Beauty and the Earl (14 page)

Liam clenched his fists. “Have a care, Malcolm.”

His friend ignored him and pressed on. “For what? Guilt? Or is it fear that stops you from moving on? I have no idea, but I do know that you dishonor Matilda’s memory every time you lock away those who would love you. With every time you think of taking your own life, you murder her all over again.”

Liam swung without thinking, and his fist hit Malcolm’s face at full force. Mal staggered backward, hitting a chair so hard that the wood splintered and flew in all directions as he hit the floor.

Slowly, his friend got up, checking his jaw.

“Feel better?” he asked, eyes narrow but fists firmly at his sides.

Liam, on the other hand, still had his raised. “You won’t fight?” he barked, spoiling to throw another punch even though guilt had begun to wind its way through him as he looked at Malcolm’s already swelling eye.

“You haven’t fought for two years—why should I?” his friend sneered. “Not fought for anything worthwhile, anyway. I just hope you remember how before you lose everything and anything of value in your life.”

Malcolm turned, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Liam was still in a fighter’s stance. That he could attack him and have Mal on the ground even with his weaknesses.

But he didn’t. He simply watched as his friend left the room with his final words ringing around him, a better placed shot than any punch could have been.
 

Chapter Eleven

Violet paced her room, her mind racing. She hadn’t seen Liam since they parted ways after the afternoon outing. He hadn’t shown up at supper, he hadn’t made himself known at all.

What she
had
seen was the dark bruise under Malcolm’s eye. She had seen his hollow gaze as he said he didn’t want to talk about how he got it. He and Olivia had skipped dessert and drinks and gone straight to what she assumed was Malcolm’s room and whatever comfort Olivia could offer to the man she obviously loved.

There was a knock at her door and she turned, expecting Rachel to come in to offer assistance in readying herself for bed. But when the door opened, it was Liam standing on the other side.

He had often been disheveled, though always rakishly, handsomely so, but now his appearance was all the more wild. His hair stuck up at odd angles, tangled by fingers running through it in frustration. He hadn’t shaved and dark whiskers slashed across his face and around the bright white of his scar. His clothing was wrinkled, crisp white shirt half-untucked and lacking cravat or jacket. He wasn’t even wearing shoes.

He was gloriously, beautifully undone, and she nearly lost her breath when she looked at him in this state.

“Liam?” she breathed.

He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him wordlessly. When he lifted his good hand, she saw his knuckles were bruised and had a little dried blood on them. She rushed forward with a gasp and took his battered hand.

“What did you do?” she asked, urging him to sit down as she took a clean cloth from her dressing table and dipped it in the small basin of water there. She moved to kneel before him and gently washed his hand off as he stared at her.

“I hit Malcolm,” he admitted, his face twisted with emotions he normally hid. Anger, heartbroken despair, regret…

She focused her attention on his hand so she wouldn’t break down in tears at the look of him.

“I saw that,” she whispered.
 

“Is he all right?” Liam asked, his tone broken.

She jerked her gaze to him. Malcolm Graham was this man’s best friend, and sometimes his only anchor to reality and sanity. And from his broken expression, Liam knew he had jeopardized everything by doing something so foolish as swinging on him. Whatever they had fought over must have been desperate, indeed, to inspire such a reaction.

“Malcolm is fine,” she reassured him. “A little bit of a black eye that will fade in a few days.”

He was silent, the facts seeming to bring him no comfort at all. She continued to gently wash his hand and then pressed the cold cloth there to sooth whatever ache his bruised knuckles felt.

“But that couldn’t have bruised you so deeply or cut your knuckles,” she said, lifting her eyes to him.

He shook his head. “It didn’t. I punched a wall as well,” he admitted.

She sucked in a breath. “Why?”

He stared at his hand wordlessly for a long time before he spoke. “I was fighting a war with myself and Mal is the unfortunate casualty. As is our friendship, if I cannot repair it when next I see him.”
 

She drew back. “A war over what?”

“You,” he whispered. “Because I was trying to determine if I should come to you, Violet.”

She rose to her feet slowly and stepped back. “Me? Why should I cause you pain or frustration or confusion?”

“Because you are you,” he whispered, standing and moving to position himself a breath away from her. He tossed the cloth in his hand away and cupped her cheek gently. “And you make me want to say things I have kept to myself for years.”

She shook her head, uncertain she understood what he meant.

“Do you know that I became involved with Matilda because of my sister?”

Violet’s lips parted in surprise. He was going to tell her about the love of his life. He was going to tell her what she’d come here to hear. And despite the fact that this was part of her plan, she didn’t think about the Rothcastles or about triumph. She wanted to know his heart. She wanted to know his pain.

And her desire for that knowledge had nothing to do with a bargain she had struck or an assignment she had taken.
 

“No,” she said, “I didn’t know.”

He gave a nervous bark of laughter and sank into the chair again. She took the other and sat silently, waiting for whatever he would give.

“She doesn’t know it either, I would wager. When our father died, she begged me to let go of our hatred of their family. She was so passionate about it, so filled with sadness and need that I determined I would try. I knew I could never overcome how much I hated Christian, but I thought perhaps I could come to some kind of understanding with Matilda that might make things…
better
somehow.”

His face twisted as he relived memories she could only imagine were both beautiful and painful. “For almost two years, I became her…her friend.”

Violet drew back. “I hadn’t realized you were in contact with her for so long.”

He nodded. “No one does—they all assume it was some kind of instant thing. But I truly came to know that girl, to see how good and decent she was, despite her family of origin. She had a marvelous sense of…fun. And I couldn’t help but be drawn to it.”

“How did you end up deciding to marry her?” Violet asked.

“One day I realized I loved her,” he admitted. “That I couldn’t live without her. It was as immediate as that. Like I had turned a corner and run straight into the truth. So I asked her to run away with me. She told me we could talk to her brother, that he had a reasonable side I refused to see. She begged me, but I wouldn’t listen and said we would run away or nothing. She loved me, so she agreed.”

Violet squeezed her eyes shut. “But Rothcastle discovered the plan.”

“He had known I was involving myself with Matilda, which only fed his rage toward me. I believe he had spies watching us, so yes, he ran us down and then…” He stopped, his breath heavy. “Then the accident,” he finished.

“Oh Liam,” she whispered, taking both his hands.

“I still remember the way she looked when she took her last breath. She
smiled
at me. Somehow, even in death, she found light. And she told me and her brother to make amends. But I couldn’t. Her loss was too profound to inspire anything in me but hate. Hate for him, hate for myself. I wanted us both dead.”

Violet jerked at the loudness of his tone when he said the last sentence. Both of them dead. Meaning he would kill Rothcastle…but he wouldn’t care if he died doing it. That he would, in fact, ensure that would happen.

Her heart began to pound. Did he still feel that way? Was this knowledge of his reckless disregard for his life what caused his sister so much fear for Liam and his cloudy future?

“What stopped you?” she asked, trying to maintain calm in the face of mounting terror in her soul.

“My injuries at first,” he said. “I could hardly move after the accident.”

She found herself looking at the scar on his face, thinking of the weakness on his side. How horrible those foggy days must have been.

“And then he took my sister,” Liam continued, his voice breaking. “Took her away and took her from me by tricking her into loving him. I couldn’t kill him. I could see by the way she looked at him that it would kill her too.”

She stared at him, all his pain exposed like an open wound, his vulnerability a gift he gave without knowing what she would ultimately do with it. In that moment, she both hated herself and cared for him even more deeply.

“That’s why you left London,” she whispered.

He met her gaze and nodded. “I vowed I would never return. I did once, but it gave me no pleasure and only deepened the lacerations on my soul. Since then, I have kept that promise.” He sighed. “
That
is the story I don’t share, Violet. That is the truth of my past. Now that I have given it to you, I fully expect your pity.”

He smiled, but she could see he meant those words.
 

“You could not be further from the truth. I do feel for you, for your loss and for your heartbreak,” she said. “But my empathy is not pity, for I do not think you are pitiable. I do cherish your trust. I do think I could not possibly deserve it.”

She shook her head, knowing full well she did
not
.

Liam caught her hand and pulled her to her feet to stand in front of him. Once again, he rose and caught her in his arms.

“You deserve much better, much more,” he whispered. “I lose myself in you, somehow I forget…I forget all that the moment you look at me, kiss me. No one has been able to do that. No one but you. And I can only thank you like this.”

He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her gently. She wound her arms around his neck and tilted her head to grant him better access.
 

Liam had kissed her more times than she could count in the time they had spent as lovers. He had surprised her, captivated her and controlled her with that simple act of lips joining. But now, in this moment, when he tasted her with tenderness and gentleness, she felt something different.

She felt loved.

Oh, she knew it was an illusion. That he would not, could not give her his heart. More to the point, she couldn’t give him hers. But that didn’t matter. This was still an act of love, and she clung to it and to the promises that it made in the quiet of her bedroom.

She backed up until they reached her bed, unbuttoning his already loosened shirt. She did the same with her gown, both of them breathing hard as they did away with the clothing which separated them.
 

He stepped back as he pushed her gown and chemise away, leaving her naked before him. He said nothing, but just looked, a small smile tilting his lips. Then he unfastened his trousers.

Even though they had come together so many times, he had seen her and touched her before, now it felt different. New. She almost wanted to cover herself, to stop this feeling of being vulnerable, revealed.

If he recognized that feeling in her, he didn’t allow her to pull away. He wrapped his arms around her and lowered her to the bed as he returned his mouth to hers. He lay on her, making no movement to breach her as he kissed her again and again, deeper and deeper. She was lost in it, in him and clung to him as waves of pleasure and surrender took her away from her hesitations and fears.

Took her to a place where only this moment mattered. Only he mattered. Only this mattered. For the moment, she could push everything else away.

He cupped her face, stroking his thumb against her cheek, smoothing her skin, and she shivered. How could he be so arousing and so comforting all at once?

She slid her hand over his chest, caressing lightly as she glided down his flat stomach, over his hip and finally she caught the hardness of his cock. He was already ready for her, despite how gently they came together. And the feel of him, hard and big against her hand, her belly, made her body weep and open for him.

She spread her legs and he settled between them, offering no resistance when she positioned him at her entrance. He glided forward, slowly, reverently. They both sighed as each inch of him disappeared inside of her.

When he was fully seated, he stopped kissing her and looked down. They were eye-to-eye, close enough that she felt the gentle stirring of his breath against her cheek.
 

“Look at me,” he whispered, gliding his hands into her hair.

She forced herself to do so and gasped as he began to move, slow and steady, circling his hips as he kept his gaze on her. She arched beneath him, but any time she tried to look away, too overcome by the intensity of their joining, he held her in place with a whispered reminder, “Don’t look away, Violet. Don’t look away.”