The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Set 4 (The Rakehell Regency Romance Series Boxed Sets)

by Sorcha MacMurrough

  "But in this case, they could see we are well and truly married, and there was no need to defend your family's honor."

  "There wouldn't have been in any case, Randall, even if we were not wed. I knew what I was doing when we first made love. I made the choice of my own free will."

  He kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you for saying that, and for your help."

  She shrugged on shoulder. "I just told the truth."

  "Still, you were very brave. I don't know how you ever tolerated Howell, though. He's always made my skin crawl."

  "Always?" she asked in surprise. "Why, how long have you known him?"

  Randall grimaced. "Forever. He lived near our estate down in Somerset. He's a distant relation, you see, always hanging on our coattails. And he was my brother Francis's best friend, though no one could ever understand why. They were so different. Francis was never vicious. Well, not before he began to consort with Howell," he added.

  She could see the memory's images swirling in his head. "Oh, God, no," she whispered.

  She stepped back from him, horror and pity warring in her breast as she saw almost from two sides a dark man and blond woman writhing together in a stable in the throes of the most bestial passion. One image was wreathed in black and red, the other in black on black, like a silhouette. Then there was a flash of lightning, and she began to run from the room.

  Chapter Twenty

  "Darling?" Randall shouted after Isolde. "What's the matter?" He bolted for the door himself in hot pursuit of his wife, desperate to get hold of her lest her strange behavior cause alarm to her family, especially Philip and Antony. Damn Howell for stirring up so much trouble....

  Randall gripped Isolde's hand to stop her from fleeing. When she tugged away, her eyes wide with terror, he shook his head and urged in a low tone, "Whatever it is, darling, we need to be calm and circumspect while your cousins are here, lest they think something really is amiss."

  Though her spine felt as though an icy hand had stroked down it and squeezed, she swallowed hard, and at length nodded.

  "Very well," she whispered, mastering her overwrought emotions at last. And in truth, she realised, where had she to go? She couldn't escape what she had seen no matter how far she ran. She felt as though the lurid visions had been burnt indelibly into her brain.

  "Come here, my love, pray calm yourself." He soothed her with a circular motion of his hand on her back, and managed to get her settled her down into one of the blue and gokd upholstered chairs at last.

  He pressed a glass of Madeira into her trembling hands and made her drink every drop.

  "What did you see?" he demanded when she had finished, his own hands now starting to shake when he saw her white-faced terror. He could not have felt more guilty if he had struck her.

  She shook her head and nearly wept.

  "I love you, Isolde. Please believe me when I tell you that I won't let my past harm us."

  "How can you say those words, Randall, after what I've just seen?"

  "I had my reasons, dearest."

  "Reasons?" she gasped, shaking her head. "What reason could you have had to-"

  He gripped her hand hard. "You need to know the whole truth, now. I was about to tell you everything, you might recall, when Howell came to try to take you from me."

  She yanked her arm away from his suffocating grip. "Better to have told me before you married me, Randall, not after!"

  He stopped himself in time before he blurted out the truth in a way which was only going to damn him even further in her eyes. "Please, I'm going about this in completely the wrong manner. I don't want to frighten you, but I do need to confess what happend. Please come upstairs and I'll-"

  "No, don't touch me!" she exclaimed in horror, as she saw the black aura encircling him. But why had she never seen it so clearly before? Before she had married him at any rate.....

  The dark cloud of Chauncey's presence, she was sure, was also casting a pall over the room. They were married now, but she certainly didn't feel safe.

  Randall took the hand he had raised to comfort her and ran it through his hair in frustration. "I'm the same man you just made love to a few moments ago, my dear. Nothing is ever going to change that."

  "Except that I didn't know what I know now."

  "Or what you think you know," he said with a shake of his head. "There are two sides to every story, sometimes more, Isolde. I'm not proud of what I did, what I've done, but I would like the chance to confess it before I'm damned outright. And I did tell you my reasons for marrying included trying to live a better life. And, perhaps, even some hope of redemption for all my past sins."

  Isolde looked at him warily, and then nodded. "Very well then, tell me what you were about to say before Howell barged in on us."

  Randall looked around the room and hugged his dressing gown to him with a sigh.

  "Perhaps this might not be the best place-"

  "Tell me," she said tonelessly.

  "Please, dearest, I'm not taking the coward's way out. I'm just concerned about you, your comfort. You've had a terrible pair of shocks. You're not dressed, you might catch a chill. You've hardly slept for the past couple of nights, and you've been through heavens only know what with your father dying, and Howell throwing you over and then badgering you to become his mistress.

  "Isolde, my dear, I'm not trying to get round you, but I would like you to come upstairs and lie down. I'll tell you the whole truth, no matter what. You can ask me anything. I shall tell you whatever you need to know to make this right between us. But we need some warmth and a greater degree of privacy lest your family should walk in or overhear anything they ought not."

  Isolde could see the wisdom of his words, though the other half of her wanted to run out of the front door and keep on running. But she was married. Married to whom, exactly? A rake was bad enough. But from what she had seen, he wasn't simply a rake, he was a murderer....

  But then he had also been a man whom many women had been prepared to risk everything for. She had been rather pleased with herself to have snatched the victory away from Howell ever making her his mistress, and also ended up with such a gorgeous, virile, wonderful man as the prize.

  Pride certainly went before a fall, she reflected, wishing she had taken greater heed of her intuition. Strangely enough, now that he was sitting across from her, the blackness in the room had gone...

  But those visions...

  She had been so full of hope, and passion.Yet now, only a few moments later, her marriage was a nightmare, Randall's declaration that he wanted to make her happy, couldn't live without her, seemed a sham. Some sort of trick. She had been virgin, and given herself willingly because she had longed to have a true lover for one night, and because she had cared. Because her wish to heal had extended to him, his darkness within, and thanks to her headstrong arrogance, she had thought that somehow she could save him.

  But how could she ever hope to help him after all she had seen? And did she even want to try, knowing what she now knew about his past?

  She paused, balanced between remaining, and on the brink of flight. If she ran out the front door, things might possibly end up even worse than they already were. She had no doubt that her reputation would be ruined and that of her entire family. She couldn't just wed an earl one day, and demand an annulment the next without causing a scandal the likes of which the Town had never seen, especially given the political issues between their two fathers. Why, it could even bring down the government if she wasn't careful.

  On a personal level, she was sure that Howell would make her suffer for this one way or the other. But so could this man, this stranger she had married. If he had killed over a woman once, he could do so again.

  But if she ran out the door, she would have no answers, only more questions. And to let her family see her so distraught was unthinkable.

  She looked up at Randall and saw the by now familiar bleak and lost look in his eyes, the strange red and black flicker which hovere
d around him. Despite herself, her heart turned over. Maybe he had perfected the look, the better to seduce his numerous women. But for her, it was a silent plea she simply could not ignore. She stretched out her hand to him, and gripped his lean fingers hard.

  "You're right. I'm sorry. You deserve a fair hearing. And we are married now, for better or for worse as our vows have stated. I have to start trusting you at some point. Though it might have been better if you had told me before we did something so irrevocable as to marry," she added with a pointed look.

  "I know, but you said you'd already sensed there was something awry, and I did own to wishing to seek redemption. In any event, time was pressing, for both us, and Stephen and Fanny needed to be safely married so Howell couldn't harm any of the people you care about." He sighed. "You can see we did it in the nick of time." He waved his hand towards the door.

  She bit her lip and nodded. "Indeed."

  "Philip is a fairly mild-mannered man, until his sense of justice is outraged. As for your other cousin, well, if he'd sensed anything amiss, he'd have sent for the constables at once, whether I'm an earl or no, and then where would Mother have been."

  "I know," she sighed. "It was one of the reasons I agreed to marry you."

  "But not the only one, I hope," he said with a small smile and meaning look.

  She giggled slightly. "No, marriage to get the paid companion position would be going a bit too far."

  "I'm glad you went a bit too far in other ways," he teased. Then he sobered, and said earnestly, "Really, Isolde, I know it's hard, but please trust me when I say I want only the best for you. And while some, well, miracle has brought us together, I'm not such a romantic that I think love can conquer all. Not without a great deal of trust and even effort to allow that love to grow every day. To nurture it and cherish it."

  "That's what my mother's always told me," she said with a nod.

  "That's what I want for our marriage. I've learned more about that in the past three months tending mother, than I have in the past decade. As I said, I would give anything to take back what I'd done as a foolish student--"

  "You need to tell me everything, Randall, so that I can be the judge," she said quietly.

  "So long as you don't wish to be jury and executioner as well."

  She shook her head. "I've seen the darkness in you, but I've also seen your goodness and light. But I need to know."

  He nodded and rose. "Then come. Let's go upstairs."

  They walked slowly up side by side, she feeling unutterably weary, he dreading what was about to come. She settled back in the bed as before, wrapped in her dressing gown. This time he brought up a chair by the bed to face her, rather than get into it beside her and be accused of manipulating her passion for him in some way.

  "I need to tell you everything, from the beginning, so please bear with me?"

  "All right. Please tell me," she said, trying to school her features into some semblance of calm.

  He recounted his early tempestuous courtship with Clarissa coldly, with detachment, in few words, as if it didn't matter. But it did... It mattered a great deal, she thought as she listened, already knowing with a sinking heart where the end of the story was leading.

  "So I came down from Oxford for a surprise visit, and headed out to the stables to go riding with Francis," he pressed on, then took a ragged breath. "That's when I caught him with her. They never knew I saw them. I ran like the Devil was after me. I was sick in the woods, and burned for revenge.

  "So I got it. I went back to where his favourite horse, Brown Blarney was standing, and cut the girth strap. I deliberately sawed through it raggedly, rather than make a clean cut, in order to make it look like it was worn. He took a jump and was killed. And I've hated myself for murdering him over a faithless whore ever since."

  "Oh, good Lord," she sighed.

  "I don't know if that's all you saw, but it's the plain, unvarnished truth. I killed my brother."

  She sighed. "I'm not sure. I saw a lot of red and black. I saw a dark-haired man, which I had guessed to be you, and a more sandy-haired one, and a blond woman."

  "It sounds like the three of us, though Francis was actually raven-haired like me."

  Isolde's eyes widened. She was sure the man had had sandy hair... She could be wrong. The light was shadowy. Early spring?

  "It happened in February, didn't it?"

  He gaped at her. "Yes. But how did you know. The second of February."

  She shuddered. Ten years ago. Ten years to the day they had met, she realised with a jolt. Full circle...

  "And you, er, you've never allowed yourself to love since?" she asked quietly.

  He shook his head. "If you could call it love. But no, I never felt I was entitled, I who had stolen my own brother's life away. And even hers, for I think as faithless and horribly immoderate as she was, I believe she did love him in her own way."

  "And what happened to her?" she asked through stiff lips.

  Randall shrugged one shoulder. "She eloped with someone else, as soon as he was dead, so I can never be sure what she really felt, if anything, for any of us. She never even came to the funeral, but of course, she was most likely already away from the district with the man in question by then. It was only after they were both gone from my life that I realised with the benefit of hindsight what they had been up to all along. When the shock and grief wore off, I was able to think more sensibly, and piece it all together. Oh, they had betrayed me in the worst way possible, it was true. But they looked, well, happy at the time. Like they belonged together. Which was what made it ache and rankle all the more. That I could have been so deceived in the woman I thought I loved, and that my own brother--" He shook his head and sighed.

  They sat together silently for a time.

  At length he said, "You are saying nothing. Would you like some tea or something?"

  She was saying nothing because her mind was whirring wildly. All he had done, all he had suffered.... Something had gone badly wrong if a man like this could have been brought to such desperation and anger.

  But all this had been years ago. Why was she seeing the black and red swirls now? Because of the ten year anniversary? But why her? What did any of this have to do with her? And why was he telling her all of this now? Was he not taking a huge risk in terms of her feelings for him, especially given their family's past rivalry? He was putting a terrible weapon into her hands....

  Though of couse she could prove nothing, she realized with a start, not after all these years.

  She pleated the sheet nervously, at a loss as to what she could possibly say. He might have been better off keeping her in the dark. This could not be an easy thing for him to admit. And she was not so sure she really did want to know what a foul thing he had done after all.

  But then, all the visions had kept telling her the story, pointing her toward the truth all along. And the fact was that he needed her help. Just as she had needed his...

  It was just too strange. It had never happened like this before. Some people she had known for years and never been able to read, others, after a week or so. Why could she see so much of Randall's innermost turmoil, when he had been a complete stranger the day before? And why did her heart beat so fiercely every time they were in the same room?

  She shook her head and managed to say in a calm voice, "Go on with your story. I need to know how it ends."

  He looked at her in surprise. "That is the end."

  "No, it isn't," she said, daring to reach for his hand. "You've been in that stable ever since. Death lurks there. And your life and love has been frozen behind glass ever since. So what did you do next?"

  He leaned back in the chair, looking more defeated than any man she had ever seen. "I made even more of a mess of things than I already had. I didn't live up to my potential at Oxford. I got drunk and began to swive like a sailor, though at least I knew enough to avoid the pox. And I've been preying upon eager women, and hiring professionals looking for the ultim
ate titillation ever since," he admitted with a shrug. "And here it comes walking in the door, straight into my arms." He sighed and rubbed his chin.

  She stroked his hand reassuringly. "Go on. You've come this far. You can tell me the rest, Randall. How bad can it be?"

  He stood up and poured a glass of water. He drank for a time to try to steady himself, then refilled the glass and sat back down. She accepted it and drank, knowing it was only a small gesture to show she was not repelled by him, but better than nothing.

  Actually, she wasn't sure what she thought. All he had told her was beyond anything she could have imagined. How could so much despair and unhappiness be concealed behind so handsome a face?

  "I've never had a day of joy since, for all my raking. I feel like I've destroyed my whole family. All my brothers are dead now except me. It's like, well, like I unleashed some sort of evil Fury to harm them. I envied Michael being eldest. I wondered what it would be like to have my father's power. But I never wanted to be earl, Never dreamed I would lose almost every person I've ever cared for..."