by Liz Carlyle
He was sitting motionless in the tub when Queenie’s voice cut into his consciousness. “Mr. B.?” she said, her tone gentler. “Look sharp now, ducks. It’s a goodly ways home.”
“Ah, Queenie,” he whispered. “Those might be the truest words you’ve ever spoken.”
Chapter Twenty-one
A Sad ending & a New beginning.
Some hours later, Bentley found himself standing before his brother’s study, his hand lifted as if he’d every intention of knocking. God, it was a bloody hard thing to do. He wished he had a guinea for every time he’d stood in this same place, and feeling just this way, his stomach churning, his heart weighed down with that awful mix of guilt and anger, and always, always expecting trouble.
But this time, fate took charge, and the door jerked open, leaving him nose to nose with his brother. And what a beauty of a nose it was. Black and blue, the thing was swollen twice its size, with a streak of yellow dashed beneath the left eye for good measure. Broken. Badly. That was Bentley’s expert assessment. And when the swelling went down, there would likely be a lump in the middle to forever mar his brother’s beauty. If he hadn’t been so heartsick, Bentley would have taunted the old boy unmercifully.
The earl’s expression was inscrutable. “You look a nasty piece of work, old chap,” he said, stepping back to let Bentley in. “A two-day drunk? Or has shaving gone out of fashion?”
Bentley rolled at once onto the balls of his feet. “If I am not welcome, Cam,” he said quietly, “just bloody well say so.”
With a crooked smile, Cam headed toward the hearth, settled into his favorite chair, and motioned to the one opposite. A kitten darted from beneath the desk, and, absently, Cam scooped it up. The thing was all legs and tail now, a pretty gray tabby. They would need a cat at Bellevue, Bentley mused. If they were going to Bellevue at all. He shut the door and joined his brother.
Cam cleared his throat almost formally. “Bentley, you must know that you’ve always been welcome here,” he said, stroking one hand down the kitten. “I’ve never understood why you are forever suggesting otherwise. I’m glad you’re home, and I know Frederica is deeply relieved.”
Bentley let his gaze drop. “She does not know.”
Cam’s lips thinned in irritation. “Good Lord, Bentley, she has been beside herself with worry! You must go to her at once.”
“I cannot,” Bentley said quietly. “She won’t have me. There’s something I must do first. And when I’m done, Cam, I’ll grant you one good punch before you throw me out for good. I suggest you aim for the nose.”
Cam snorted. “Yes, mine’s a damned ugly sight,” he admitted. “But I won’t be needing your free shot, Bentley. Frederica explained how she came by her bruise.” He shook his head and swallowed hard. “Christ, I knew in my heart you’d never do such a thing. I beg you will forgive me. My nerves seem frayed of late.”
“I can sympathize,” muttered Bentley. “But it’s no matter.”
“It matters greatly to me,” Cam answered. “I accused you of something deeply dishonorable, and I was wrong.”
“Well, this conversation isn’t finished yet.”
Cam just looked at him strangely. “Go on, then. What do you wish to say?”
But Bentley couldn’t find the words, could barely catch his breath. Good God, how did a man confess what had been hidden most of his life? “It’s—well, it’s about Cassandra.”
Both Cam’s brows shot up at that. “What can she possibly have to do with anything?”
“Signora Castelli says the past always bleeds into the present,” Bentley whispered. When Cam just looked at him, he closed his eyes, and thought of all that was at stake. It was time to start talking, if he meant to do the job at all. “I want to tell you straight out, Cam,” he began. “For there’s no way to pretty this one up. Cassandra and I—well, we had this…there was a…thing between us.”
Cam cocked his head to one side. “A thing?”
“Yes.” Bentley drew in a deep breath and felt the walls begin to press in on him. “A physical—no, goddamn it!—a sexual thing.”
Cam jerked upright in his chair, and the kitten bounded softly to the floor. “Cassandra who?” His voice was hollow, incredulous. “Not…oh, no. No, Bentley. You cannot possibly mean—”
Bentley cut him off. “For a long time, Cam,” he interjected, hoping to stave off panic. “And the hell of it is, I knew it was wrong. It felt wrong. Bad. So I can’t think how I justified it—in my own mind, I mean. But I guess I did. She said it was my fault, and I daresay it was. She said I was wicked—and I was. Everyone knows that. And what’s worse, Cam, I was glad when she died. Glad. And I’m ashamed of that, too.”
“You slept with my wife.” Cam’s voice was devoid of emotion. “Or, better put, my wife slept with you.”
Nodding, Bentley stared into the blackened depths of the hearth. With minute concentration, he forced himself to exhale and then to drag in another breath, willing away the awful terror.
“Did Father know?” The earl’s voice was a low growl. “Damn it, did he?”
Bentley couldn’t look at his brother. “Yes,” he whispered. “He would laugh and wink at me. He thought it a great joke. But I never—good God, Cam—I never thought it was a joke. I don’t know what I thought. I just knew it was wicked. But I didn’t stop. I don’t know why.”
He kept waiting for Cam to leap from his chair and pummel the living daylights out of him. But Cam seemed more distraught than angry. “Bentley,” he continued, his words slow and distinct. “Perhaps my memory fails me. You are not quite seven-and-twenty, is that right?”
“Not quite,” he agreed.
Much of Cam’s color had drained away. “And when my wife died—” He paused and shook his head as if to clear his vision. “When Cassandra died, you were what? Sixteen?”
“Thereabouts.”
Something inside Cam snapped. “Thereabouts?” he exploded, coming half out of his chair. “The devil can take thereabouts and fly to hell with it! Tell me—how frigging old were you?”
Oh, it was a bad sign when Cam started cursing. “F-fifteen,” Bentley whispered. “But I had put a stop to it long before then, Cam. I swear to God, I had.”
Cam fell back into his chair. His hands were clenched on the chair arms, his eyes closed and his face twisted with some awful emotion. “Fifteen!” he whispered, as if mentally calculating. “And scarcely that, by God.”
Bentley barely heard the last. He did not like the color of Cam’s complexion. “I’m sorry, Cam,” he whispered, wishing his brother would open his eyes. “I’m glad it’s out. And Freddie’s right—it’s been eating me alive. I feel so—oh, I don’t know—just dead inside sometimes.” He stumbled on, unable to stop himself now, the words falling faster and faster. “I know you hate me. Hell, sometimes I hate you. Father pitted us against each other that way, and quite deliberately, too.”
“Oh, dear God!” The words were choked. “He probably put her up to this!”
Bentley shrugged. “I just want you to know, Cam, that what I don’t feel is jealousy. I swear, it was never that. I have never envied you your title or position. And no one envied you your marriage to Cassandra. I can’t tell you how this has tortured me. But now I have Frederica, whether I deserve her or not. And I want so desperately to make a life for her. A life for us, together. Yet I have given her a disgust of me. My own wife. And she doesn’t even know—” His voice choked. “God, she doesn’t even know the worst of it. And already, I think she wonders if she oughtn’t leave me. Indeed, she has promised to, if I don’t confess everything.”
“Confess?” Cam made a strange noise in the back of his throat, then jerked from his chair and strode across the room to the deep bay window. He set one hand at the back of his neck and the other on the window casing, half leaning into it. Was he considering the wisdom of pitching Bentley out of it? For a long moment, Cam was still as death, save for his shoulders, which seemed to tremble, as if he were restrain
ing some torturous emotion. Bentley began to wonder what his fate would be. He felt suddenly cold. Sick to his stomach. Would it be as she’d always threatened?
Yes, go on, tell him! He could still see Cassandra’s lush pink lips mouthing the words. Could feel her hot breath on his cheek. Yes, tell him exactly what you did to me, Bentley. What I did to you. But tell him how it felt, too, my precious. For you’ll need that memory to warm you after he’s turned you out into the street.
Oh, Christ! Bentley closed his eyes. What had he set in motion? Was he to be turned away from his childhood home, never to be allowed to return? And whom would Cam tell? Helene? Everyone? He wore his shame like a mantle of lead. It had been years since he’d cried, but now he felt that hot, dreadful surge behind his eyes.
Yes, confess it all, hissed the silky voice in his head. Go on—tell him how it is with us. After all, you are so very good at it.
“Oh, Bentley, I am appalled that I did not notice this!” Cam rasped from the window. “Oh, there were hints—deliberate ones, I daresay—when I look back.” He made the strange choking sound in the back of his throat again, and it was only then that Bentley realized his brother was crying.
Bentley half rose from his chair. “Good Lord, Cam, you mustn’t think—”
But Cam spun around to face him. “Think?” he choked. “I wasn’t thinking! And I wasn’t watching, either. That was the very trouble, wasn’t it? My God! My God! Why has this never occurred to me? Am I a total idiot? I mean, she seduced my bloody rector, so it’s not hard to believe she’d seduce a child, is it? But I noticed neither. I am ashamed, Bentley. Deeply ashamed.”
In his fear and confusion, Bentley missed the point. “Now, Cam, I did not know she’d once been Thomas Lowe’s lover,” he said hastily. “I swear, not until I overheard him quarreling with her. Not that that makes anything I did any less ugly. I would like to pretend I was innocent of it all, but Cam, we both know that just isn’t true.”
Cam searched Bentley’s face, his eyes aflame with some nameless emotion. “You were exposed to a world of sin and debauchery,” he whispered, his hands drawing into fists. “But was that your fault? No. That was Father’s doing, and I hope the devil’s keeping him warm in hell for it.”
“But I knew what I was doing,” said Bentley quietly. “I knew.”
Cam came at him then, crossing the room in three strides. “Oh, you knew, did you?” he hissed into Bentley’s face, his cheeks still wet. “Tell me, then, how old were you when it started? Eleven? Twelve? Were you a virgin? Aye, of course you were. I see it in your eyes. And big for your age. Oh, Christ, that I remember! So, tell me, Bentley, how did it start? What did she do first? Fondle you? Kiss you? Deliberately expose herself?”
It was Bentley’s turn to close his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered. “All that.”
Oh, God. All that and more. And it had been disgusting. Disgusting and fascinating and erotic, all at the same time. He had hated it, and wanted it. For months, it had felt as if his body belonged to someone else. As if he were just watching, some innocent bystander to a damning sin.
Cam’s hand came down on his shoulder like a vise. “And then what, Bentley?” he demanded. “What next? Did she tempt you into her bed? Or just invite herself into yours?”
“Yes.” He choked out the word. “That.”
“When? How? Tell me!”
Bentley shook his head. “Oh, Lord. I just don’t know,” he whispered. “I don’t remember. Does it matter?”
“Good God, of course it matters!” His brother’s voice was fraught with emotion. “Tell me! Don’t punish me for failing you. You think this is your fault? It’s not, Bentley. It is not.”
Bentley was deeply confused now. “One morning, then,” he whispered. “In winter, I think. There was a dust of snow. And I woke up dreaming…something. God, I can’t remember! You know how it is. You wake up hard as a bri—well, you know. And there she was, naked as the day God made her, already on…on t-t-top…” He couldn’t get the rest of it out.
Cam’s fingers dug into his shoulder. “God damn her!” His voice was an angry whisper. “God damn that bitch to hell!” Bentley could feel his brother’s body shaking with rage.
“Cam?” Bentley whispered.
“How old?” he begged.
Bentley swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully. “I just don’t know! Twelve, maybe? Or almost. That’s all I’m sure of. Things like that are hard to remember.”
“Bentley, things like that are not hard to remember.” Cam had sat back down and let his face fall forward into his hands. “They are impossible to forget. And yet they are so appalling we can’t think of them, so we…we put them away.”
“Put them away? Away where?”
Cam gave a bitter laugh. “It is like this little black closet in our minds, Helene says,” he whispered into the floor. “And she says that sometimes we shove bad things into it and try to lock the door. Yet they are always there. Always pushing and pounding and rattling the doorknob. And eventually, they get out. In a thousand little ways, they get out.” Cam lifted his gaze and stared straight into his brother’s eyes. “But listen to me, Bentley. This was not your fault. You were alone, with no responsible adult to turn to. I was always busy. Cat was just a girl. Father was useless. I wonder you survived it at all.”
Bentley couldn’t take it anymore. “Why are you whitewashing this, Cam?” he asked stridently. “For God’s sake, don’t make me out a saint! And don’t make me out one of Helene’s lunatics, either. I’m spilling my blood here. Hit me! Kick me! Call me out! I knew what I was doing. In a way, I enjoyed it. I must have. I kept doing it.”
“Did you feel you had a choice?” he asked softly.
Oh, God. He hadn’t. That was the appalling truth. He thought of all her demands, of the many trips he’d made down that long, dark passageway to her bedchamber with his heart in his throat and his palms sweating, and suddenly, his chest went tight. It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room. He couldn’t breathe in. Blood pounded in his ears. His stomach turned. He felt—not like a man but like a child again, forced to admit his own weaknesses. Forced to admit he was—or had once been—at the mercy of others. It was a horrible thing. Humiliating. And in that instant, he wished the conversation were over. Wished it had never begun. And wondered if it wasn’t easier, less painful, just to let Freddie go.
“Did you feel you had a choice?” Cam whispered.
Freddie. Oh, Freddie! He couldn’t bear to lose her. Couldn’t bear to lose his child. So he had to keep answering Cam’s goddamned questions. “N-not at first,” he admitted on a faint gasp. “She said…oh, hell! What does it matter?”
“It matters to you. You need to say it, Bentley. You need to get the words out.”
Bentley drew a deeper breath and felt a hot, dreadful pressure behind his eyes. “I couldn’t stop her,” he rasped. “Once I’d given in to her that first time, she had me, and she knew it. I couldn’t control myself, either. She loved that. She would laugh and say that a man couldn’t, you know, do it unless he really wanted it.”
“That is a lie!” Cam rasped.
“Is it?” asked Bentley. “I don’t know. It seemed easier to just do it—to feel it and yet not feel it—kind of like pretending I was somewhere else. To just go through the motions until she was pleased, and I was…oh, hell, Cam! It was like some awful rash that you just can’t keep from scratching, even though you know when you’re done, your flesh will feel raw and bloody. And it did. Oh, Christ, it always did. And I thought if you found out, you would hate me. She said you would. She swore you’d turn me out.”
“My God, what you must have been through,” Cam whispered.
Bentley shook his head. “In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. She just…teased. She paid attention, Cam, and told me I was a handsome and charming young man. But then sh-she started touching. And saying things. And then she began t-t-to trick me into…into being alone with her. She would put her
hands on me. And if I didn’t return the gesture, she’d say she heard your footsteps. That she was going to call out your name. Or scream and tell you I’d forced her t-to touch me. Then she would laugh and say she was just teasing. So I tried to believe that. But you don’t believe me, Cam, do you?”
“I believe you,” he said sadly. “But I wish to God you’d told someone.”
Sweat was beading on his forehead now. “I d-did tell,” he whispered. “First, I told Joan. I told her when it started. The—the touching. The teasing. And then I told her about that first morning when I woke up to find Cassandra…on me. Joan insisted I tell Papa. And I did, Cam! But he just laughed, slapped me on the back, and told me I was the only real man he’d raised. He said you didn’t want Cassandra and that someone had to do the job. He said it was good practice for me. So, after that, I kept my mouth shut.”
Cam’s fist crashed down on his chair arm. “He let you be hurt to spite me.”
“I don’t know.” Bentley shrugged again. “But if I tried to refuse, she’d make it sound so…not innocent, no—I shan’t insult your intelligence by claiming that—but just physical. She would cry and say that she was so lonely. She would corner me in the library or an empty corridor and t-touch me. And touch herself all over and say that she ached for it and that you w-wouldn’t…”
“You’re damned right, I wouldn’t,” rasped Cam. “I wasn’t about to risk having an heir of uncertain parentage. You know what she and her friends were like. I daresay this was a part of her revenge on me for sending them away. First Lowe, until she tired of him. And then you. She used you, Bentley, just to get at me.”
Bentley couldn’t make sense of it all. “I—I don’t know.”
The hand clamped onto his shoulder again. “How long did it go on, Bentley?”
“I don’t remember.”
Cam’s expression was pleading. “Tell me, Bentley,” he begged. “Can’t you see, I have to know? It was my duty to protect you. It is little wonder you have spent the last fifteen years being angry with me.”