by Cari Hislop
“I’ll explain after we complete the list. Were there any others?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Has anyone killed themselves because of something you did or were involved with?”
“How the blazes should I know?”
“You look guilty.”
“I didn’t chain them to the gaming table. I didn’t put a gun to their head and force them to play. I’m not the one who made their dependents homeless. They knew my reputation; the stakes are high and I usually win. It wasn’t my fault they chose suicide over penury.”
“Who were they?” It was a gentle question. Geoffrey’s head sank back into his hands as he rattled off the twenty-two names he could remember.
“Were there any women?”
“Every woman who’s ever shared my bed, how should I know? I never sent thank you notes inquiring if my fumbling revolted them. I assume it did.”
Covering his face with his hands he ensured he wouldn’t have to see her disgust, but her wistful sigh made him glance through his fingers. Was she blushing? “Have you fathered any children?”
“None that I know of.”
“Have you ever stolen anything or acquired property by ungentlemanly means?”
“I never cheat! I do have some honour.”
“Cheating aside, do you own any property that makes you feel uneasy?”
Geoffrey looked up with an indignant expression. “Why should I feel uneasy?”
“Have any items or properties come into your possession that caused innocent parties to suffer?”
He groaned in horror as he remembered countless eyes filled with tears, horror and fear. “Am I supposed to remember every lady in distress? Where is the guilt of the husbands and sons? Why is it my fault? Why must I be the one who feels guilty?”
She ignored his loud angry questions and asked in a calm soothing voice, “Their names?”
“Must we do this?”
“Acknowledging your injuries is the first part of the healing process. How badly do you want to feel better?” Geoffrey groaned into his sleeves and muttered another long list of names.
The pen finally fell silent. Looking up he watched her stare unseeing at the desk. Was she finished asking questions? He sighed in relief; he wouldn’t lose his only friend. She’d never know… “Have you ever taken a woman against her will?”
The question caused panic and horror. “Don’t ask that question!”
“Who was she?”
Geoffrey voice cracked as his throat constricted, “I’ve ruined countless lives. There’s no need to list every single one of them on that blasted piece of paper. No more questions. I can’t bear it.”
She was staring at the paper on the desk with a mixture of sadness and disgust. “Were you drunk? Were you angry they didn’t want you? Were you being vindictive?”
Geoffrey clutched his chest as he strained to gulp in enough air to breathe. “I already feel like I’m writhing in the flames of hell. I’d give anything to go back and undo what I’ve done. Isn’t that enough?”
“No, it’s not enough.”
Geoffrey’s shoulders sagged as he was forced to face his ugly past. “I came to London at nineteen. I was a beautiful naïve boy. I fell into Lady Pelham’s bed thinking I’d landed in paradise. I followed her around like an obedient spaniel, desperate to do any small thing that might give her pleasure. The last time we were…intimate, in my boyish exuberance I confessed that I loved her and wanted to protect her. She laughed and said I was a sweet silly child and then ordered me back into my breeches as if I was a footman. I was hurt. I reached for her, for reassurance, but she slapped my hand and told me to be a good boy and run along. She had a pressing appointment with her milliner. I thought she loved me, but I meant less than a new hat. Something inside me snapped. I turned on her like a mad dog. I hate myself for what I did.”
“If you’d loved her, you would never have hurt her.”
“You don’t know what I felt.”
“Perhaps not, but it wasn’t love.”
“You can’t know that!”
“There’s no need to shout Geoffrey.”
The cool tone of her voice made him feel worse. “Please don’t hate me! I’ve never ravaged another woman…not like that…” He cursed his tongue as her eyes narrowed. She was going to keep digging until she knew the worst and then she’d never speak to him again. He was going to die a friendless wretch after all.
“What do you mean, not like that?”
He sucked in his breath as the pain deepened. “I didn’t hurt the young ladies I won, not intentionally. Please don’t look at me like that!” Geoffrey cringed as she ogled him like a spilled chamber pot.
“What do you mean you won them?”
“I had the women in lieu of other winnings.”
“Did the young ladies offer their bodies as collateral?”
“No.”
“Who instigated the substitution?”
Geoffrey eyes were closed against the look on her face, his mouth a thin line of self-contempt. “I did. The first time I was playing with Lord Standish. He’d lost everything. I owned him and he owned his pretty sister, Lady Penelope, who counted my father as one of her admirers. Being addressed as Lord Worm was irritating, but her interference in my search for love made me…enraged. Every time I tried to make myself pleasant to any decent female she’d soon be whispering in the lady’s ear my father’s stories of my unsuitability and then the young lady who’d previously found my company agreeable would have nothing to do with me. Lady Penelope was so proud of her success she made sure I knew how many women she’d saved from my repulsive company. After I offered to exchange his debts for his sister Lord Standish offered to make her marry me, but I only wanted to…”
“Rape her?”
“No, I wanted to make the proud harpy moan with pleasure from my touch. I wanted her to willingly purchase her old life with her body.”
“You wanted to degrade her and make her feel like a prostitute.”
“Yes…it’s ugly and I hate myself for even suggesting it. I wish I’d never met the cursed female.”
“And did she come willingly?” The words had a choking sound that made Geoffrey’s empty stomach heave. Placing his hands on her desk for support, he hung his head in shame. “I’ve never seen a woman so bruised and battered outside the slums of St. Giles. I told her to put her clothes back on and leave. She begged me to take her; said her brother would kill her if she returned a virgin. There was a doctor waiting. She was hysterical. I told her to consider the debt paid, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“You didn’t…?”
“God knows I didn’t want to! I tried to get her to put her clothes back on, but she wouldn’t. I didn’t know how else to end it. I just wanted her to leave.” Geoffrey felt his whole being throb with pain as his only friend dropped her quill and covered her face. “Tolerance?” Panic flooded his senses; the thought of losing her warmth and sunlight sent him half mad with fear. “Forgive me!”
A few minutes later she looked up with wet eyes. “It isn’t my forgiveness you need to seek. How many ladies did you win?”
“Five if you count Lady Clara Farley. I was undressing and the next thing I knew she was trying to slit my throat. I disarmed her and sent her home a virgin. After that I decided there were safer ways to get…revenge.”
“And the other three? You bed them?”
“Yes.”
“Their names?”
“Lady Bernice Michael, Lady Sarah Edgely and Miss Catherine Foley.” Geoffrey closed his eyes as the pen scratched his sins onto the paper and spoke without thinking, “What would you have done?” The pen was abruptly lifted from the paper, but her eyes paused an eternity on the paper before looking up at him. “Forgive my impertinence…don’t answer!”
“To save my sister the horror, I’d have lain with you. If I’d cried the whole time would you have beat me for ruining your pleasure?”
Her matter of f
act tone was like a hard slap. Clawing his silk waistcoat was a futile attempt to ease the burning ache. Nothing would ever make him feel better; he was going to die a friendless wretch. “I could never insult you with such a degrading proposition. I would have made you my Duchess. Why can’t I keep my tongue out of the gutter? Slap me! Call me The Devil’s Corpse. Tell me I’m a worm, but don’t hate me.”
Chapter 9
He would have married her? As Tolerance tried to order the thought from her head she could see herself getting out of her parent’s carriage with the hood of her cape pulled forward to hide her face. She would have already met the man who’d won her. She’d know instinctively he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d lift off her hood, take her face in his hands and kiss her. She’d forget why she was there until he whispered in her ear that he had a special license in his pocket and the necessary priest and witnesses in the next room, but it wouldn’t have been like that for the women who suffered Geoffrey’s angry lust. They would have been terrified and if wise, barely sensible after downing a large dose of laudanum.
She didn’t have to imagine the horror of the young women delivered into a strange man’s power and expected to sacrifice their bodies for the good of their families. She could still feel her stomach heave in fear as she was shoved into her bridegroom’s bedchamber by her mother and told to do her duty with only a faint idea of what that would entail. She pushed the horror of her short marriage from her mind and reminded herself it could have been worse; it might have lasted for decades. Glancing up she found pale blue eyes pleading for mercy. “I don’t hate you, but…” He covered his face with his hands and bowed his head. Was it an act? How far had the devil fallen into hell? Could he even climb out? “…what you’ve done… Have you known fear Geoffrey? Fear you can taste; that bitter taste of sick that burns your throat and makes you feel faint, fear that makes you wish you were dead? That’s what they felt on finding themselves in your power.”
“I told you, I wish I’d never touched them, never met them. I hate myself for what I did. Isn’t that enough?”
“Do you know the taste of fear?”
“Yes, I know fear! The sound of my father’s footsteps…”
“That’s what you made them feel. You might as well have been wearing your father’s shoes.”
‘No! I’m not my father. He was an evil bastard. I wouldn’t beat my infant son for being afraid of me. My children wouldn’t need to be afraid of me; I wouldn’t marry someone who’d sit there without saying a word as her child screamed for her as he was pummelled in the next room. She just sat there doing her bloody embroidery.”
“Your mother doesn’t strike me as a woman who doesn’t care.”
Geoffrey snorted in contempt. “The Duchess wouldn’t raise a toast to my passing; she’d probably say it was rude to celebrate the devil. Well I don’t care if she hates me, I hate her. She nearly killed me smashing a large vase on my head when I was a youth. I have a large scar on my head to prove it. She never loved me. Why would she? I’m my father’s son. She gave up on me before I was out of nursery skirts. I hate my family. They’ve taken every opportunity to grind my face that I don’t deserve to breathe let alone be the Duke of Lyndhurst. Everyone thought my father was a God. He was so handsome, so intelligent, so charming, the salvation of the Lyndhurst inheritance. He was a heartless bastard! When I got up the nerve to tell him I wasn’t going to be treated as an inferior to my older bastard brother he rang the bell and ordered the footmen to throw me out of the house. Grayson watched smiling as I was thrown down the marble steps. My noble father cut off without a penny and then persuaded the countryside that I was mad. I had to live in the dower-house which had a roof with more holes than tiles. The boot-boy slept up at the Hall in a bed. I slept on a straw pallet on a rotten floor after eating table scraps from a slop bucket. I’ll never forget the disgusting smell of roasting hedgehog and being too hungry not to eat it. When I grew out of the clothes I had to petition my mother for new ones through a servant. I was given my bastard brother’s cast-offs which were too big. I was the laughing stock of the shires until I inherited my maternal Grandmother’s fortune at nineteen. The Duke was furious that I escaped two more years of humilations. Why didn’t she send for me? Why couldn’t she love me? I was a good boy. I could have been a good man.” Tolerance sanded the list and rose from her chair. The room crackled with silence as she walked around the desk to his side. The list folded into a small square, he intently watched her face as she took hold of his waistcoat pocket and tucked the list deep inside. “Tolerance!” The word was an appeal for kindness.
“I know of only one cure for guilt. You must make restitution and put right what you can. Return all property and money tainted by blood or pain to the original owners or their heirs. Find the people on the list or their closest living relatives and tell them you’re sorry for what you’ve done and beg their forgiveness. There is a chance that as you complete the list you’ll find some peace. Change and heal or stay the same and die, it’s your choice Geoffrey.”
He looked at her in horror as if she’d instructed him to hang himself. “Beg? Graysons never beg! I can return a property, but I can’t beg.”
“Many of these people will have suffered heartache and deprivation. You know what that feels like. You had three year of it in your youth. You’ve caused others to suffer as you were forced to suffer. Are you proud of that?”
“You don’t understand. I can’t beg. I’m the Duke of Lyndhurst.”
“Is it so important to feel superior to other people?”
“Yes…no…it’s just the way it is. I’ll give them my money. I’ll give them my house. Hell, I’ll give them the portraits of my ancestors, but I can’t beg.”
“You’ve spent the best years of your life causing misery because you were miserable; does that make you feel proud?”
“You make me sound like my cousin Strathmore. If you think I’m heartless you should try crossing a man who’s made an art of taking offence.”
“Is your pride so precious? That strikes me as pathetic.”
“My father could treat me like a dog, but he couldn’t take my pride. I’m a Grayson. We never beg. Ever!”
“Does it make you feel proud to know you’ve become your father?”
“I’m not my father!” The roar of rage had a tone of despair. “I’m not all bad…I can be kind.”
“Then give the people you’ve hurt the one thing no one can take from you.”
“I can’t. I’ll be the worm my father always said I’d be.”
She reached up and lightly caressed his cheek. His skin was smooth from a recent shave. She could feel his teeth grinding as he looked down at her with the eyes of a drowning man who knew if he couldn’t catch the rope he’d die. “If pride was a chain it would have links as large as dinner plates. You’re standing there holding up your pride thinking that a bent knee will make you small, but it’s the only way to remove the weight. Keep the chain; stand there feeling proud ‘till you die of exhaustion or fall to your knees and bow your head and let it roll off your neck. No one can take it from you. What will you choose? What do you want Geoffrey?”
His eyes shimmered like sunny blue skies after rain. She had a feeling that if she peered into their depths she’d see a distant rainbow. He tenderly took possession of her hand and pressed his lips against her palm. “I want sunlight.”
She smiled and he clutched her hand tighter; he’d caught the rope, but he didn’t yet understand he’d have to pull himself out of the water. Her mind was filled with visions of her friend despairing of ever healing and ending his life. “Will you promise me something?”
