The Problem with Seduction (34 page)

He’d only just resolved not to be involved again, yet here he was, asking, “What’s gone wrong?”

Relief passed over Darius’ face. He should be handsome, but he was too distraught and half-starved, consumed by too many late nights and the scorch of cheap drink. “It’s the same as always,” he started, but Con cut him off.

“If it’s the same as always then for God’s sake,
stop it now.
”

Darius looked stunned. Then he recovered and grinned. As though Con had been ribbing him. “My losing does get old, doesn’t it? I’m so close this time, though. I just need another two hundred—”

Con slammed his hand on the tabletop loud enough to cause a startled silence in their corner of the room. “No! When are you going to learn? You’re never going to win. You have a problem. Just like our father did. And I can’t keep bleeding myself dry trying to keep you from hurting yourself.”

Darius stared at him in horror. Then his eyes narrowed. “You sound like
them
.”

Con hated the comparison. Not so long ago, that would have been enough of an insult to make him leave off. Not anymore. He leaned closer so Darius couldn’t miss his resentment. “Because they’re
right.
The more I bail you out, the deeper out to sea you drift and the easier it is for you to drown. I can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to me and it’s not helping you. Not another farthing. You have no
idea
what lengths I’ve gone to for you.” And the future that he risked.

Darius went white. “You’re serious.” He leaned forward on his elbows. Fear hollowed out his eyes and exacerbated his already-sunken cheeks. “Please, Constantine. Don’t give up on me yet. It’s worse than I made it sound. Do you remember the six thousand I owed a few months ago?”

How could he have forgotten? Those six thousand quid were what had made him desperate enough to accept Elizabeth’s bargain. Her sudden appearance had seemed a godsend at the time. And it had been. Just not the way he’d thought. “Go on.”

“Well, you gave me the blunt and I took it to Baines…” He paused and Con knew, without a doubt, he wasn’t going to want to hear what his brother said next. “I gave him enough to get him off my back. The rest went to…an investment.”

Con knew exactly what kind of investment. “You despicable, sniveling
rotter
. You lost it?” He didn’t care that his voice carried through the room. He stood, towering over his seated brother, and balled his hands into fists.
Six thousand blasted pounds.
Gone. In the blink of an eye. “I’m going to beat some sense into you for once—”

“Wait!” Darius threw his hands up in supplication. “It’s not
all
gone. And I don’t need it all at once. Just a few thousand to keep them from killing me—”

“
I’m
going to kill you!”

“Gentlemen,” a voice said behind them, “it’s time to become scarce.”

Fuming, Con barely turned to acknowledge whoever had the balls to kick him out when he was about to bring down a chair on his own brother’s head. “Look at that,” he said to Darius, “I’m suffering from your
selfish,
irresponsible,
unbelievable
abuse of my good nature.
Again
.”

“Please,” Darius said, looking pathetic and weak, “they’re really going to kill me. It won’t be a dark cell in King’s Bench. It will be my corpse in a hole in the ground.”

As much as Con wanted to grind out, “Good!” he couldn’t. Not to his own brother. If anything ever happened—really happened—to Darius, he’d never forgive himself.

“Gentlemen,” the proprietor urged, “be off before I call the constable.”

“Where do you think I get the money to pay your bloody debts?” Con hissed, grabbing the back of his chair and leaning into to his brother’s petrified face. “Why the
hell
would you think I want to spend every last coin in my pocket covering your idiotic wagers?”

Darius’ lip trembled. “Please. Just this once. Last time, I swear.”

Con growled and flung the chair in the direction of the empty aisle. He grabbed the hair at his temples, as if he could physically yank his brother’s pathetic plea out of his head. Then he kicked at the empty chair, sending it skidding a few more feet, and turned and stormed from the coffeehouse.

All because his bleeding little brother couldn’t be trusted with a single guinea.

He didn’t remember the walk home. All he remembered was his brother’s face, so identical to his own, looking as feeble and heartrending as a young lad’s. How the hell had
he
managed to grow up, and not Darius? How was it that he had finally figured out what to do with his sorry, empty sack of a life, and his brother was always going to be there, bleeding him dry like a fat little leech he couldn’t pry off? And how was it that he was the only one in their family who cared that Darius was about to be folded in half and shoved under six feet of earth?

He finally saw the brick outer walls of his family’s townhouse. It was little relief. For some reason, tonight it looked like a cage. Four walls with a lock on the door.
You can’t escape.

Every light in the house seemed to be lit. Even in the first shadows of twilight, he could see the faint glow of candles in all of the windows. Large, unfamiliar silhouettes passed across curtains that had been drawn. Upstairs, a window fell closed. The snick of a lock being sent home clicked.

Con’s belly tightened. He quickened his pace even as time seemed to slow. He took the steps two at a time. No one opened the door, turning his trepidation into outright alarm. Where was Mr. Benjamin? Why were all of the candles burning?

He opened the door slowly. Suddenly, it flew back as someone on the other side whipped it open. Con stumbled forward into the entryway. When he looked up, it was to see four men in dark coats. The first one stepped forward while two others came at him from the sides. The fourth disappeared into the house.

Before Con could ask what the hell was going on, his mother appeared in the foyer. Her eyes were red and weepy, and her fists were pressed to her mouth. “He’s innocent,” she sobbed, her shoulders shaking. “Don’t
do
this.”

“Do what?” he started to say, but the tallest of the body snatchers said, “Take him in.”

Con drew up taller. The men at his sides jostled toward him, though they didn’t touch him. “Don’t do what?” he asked again.

His mother shook her head in horror, as if she couldn’t even contemplate it.

His alarm turned to dismay.

One of the men—likely the bailiff, given his sense of authority over the others—took another step forward. “Lord Constantine Alexander, you are hereby charged with child stealing and fraud. If you’ll come with us peacefully, I see no reason to restrain you.”

“What?” Terror gripped his belly. It rang in his ears and turned the room black.
Oh God, oh, God, oh God.
He couldn’t go back to the gaol.
What was happening here?

A blood-curling shriek sounded from upstairs, followed by the breaking wail of a baby’s cry. Con’s heart plummeted even as his entire body bristled for a fight.
Elizabeth.
He had no idea why she was here, but he knew those sounds were hers and Oliver’s. It felt as if his stomach were being ripped from his belly. He took a step toward the baby’s wails, but the lackeys at his sides quickly caught his arms in viselike grips. Momentum carried him forward another foot and he almost fell on his face. Then he started struggling in earnest, but it was no use. There was nowhere to go.

The officer who’d charged him shook his head. “We’re not taking the woman, don’t worry. But the baby has to be returned to his father.” For the first time, he looked resigned. “We’re just here to enforce the law.”

“I’m the father!” Con yelled. He jerked his arms again, but the men must have expected it.

“Oh, Con,” his mother whispered. Tears ran down her face. “Con, please tell me they’re wrong.”

He glared at each of the men crowding his entryway. “I’m the father,” he said again. “Don’t you dare lay a finger on my son.”

The constable didn’t flinch, but Con thought he saw a glimmer of sympathy. Still, in a commanding voice, he gave the orders to take Con out to the carriage. “If you don’t come quietly,” he added, “your mother will have a far more unpleasant scene to witness.”

Con looked at her. Then he thought of Darius, and Elizabeth, and Bart and Roman and Antony. His family, whom he couldn’t help now. Maybe not even in the future. Oh, God. What was the punishment for child stealing? Was that even a crime?

He couldn’t think of it now. First he had to spare his mother any more of his shame. As the officers led him back into the dirty streets, he turned and looked up, hoping to see his mother there at the top of the stairs. She was.

“Send Bart,” he directed her. She nodded mutely.

The lead officer opened the carriage door. He got in. The two others waited for Con to do the same. He paused and turned back. His mother was still there, but the fourth officer was now headed toward the carriage with Oliver in his arms. Con bit back the urge to shout at the man to leave his son alone, to rail at the injustice of tearing Oliver from Elizabeth and at his own ineptness at keeping the child safe. Instead, he had one last thing to say to the woman standing on the stairs, her eyes full of disappointment and misery. “I’m sorry, Mother.” Even at this distance, he saw a tear trickle down her cheek. “Please tell Elizabeth I’m sorry, too.”

Chapter Nineteen

IT WAS ALL TOO SIMILAR to the last time. She couldn’t even drag herself from the floor, where she’d crumpled just as the tips of her fingers had slid away from Oliver’s gown. They’d had to wrest him from her. She’d had no chance against them. Not a one. She sobbed quietly against her forearm, feeling the scratch of the carpet beneath her and hearing the muffled voices of Con’s family as they tried to make sense of it. What she’d done to their son. Her remorse knew no bounds, and her grief overwhelmed her. Without Oliver, she had nothing. And Con…

He’d been
arrested.
Because of her. If there’d been any hope for them before, it was well and crushed now.

She had no idea how long she cried. Her recollection blurred when it came to identifying precisely who came to see to her, though she vaguely recalled several attempts to bring her up from the floor. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. One minute she’d been feeding her son, shocked by the passage of time while she and Lady Montborne had played with the baby, and the next, there’d been a frightening pounding on the door. The hours after that swam together.

A firm voice penetrated her haze. Had she fallen asleep? She was exhausted, mentally and physically. Too exhausted to heed the orders being barked at her.

“Get up,” the unfamiliar voice said. It was unforgiving. Not that she deserved forgiveness. She’d lost her baby…
Oh, God, her baby…

“Elizabeth, you must talk to me. Get up.”

No. She wanted to die here.

A hand shook her shoulder roughly. “Is this helping? Is it bringing back your child? What about Constantine? Should we just let him rot because you aren’t strong enough to help him?”

“I can’t help him,” she whispered. The words were wrapped in her grief, barely intelligible even to her ears.

“That remains to be seen. Now, get up. Tell me what has happened.”

She turned her head toward the voice. Her eyes didn’t open. They were too heavy. And they burned. “I can’t.”

“Elizabeth, if you don’t get up and get a hold of yourself, I’m going to pry you off of the floor myself. I want answers. I want the truth.”

Who was this man? She wanted to open her eyes, but they felt swollen shut. Slowly, painfully, she forced one open, then the other. A very tall man towered over her. Though the room was lit by a single candle and the bright hallway cast him in silhouette, she discerned his hair was dark brown and loosely curling. Not Roman, then.

But of course, she would have recognized Roman’s voice.

“Lord Bartholomew Alexander,” he clipped out, “barrister. This will go much faster if you’ll tell me the truth. Leave nothing out.”

Her limbs felt like bags of sand. She was so tired. The thought of sitting up exhausted her, but she didn’t like being prostrate before this man. “Help me,” she murmured. Then she remembered Oliver was gone.
This time, there would be no getting him back.
Tears leaked from her eyes and she sagged against the carpet again.

Footfalls vibrated the floor. Strong hands worked their way beneath her shoulders and knees and suddenly she was hefted into the air and nestled against a large, warm chest. Not Constantine’s. Lord Bartholomew smelled different, and he held her like a duty he must bear. But the human contact made her feel less alone, and by the time he’d moved her to sit on a settee, she had mostly seized control of her tears.

There was a bed and a lounge in the room, she noticed dully, yet he’d placed her upright on a firm couch. She watched as he crossed the room and fetched the candle, then efficiently lighted two sconces and a candelabrum until the room’s shadows were banished. He was tall, as she’d surmised, and broad-shouldered. Though his hair wasn’t blond like his brothers’, he had the same piercing eyes. Most striking, however, was his attire. Simple, drab garments that had likely never been in style, in any decade. She glanced down at his feet, for shoes often revealed more about a person than all their clothing combined. His were no exception; he did have
one
indulgence, at least. Shiny, impossibly black Hessians molded to calves no barrister could have earned solely in his line of work.