Lady In Disguise (The Langley Sisters) (36 page)

“I—I’m cold, can one of my sisters tend me, please.”

He looked at her for several seconds and then taking the key from his pocket he opened the door and closed it behind him. Livvy heard the key turn in the lock once more and then she was alone.

Was he walking away from her? Fighting back the tears, Livvy fell sideways into her pillows, she had no strength to follow him even to bang on the now locked door. Would she survive losing him a second time? Closing her eyes she had no idea how long she lay there feeling lost and alone, the pain in her heart mirroring the pain in her body. She buried her face in the pillows as the key once more turned in the lock; Livvy did not want her sisters to see her distress.
 

“Sit up.”
 

Lifting her head, she watched Will walk in carrying a tray which he lay on the foot of the bed. She didn’t move, in fact she couldn’t, even lifting her arms was a gesture beyond her reach now.

“You are stiffening up, Olivia, we need to get you washed and into bed now.”

He sounded impersonal, as if he was addressing an acquaintance, not the woman he supposedly loved.

“I do not want your help.”

“Yet you need it.”

She watched him move to her drawers, going through the contents until he found what he wanted and then returning to her side with one of her nightdresses clenched in a large hand.
 

“I can do that,” Livvy said, but he ignored her and started pulling her boots off her feet. He lifted her upright then, his hands gentle but determined even though he radiated anger. Slowly he began to remove her shirt and chemise, then her breeches. He was too strong for her to fight so she suffered the indignity, biting her lip as pain snaked through her body. When she was naked he wrung out a cloth and washed her.

Livvy was desperate for some distance between them but the fierce expression on his face kept her quiet.
 

He lifted a small pot off the tray and scooped the contents into his hand. “Jenny said this will soothe your aches.”

“I can…”

“No, you can’t,” he said, rubbing the ointment into her body.
 

Will watched Livvy bite her lip to stop crying out as he touched her. She lay silently as he cared for her, tormented and hurting and he could do nothing to ease her pain, only give her comfort, but that he would not give until she told him the truth.
 

“Lean forward now,” he directed when he had finished. Bruises were beginning to darken her pale skin and seeing them compounded his anger. Taking the nightdress he had found he dropped it over her head and eased her arms through the sleeves. Propping a few pillows behind her he then lay her back and drew the covers to her chin. Clenching his fingers he fought the urge to brush a hand over her head. Retrieving the cup of tea Mrs Bell had given him he then handed it to her.

‘If you love her you’ll put a stop to all this nonsense now, Lord Ryder,
’ the Langley housekeeper had said when he’d tracked her down in the kitchens. Bella and Phoebe had looked at him with big, fearful eyes but had remained silent as he prowled around the room waiting for the water to heat.

“Can you drink without help?

She nodded and Will retrieved the second cup. Moving to the chair he then once again sat.

“Now talk.”

She sipped the tea and then briefly closed her eyes, when they opened he knew he had won. He had buttoned her white nightdress to the neck and her hair hung in a long dark plat still tied with the black satin ribbon. She looked very young and fragile sitting against a pile of pillows but Will wasn’t fooled. The love of his life was about as fragile as a battalion of soldiers.
 

“I would ask you to listen to me fairly and without interruption and to know that I did what I believed needed to be done to secure my families future?”

“However misguided,” he added before taking a large mouthful of the hot water with lemon and honey the housekeeper had made him.

“Have you never made choices that were wrong, Lord Ryder, choices forced upon you when you had no other option?”
 

“This is not about me, Olivia, it’s about you,” Will said softly.

Her sigh was loud and the glare she directed his way was spoilt by a yawn.
 

“The carriage accident that hurt Bella and killed mother also injured my father,” she said. “And slowly the pain of losing his arm and my mother began to destroy his mind until some days he did not even recognize his own daughters. One day I took him his lunch and he was dead, lying back in his chair staring sightlessly at me as I ran towards him.”
 

Will didn’t speak, he wanted to, he wanted to tell her that she was here safe with him and that he would always care and protect her and her family from this day forward, yet he did not. He needed to hear everything and to do that he had to watch her closely, only then would he know if she was hiding anything from him.

She looked down into her cup before speaking again.
 

“I found a bottle of poison and a note and quickly put them into my pocket before my sisters arrived.”

My God, how could her father have done that to her?
 

She told him the rest then, about how they had been left without any money and how they had sold things to survive but that the money had not lasted long. She spoke of trying to keep up appearances so her sisters would have a future and then becoming a highwayman and the guilt associated with her actions. Her strength amazed him, the courage she had shown to keep her family safe and their reputations untarnished.

“When you saw Phoebe and I awaiting the stage to London we were going to see my cousin, the new Lord Langley.”

“Why did you need to see him?”

She told him about the letter and Lord Langley’s intentions of throwing them out of Willow Hall.

“Did he hurt you, Olivia? Was it he who left those marks on your breasts?” Will watched her eyes lower. “Everything,” he said, feeling the anger that had begun to subside rear its head again.

“He knew about father, had found the note and poison bottle. I—I had not destroyed them, you see. I hid them until I could and then forgot to do so.”

“What did he do to you?”

“He told me he would marry my lame sister, as no one else would, and he would treat her like a lady if I b—became his courtesan.”

“I’ll kill him!”

“No,” Livvy whispered as he said the words.
 

“Did he touch you, Livvy?

“Yes, a little, and he tried to… you know,” she whispered. “But I punched him in the jaw and then bit him hard.”

“Good girl,” Will said, thinking that what Lord Langley would get from him would leave him with more than a sore jaw.

“Are you still angry with me?” She whispered.

“Yes.”

“I’m s—sorry.”

He heard the tremor in her words and saw the glisten of a tear on one pale cheek.

“You’re crying now? After what you went through at the Derby and what you have just told me, it is my anger that makes you weep?” Lowering his cup Will moved to the bed and looked down at her.
 

“I—I know you are disappointed and angry with me and I fear my actions have lost your love,” Livvy said, holding his eyes. “B—but, Will, I—I would not change what I have done because I believed it was the only course open to me.”            

“We will address your penchant for reckless behavior another time, for now I want to know why you think I no longer love you. Do you believe that I am so fickle that I can stop caring in a few hours just because you’ve angered me?”

“I’ve lied to people, stolen money from others and my father killed himself. Can you not understand how these things tarnish me?”

“You are the bravest, most beautiful woman I know, Olivia Langley.” Will needed to hold her close, so lifting her he then re-settled them both on the bed, resting her on his lap. “Only a strong woman could have done what you did, love, and no matter how I feel about the choices you’ve made, I cannot blame you for them. You did what you thought was necessary to keep your family safe.”

“I thought I had lost your love,” Livvy said, gripping his shirt tight.

“Never, Livvy, I could sooner stop breathing than loving you.”

“You were so angry with me.”
 

“I’m angry because the woman I love was in danger and I was not there to keep her safe. I’m angry that you confronted your cousin alone and he frightened and could have hurt you and I would not have known. But more importantly, I’m angry that you believed I would care about how your father died or that his suicide would in any way impact how I felt about you or your sisters.”

“But how was I to know how you would feel about father’s death? I no longer knew the man you had become, how could I trust you when you had left me before?”

“Perhaps in the beginning that was true, but later, after we had made love and you knew my feelings you should have told me them.”

Will took the sting out of his words by kissing the top of her head. Cupping the back of her neck he began to knead the muscles he knew must be aching.

“You broke my heart when you left, Will. Just waking up every day took so much effort for weeks and weeks. Hiding it from my family and your family was even harder. The pitied looks and pats on the shoulders.

“Had I stayed, I would have broken it anyway, my love, I was a man bent on destruction and I would have taken you with me.”

She thought about those words and realized they were true, he would not have settled for marrying her had he stayed.

“Tell me that you trust me now, Livvy, and promise me there will be no more secrets between us.”

Tilting her head back she looked up at him, saw the doubts on his handsome face.
 

“Yes, I trust you with my life and that of my sisters, Will, but you have to understand that for so long I have dealt with this alone, frightened that someone would see what we took pains to hide. To trust another with our secrets, even you”—she added as he opened his mouth to speak—“was not something I took lightly.”

“I love you, Olivia Langley.” Will closed the distance between them. He kissed her softly a slow meeting of lips and souls. “And I hope you can trust me to deal with everything now.”

“We will deal with it, Will, I’ll not be pushed aside, not when I have been the head of this family for so long.”

He traced her features with a finger. The fine, feathered brows, the line of her nose and curve of her check, the fullness of her lips.

“
We
will deal with it then,”

He held her, lying quietly with her in his arms, feeling peace for the first time in days. Will inhaled the scent of his woman. She was here safe with him, where she would now always be.

“Love me, Will,” Livvy whispered, lifting her face for his kiss.

“Forever,” he said, pulling her close and framing her face with his hands. “I believe I have always loved you, Livvy Langley, yet only now since my return have I come to realize how much.”

Livvy closed her eyes as he kissed the tears from her cheeks.

“Five years ago when Thea told us you had left I felt as if my world had crumbled. I was devastated that you had gone without a word or a note and it was not until I saw you that day in the cemetery that I realized your feelings had not been the same as mine,” she said, placing one hand on his chest.

“I did care for you, love, very much, yet I carried so much anger and confusion inside me and I knew that I had to leave or it would destroy us both.”

Livvy stroked a hand down one of his cheeks. He was such a strong, powerful man, yet beneath the surface lay vulnerabilities just like the next person.

“I still loved you then, Will. With me you were always gentle even when you were teasing me.”

Capturing her hand he placed a kiss on the palm.
 

“Of course I was gentle. You could punch harder than any man I knew.” Will sucked one of her fingers into his mouth as he finished speaking and felt her shiver.
 

“Marry me, Olivia Langley. Let me sleep with you in my arms and wake you with my kisses. Only with you can I truly be the man I want to be. You fill all the places inside me that have been empty for so long and you take away the pain of who I once was and the people I hurt.”

“Yes, Will, oh I long to marry you. But what of my cousin he is to arrive shortly?”

“I have had my suspicions about him since your visit to London, Livvy, and have had Freddy investigate him. As it turns out, your cousin is not a very nice man.”

“Really?”

“Really, and now we shall open that door and bring your sisters in before they break it down,” Will said, lifting her from his lap and placing her gently beside him as he regained his feet.

“But what will we do?” Livvy said, trying to follow him, only to moan loudly as her body protested the movements.

He braced his hands on either side of her head before speaking.