Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) (34 page)

“They aren’t any longer,” he gritted out and came to his feet. He strode across the room and scooped up his previously discarded garments. With a growl, he tugged his shirt overhead. “You make excuses for them.” Her family had failed her in the worst possible ways. Nay, his family had failed her and her life had been one of hell for that cruelty. Grief contorted the scarred muscles of his face. To keep from descending into madness, he collected his trousers and struggled into them; when the stricken look in her eyes froze him.

“Sometimes excuses are necessary,” she said, as she set her box down and came over to collect her own garments.

Derek retrieved her night-rail and drew it over her head. It slid in a soft rustle over her slim body, shielding her resplendent nudity from his gaze. What a tragedy to cover up such beauty. He brushed his knuckles along her jaw. “But not always. Just as some crimes cannot be forgiven.”

The color leeched from her cheeks and she took a staggering step backward. “I should go,” she said. Averting her gaze, she quickly gathered her box.

He opened his mouth, but before he managed any words, Lily raced across the room, pulled the door open, and fled. Derek furrowed his brow and stared at the entrance of the room. With the speed with which she’d taken flight, she may as well have been a fey creature of fantasies; equally elusive and imagined. He stood there a long while after she’d gone.

In this past hour he’d learned more than he’d ever known about Lily Benedict. And yet, oddly it felt as though he knew nothing about the lady, all the same.

T
he morning sun just peeked over the horizon. At the early hour, Lily appreciated the quiet that blanketed London’s streets.

From where she stood by her bedroom window, she shot her gaze across to the gilt-bronze mantel clock. The golden Pan cheerily fluted for a menagerie of animals alongside a golden tree and that bucolic simplicity momentarily froze her.

When Sir Henry had visited her chambers and slaked his base needs with her body, nothing more than a vessel for that lust, she’d lie abed staring up at the whitewashed ceilings. In those dark, lonely moments she’d hunger to return to the obscurity of that graceful, peaceful English countryside, where no one knew the crimes of her past, or present. The golden moment captured of Pan conjured memories of the simplistic country life she’d left. The one she’d dreamed seven years of returning to. The one she’d not thought of in days.

The clock ticked away the passing moments and she continued to stare. How could a week come to matter so? How could her hatred for a family who sustained her now throw her into this upheaval where she no longer knew up from down?

She buried her fists into the fabric of her taffeta cloak and it wrinkled noisily in the early morning quiet. With every day she came to know Derek, that emotionless land she planned on running away to was nothing more than a hollow, empty place that would never heal her hurts or right the wrongs she was guilty of.

“It is not enough,” she whispered. The Duke of Blackthorne had crumbled away at her defenses and in so doing, had proved her the same weak fool without a care for her future or safety or security. She squared her shoulders. Did she truly believe Derek would see her as an honorable woman of strength if he discovered the truths she deliberately withheld? A wry, humorless smile formed painfully on her lips. No. What man would feel anything but contempt and disdain for a woman who’d spread her legs for his brother and who’d then entered his own household with the most dubious of intentions, and now did the same for him?

Cloak pulled close about her person, Lily walked stiffly to the entrance of her room and braced for her upcoming meeting. Before her courage deserted her, she pulled the door open. The hinges creaked noisily in the quiet and she froze, her breath held. When no accusers came forward with their fingers outstretched, Lily slipped from her bedchamber. Drawing the door slowly closed behind her, she glanced back and forth down the hall.

Of course, at this early hour, the handful of servants on Derek’s staff would be thoroughly occupied with the preparations for the day.

Remorse twisted around in her belly as she padded softly down the carpeted halls through the townhouse. She made her way below stairs and as she approached the marble foyer, she braced for discovery. Heart pounding for the fear of discovery, she drew open the broad, heavy door and stepped outside.

The unseasonable chill of the early spring morn yanked at the hem of her cloak and, ignoring the early morning cold that penetrated the fabric, she all but sprinted down the steps. Her stomach twisted. These same steps she’d climbed years earlier and been thrown unceremoniously down, during a vicious rainstorm. With the street still echoing with her remembered cries and weeping, Lily now cast her gaze up and down the quiet streets in search of a hired hackney.

Biting her lower lip, she continued down the empty cobbled streets. Of course, hired hackneys had no place outside the lavish townhouses of these Mayfair residents. Each step she took away from Derek’s home, the tension and guilt weighting her shoulders lifted, so that she was left with nothing but the invigorating cleanliness of the crisp air. Each step carried her away, drew her farther away from the web of deception she wove upon that broken, lonely home inhabited by a very much hurting man and sad little girl. Only, when she returned, she’d resume her lying and scheming. Her throat worked. No, there was no escaping who she truly was and what evil she did. There was this temporary reprieve.

Lily drew to a stop, as her gaze settled upon a hackney. The wind continued to whip about her and she burrowed deeper into her cloak. She cast a glance back down the path she’d traveled. For the sliver of a heartbeat, she considered boarding that carriage and disappearing from Derek’s life and Holdsworth’s vile scheme and even darker threat. The ugliest memories of her days on the mail coach and approaching George crept to the surface. The cloying fear. The pain of an empty belly. Her breath grew ragged in her own ears. She could not go back to that. This time, it would ruin her in ways she’d not already been thoroughly destroyed.

She returned her gaze forward. Drawing in a deep breath, she rushed across the empty street and approached the coarse stranger. The pockmarked driver lounged against his black, numbered carriage with a cap tipped low over his eyes. From where he stood, the man ran an assessing eye over the fabric of her garments. No doubt, unchaperoned as she was, he took her for some scandalous miss. He would only be one part right on that score. She fished coins from her reticule and held them out. “Highgate.”

His eyes flared with a faint surprise, but wordlessly he collected the coins and pocketed them. He helped her into the hack. Moments later, the carriage sprang forward and he sent the conveyance rattling through the empty streets.

Lily sat stiffly on the uncomfortable bench. Her fingers curled reflexively about the purse in her hands. Derek had thrown her world into upheaval, so she questioned her selfish efforts for survival.

With his gruff whisper echoing around the chambers of her mind, she pressed her eyes closed and willed his voice away. But then there was still the remembrance of his passionate loving. And his gentle caress. And his impassioned defense.

She was never more grateful than when the hack drew to an abrupt, jarring halt outside the high, metal gates of Highgate. The carriage dipped as the driver left his perch and pulled the door open. He reached a hand inside. “Ma’am?”

Lily placed her fingertips in his and accepted his assistance. She fished out more coin. “There will be more, when I return,” she pledged.

Greed lit his dark eyes and he touched the brim of his hat. “Very well, ma’am.”

She moved briskly, her gaze trained forward. Then, wasn’t that the way of their world? All people could be bought. Servants, lords, hackney drivers—and whores. She bit down so hard on her lower lip. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. For ultimately, she’d entered a man’s house, under the guise of caring for his ward, a girl who’d been so cruelly robbed of both parents, all to save herself.

She picked her way through the cobbled streets and pulled the hood of her cloak down further over her eyes, even as she knew the action unnecessary. Respectable lords and ladies did not arise at this godforsaken hour and those who might, would certainly never be paying a visit to Highgate.

...I do not see a whore. I see a woman and a survivor. And perhaps that is why we two can move along in some harmonious rhythm when I despise all who cross my path, because we are not unlike...

Guilt unfurled in her belly, gripping her with a vicious ferocity. Except Derek. Derek didn’t see a whore when others did.
Did he not make love to you too, with no offer of anything more?

She squared her jaw. He was different; unlike all the others before. Forcibly tamping down the whispering doubt, she came to an abrupt stop outside Highgate Cemetery. The overhanging elm trees cast an almost park-like quality upon the space.

Lily drew the fabric of her cloak closer about her person and huddled within herself. Morning birds chirped their cheerful song, at odds with the consecrated ground that marked the end of a person’s life. She wandered through the gates. Her purposeful steps ground up dirt and gravel. She moved past the countless crosses and towering stone angels until she came to a stop.

She stared frozen at the well-tended headstone of a child. The weeping stone angels bespoke the wealth of parents who’d loved that child. Emotion wadded in her throat. Lily stole a glance about and finding the grounds empty, she dropped to a knee beside the headstone.

The wind stirred the leaves overhead and they rustled in the quiet. Silently, she dusted her palm over the traces of dirt and mud spattered on the carved name and date.

Her heart stuttered at that date. A day of agony and grief all around. For these parents who’d buried their babe and for Lily who had climbed inside Sir Henry’s carriage and buried the dreams in her heart, and the hope of a child and husband. Tears clogged her throat.
I want to do it again. I want a start where there is only me and Derek and none of the ugly past between us.
Lily drew in a shaky breath.

Methodically, she moved on to the handful of weeds that had sprung from the ground at the foot of the headstone. She tugged them out, finding a soothing balm as the tenacious weeds gave way and relinquished their hold. Efforts completed, she sank back on her haunches and dusted her palms together. “I promised I would one day have my retribution,” she said into the quiet.

The birds chirped in reply.

“I was so very close.” Lily settled onto the ground, and drew her knees close to her chest. “And now I have never been farther away from it.” She dropped her chin atop her knees. For swearing revenge and carrying out shameful acts of theft, were entirely different scores when one knew a person, and foolishly she’d allowed the duke and his ward inside. She’d not let herself see them as the means to the end she so very desperately needed, but rather as a hurting man and child. They were human to her in a way that made her intentions nigh impossible.

Last night, with only the two of them and the quiet of the night, Derek, a man feared by all, had let her into his world in a way she’d wager he’d not let any other person. Racked with guilt and shame over that gift, Lily swallowed hard. The Duke of Blackthorne was a man who did not trust and when he should choose to bestow that gift, he erroneously turned it over to her undeserving hands.

She rubbed her chin back and forth over the rough, wool fabric. After George’s betrayal and deception, she’d lived her life without honor, all in the name of survival, so bitter and hurt and angry that she’d convinced herself all that mattered
was
survival. For, in the absence of her family or anyone who truly cared for her, what else had there been?

In granting her the post in his household, in not turning her out even knowing what she was, Derek had proven
he
cared. He was not the beast they claimed he was. So it begged the question: how could she turn that sought-after heirloom over to Holdsworth and betray Derek, in this cruel, unforgiveable way? Lily stared out into the distance at the tall graves of unknown strangers. If she did this thing, what good was left of her soul? What good was there in living that secure life, tucked away in a far-flung corner of England if every day she arose hating herself for betraying the one man who was good?

I cannot...
She braced for the staggering panic and a screaming protest to resonate about her mind. Instead, an unexpected calm stole through her, leaving her with an odd peace. The branches shifted overhead once more and the leaves noisily shook, as though in agreement and support.

The loud crunch of boots crushing gravel brought her head up. Her heart jumped into her throat and she rushed to stand. For one horrific moment, the fear that Derek had followed her here slammed into her with such force it sucked the air from her chest. She spun about and then quickly staggered back a step.

Holdsworth stood several feet away, a mocking grin on his cruel lips. “Were you expecting another?” Then, as though they were in the middle of a ballroom and not in the midst of an empty graveyard, he doffed his hat and sketched a deep bow.

Knots twisted at her insides. “Indeed not.” She despised herself for the quaking tremor to her words.

His mocking smile widened and he flicked his gaze over at the headstone, and then to another. “Well?” He waggled his eyebrows. “What have you learned?”

A chill raked her spine. How casual he could be about his grasping attempts at that magnificent bauble while standing among the lost souls here? Hatred for this man and his kind blazed stronger than ever. A healthy anger sent her chin notching up. “I have changed my mind.”

Holdsworth blinked. She may as well have declared herself Bonnie Prince Charlie, back from the grave for the shock in his wide eyes. “You changed your mind in what way, Miss Bennett?” he asked slowly.