She kept reading.
In my own lifetime, I ruled as a king. Over the years, I had more sway than the ocean, made men tremble harder than an earthquake, and controlled more of England than the royal family itself.
I was worshipped like a god. I was feared and adored. I was the last man anyone wished to make war with, and I thrived on it all.
Since you were always what amounted to little more than nothing, you cannot comprehend what that means. You are unprepared for what comes next.
Hate and shame burned Irene’s chest. She could not believe her father could be so cruel. So cold. She wanted to stop reading but couldn’t. She had to know if there was a clue to the book’s location inside.
The title you bear is like no other. While other lords chased skirts and studied crops, I chased power and studied crowds. You’ve never understood people. That will be a disadvantage to you, but I hope it will also be what frees you to the possibilities of what I offer.
To be a ruler, one has to make hard choices, they must be ruthless, otherwise anyone could rule.
Irene could rule.
She stiffened with surprise and continued on.
I molded her to always know that she bowed to no one, yet sadly, she gained her mother’s tender heart. It has left her weak where the unfortunate and unhappy are concerned. She is tenderhearted. Sweet. People will take advantage of that, I’m certain.
Pain nearly made her collapse from her chair. Her father’s words had been a reminder of her situation with Clive. Did he think her as weak as her father claimed believed her to be? Perhaps she did care too much.
You were nothing, and with a stroke of a pen, I could have easily left you as nothing. Duke means nothing compared to what I offer.
I offer you something you’ve lacked in your life up until this moment.
I offer you a place in the world. A vital role.
I offer you a destiny.
Now, here lies your purpose: Protect our name.
The key to my dynasty is in my throne. Wield the key well and you and your descendants shall rule forever.
My death will bring you wealth. My title will make you lord, but my business will make you king.
And you will need a king’s eyes and the king’s key to rule.
My power be with you,
Gregory Hiller I, Duke of Van Dero
The letter confirmed the menace her father had been. He didn’t actually speak of his guilt, but the coldness in his note had left Irene feeling empty. She wondered how Cass had felt reading it. She’d found nothing that could lead her to the book but was left hoping that Marley took Cassius under his wing.
When she finished, she looked up to find Cass watching her.
“Where did you say Clive had gone off to?” he asked.
“To look for my assailant or Mr. Crow.” She didn’t know if that were true, but it was what he’d done every other night, go out and lurk for trouble in the darkness.
“Are you worried for his safety?” He was sitting at the small writing desk in the corner. He looked large compared to the furniture.
A king.
“Don’t listen to anything my father said in here.” Irene shook the letter. “You do not need to be cold to rule.”
Cass blinked. “You are weak. Perhaps, it is not wise for me to seek your council on this matter.”
She stiffened at the insult. “You believe me to be weak?”
“Yes,” Cass said with all the enthusiasm he would use to confirm that the sky was blue. “You are weak. We spent hours with children who are not your own. Who’ve never done anything for you. Many will go and do nothing for you still.”
“But if I don’t care for them, who will, Cass?” she asked.
He studied her. “I feel I should apologize.”
“Why? Because I am upset?” She was.
He turned to her fully. “No, because you think your weakness to be a fault. You are weak, but it is good.”
“It is good to be weak?” she said.
He nodded. “I never knew what love was. As a child, it was not given to me, but I recognize it in you. I am sure that you are love, Irene. You define the emotion well.”
She allowed his compliment to wash over her. “But you think love makes you weak?”
“It does,” he said. “It makes you vulnerable, but I believe it to be your purpose. You have found your place in the world, to care for others as you do. It is good that you’ve married Clive, someone who would protect you.”
She looked away and wondered what her cousin would think if he knew the truth about her fight with Clive. She looked at Cass again. “So, you don’t believe it your destiny to be weak? To care for others?”
His brows drew together as he thought. “I will do what needs to be done.”
“Speak to Marley,” she pressed. She prayed her father hadn’t already ruined her cousin. “Please.”
Cass nodded. “Are you worried about Clive’s safety?
Irene almost shook her head, but then she smiled and nodded. “Just a little.” Yet she was so upset with Clive that she could harm him herself.
How dare he leave her and tell her to stay as though she were some sort of dog! Once she’d straightened her face, she’d had Cass drive her to the orphanage. There, she was entertained— distracted— by the children, but when it was time for bed, there was little else she could do.
So she’d come home.
“I’m sure he knows what he’s doing.” Cass turned back to the papers. “Clive seems like a man who plans his actions well.” The words were said to reassure her, but all they’d done was tell her what she’d already known.
From the open window, Irene heard a carriage came to a stop outside their door. She glanced outside and saw Cecilia and Lord Harry climbing the steps.
Irene met them at the door. “What are you doing here?”
Cecilia turned to Harry. “You see? I told you she’d forget.” She turned to Irene. “We are to attend Lord and Lady Vissex’s party. You may recall that their eldest son has taken a liking to Winifred.”
Irene blinked and recalled Cecilia’s missive about it a few days ago. “I thought we agreed she was too young to wed.”
“He’s a viscount,” Harry countered. His blue eyes held humor, as though he’d explained everything.
“Also,” Cecilia said. “She’s very anxious to attend. It would mean so much if you were there.”
Irene smiled. It was just the distraction she needed.
Harry’s eyes lifted as Cassius came into the room. The two shook hands, familiar with one another. Harry smiled. “Cass, I didn’t know you were here. I thought you hated the city.”
“I had not planned to be here this long,” their cousin countered. “But I had reasons that have detained my departure.”
Irene wondered how much of her own problems encompassed the reasons Cass had yet to leave. It was then she realized that Cass was likely only staying up with her because Clive had asked him to. Somehow, Cass had taken on the responsibility of her, just like Clive had said he should when they’d not been married.
“You’re not ready,” Cecilia told Irene. “Go. You must hurry.”
“We can take her if you wish to stay,” Harry told Cass. “I know how much you detest crowds.”
“I’ll go where Irene goes.” The words confirmed what Irene had suspected. Her husband was upset, yet he still cared for her safety.
She would go out tonight and help her friend.
At least someone wants my help.
She looked at Cass. “You don’t mind, do you?”
He held his panic well behind his golden gaze. “I will be ready whenever you are.”
Deciding to waste no more time, she left the room to dress.
Irene wanted to take her time when she thought of the possibility of Clive coming home and them going together— after she addressed his bad temper and told him never to speak to her as he had before.
There had been something in Cli
ve’s expression before he’d degraded her and then left as though she’d meant nothing to him. A whisper in her mind told her it was true. She was nothing to him. She’d never been anything but bed sport. He enjoyed her eagerness, which she knew to be something Society frowned upon in women.
She wished she could say that her enthusiasm for bedding had something to do with her less than comely looks, but it was, in fact, Clive who heated her blood and made her itch to touch him.
Irene told herself that if he walked through the door, she’d strike him right where she knew it would hurt the most.
He’d planned to hurt her. It only seemed fair.
And yet, she couldn’t. Not completely. Yet, she would not allow a man to treat her less than a person. She would demand his respect and she would help him,
She looked at the bed. “I can’t stay here.” She would not stay the night.
Dressed, she went to Cass’ room and knocked. She spoke the moment he opened the door. “After the party, I wish to go away.”
“What do you mean?” Cass asked.
“I want to go to Bath,” she said. “It’ll only be for a few days.”
His gold eyes assessed her. “Clive didn’t wish you going anywhere without escort.”
“Then come with me.”
His face relaxed. “When do you leave?”
“Tonight.”
“I’ll be ready.” He took a step back.
She frowned. “You didn’t even ask me why I wish to go.” The words were said to herself more than him.
But he turned and answered her. “I hate this city. It’s too noisy and dirty. Bath is better. I don’t know why you’re going, and I don’t wish to ask it. If I deem the reason illogical, I will stop us, and I do not wish to stop us. You will leave a note. I’ll pack my trunk.” He closed the door and Irene was glad that a plan was forming in her mind.
She’d show Clive she was made for more than his bed. He’d be thankful.
Not that he deserved her help, anyway.
He’d try to stop her if he knew where she was going. Therefore, what would she write in a note? Very little, she decided as she went over to the writing desk.
She thought it best to inform him that she was safe first.
I’ve left with Cass.
Then, because she was still angry, she added: Don’t wait up for me.
She smiled at the last and then put down the quill and folded the note. It was enough. It was more than Clive deserved. She left to get ready.
∫ ∫ ∫
3 9
* * *
I’ve left with Cass. Don’t wait up for me.
There were few times in his life when Clive hated being right.
She’d left him. When he’d arrived home after ten, after a long and tedious evening in which he roamed London’s streets and allowed Garrick to convince him to go home, the house had felt empty. It was a feeling he was used to.
Before Irene, with all her color and charm, his life had been whatever he made it. If he wanted color, vibrance, noise, he’d go out and find it or create it himself.
“I don’t need you,” he told the letter before he threw it back on her bed.
The air still smelled of her. It was as though he’d walked into a florist shop or some recluse garden of the freshest blooms. The bed was made neatly so either she’d hadn’t slept in it or her maid had fixed it before she’d left.
He’d have liked it better if it had been wrinkled. He’d have wished to see some evidence that she’d at least tried to stay.
Their first fight— real fight— and she was already done with him.
His heart constricted and he took a step back. It was the room. The air. He’d never liked flowers.
You adore flowers, especially because of her.
“No,” he told the voice in his head. He moved to the window and opened it. The night air was cool and instantly the wind filled the room, sweeping her fragrance away and replacing it with the foul scents of the city.
Panic gripped him. What had he been thinking to open the window? The scent was all he had left. He cursed and tried to close the window. What had opened for him with ease now gave him a fight, but he managed to shut it seconds later.
He inhaled, but Irene was gone. He moved to the center of the room and tried again. His heart raced.
There. In the bed. Her essence was still in the bed.
He reached down to pick up her pillow but stopped himself.
He was ten again, in his mother’s room, craving her like any young boy would. She’d left with Edmund. Clive’s last theft, which had been the purse of the wealthy lord at a fair, had managed to be just enough for Edmund to take his mother to Southampton for the week, leaving Clive and his brother and sisters with a governess who hated them, because she was rarely paid.
Clive remembered picking up her pillow and bringing it to his nose. He remembered closing his eyes and dreaming it was not a bag of feathers in his arms but his mother’s skirts. He was resting on her and she was stroking his hair as she did every so often.
Those small strokes of affection had been worth every coin he’d ever taken.
Angelini loved him. He was sure she did, but her love had left him so empty. Her smiles and tender touches had been like the scents of fresh bread that flowed outside the baker’s door whenever a patron left and went in, but the scent alone hadn’t filled his belly. It had only turned his gut with enough hunger to make Clive vomit.
“I don’t need you,” he told Irene’s pillow.
This was his first time admitting so aloud, yet he’d told himself pretty much the same thing on the night he’d kissed her during her party. When the stirring of feelings had begun, Clive had warned his heart against giving in too fully.
He’d been wise to do so.
Eventually, he would feel the pain of her absence, maybe tonight when he had no one to make love to, but it would fade. His want of her would fade along with her scent.
Just like your want of your mother faded?
He left the thought in the room and went to his own.
There was another note. This one had Cassius’ signature across the front.
I have no clue what your wife’s note will entail but thought it best to include details in my own. Our plans are to attend Lord and Lady Vessex’s party and then we are off to Bath.
Bath?
Clive crumbled the note.
His little wife had decided to go against his wishes and try to make things better for him and his family. He wanted to shake her.
He wanted to wrap her in his arms and never let go.
His emotions were in conflict with one another. Why would she do this? Why would she still care when he’d showed her that he didn’t care for her at all? He’d made it clear that she was to do nothing but warm his bed. That shouldn’t have sent her to Bath. It should have sent her to Scotland to live out the remainder of her life with Cass.
Or worse, she’d remain here, close to the orphans, and he’d have to bear watching her pour her heart out to others while leave him completely ignored.
He’d have eventually ended up begging her forgiveness.
He could see it.
Clive wanted his wife. He wanted her body and her mind. He adored everything about her.
The streets had been terribly dark that night. The air had been foul. The people they’d spoke to of no help, but the image of Irene with flowers in her hair as her only adornment had had him grinning.
He’d been convinced he should go home in less than an hour, but he’d stayed out because he’d hoped to find Crow or the assailant.
He’d been unlucky.
And then Irene was gone.
She likely hadn’t planned for him to know where she’d gone. She wanted him to worry. She knew it would have driven him mad.
She would not enjoy her plans changing.
He smiled and dressed.
* * *
The waltz struck its first notes just as Clive approache
d his wife. “May I have this dance?”
Clive failed to suppress his smile as Irene turned to face him. She was wearing white with violets in her hair. “Where do you get your flowers?” he asked her.
She touched a bloom. “The footman brings them from the flower girls in the East End.”
Of course, she purchased her blooms from the poor.
“Irene.” He was so happy to see her. Emotions attacked his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.
Her gaze narrowed. “What are you doing here?”
He couldn’t speak. If he did, he’d make a fool of himself in present company. Instead, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into the dance.
She fought him, but since she weighed little more than a child, she was forced to comply.
Clive wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close.
She stared at him with wide eyes. “How dare you?” she hissed. Tears built in her eyes. They struck hard at Clive’s middle “If you think for one moment you can simply walk into this party, dance with me, and all will be forgiven—”
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered. The hurt filled Clive with shame, even more because he knew she did care. It was what Irene did. She cared. Clive was supposed to protect her. That included her heart. Yet, hadn’t he been trying to do that when he tried to stop her from finding out the truth about him?
No, he’d done it to protect his own heart, an organ he’d barely used until recently.
He cursed. He was falling for his wife. He didn’t want to love her, but he didn’t think he’d be able to keep himself from doing it. “Forgive me, Irene.”
She looked away. “I would walk away from you in front of all these people if it wouldn’t cause gossip.” Her body moved stiffly with his. This was not going the way he’d imagined it would. “How did you find me?”
“Cassius left a note.”
She glanced around the room, seeking her cousin in vain.
“He’s gone.”
∫ ∫ ∫
4 0
* * *
Clive’s statement finally got Irene’s attention once more. “Where has my cousin gone?”
Pain of The Marquess: (The Valiant Love Regency Romance) (A Historical Romance Book) Page 19