The Trouble With Being Wicked (40 page)

“I would
never
allow it,” she said with a hiss, ignoring him. “I would hunt him down and shoot him, like Mother did. And that is why I
cannot
marry him. I love him too much to let him hurt me.”

All the softness was gone from her now. He, too, had gone rigid. Remembering the horror of that day always drew him taut. Mother had taken everything from them in a single, selfish fit of jealousy. He would never wish that depth of pain on his sister. “Then you’re smarter than Mother was. She should never have married a profligate ass.”

Lucy drew away from him. “Father? How can you blame him, when it was Mother who was the unfaithful doxy?” She clapped a hand to her mouth. “I didn’t mean it—”

But everything inside Ash had already gone silent. “What are you saying?”

Her horror lasted another minute. The longest in his life, as he waited—prayed—for her to explain herself in a way that made more sense. After a time, she folded her hands before her. “I saw her with Fraser. Mother, I mean. With the groom.”

Ash’s heart cracked in his chest. More lies. More impossible. He had a clear memory of Fraser. A large groom with too many muscles and a distinctly animal odor. The man who had taught Ash to sit a horse. But children remembered things quite differently than adults. To the Ashlin whose recollection was but a child’s, Fraser was old. Far too old for their beautiful mother to have dallied with.

She couldn’t have.

She
couldn’t
have. Not just because it was something she wouldn’t have done. But because it would change everything he knew.

“I saw them,” Lucy continued without his prodding. “In the stable. I was there when Father came in. He said—” She remained straight and poised, but her voice drifted. A memory she’d all but forgotten, or hidden away. “He said he didn’t forgive her. Couldn’t, wouldn’t, never. I’m sure he kept his word, for they were never the same hence.”

Too many emotions came at Ash at once. For a man who had secluded himself from feeling, it was no surprise he didn’t have words for what wracked him. Not as it overtook him in a crash, certainly not as it ebbed into a dull, quiet horror.
It couldn’t be true.
Not the bit about his mother, for he’d known she had her faults. But it killed him to think of his father as heartbroken, instead of heartless. To think there had been a reason for the endless rounds of women. Because then everything came into question.
Everything.

“You’re wrong.”

Lucy shook her head, her mouth turning down in pitying lines of sadness. “I wish I were.”

“Who else knows?”
Asking
wasn’t accepting it was true.

Her usual fire sparked a bit. Only a glimpse, for she’d become as morose as he. “Do you require proof?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I do. Your charge is outrageous.” He didn’t want to believe it. Even if it were true. Especially not then.

Her shoulders squared. The dark curls framing her face bounced with her affront. “Fraser knew. Mother knew. Father
knew
.”

“And you,” he said. Then he waited. But she didn’t concede, and so he spoke for her. “And Delilah.”
Please, please deny it.

She jerked her chin upward. “How could I not confide in my sister?”

“But you didn’t tell
me
?” The accusation ripped from him, a fresh, new form of agony.

She appeared momentarily flummoxed. Her hands fidgeted together. “I suppose it didn’t occur to me you didn’t know. You always know everything.”

“But clearly not this.”

She didn’t move. Nor did she apologize.

“And then?” he demanded. “When it must have been obvious I didn’t know?” He couldn’t keep the hurt from his voice now.

“By then? I had stopped thinking about it. Who wants to remember their faithless parents? Trestin, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Well, you have.” When he had his voice together—or when he thought he had his voice together, he growled, “Don’t you think it would have made a difference?”

“A difference with respect to what?” She sounded honestly perplexed.

“Me!”

“Do you mean Celeste?”

“God, no!”

Lucy reached out to touch his sleeve but he backed away. He couldn’t stand another’s touch. Not now. Every person he’d ever believed in had betrayed him.
Acts of treachery tumbled around him, one after the other, like a carelessly built house of cards.
Lucky him, to have it all collapse at once.
How had he not expected it, when he’d always kept himself on alert?

Because he’d loved them. All of them.

Even the worst of them.

Each betrayal stabbed him afresh. Lucy had kept a secret from him, and later Delilah had, too. Montborne had ruined Lucy behind his back. Delilah had chosen a veritable commoner over his greater judgment. His beloved father had borne out his fate, the faithless libertine, with nary a breath of accusation against the woman who had broken his heart. She had killed him for it. She’d died an adulteress, and never once apologized for it.

And there was Celeste. The common thread between them all. He’d had such plans for his sisters and himself, before her.
 

He didn’t notice Lucy’s proximity until her hand clasped his. “You were so righteous, Trestin. I think none of us wanted you to know.”

His teeth ground together until a bitter taste filled his mouth. “You’re not helping.” His entire life, he’d believed it was his father who had trampled on his parents’ vows. He’d blamed his father, hated his father. Now he must call that into question. He’d been doomed, no matter what action he took. His mother had been every bit as unsavory as the man he’d reviled for years.

How did he come from
two
unfaithful people? How did he trust anyone, when everyone he knew was a liar? No wonder Lucy doubted the efficacy of marriage. He was beginning to think the whole institution a pile of rot, himself. Which meant he must choose between condemning Lucy to a painful marriage like the one their parents had shared, or accepting her becoming a bluestocking spinster. The latter was less likely to end in her arrest.

But he couldn’t like it. It simply wasn’t who he was.

* * *

One week later, Lucy left London. Ash was at Gentleman Jackson’s when her carriage pulled away, for he couldn’t bear to witness her leaving.

He pulled his right fist back. Let his bare knuckles pound into his opponent’s shoulder. Lord Belfry’s answering grunt was satisfying, in a visceral way. He continued his assault, pummeling the man, fortified by the pain in his soul.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.

Thunk.
Ash’s head snapped back. God, it felt good to feel something other than the caving of his chest.

When the lights in his head subsided, he danced forward again. Belfry was about the same height and weight, but he clearly didn’t have the passion for fighting that Ash had today. Belfry’s brown hair was plastered against his forehead and his shirtsleeves hung in damp curtains over his shoulders. Ash flexed his hand, then sent it pummeling into Belfry’s stomach.
Thwack.

His sisters had both abandoned him.
Thwack.

He’d driven them away.
Thwack, thwack.

But he hadn’t been able to stop caring for them, even at the end. He’d sent three footmen along with Lucy, wishing he had a brute like Gordo to watch over her.

Thunk.
Belfry tried to block Ash’s fist, but Ash was faster.
Thwack.

He’d have his man of business conduct interviews. There had to be another Gordo out there somewhere.
Thwack!

“Trestin,” called a voice from the sidelines.

Thwack, thwack!

“Trestin!” it shouted again, closer now. He barely heard it. Even when strong arms pulled him back, and someone handed him a towel to wipe his sweat.
 

He rubbed it over his face. Before it could run down his cheeks and be taken for tears.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Celeste knew enough about men to know he was not coming back, and she didn’t require her spectacles to see it. He was not coming back. Not to rail at her, not to accuse her, and definitely not to forgive her.

Men avoided altercations. A lengthy bout of silence was all that was needed to inform a mistress her services were no longer needed. A wife, on the other hand, couldn’t be disposed of as easily. Wives required confrontation, conciliation, and that dreaded word, communication. It was one of the many reasons men preferred mistresses to wives.

A knock at the front door belowstairs startled a wisp of hope in her breast. Just as quickly it plummeted back into place. Whoever was outside, it was not Ash. She looked out of the window anyway. Of course it was not Ash.

The motion of the front door opening and closing vibrated below her. She looked through the window again. A young caller made his way back to the street. Just before he walked away, he looked up. His boyish face searched the windows. She quickly stepped into the shadows. Viscount Kinsey. Goodness, he was ten years her junior, at least. He couldn’t mean to form an attachment. It must be curiosity. Acquaintances and strangers both hadn’t stopped calling since she’d disappeared from London’s midnight soirees. And why not? The last time she’d disappeared, she’d returned with the
ton
’s most straitlaced bachelor in tow.

Her stomach rumbled as she watched Lord Kinsey walk away. She touched her belly in surprise. How many weeks had it been since she’d felt hungry?

It
was
almost tea time. The entire house smelled decadently of cocoa and vanilla beans. Perhaps it was also time she rejoined the living. Ash wasn’t coming back. He’d had weeks to confront her and he’d stayed away. Time she accepted it. It wasn’t the first time she’d been dropped like a hot stone—though she could do everything in her power to make sure it was the last.

She made her way to the kitchen, suddenly ravenous for a pot of chocolate and a scone.

Gordo and Hildegard hovered over the stove. They ceased their whispered argument as soon as she entered. Recovering herself, Hildegard wiped her hands and went to the highboy.

“The tray will be ready in just a moment,” she said as she set a serviette and spoon beside Celeste’s favorite Limoges chocolate pot. “We lost track of time, didn’t we, Gordo?”

He grunted and churned the thick, bubbling chocolate concoction without looking up.

Celeste smiled wanly at her servants. “Gordo, did I have a caller just now?”

His stirring spoon circled steadily in the pot. “Lord Kinsey left his card.”

“I see,” she said, drawing a chair up to the table in the center of the kitchen. “And do you have other calling cards I haven’t yet seen?”

He hefted a brown paper-wrapped object from the table beside the stove. Large hands tore the paper, exposing a hunk of meat which he dumped on the butcher block beside him with a
thunk
. “You aren’t receiving.”

She was touched by his effort to shield her. “Thank you for minding the door, but I’m much improved. From now on, I’m at home.”

Gordo and Hildegard both paused to look at her in surprise. Then Gordo selected a giant knife and jammed it into the side of pork. “Lord Trestin hasn’t called.”

Celeste flinched. She had a moment to quiet her racing heart while Hildegard set the tray before her. “Thank you, Gordo. I’ll keep that in mind.”

He grunted.

After tea, she rang for a restorative bath. It was the first long soak she’d had since the night of Lucy’s seduction. Then she received two male friends from what felt like a previous lifetime. Drumming up her famous wit while Lord Steepleton and Mr. Tewseybury shared the latest
on dits
with her reminded her she was still alive, even if…

She toyed with the lace edge of her sleeve. Would she never stop thinking of Ash?

The next day, another man rang, and the day after that, news had spread she was at home again. Over the course of a week she politely turned down three offers of protection. She allowed the attention to buoy her. It was different than in all the eighteen years previous. For the first time, she accepted male gallantry without feeling as though she must compensate in return. She had no need of their money or their protection. A pretty compliment could be accepted with a smile and a word of thanks.