The Whispered Kiss

by Marcia Lynn McClure

  “Very well,” she agreed. Still, she smiled as she continued reading Elise’s letter, for she sensed what it would reveal next, and somehow it pleased her to have Valor hear of it. “Here…I begin once more. He has quickly become quite the admired stable owner. However he came by the means to quit us and begin, I do not know…yet I am glad for him. I have ever thought him handsome and able and deserving of his own success. It is the part of me that longs for escape, the part of me that has ever admired John Billings from a distance, that wishes Father were not so determined to marry us girls to men who value only money and position…for I have ever wished John Billings would take notice of me. Remember the trips I would invent, begging Father for the use of his coach, simply so I might see John, speak to him even a little? Yet I am certain Father will have none of it, and it disheartens me more than you know. There now, I have talked myself into despair, Coquette. I must end this before I am reduced to tears and further confessions. Know that I love you and miss you desperately. Your Sister, Elise.”

  “She proves herself wiser than she may appear,” Valor said, “for John Billings is the best of men.”

  “She would be humiliated to know I had read such personal musings to you,” Coquette said.

  “Well, she will never know of it,” he said. “Further, if she did know if it, I would commend her on her choice and encourage her to follow the part of herself who admires him.” He looked to her then, and she knew she wore a puzzled frown. “What then?” he asked.

  “How…how can you hand Billings a purse—a sum enough to enable him to quit my father and begin his own stables—and yet threaten murder beforehand?” she asked. She could not stop the question from escaping her lips, for the man, the beast before her, was nothing if not a conflict in himself.

  “The other letter,” he said, looking again to the service on the table before him. “Read it now.”

  He would not answer her question. She knew it. And so, with sudden and great trepidation, she broke the seal on her father’s letter and began to read. “Dearest Coquette,” she began, “I was, for a moment, disheartened at receiving your letter and reading of its contents; however…” Instantly, anxiety and an odd sort of apprehension washed over Coquette. In one sentence she knew—she knew Valor had been right. With the reading of one sentence, her father’s character was further in question.

  A sort of panic flamed within Valor at the first line of the letter. He did not wish Coquette to continue to read it, for he knew it held only disappointment and heartache. Certainly he had wished, wished for years, for Coquette to know the true nature of her father’s character—to know the true nature of the man she pledged loyalty to over him. Yet now, with the sure proof of it written in her father’s own hand before her, Valor did not wish her to have confirmation.

  “I grow weary of the evening and letter reading,” he said. “Leave the letter here. We…we will continue another time.”

  “No,” Coquette said.

  She looked to him, and he felt the sharp pinch of painful regret pricking at his cold heart.

  “This is what you wanted. You wish for me to have a better knowledge of my father’s low character. I think…I think this letter will—”

  “I am greatly fatigued, Coquette,” he interrupted, angry suddenly, but not at her—not even at her father. Rather at himself. “Leave the letter.”

  Coquette drew in a quick, startled breath. He had addressed her by name. Other than the night he had been overcome by the tonic, he had not addressed her by name since her coming. It warmed her, his addressing her so familiarly. Even for the anxiety growing within her in anticipation at the contents of her father’s letter, Valor’s allowing her name to fall from his lips warmed her.

  “I will read it in silence if you prefer, milord,” Coquette said. “You do not need to linger and—”

  “If you are to read it at all, then read it aloud,” Valor growled. She fancied he did not seem happy, did not enjoy his triumph as she thought he would, and she wondered why.

  “Very well,” she said. “I’ll continue.” Clearing her throat, she began again. “I was, for a moment, disheartened at receiving your letter and reading of its contents; however, I write with my own assurance that all will be well. The bruising left of a beating does heal, my darling, and if you keep to the manor house until healing has been completed, then the population of the township will be none the wiser. Further, men are fierce and brutal creatures, Coquette…and violence is the companion to brutality. Still, with age, the majority of men do settle and calm. Take comfort in the knowledge your husband will not always be so brutal and that happiness will come to you as you learn to accept life as the Lady of Roanan. You asked that I come to you, help you in some regard, my darling…but I say to you that you belong to your husband now and thus must cling only to him. He is now your counterpart and will care for you in whatever manner he sees fit. It is what comes of growing up, Coquette…of marrying such a man of wealth and position. Therefore, I say to you, take heart! For your beauty will win such a beast in time. It is inevitable. And now, let us speak of your sisters and their happiness. You will find yours, and they, each in turn, seem to be finding theirs. Inez’s wedding gown promises to be the most dramatic and beautiful ever before seen in Bostchelan! Henry is overjoyed at having won her…though I think any of you girls would have done for him. It seems he desires to be known for his relation to me.”

  “Enough!” Valor growled, pushing his chair back from the table and rising to his feet. He trembled with fury and hatred of a man who would write such a letter to a daughter. Antoine de Bellamont deserved nothing! Certainly he did not deserve to own daughters. “Give the letter to me,” he growled, holding a hand out to Coquette. He felt moisture in his eyes as he looked upon her, the sweet pink having drained from her pretty face, her shoulders drooping with disappointment and despair.

  “B-but I have not finished.”

  Furious, Valor reached out, snatching the letter from her hand and ripping it into shreds.

  “There is no need to finish,” he said.

  “You’re right, of course,” she said, casting her gaze to her lap, where her hands brutally twisted the cloth of her gown. “Your point has been proven, and there is no need to…”

  Valor put a tight fist to his mouth. His rage was barely controlled, his desire to reach out and gather his beauty into his arms, to comfort her with the strength he possessed that her father did not, barely restrained. He saw the tears on her cheeks and knew—knew they were caused by pain borne of his endeavors more than the words her father had written. He had demanded she bait the maggot! He knew her father would fail her, and still he had demanded she pen such lies to him as to give venue for him to prove himself an unfeeling coward. It was his fault she sat destroyed, hurt, in pain—none but his.

  “This letter is of no consequence,” he said. “He…he knew he had been baited. I am sure of it.”

  He watched as Coquette rose from her chair, brushing tears from her cheeks. He watched, his heart throbbing with pain as she walked to him. She stopped just before him and raised her face to his. He thought he might surely collapse to his knees—beg her forgiveness for the pain he had caused her. He wanted only to reach out and gather her into his arms, kiss her, confess she was everything to him and that she need not worry, for he would find a way to make her happiness. Yet he paused—for it was a thick, black web of lies and deceit he had woven and a thick, black bog of fear yet enveloping his heart.

  “You must tell me, sire,” she whispered, tears streaming down her face. “You have been proven correct in your assumption of my father’s shallow nature. Yet he loves me, I am certain. You must tell me, for I am certain he did not lie to me concerning every circumstance finding me here. You must tell me the truth now. Did you…did you truly threaten to take my father’s life if he did not send me here?”

  Valor swallowed, choking back the emotions of love, desire, and honesty threatening to overwhelm him. Coquette’s
father had proven himself selfish enough and thereby had broken her heart. Yet to tell her the truth of it, to validate Antoine de Bellamont had lied further, proved himself even more selfish. It might break her entirely.

  And so Valor lied too. For the sake of Coquette’s need to believe her father valued her in some regard, he joined her father in his society of low and lying men.

  “I did,” he answered. “I told him I would kill him, run him through with the very sword hanging at my hip now. I told him if he did not sacrifice you to me…I told him I would kill him, leaving his daughters without any means of support or protection.”

  Deep in his chest Valor felt the black pain of bitterness, the ache of a desire to win Coquette somehow. But such boyish musings were worthless now, for he had confirmed himself to be the worst of the two men she had once loved—her father and Valor Lionhardt.

  Coquette gazed into the lion-amber of Valor’s eyes. Her heart broken from accepting her father’s true character, she stared at Valor, and she knew: he was lying to her. By the warm-amber, pain-filled expression of his eyes, she knew he had not threatened to kill her father. What he had done to convince her father to send her to him, she did not know, but she did know Valor had not meant to kill her father. Yet why did he lie to her? There could be only one answer—he wanted her to loathe him. Valor did not want her love. Valor wanted an heir to his wealth and title. How much more complicated would life be for him were he expected to deal with an insipid, silly, love-stricken wife? Valor wanted her to loathe him. It was the only answer she could fathom.

  Still, why had he endeavored to lessen the effect of her father’s written word?

  This letter is of no consequence, he had said. He…he knew he had been baited. I am sure of it. His words echoed in her mind, confusing her, leading her away from any rational explanation of his behavior and lying.

  “Then I suppose we are both triumphant this night. Are we not?” she whispered.

  He frowned, obviously confused. “What do you mean? What triumph is there for me in your father’s failing of you? What triumph is there for you in it?” he asked.

  “Your triumph is that now you may endeavor to have your heir, for you told me that once your vengeance on my father was complete, producing an heir was my next purpose,” she said.

  “Yes. That is true,” he said, and Coquette noted the pain in his amber eyes increased. “Yet where is your triumph?”

  “My triumph is over you,” she said, “for you did not wreak vengeance on my father as you said you would. His letter only just proved to us both…he feels no loss. You knew he would not. All along you knew it. And that is my one triumph—proof that your true intent of vengeance…was to me—not my father. My triumph is in having drawn out your true purpose in your vengeance.”

  In those moments, in Coquette’s brief claim of victory, Valor knew—she had triumphed. As the web of lies he’d woven hung thick and viscid in his mind, as the pain in his heart threatened to crush the breath from him, his conscience affirmed what he had fought to accept: his vengeance had been to Coquette! All of the memories, thoughts, and emotions of the day Antoine had been found in his gardens—all of them returned to him in that one moment. He hated Antoine de Bellamont, it was true. Yet it had been the pain in his very soul, the flaming desire to own Coquette against her father’s will, against her own will, that had spurred him on.

  She had once chosen her father over him, and it had nearly killed him. It had succeeded in killing his goodness, his spirit. With Antoine’s thievery, Valor had seen the venue to revenge—revenge and the fulfillment of his wonton desire for Coquette.

  Sudden realization overwhelmed him, a realization that all the hateful things he had spoken to Coquette concerning her father, he had spoken for a dual purpose—to break her love for her father and to try and force her into finally choosing him over her father. Both had failed, for he could see that for all her father’s treachery and lying, she yet loved him. Further, she had not chosen him over her father, never would. She had been forced to belong to him, but it was far different than choosing to belong to him.

  Confess! his mind silently shouted. Reach out and take her for your own! Mind, body, heart, and soul! But he could not. He had proven himself the villain to her and in doing so had proven it to himself. Valor knew then, in those moments, he had doomed himself to finally being the beast he had set his feet on the path to becoming.

  Coquette watched as the soft amber of Valor’s eyes began to change, freezing to a cold tawny hue. There before her, whether for her father’s true character being proven to them both or for impertinent irritation at her having guessed at his true course of vengeance, Valor’s heart was hardening. Coquette’s mind raced with memories of his veiled compliments of her to Godfrey as she stood cached in secret in the study eavesdropping—thoughts of his kindness toward John Billings, of his trying to ease her pain by commenting her father had been baited into such a heartless responding letter. He was two people inside himself, just as Elise had said she was. In Elise there dwelt the shallow, vain woman raised to be so, as well as the tenderhearted, humble lover of John Billings. In Valor, there dwelt the beast—hateful, vengeful, hardhearted—but there also lingered the heroic champion, the passionate lover, the kind governor. Yet how to vanquish the beast and release the champion Coquette did not know, especially now that she was assured of his bitterness toward her.

  “We will leave promptly at six tomorrow evening, milady,” Valor said. “I will not have us arrive late to Dickerson’s dinner.”

  Lord Dickerson’s dinner—Coquette had completely forgotten it. As Valor angrily strode from the dining hall, Coquette remembered her determination to prove herself worthy of Valor to all who would attend Lord Dickerson’s dinner. She thought of her grand plans to appear as beautiful as possible to the attendees, to make certain the Lady of Roanan was a thing the Lord of Roanan would be proud to own.

  She thought again of Valor’s benevolence to Billings, his kindness to those under his employ, his quiet compliments of her to Godfrey. Surely if the beast could be soothed, it could as well be beaten.

  Hopeless yet hopeful, Coquette returned to her chamber. Her father was a coward, careless of his youngest daughter’s safety and happiness. Coquette was surprised at how easily her mind and soul accepted this fact. Yet had she not always suspected it? From the moment her father had told her of stealing the rose from Roanan Manor, had she not always doubted him? Doubted his good character the way she now doubted Valor’s villainous character?

  In the quiet of the night, in the loneliness of her chamber, as she found herself longing to be in Valor’s company, in his arms, Coquette let go of her need to believe her father was of finer quality. In those moments she released all else but her desire to unearth her lover. A sudden sense of freedom, of purpose, rose in her then. Her father had proven himself unworthy of her worry, while Valor seemed more unsettled and bewildered than ever before.

  Coquette closed her eyes, letting her mind linger on the night Valor had drunk of the tonic, of the warmth of his kisses, the tenderness of his touch and words. Moisture flooded her mouth at his remembered kiss.

  “I am Coquette Lionhardt,” she whispered to herself. “It is all I ever wanted. It is all I yet want…to belong to Valor and for Valor to belong to me.”

  Valor was there, across the hall, brooding and miserable. Coquette would find him—force him to forgive her for her pause three years before, force him to accept she still loved him. Somehow Coquette would force the beast to give Valor up to her, and then perhaps he might find he could still love her after all.

  But An Unwanted Admirer

  “Pardon me, sire,” Godfrey began as he studied his master, “but you do not seem the least enthused at the prospect of Lord Dickerson’s dinner this evening.”

  Lord Lionhardt sat with something akin to an air of defeat about him. Certainly he looked the perfect part of lord and master in his black coat, white shirt, and red silk cravat. However
, his demeanor was far less than confident.

  “That is because I am not in the least enthused, Godfrey. Another able observation on your part,” Valor said.

  “Yet no doubt milady will be the belle of the ball, so to speak,” Godfrey said. “With such a beauty on your arm, it seems—”

  “I do not wish to speak of milady, if you please, Godfrey,” Valor grumbled.

  Godfrey did not miss the way his master’s hand fairly trembled a moment before he fisted, firmly pressing it to his forehead—another gesture of his being troubled. “She…she unsettles you this evening?” Godfrey asked, knowing full well the answer.

  “She unsettles me every evening, Godfrey, you idiot!” Valor nearly shouted. “Every minute!”

  “You possess far more self-discipline than any other man, milord, and I both praise and pity you for it,” Godfrey said.

  “Do not concern yourself with praise nor pity, Godfrey,” Valor grumbled. “I am pitiful enough without your adding to it, and I deserve no praise for the treatment I have subjected her to.”

  “Then subject her to a different treatment, milord,” Godfrey said, holding Valor’s sheathed sword out to him.

  “She would have no different treatment from me,” Valor said, taking the sheathed sword and belting it to hang at his hip.

  “Are you certain?” Godfrey asked, trying not to smile, hiding his satisfaction at Valor’s discomfort. Milady had managed to slip deeply under Lord Lionhardt’s skin. Godfrey was confident she would eventually win him, thereby vanquishing the cold stone encasing his heart.