaceful sugar island—he had not wanted to become the Stanhope heir, and his father had made it clear to him, every day, that he was the one to blame for Lionel’s disappearance—because he had been the last person to see him, to be with him, that rainy day in Cornwall when he had disappeared.
His pulse was pounding. “What is unhappiness?” Garrick finally said with a wry smile and a falsely casual shrug. “For that matter, what is happiness? We are all given our lot in life, are we not?”
To his absolute shock, his mother set her drink down and burst into tears.
He had not seen his mother cry in years, and this was so sudden, and so extreme, that for a moment he was paralyzed. Then he handed her his handkerchief and sat beside her, putting his arm around her. Garrick was distraught. He did not know what to do. “Mother? What is it?”
She shook her head, trying unsuccessfully not to cry. “I have missed you so. I thought about you all the time, missing you so much that it hurts. Yet I know you cannot stay here, and I know why.” She covered her eyes and sobbed. “I do not blame you for running away from us, for choosing that little island over your home here. How right you are. This was never, is not, a real home.”
Oh, God, he thought. He held her tighter as she sobbed against his shoulder. “You have always been a wonderful mother. I just cannot tolerate him. You were not the reason I left.”
Her blue eyes, wet with tears, held his. She touched his hand and said, “I know. But it is more than that, isn’t it?” She burst into tears again. “One day. One damned day in a lifetime, a single moment, and a family is destroyed. In one instant, a life is taken, and there is no happiness—not ever again.”
Tears burned his own eyes, and he fought them. “Yes,” he said harshly, once again standing on that ledge with Lionel, the two of them scared and alive. What had happened? How could someone walk away and vanish like that?
Gone forever. In one split second. If only he had left the keep with his brother. If only …
“Everything was my fault,” his mother was saying harshly.
“Mother!” Garrick began in protest.
“No! All those years, I allowed him to praise Lionel, so loudly, and to discredit you as vehemently. Oh, God!”
He took her hands and held them. “Do not blame yourself for Father’s behavior. No one can change him. No one allows him anything.”
“Do you think I don’t know what he did to you after Lionel disappeared? Do you think he did not do the very same thing to me? I saw him, time after time, look at you with utter accusation, utter blame. And he made it clear that he blamed me, too.” She looked at him through eyes glazed with liquor and tears. “And I did nothing to defend you.”
“There was nothing you could do,” he said thickly. “Please, do not blame yourself.”
“It is all my fault. You and your father … Lionel …” She did not continue, wringing her hands, choking back fresh sobs.
Garrick did not move. “Nothing was your fault. Let me see you up to your rooms,” he said desperately.
“Your father, not a day goes by that he does not mention Lionel and you,” she cried, as desperate as he.
Garrick stood, feeling his soul beginning to unravel. “Lionel is dead. We must bury him, Mother. The time has come!”
“How can I?” she cried. “How can I bury him when he is gone? Dead, certainly, but vanished without a trace, for all these years. Yet still he haunts us, you, your father, me, every day of our lives!”
He knelt before her, took her hands in his. “We must bury him now. There is no other choice, if we all wish to remain sane.”
He had not wanted the evening to come to this.
To have old wounds torn open, fresh blood spilled.
“I have never forgiven myself,” Eleanor cried. “You boys were out there on the heath because of your father. Why did I let you go? I should have insisted you stay inside in such inclement weather!” she cried. “But I could not speak up, oh no! As usual! I failed in my duty, I failed my sons.”
And Garrick was overwhelmed by his mother’s guilt and his own guilt and the past, which refused to die.
CHAPTER FIVE
She was shaking like a leaf. Garrick was disgusted.
The evening of his engagement party had finally come. Garrick and his fiancée stood at the head of the receiving line, her parents queued up after them, followed by the earl and the countess of Stanhope. The guests had begun arriving some time ago, and it would take a full hour, if not more, to receive all six hundred of them.
The evening,
he knew, would be endless.
Susan continued to tremble, barely able to smile or murmur, “Good evening,” and, “Thank you,” to each of the guests. In that way, Garrick supposed, they made a perfect pair. He did not wish to smile, made no attempt to do so, and barely muttered the appropriate pleasantries to those passing by.
A man bowed to Susan and then to Garrick. His smile was wide and patently false as he wished them well. Garrick nodded, hardly hearing him. Two ladies next in line, resplendently dressed in taffeta evening gowns, were whispering rapidly behind raised silk fans, their gazes upon Garrick.
He strained to hear what they were saying, thought he heard, “ … his brother … fourteen years ago … the earldom.” He also thought they might have said, “ … savage … that sugar island …” but he could not be sure. His cheeks burned.
It had been like this ever since the first guests had begun to arrive. Whispers and stares from afar, and then, when face-to-face, false smiles, false platitudes, false pleasantries and false congratulations.
He hated them all. He wished desperately to be anywhere but at the Laytons’, the guest of honor, his mousy bride-to-be at his side.
Garrick glared at the smiling elderly woman who was saying, “And we have so looked forward to seeing you again, after all these years—” Her expression changed to one of severe shock, and she was so distressed by his expression that that she turned completely around, as if to escape him. Instead of continuing on to greet Sir John and Lady Layton, she crashed into the oncoming guests.
He did not care. They all despised him, and he despised them. He had known it would be this way when he finally went out into society. But in this case, he had not had a choice. His father had seen to that. And the earl expected him to have honor?
Then he felt her gaze and saw the countess of Ashburn regarding him as she moved toward him on the line. He stiffened, the sight of her an actual physical jolt. An instant later he realized he was staring, far too avidly. But she had lowered her eyes. A pink flush colored her cheeks.
He did not hear a single thing the next two guests said to him and Susan, had no idea even if he did reply.
“My lord,” Olivia said with a curtsy. “Miss Layton.” She straightened and glanced up, and their gazes locked.
“Lady Ashburn,” he heard himself say. He was at a loss. “Thank you for coming.”
She hesitated, her pale gray gaze searching. “I could not miss such an eagerly anticipated event.”
He wondered if she had changed her mind. Would she, if pressed, consent to an affair? She was trembling, and in spite of the fear of him she had confessed to, upon their single earlier meeting, he refused to believe that she thought him a murderer. He refused to believe that she could be fond of Arlen—that she would deny herself and remain faithful to him.
“Susan, you have never been lovelier,” Olivia was saying, jerking him out of his thoughts. He glanced at his fiancée and felt nothing but disgust. Her eyes had filled with tears.
“Th-thank you,” she sniffed. “M-my lady, maybe we can speak later, pri-privately?” There was desperation in her tone.
But Garrick was not surprised. She remained terrified of him. His jaw flexed. His bride-to-be was about to have a fit, and he was not going to coddle her.
“Of course, Susan,” Olivia said, her tone warm and reassuring. She laid one gloved palm upon Susan’s clasped hands and smiled at her. How obvious it was that she was attempting to give her courage and strength. Garrick thought it impossible.
“And you, I do hope, shall save me a single dance?” Garrick interrupted them.
Her pale eyes flew to his, filled with surprise. Her color heightened. He knew she could not refuse. To do so would cause raised eyebrows—and the Laytons were listening to their every word, as were the next guests in the receiving line.
“Of … course,” she whispered, and tearing her gaze from his, she hurried away to greet Sir John and his wife.
He stared after her, not caring who should see, imagining her in his arms—but not upon the dance floor. He did not know why he wanted her so badly, but he was not interested in questioning himself. She felt it, too, he had no doubt, and in the end would submit to passion.
“My lord, we meet again, after so many years,” a familiar voice drawled.
Garrick tore his gaze from Olivia in her silver gown—and faced her husband, Arlen Grey.
Grey bowed.
Garrick bowed. His insides had curdled with the sheer magnitude of his loathing for the man. And it had never been this strong before—in spite of their history of shared animosity. He glanced toward Olivia and saw her regarding them openly.
Garrick turned back to her husband and became aware of Arlen’s sister standing beside him, smiling at him as she coolly fluttered a lacquered fan. Elizabeth, he saw, had not changed either in the eleven years that had passed since he had last seen her. She remained the too beautiful queen of ice and desire.
“Lord Ashburn, what a pleasure,” he mocked. “I take it you have come to wish me well on the eve of my wedding?” They both knew Arlen’s only wish was to speed him to his grave.
And Arlen smiled so widely, his face appeared in jeopardy of cracking. “Of course,” he said as sarcastically. “Would I wish you anything else?” He suddenly reached for Elizabeth. “You do recall my beautiful and unforgettable sister? Now the marchioness of Houghton?”
“Madam.” Garrick bowed over her hand, which she had extended, but he refused to lift it. He would prefer to burn in hell, without question. “Somehow, I did not think to find you here tonight, celebrating my betrothal.”
Elizabeth smiled, but her eyes were ice. And she laughed coolly. “As if I would miss this event, dear Caedmon. Why, I have already chosen your wedding present.”
“Such haste,” he remonstrated wryly. “And where is your husband? Surely he dotes upon you and attends you constantly?”
“My darling Lord Caedmon, how correct you are. The marquis is my heart’s very desire, as I am his. He will arrive, I imagine, at any moment.”
“I am surprised he does not accompany you and your brother,” Garrick said, staring with an unpleasant smile, a hidden meaning he knew she understood behind his words. Her decolletage exposed most of her small alabaster breasts. It was obvious to him that she had not changed at all in the past decade.
“Wentworth allows me all of my outside interests,” Elizabeth said, fluttering her fan and her lashes at the same time. She laughed again.
“I am sure that he does,” Garrick said, quite certain what those outside interests were.
Grey took Elizabeth’s arm firmly. “You shall meet the marquis in no time at all.” He was glaring. “Come, Elizabeth.”
But Elizabeth did not move, her fan now moving with smoldering sensuality. Her eyes lifted and held his. “It has been a very long time, my lord, has it not?”
“I do not recall,” he lied.
The languid look left her eyes, which instantly hardened. “It has been eleven years since we last saw one another, precisely,” she almost snapped.
“Frankly,” he said, aware that many eyes were now trained upon them, including Olivia’s, “I had completely forgotten.” He suddenly wondered if Olivia had heard all the rumors. He turned to look at her, but she was ignoring him now, engaged in conversation with a lady he did not recognize.
Elizabeth was smiling again. She faced Susan, her fan moving ever so slightly and very sensually. “My dear Miss Layton,” she said, eyes gleaming. “How lucky you are. My congratulations and good wishes.” Her smile widened. “To think that His Lordship returned from that savage little sugar island after all these years—in order to marry you. How ecstatic you must be, Miss Layton!” She laughed. “How flattered! How awed! How enamored!”
Susan’s face crumpled. Garrick took one look at her and thought, If she cries now, in front of these two, not to mention six hundred guests, I am walking out on them all, my debts be damned.
And almost miracu
lously, Olivia appeared on Susan’s other side. “Susan is extremely fatigued from all of the excitement. I do think she must retire for a few moments,” she said gracefully.
“Olivia!” Elizabeth gasped with mockery. “You are still here? By now, I thought you would have fled home to the country. What a surprise. What could be keeping you in town?”
Garrick knew he was staring; every time they were in the same room he could not tear his gaze away, and something protective welled up in him, a feeling he had never in his life expected to have, not for anyone or anything, not since Lionel’s death. He wanted to step between the marchioness and Olivia, but before he could do so, Olivia had turned to face her.
“What is keeping me in town is a very pleasant visit with the Laytons,” she said quietly.
“So the country madam is now fond of city life?” Elizabeth was mocking.
Olivia did not bother to answer. “Come, dear,” she said softly to Susan. “My lord?” she queried.
He applauded Olivia for ignoring her sister-in-law, not at all surprised that Elizabeth should dislike Olivia so obviously. He did find it interesting, though, that she did not look at her husband, not even once. Arlen, he saw, regarded Olivia with cool disdain and vast impatience.
“I do not mind,” he returned, acutely aware of her proximity. “In fact”—he smiled, unaware that it was his first real smile of the day—“I insist.”
And she smiled back at him, then took Susan by the hand and led her away.
She did not want to feel compassion. Not for Garrick De Vere. She did not want to feel anything for him at all; she wanted, desperately, to think of him as she would any casual acquaintance or, better still, a stranger. But the gossip was horrendous. Olivia heard the whispers about his shadowy past in every salon. No one had come to the Laytons tonight to congratulate him upon his good fortune. They had come to get a good look at him, to see if he had truly become a West Indies savage, and to decide if he had really murdered his brother in order to gain both a title and a fortune.
