A Notorious Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “I knew I was right about you when you married that man.”

  “You have no notion of the circumstances of my marriage.” She was a match for Mrs. Glynn. Whatever hatred the woman had for her was exceeded by Lucy’s determination to withstand the vitriol.

  “Were you with child, then?”

  “No, and I will thank you, please, not to insult me or my late husband with such accusations.”

  “Fifty thousand pounds. That’s all the circumstance you needed. You made yourself his whore.”

  Harry had managed to speak to his mother without anger. She could do the same. She could. “I was his wife.”

  “The wife of a man common as dirt.”

  “I confess it. Freely.”

  “You mustn’t think that because you are now a widow that your fall is erased. You were a vain, empty-headed flirt deluded into thinking you could marry above yourself.”

  “I never wanted to marry your son.”

  “You disgraced yourself by marrying a prizefighter. All of us. And you came back here, where you are not wanted.”

  “By you, Mrs. Glynn. That does not mean the whole of Bartley Green feels as you do.”

  “You are not decent company.” There was no longer even a veneer of politeness from her. The woman lifted her chin, so full of venom Lucy wondered that neither of them had yet died of the poison. “Bought and paid for by a baseborn man who wanted a lady in his bed. You demeaned yourself and your family with that marriage.”

  She would endure so much and no more. Her limit had been exceeded, and what a feeling that was, to be so angry she no longer cared to hold her tongue. “That is enough. You will not say even one more word to me.”

  “I want you gone from my house. Had you a shred of decency, you would leave Bartley Green.”

  “In that we are in accord.” Lucy headed for the terrace door, appalled by the woman, appalled by the anger sweeping through her like fire. She stopped before Mrs. Glynn and held her gaze because she would rather die than have Mrs. Glynn think herself victorious. “I have suffered in your company and from your spite for the sake of my sisters and your son and daughter whom I hold in the highest esteem. No longer. No longer will I endure another word from you in silence.”

  She swept past the woman, head held high. She would walk home to The Cooperage if she had to. Behind her, she heard the terrace door close, and that was when the counter-reaction to her anger set in. She trembled, her breath shook, she could scarcely walk. She steadied herself with a hand to the wall. A count to twenty calmed her enough that she could walk away without fear of her knees betraying her. Slowly, at first, then faster. Faster yet, until her skirts whipped around her legs. She would have to pass by the ballroom, there was no hope for that, but she would collect her wrap and condemn her slippers to ruin.

  She was at the top of the stairs and about to head down them and find a footman to retrieve her things when someone called to her. Thrale. She knew his voice and heard the curiosity in his query of her name. This was her fate, then, to encounter him at every turn. She faced him, anger and despair whirling in her. She curtsied. “My lord.”

  “Your sister sent me to find you. You have been missed.” He walked toward her, smiling, his arm extended for her to take. “Allow me to escort you to the ballroom.”

  The woman she pretended to be would say something silly. Words never touched her. Whore. Bought and paid for. She was untouched by emotion. Lucy smiled with the utter vapidity she’d perfected. She hated herself for that. “No,” she said with feigned calm.

  “Something to eat or drink, then?”

  “No.” The air in her lungs was trapped there. She could not breathe, and even after she got a breath, she did not dare speak for fear she’d betray herself. She opened her mouth to say something. Anything. She’d cracked. Wide open, and try as she might, she not could be what was needed of her.

  His study of her stripped away her facade of control. “Mrs. Wilcott?”

  “No. No.” That was a sob. He was the only person who might understand. In all the world, only him, yet she could not impose on their friendship, if that’s even what it was. “No, I must leave here. This moment. I cannot stay.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “I am not a whore,” she said.

  CHAPTER 24

  Mrs. Wilcott’s eyes filled with despair. This was worse than tears. Tears he could defend against. But this? She was wrecked. Lost in whatever private hell she lived in at such moments. If she had cried, he might have handed her his handkerchief and waited for the storm to pass. Irony of ironies, the collapse of her empty cheer tore at him worse than tears could have.

  Someone, he would find out who, had dealt her an insult beyond endurance.

  He cupped her elbow and walked her down the corridor, away from the stairs and the ballroom and curious eyes, away from the servants, and into an empty parlor. She was wooden. A doll without emotion, except he knew she wasn’t. She’d buried her reactions.

  “Don’t,” he said. He was aware that he, himself, struggled with strong emotion. He reached for her, pulled her into his embrace, and that proved disastrous to his equanimity. “All’s well.”

  She threw her arms around him and clung to him, molded herself to him. His helplessness grew. He patted her upper shoulder, and when she began to tremble, he reached behind him and closed the door because God forbid anyone should find them like this, with her clinging to him, and his arms tight around her.

  “Madam.”

  The word was stark. Too formal. Inadequate to the task of consoling her. Fury at whoever had insulted her warred with helplessness. He did not know how to deal with the collapse of his careful barriers where she was concerned. At a loss about what tack to take with her, he pressed his handkerchief on her.

  She took it from him, but what good would that square of silk do when she had no tears to dry?

  “Mrs. Wilcott.” Hardly better than madam.

  Until this visit of his to Bartley Green, they’d not spoken beyond what was polite. Now they had his nascent friendship, and that, and his respect and admiration of her, all that left him uncertain about what to do now. Action on his part threatened to take them into disaster, and yet, how could he do nothing? Frank lust—he could not deny he felt that—put them both in danger.

  Her body molded to his. A new experience for him, consoling a woman. Women did not break down like this around him. He never behaved badly, and he did not associate with women prone to drama and high emotion. Though, in this case, he would allow that she appeared to have been provoked beyond tolerance.

  “Hush.” He rubbed her shoulders and spoke soft nonsense to her, aware, the entire time, that he should not be thinking about anything but consoling her. “You are safe now. You are safe.”

  Eventually, her grip on him loosened. At this first sign of a subsidence in her upset, he walked her to the fireplace and sat her on the sofa. Thankfully, she was recovering. He sat beside her. “Shall I call someone. A maid? One of your sisters?”

  She lifted her face to him, and her despair was so deep and wide that when she grabbed his hand and shook her head, he remained with her against his better judgment. With her in this state, he did not see how he could do anything else.

  And yet. A presentiment of disaster slid down his spine. They ought not be alone like this. Marriages had been the result of less indiscretion than this. That knowledge banged away at the inside of his head, yet no gentleman would abandon anyone in such a state. He could not leave her like this. Unthinkable. Not her. Not Lucy. And so, he stayed.

  She continued to tremble. Any moment she might dissolve.

  “Your vinaigrette?”

  She shook her head.

  “No woman of fashion ventures out without a vinaigrette.” In London, he’d often seen her resort to the use of one to resolve some supposed excess of emotion. Others found the affectation charming. He’d always thought it tedious. Tonight for some reason, she did not have one. No rin
g, nothing on a chain around her neck.

  “Perhaps your reticule?”

  “Useless.” The response was throaty, and his mind hared off in dangerous directions. Would she sound like that after sex? He was a man, and men had such thoughts and reactions to women. That did not, however, mean he would act on disreputable impulses.

  He opened the reticule hanging from her wrist and fished out a hinged gold container in the shape of a seashell. He opened it, but she pushed his hand away. Forcefully.

  “No.”

  “You are overwrought.”

  She waved a hand. “Vinaigrette. Useless bother.”

  He closed his fingers over the damned bit of gold. Now what? Must he resort to words of sympathy? More consoling pats? “Then why do you have it?”

  “A diversion.” She sniffed and returned his handkerchief.

  That was a universe away from the sort of answer he’d expected. “From?”

  “Idiots, for one.”

  He frowned.

  “Not you.” Her eyes got big, and he would have given most anything to be able to pull her into an embrace and assure her he had not taken offense. “Oh, no, no. You think I mean you.”

  He’d need the damn vinaigrette himself if she shed actual tears. “Madam. I do not.”

  “You do.”

  “I assure you, that is not the case.” He looked around, desperate for a distraction that did not involve a vinaigrette. And found one. Behind the glass doors of a tall cabinet was a decanter of some liquor or other and tumblers. A drink would steady her nerves, if it was anything acceptable for ladies. If not her nerves, then his. Part of him didn’t care if the stuff was Blue Ruin so long as she stopped looking as if her world had ended.

  “My lord.” She swallowed. “I apologize.”

  “No apology required or accepted.” He strode to the cabinet and found it unlocked. Port. He splashed some in a glass and brought it back to her. She sat too quiet. Too remote. He crouched before her. She drew several quaking breaths and, eyes briefly closed, covered her mouth with her free hand.

  “Do I need to kill someone for you?”

  Her eyes opened wide. How the hell could she be so beautiful it hurt? He was not proud of the flash of possessiveness that followed. As if she were nothing to him but an object to be obtained. As if by winning her attention, he laid claim to prestige and respect from other men.

  “Be serious,” she said.

  “I am. Completely. I will if it’s necessary.”

  Three more breaths. She pulled her hand free of his to dig her own handkerchief from a pocket, but she crushed it in one hand rather than dab at her eyes with it. “You’re kind to offer. But I won’t have you killing anyone.” Her breath shook. “It’s not polite. Killing people.”

  With a measure of relief at any sign of improvement, he pressed the glass into her hand. “Drink.”

  She stared downward and sniffled.

  “It’s port.”

  “I realize that.” She gave him a stern look. “Port is not a drink for ladies.”

  “Choose your distraction, ma’am. The port or the vinaigrette.”

  “Martinet.”

  He allowed himself a smile. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “That was no compliment, sir.”

  “Yet, I am flattered.”

  “Don’t be.” She gave him a tremulous smile that tugged at him in an unwelcome manner. Alluring.

  “Now, will it be pistols or the saber?” Rather surprisingly, she understood him immediately. “Or shall I thrash the man?”

  “None of them.” Her voice was hoarse, and he ought not to find that half so appealing as he did.

  “It’s no great trouble.”

  She took a sip of the port and shuddered. “You must think I’m the greatest fool you’ve ever known.”

  “You’ve spent the last year convincing me of that.” Good. Good. They were slipping back to that more comfortable distance that acknowledged nothing between them but respect and a love of pugilism.

  Her eyes fixed on him with disturbing clarity. Sapphire blue and fathomless. “I did not mean to fail with you. And so badly. You are too observant by half.”

  “It might have happened to any woman.” He winked at her. “It is my charm, ma’am. Few can resist.”

  “Yes. Your charm. Of course.”

  “Have more than a drop of that. You’ll feel better.”

  She took another sip, shuddered again, and pushed the glass back into his hands. “Gah.”

  Thrale tossed back the contents, then considered the empty glass. “That’s decent drink.”

  “I’m sure that’s so since I dislike it a decent amount.”

  He laughed and, stupid man that he was, thought himself safe. His gaze flicked over her, taking in her figure and the way full evening dress flattered her and gratified less admirable instincts of his. “Now, Mrs. Wilcott. Who insulted you?”

  Her expression shuttered. The effect was subtle, but the before and after were too stark to ignore. Her blank expression was in place, as effective as a ten-foot thick wall at keeping him at a distance. He found it maddening, that wall. Undeserved, too. They had moved far past that.

  “What was said to you. That is not an insult to be borne.”

  “But I am not a lady. Not since the day I married The Devil Himself.”

  Not a lady. “Even if that were true, and it is not, your marriage does not make you a whore.”

  She touched his cheek with her gloved hand, leaning forward, and for several long moments all he could think was that there was no safe reason for his gut to tighten or to feel the air vanish. There was a difference between acknowledging a woman’s effect on him and having the intention of acting on that. Different worlds.

  “Give me his name, and I’ll kill him. Happily.”

  “No.” She smiled grimly. “You shan’t.”

  “I don’t see there’s anything you can do about it.”

  “Will you challenge Mrs. Glynn to a duel?” She gazed into his face, so sad, he was ready to fetch his dueling pistols this moment.

  He ought to have guessed Mrs. Glynn would be at the center of this. “Sabers at dawn.”

  “How gallant you are, my lord.” Her voice became a siren call to his baser urges. She knew what she was doing, and he knew why. Thrale resented that he was not immune. He’d heard that silky voice from her before. Soft words spoken with an intimacy that made a man forget his own name.

  “Too late,” he said softly, because he knew the real woman. “I’ve sparred with you. Traded jabs with you. We know each other now. Better than most.”

  She smiled. Such innocence and wonder, a pattern so perfect he felt the edges of doubt again. But he hadn’t imagined there was more. He hadn’t, and he resented that she would behave as if he didn’t know the truth, as if he were as easily deceived as any other man. The insult of that cut deep. She lay a hand on his arm, and there was again that glimpse of the real woman, and he wanted that woman with irrational desire. “My lord. Don’t misunderstand me.”

  “I don’t. Not at all.” He considered getting himself another glass of port. “Am I to have no explanation of what led her to say such a thing to you?”

  “I should not have come here.”

  “I’ll have a word with Glynn.” He brushed a finger across her cheek.

  “No.” Color spread along her skin, the faintest pink. She shook her head, but it wasn’t a denial of his request. “I was stupid. Stupid to come here and think she would not mind.”

  “Did she confront you because of our compliments to you? To all of you, but to you?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. Men say such things to me often, they always have, since I was old enough to be out. They flirt. They tell me how beautiful I am and how they cannot live without my love.” She made fists of her hands. “I have always observed that to a man, they survive without it.”

  “Indeed.”

  “They say such things, knowing nothing of who I am. I
never believe them. I don’t know why anyone else would either. I didn’t believe any of you. Why would I when it was all in fun?” She lifted her shoulders. “She was right, though. Devil married me for my face. For what men do and think when I walk into a room. Because my father is a gentleman. He did not know me at all, yet he was mad to possess all that.”

  Thrale took her hand and pressed it, and that was unintended, touching her at all. “You do not need to convince me of anything.”

  She turned her head to him, eyes big, and he was lost there. “No?”

  This time there was no life in the wondering tone she adopted, and they both knew it. He couldn’t help a twitch of his lips. “You know you do not.”

  He leaned over her, one arm stretched out on the top of the sofa. His mouth hovered near her ear. With his other hand, he brushed a finger along the line of her throat, from her jaw to the upper curve of her bosom. Because he was a bloody damn fool.

  Even before he touched her he knew he’d made a mistake. A mistake so vast there was no retreat from it. They were vulnerable, both of them. Her gaze connected with his, steady at first, and he thought, she did not notice, and then her eyes turned curious. Then aware, and that did him in. That change lanced through him.

  She continued to look at him, as fascinated by the tension between them, so he fancied, as he was. He could not look away. Not for his soul. He slid his fingertip upward, along her cheek to her mouth, over her lower lip. His body roared to life.

  She went utterly still.

  He ought to say something to break the tension. He ought to lean back. Stand up. He should not be touching her or wanting to kiss her. More. More than that.

  “Oh.” She whispered the word, soft and sweet, with such longing that yet another shiver of arousal went through him.

  To hell with mistakes. To hell with judgment. Or decency or circumspection.

  In his imagination, he stood, as calm and collected as ever he was, bowed to her and took his leave. He did none of those things. In his mind, he walked away. In reality, he moved closer.

  “Nothing can come of us,” she said with more calm than he possessed. This woman, the one before him now, stripped to her essence, drew him, the light behind her eyes, the allure of intelligence and wit. “Nothing that will last.”