The moment they entered the room, she stepped away from him, dragging in deep breaths as he leaned back and quietly shut the door behind them. He watched her as she paced, her hands gripping in and out of fists at her sides.
“Well, Lady Jocelyn is a pleasure,” he said, his tone dry as dust.
It elicited the desired response, for she stopped pacing and pivoted to look at him. She smiled and her shoulders relaxed. “Isn’t she? I’ve known her since we were little girls. As you heard, her grandmother has a home just a short distance from this estate.”
“Ah yes, the beloved grandmother,” Morgan mused. “Her concern for the woman was touching.”
“The worst part is that her grandmother is wonderful. So kind.” She shook her head and for a moment she seemed distracted. “I will have to call on her. Have a basket put together for her comfort.”
Morgan smiled at her easy kindness. “You are a wonder, Elizabeth.”
She blinked and her attention returned to him. “A-a wonder? What do you mean by that?”
“Do you really not know? Can you truly not see what a revelation you are?” Morgan asked. When her expression remained blank, he laughed. “Then allow me to explain. That wretched woman obviously upset you, and I know you don’t want to be at this ball the duchess arranged. And yet you are instantly distracted by checking on the well-being of an acquaintance.”
Elizabeth waved her hand dismissively. “That isn’t remarkable by any means. It’s just caring about another person.”
He stepped closer. “You have been sheltered in your time on this earth if you think that caring about another person isn’t always remarkable.”
He expected her to smile, but instead she backed away. “I’m not sheltered,” she muttered.
His brow wrinkled. The trouble had reentered her face. The same expression he’d seen when that horrible Lady Jocelyn was needling her about not being in London. Like a cornered animal who feared the bite of a predator.
He stared at her, knowing he should make some excuse to walk away. Leave her to her peace. Perhaps send in one of the duchesses or her brother to comfort her because it wasn’t his place.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not when she was standing there with those amazing blue eyes locked on his, her hands worrying and trembling in front of her.
“Why do you hate London?” he whispered.
Those same eyes widened and the fear entered them yet again. “M-Morgan,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I am not the kind of man who would or could judge you for whatever it is that plagues you. And I…I want to help you, if I can. Perhaps talking about it would help.”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
He stepped closer, and at last he let himself reach out to take her hand. She was wearing gloves. So was he. It didn’t matter. Electric awareness still shot through him, making him want things he shouldn’t have.
“Morgan,” she repeated, but her voice trembled with the same desires he felt coursing through his body.
“Why do you look afraid whenever someone talks about gossip?” he pressed. “Why does everyone dance around your past?”
He saw her struggle with the answer he demanded. He saw all that fear and heartbreak and regret she held inside of her flash across her face in an instant.
And then she bent her head. Bent to his will, and he knew what she would say even before she whispered, “Very well. You want to know the truth? Then you’ll have it. And you might regret hearing it as much as I’m certain I’ll regret telling you.”
Chapter 13
Although a great many people knew her secret, mostly kind friends she trusted to her core, Lizzie had only ever spoken of what she had done to two. Hugh, because she’d had to give him some of the information after he’d been forced to chase after her through the night. And Amelia, because she adored her sister-in-law and because it turned out they shared a chapter in the book of Aaron Walters.
Now she stared up into the dark, welcoming gaze of Morgan Banfield and prepared herself to confess again. Perhaps it would be better. Part of Morgan’s interest in her had to do with the fact that he saw her as sheltered and innocent, as opposed to what he’d encountered in his once wild life. But when he knew what she’d done, what she was, perhaps that would end this connection once and for all.
She drew a shaky breath and sank into a chair before the fire. “I met him at one of those assembly soirees here in Brighthollow,” she began.
His eyes widened. “Him?” he repeated.
“Him,” she repeated. She held his gaze and saw he understood. “Aaron Walters was his name, not that it matters. I didn’t want to be there. Even before…it happened, I was shy around people I didn’t know well. I still am. He was handsome and he approached me, which shocked me. He asked me to dance.”
“And did you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I told him the same thing I told everyone: I don’t like to dance. Mostly that makes the young men back away.”
His brow wrinkled. “Idiots.”
She smiled despite herself and was shocked that she could. Normally this story made her feel like she couldn’t breathe. Like she was trapped in the past all over again.
“Well, this particular idiot suggested we take a walk in the garden if I preferred it. I thought I shouldn’t. I knew I was too young for such a thing. But he was so…kind. So I said yes.”
Morgan swallowed. “I assume that began a courtship.”
“Unofficially, yes.” She sighed at the memory. “Hugh wasn’t at Brighthollow at the time, he was in London, and no one expected me to do anything wicked. I was probably allowed more leeway than another girl might have been and I betrayed the trust everyone had in me. I met with him in secret. We took rides around the lake and talked and picnicked. It was…it was romantic on the surface.”
“On the surface,” he said, and there was a wariness to his tone. “He wasn’t what he seemed?”
She tried not to allow bitterness into her tone, but it was in her heart and it was impossible not to show. “He was not. But I didn’t know it. I was so foolish and blind and…and so desperate for love that I ignored any warning signs. He led me by the nose all the way until the day he asked me to marry him.”
Morgan stepped back, his eyes wide. “You married him?”
“Well, I was only sixteen. I told Aaron that we should speak to Hugh. That there was no rush. But he was insistent. He said that my brother would never accept him because he wasn’t moneyed or titled. He said the only way to convince him was if we eloped. It would force Hugh’s hand and we would be happy in the end.”
When Morgan’s lips parted, she nodded. “Oh yes, I know. Not a very gentlemanly suggestion. I knew it was wrong. But he told me I had to decide right then. If I said no, he would take it that I didn’t care as much as I had declared. That I had been playing him for a fool, and he would leave and never come back.”
“Blackmail. That bastard,” Morgan muttered.
She bent her head. “I was too foolish to see the manipulation, I suppose. And so I agreed. It was such a long ride to Gretna Green. And…”
She trailed off and pushed from the chair. Her cheeks flamed as she walked to the window, looked down at the garden in the darkness. Her mother’s garden. Her mother who certainly would have been so ashamed of what she’d done.
She heard Morgan move closer, and then she felt him. He stepped up behind her and, without speaking, wrapped his hands around her forearms. In the wavy reflection from the window before her, she saw him looking down at her. She felt his strength and his warmth and all the things that drew her to him. Was that a repeated mistake or something real this time? Did she even know the difference?
Did the difference even matter?
“You don’t have to tell me what he did,” he whispered.
“You are a man of the world,” she replied, and hated that her voice cracked. “I’m sure you can guess. What do you think he did?”
&n
bsp; He was silent for a moment, hesitant. Then he said, “Made you believe that you would be wed, so you might as well do the thing you’d been warned against your whole life. I think he took your virginity.”
She bent her head, staring at the ground as she relived that experience. Quick and perfunctory and unpleasant. Tears filled her eyes and she nodded. He turned her then, slowly and gently, and she was forced to look up at him.
But there was no judgment to be found on his face. No pity. Nothing but understanding and concern and acceptance. She blinked to see it there, unexpected in this man who had been brought here from gaol in order to end his wicked ways.
Right now he didn’t look wicked. But he was very close and his hands were very warm on her bare arms and he made her feel wicked.
She let out a breath in a long sigh. “Yes. I gave myself to him and the deal was sealed. There would be no going back. I felt the shift in him right away. He got harder, more cocksure. Less the man who was gentle with me. I suppose I realize now that was who he really was. The rest was just an act to get what he truly desired. My dowry. My brother’s connections.”
“Did you make it to Gretna Green?” Morgan whispered.
“No.” Memories returned again, sharp and terrible. “The night before we were to arrive, Hugh appeared. He’d been making chase, it seemed. Come to rescue me, though it was too late. Aaron showed his true colors then. He…laughed at me.”
Morgan flinched, as if that statement pained him as much as it had torn her to shreds that awful night. Even now she sometimes woke to Aaron’s words ringing in her ears, his smirk dancing across her field of vision.
“There was nothing to be done. To protect me, Hugh paid for his silence. I was ruined and I returned home.”
“Where is he?” Morgan asked, and his voice was now low and dangerous. “Tell me where he is and I will do what your brother could perhaps not out of a desire to protect your good name. I will rip him to shreds.”
She shut her eyes and shook her head. “He is dead. About a year later, he did the same thing to Amelia. Made her think he was a man worthy of her. Hugh found out about their engagement and he was overwhelmed by guilt. So he stepped in, taking her from Aaron. They fell in love and they are very happy, but ultimately there was a fight. Aaron lashed out and tried to hurt Amelia and Hugh, and he was killed in the melee.”
Morgan’s jaw tightened and he brushed his hand across her cheek. She found herself leaning into his palm. Taking some of his strength. Wishing she had more of her own.
“His death must have been complicated for you.”
Her lips parted in surprise that he would guess that. No one else had. Her brother and Amelia had been supportive, of course. Tender, gentle. But they didn’t fully understand her emotions. And she had chosen not to share them. So the thing she was about to say was a secret she had always held close to her heart.
“It was,” she admitted. “I had once told myself I loved this man, enough to run away with him. Enough to give myself to him. Whatever he’d done, however I felt later, that had once been true. Then he was dead. So I felt grief and pain, anger and betrayal, and also relief all at once. I hated myself for all those feelings and for what I allowed him to do to me.”
“That isn’t your fault,” he said, so swiftly that there was no doubt he believed it down to his core.
She shook her head, for she had certainly heard that before. It wasn’t her fault, it wasn’t her doing, it wasn’t because of her.
“Of course it was my fault,” she said, straightening her shoulders and stepping away from the comfort she hadn’t earned and shouldn’t take. “I snuck out to meet with him. If I’d thought that was the right thing to do, I wouldn’t have done it like a thief in the night.”
“You were a young woman feeling the flush of attraction, emotion,” he said. “Thinking he was…decent.”
She shook her head. “Don’t absolve me. I left with him when I knew it was wrong. I gave him what he wanted instead of protecting my future. I ruined everything.”
“Wait, you said Amelia had a similar interaction with the bastard,” Morgan said. “Do you blame her for her interest?”
“Of course not,” Lizzie said. “He made himself into what she wanted and she couldn’t see what he was.”
“So you will give her that grace, but not yourself,” Morgan said, lifting his brows. “Not well played, Elizabeth.”
She frowned. “The difference is that Amelia didn’t go as far as I did.”
“Because she didn’t, er…” He seemed to struggle. “I can only think of vulgar ways to describe it.”
Lizzie’s face felt like it was on fire. “Yes, because she didn’t allow him to bed her. She wasn’t weak like me.”
“Desire is not a weakness,” he said. “And she seems to share it in spades with Brighthollow, if the fact that they can barely keep their hands off of each other is any indication.”
Lizzie dropped her gaze. She didn’t really want to discuss that with this man. Her brother’s relationship was something private. Though Morgan was right—Amelia and Hugh did little to hide their powerful physical connection from the world at large. Three years into their marriage and it hadn’t lessened or waned.
“Need, desire, passion,” she whispered. “For me they will lead to nothing good. I don’t enjoy them and I refuse to surrender to the danger they pose ever again. That is why I can’t go around kissing you, as much as any other reason. What you make me want is wrong.”
His frown was dark and deep, and he shoved a hand through his hair out of what felt like frustration. She flinched away from it. Well, that would end that, it seemed. He was upset at what she’d said. Upset that she was putting a final distance between them.
“I see you are angry,” she whispered. “I’ll go back to the ball.”
She moved toward the door, but he sidestepped into her path. “Yes, I am angry,” he said through clenched teeth. “But not at you. I’m angry you were put in that position by someone who used your sweet nature so he could obtain what he wanted. I’ve known men like him all my life. They are the worst…well, to take a word often used to describe me…libertines. And if the man were not already in the ground, I would find him and exact a little revenge on your behalf.”
She ducked her head. “Th-thank you.”
She expected that to end the conversation, but he didn’t move away from her. Instead his finger slid beneath her chin and he tilted her face up toward his. He felt very close in the warmth of the parlor. Very close and big and all-consuming.
“I’m also upset that you see desire in such a poor light,” he continued. “Because as I said earlier, there is nothing wrong with wanting. With pleasure. Using them to hurt someone else is wicked, but giving in to them isn’t. That man…that bastard who hurt you, he should have seen what you gave him as the gift it was. He should have taken care of it and you. He should have made certain there was pleasure for you and not just for him, so you wouldn’t cringe away from any hint of it. So you wouldn’t conflate the stir in your belly when you feel attraction with the pain in your heart at what he did to you.”
She could hardly breathe, because his finger was now tracing her jawline, her cheekbone, her ear, the side of her throat. And there was a tingle of awareness that seemed to crackle from his finger, as if he had electricity in his veins and she fire in her own.
Add to that the things he was saying, the forgiveness he demanded she give to herself. The forgiveness she could see perhaps for the first time in years. She found herself lifting toward him, saw his eyes widen with surprise. But he didn’t pull away as she wound her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his.
He froze for a moment. She felt his uncertainty and hesitance, but then he made a soft sound of desire and returned the kiss. It was tender, slow. His arms came around her and he cradled her against his broad chest, careful and gentle. She knew she should pull away. They’d made an agreement not to do this again, but whenever he touched her, w
henever his mouth met hers, she could almost forget it wasn’t the first time she’d been kissed.
She could almost do exactly what he said and let the desire and the pleasure be a positive, not a negative. She lifted on her tiptoes, pressing a hand to his chest, her fingers clenching against the fabric of his jacket as she sighed and he finally let his tongue dart out to taste her.
She expected him to take it further. To drown her in all the sensation until there was nothing left but it and him. But he didn’t. To her surprise, he stepped back and stared at her with wild eyes full of question and something darker. Something deeper.
She smoothed her skirts, trying to find purchase in a world he seemed to so easily turn on its head. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she whispered.
He didn’t say anything for a beat, and then he took her hand. “I know we agreed we couldn’t do this anymore. I know we both have reasons why whatever attraction exists between us cannot be explored. It has no good end.”
She moved to tug her hand away, but he held firm. “Wait, please wait,” he pressed. “What that man did to you is a crime. What he took from you is a crime. Not your virginity, though that was needlessly cruel and manipulative.”
“He didn’t take anything else,” she insisted. “It was Hugh’s money, not mine.”
“Not the money, Elizabeth,” he said sharply. “I’m talking about making you think that what you feel is wrong. That what you want is wrong. That when you feel that ache low in your belly, the one that makes you dream of being touched, the one that wakes you sweating, the place between your legs throbbing…that you are wicked for feeling that.”
Her breath came short and hard. It was as if he could see into her soul in that moment. More than any other time he had pushed past her defenses and seen everything.
“But I can’t go back,” she whispered. “You seem to think what I experienced that first time wasn’t how it should have been.”
“It wasn’t,” he said, his jaw setting. “If it had been me, I would have made it so good for you.”
The Love of a Libertine: The Duke’s Bastards Book 1 Page 14