Brandywine: Regency historical romance (The Brocade Series, Book 1) (37 page)

Gil
almost gave sound to the words on
his tongue, but he ground his teeth together to halt them. She deserved much better than him. She deserved her debut. A man who treated her with respect. Deference. Honor. A man who’d protect her, not march her into the bowels of hell and torment her while there.

God. If only she’d been lying…

His avowals of love wouldn’t be something she’d have to deal with.
He was a gentleman born and bred. He might’ve forgotten it
since he met her, but, by God, he knew it now.

But he couldn’t stop his body. Love was behind every thrust. Every move. Every kiss and caress he used in order to satisfy her. As many times as she wished. This wasn’t for him. She couldn’t have her annulment if he didn’t stop his release. This was for her. Just her.  His love.

His Brandywine.

He growled as she squirmed atop him, gifting him with the perfect palpitations of her body. And then she arched backward, shuddering
through the throes
of her ecstasy, and that’s when the control slipped. Heartbeats thudded through his ears, drowning out her cries. Friction skidded along his shaft, gripping all along him.
The world spun out of control, and she was at the center of
it, urging him on, telling him in little snippets of words how she much she
desired him. How much she longed for him. How much she wanted him. And nothing on his body obeyed what he ordered.

He struggled to halt it, flinging his head side to side. She
gripped his hair above each ear and stopped him. And then she brought her mouth to his and kissed him, long and deep, and that sent him right over the edge. Gil shuddered over and over, jolting her body with the power of his release. The one she’d manipulated. The one he’d fought.

Oh damn. He’d failed at this, too.

Tears filled his eyes. Tears he couldn’t weep. And they burned.

***

Oh God
. He wasn’t even a gentleman anymore. He was a cad.

Gillian hadn’t been able to look anyone in the eye since he woke
. He hadn’t looked at his reflection, he’d greeted the staff with barely a nod, and then he’d ignored his mother’s teary
welcome. He couldn’t face anyone, nor could he attend his wife in her bedchamber, even after she begged him to.

He kept hearing her words
. Her voice. Her pleading.

Please don’t leave, Gillian? I’ll do whatever you want.
Please don’t turn from me like I’m something filthy!
Do you hear me?

Even in the throes of his personal nightmare, he heard her. He wasn’t fit to grace the ground beside her bed, let alone join her
in it. Her tears and pleas only made things worse.

At least his mother was in residence at Tremayne Hall, and
his little Brandywine wouldn’t be alone. Mother might
make her wish she was alone before long, and that was almost laughable, if anything could reach that state again.

Gil hadn’t even had the courage to tell her he knew she
spoke the truth. He’d known it for some time. D
eep in his belly.
That’s what made him a
cad.

He took her innocence in the gazebo as if it were nothing,
made her visit the ruins of Chateau Montriart while pretending her
reaction meant little, c
alled her a liar almost every day of their
marriage and even threatened to beat her when she’d only been trying to learn the truth about Sherry
…

Oh Lord. There was no end to his perfidy.

“
Do you hear me, Gillian?
”

He turned his back on her and strode out so fast he
probably left the door open behind him. He hadn’t even had the
courage to tell her it wasn’t because of her. She’d be
thinking he left because he still harbored some dislike from when
he first saw her…or maybe she thought he didn’t care.
He hadn’t even possessed the
courage to tell her the truth.

That thought nearly made him leap from
the carriage and turn it around. Self-hate stopped him. There wasn’t a place in the world deep enough for him to hide.

The road to London had never felt so long, but there
wasn’t anything waiting for him at the end, either. There was no
succor. Not even drink. Liquor wouldn’t solve anything. It would only mask it. It was time to do the right thing.
The gentlemanly thing. The thing he should have done from the beginning. Helene deserved her annulment and he’d give her one, but before that, he had to find out why the Binghams wanted it badly enough to fool him with an imposter named Sherry.

He couldn’t annul anything if that meant Helene would be at their mercy again. E
ven though he’d made certain the sanatorium was
a gracious place to rest, Helene was never going back there,
especially for defending her virtue in the only
way she knew.

And then, after defending it for so long, what had happened? Gillian took her innocence. And he hadn’t even told her he knew.

He’d never be able to apologize enough, or repay sufficiently.
He doubted there was anything he
could offer as payment.

Do you hear me, Gillian?

“Yes, damn it! I hear you!”

He howled it over the horses’ heads, glad he’d
had the good sense to drive back to London rather than taking the
traveling chaise. He didn’t want anyone about to watch him fight tears…especially with how poorly he did it. It was a useless effort.
The more he wiped his eyes with
his sleeve, the more moisture came.

Oh hell. He was even worse than a cad. This was proof. He was a
weak, spineless, blubbering cad.

He’d been fully charged to gird the entire Bingham clan the
moment his carriage was brought around, but leaving Helene had drained him, somehow taking his w
its, and his strength. With every mile, he felt weaker. Depleted. Tired. Sore.
He could blame it on the exertion of the last few days. Lack
of rest. Stress of planning and executing the escape. He could
blame it on any number of things except the truth.

He was sick at heart, and driving farther and farther from the
only remedy in the world.

He decided it was
lack of rest. He hadn’t slept much for days now. Having
Helene close while they eluded Napoleon’s troops had been too
precious to waste hours in unconsciousness. Because he’d known it was all he’d
have in the future.

Do you hear
me,
Gillian?

“God damn it.”

He slammed his hands to his ears, drawing the horses to a
standstill by the pull on the reins. He held his head for long moments, trying to keep the
self-hatred locked in, and somehow turn it into bitterness.
He’d met bitter men before. Loveless. Angry. Hate-filled. The world was full of them.

He’d join their ranks, and then he’d find a
way to turn it against the Binghams. He’d make
Helen, Gerard, and who knew how many others pay for making it
impossible for him to even get down on his knees and beg for his little wife’s love.

He’d given her
enough hate and disgust for a lifetime. It was the Bingham’s fault.
And they were going to pay. They were going to tell
him about Monte Carlo and why they wanted an annulment of his marriage. It wasn’t to get
Gillian back into Helen’s clutches. That had been a smoke screen that he’d believed at first.
He’d played
right into their hands.

It was time someone gave him answers. And past time for him to demand them.  

Gillian sucked in air, released his head, and flicked the reins.
At the rate he was traveling, he wouldn’t reach London, his townhouse, and some much-needed sleep before daybreak. And maybe…if he was lucky…his dreams wouldn’t be filled
with visions of reddish-brown hair and luminous, brandy-colored
eyes. He wouldn’t bet on it, though. His every daylight hour was filled with them. Th
ere wasn’t any reason to think
his dreams would be any different. He wasn’t that lucky.

***

It was more of his rotten luck that Reg had no engagement for the evening, and was at the townhouse. Entertaining. Gil almost drove past, but he’d
never shirked his duties before — except
those to his lovely wife.
He felt more tears start, and while he cursed his debasement, they didn’t stop easily.
He’d thought Helen cuckolding him had been the lowest a man could fall. He’d been wrong.

There was nothing for it. Gil entered the drive.
He toyed with slopping some purloined brandy from the
Mighty Gull
on himself and acting the part of the drunkard again. Or he could explain his red eyes by bathing in more of the perfume
Perkins had purchased for the night Gil had wanted Brandy to
assume her husband preferred Simone to her. He thought maybe if he
could make her the tiniest bit jealous, she’d show him she cared.

“Oh. Hell.”

There was no way to avoid any of it. He loved her. And he’d lost her. And he’d just have to live through it. Gil brought the carriage to a standstill, tossed the reins to his
groom, and kept his face averted. They said time was a great healer. That and distance. He’d just accomplished one
. The other would gradually creep by.

“Thank God you’ve arrived, Gil,” Reg met him before he reached the front door. “I’ve
spent every ounce of my persuasive power keeping Sir
Linden from bolting.”

Gil glared at him through eyes that felt sand-filled.
“Who?”

Gil handed his coat to Perkins, and he nearly
apologized for its sorry state, before catching it. He was getting soft. That was a bad sign. Hate-filled, bitter men weren’t soft. And he
still had the Binghams to deal with.

“Sir Linden! From Ireland,” Reg explained, taking Gil’s arm and leading him along the hall to his study. “It’s a deuced
long way to travel, and he wouldn’t tell me anything, despite my digging. Your mother sent word that you’d arrived back and I’ve been
on tenterhooks all day waiting for you to get here.
Ah. Here he is. Sir Linden. From Ireland. You
are
from Ireland, aren’t you, Sir?”

“Och. I haven’t been to the Emerald Isle in nearly forty
years.”

Gil met the man eye-to-eye, which was fairly surprising. And e
ven if the man was approaching his dotage, he wouldn’t be easy to take in a
fight. His handshake reinforced Gil’s conclusion. And he outweighed Gil by at least five stone.

“Gillian Tremayne,” Gil said.  “The pleasure is mine, Sir.”

The effort of standing and acting normal made him lightheaded. Another bad sign. There was too much to do for him to
become weak now.

“Please. Just Linden. I’ve not earned the right to be
called Sir, despite what this addlepated marquis keeps spouting.”

“Addlepated? Why, I’ll have you know—” Reg began.

“Go find something to bet on, Reg.”

Reg’s mouth fell open. Gil waved any
complaints aside and strode toward the liquor tray, looked it over, and turned around. “Perkins? Can
you see that I’ve water sent in? I’ve taken an aversion to spirits suddenly, and—why the hell am I explaining? Get me some water
, and make sure it’s fresh-drawn!”

Reg made a choking sound and Gil dropped into a nearby chair,
trying to shield his eyes and take the edge off his headache.

“This is the Tremayne you’ve been discussing all eve, you
young whippersnapper?” Linden asked. “The one who’s legal wed
to the Montriart heir? Why…I’d have thought she had better taste.”

Gil’s eyes filled with tears again. He wished he knew Brandy’s
secret about stopping them, because there wasn’t any way to disguise it anymore. So
he simply dropped his head into his hands and shook.

“Gil?”

He heard Reg’s shocked exclamation and waved him off. It didn’t matter anymore if anyone saw how heartsore he was. That’s
how much it hurt. He’d have done absolutely anything to be thought
the epitome of masculine attainment. He’d even marry Helen to
keep his image sacrosanct, to have Reginald follow his words and
affect his motions. Reginald even dressed like Gil. Now, none of
that mattered in the slightest. Nothing except a pair of luminous, brandy-colored eyes.

“Lad? Here. Have a go with the water. Here, Son.”