And Ruth.
He couldn’t believe she was in Tremaine’s arms willingly, even if she wasn’t making any effort to free herself from the son of a bitch’s embrace. If anything she seemed shocked, almost frightened, by his appearance in the orphanage’s small office.
“Ah, the illustrious Baron Stratfield. How convenient. You’ve saved me the trouble of calling on you.”
“Let her go, Tremaine.” Despite the softness of his voice, the words possessed a lethal quality that made the other man flinch. The viscount recovered quickly.
“Perhaps the lady doesn’t wish to be free.”
Tremaine smiled with far too much confidence as he turned his attention to Ruth. When the man didn’t release her from his arms, Garrick swung his gaze to her. The minute his eyes met hers, she quickly looked away. She was afraid. He looked back at Tremaine. The man was far too pleased with himself—he was holding something over her head. But what?
“I find it difficult to believe that Ruth is remotely interested in you, Tremaine. After all, your father was responsible for the destruction of her parents’ marriage, and she knows what you did to Mary,” he said as he looked at the man with disgust.
“Your recently departed Mary was not the sweet miss you think she is.” Tremaine snorted. “Be that as it may, I’ve explained myself to Ruth, and she’s agreed to my patronage.”
The viscount glanced at Ruth with a smile of satisfaction before he turned back to Garrick. The man was lying. How in the hell could Ruth possibly consider a liaison with this bastard? She knew what the man was.
Unless—he dismissed the possibility in the blink of an eye. She might be a courtesan, but her reaction to him had never been that of a woman merely servicing her lover. There had been something more between them. She’d ended her affair with him for one reason and one reason only—he was younger than her. He’d been so certain of it, he’d come here today to convince her the gossips were wrong. His ability to satisfy her hadn’t played any role in her decision. He refused to believe otherwise.
“I don’t believe you,” he snarled.
“I can assure you it’s quite true, Stratfield,” the viscount said with a condescending smile. “At least Lady Ruth will be able to welcome a real man into her bed.”
Garrick froze. His gaze shifted back to Ruth. Still in Tremaine’s arms, she kept her face averted, but there was something in her demeanor that troubled him. Despite the warning in the back of his head, he dismissed it. He didn’t think for one minute that she’d betrayed him. Still, it troubled him that she wouldn’t look at him. Not taking his eyes off her, he cleared his throat.
“Tell me why you’d be willing to let this bastard into your bed, Ruth.” He watched as she freed herself from Tremaine’s arms and turned toward him. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking.
“I am free to see who I wish, my lord.” Her voice was devoid of any emotion. His jaw locked tight with frustration. She’d not answered him.
“You see, Stratfield. The lady has come to her senses.” Tremaine’s smile was malicious.
“Has she?” he replied in a sardonic tone. “I sincerely doubt Ruth would even consider getting into bed with a bounder like you under any circumstances. Something tells me there’s more to her agreement than either of you are saying.”
“True. But then I have it on good authority that the lady wasn’t satisfied with a man who has only one ballock.”
The viscount’s words ripped into him like a gunshot. Desperately fighting to collect his wits, he forced a strained smile as he met the man’s snide look. His uncle. That son of a bitch had told Tremaine about his defect. His fears had become a reality. The question was, what did the viscount want? He arched his eyebrow at the other man.
“You have an active imagination, Tremaine.” The amusement in his voice was sufficient for the man to eye him with a calculating frown. An instant later, the viscount smiled with contentment.
“You surprise me, Stratfield. Personally, I’m amazed at your ability to perform at all despite having only one ballock. But did you really think Lady Ruth would keep your secret?”
The man’s words sucked the air from his lungs. Rigid with disbelief, he focused his gaze on Ruth. Although she was pale, her expression revealed nothing. When she didn’t contradict Tremaine, his heart twisted so violently in his chest he wanted to shout from the pain of it.
She’d betrayed him.
In the next breath he rejected the notion. He didn’t believe it. It had to have been his uncle who’d revealed his secret. It couldn’t have been Ruth. She wouldn’t have betrayed him in that way. A mocking voice in the back of his head sneered at his pathetic protests—of course she’d betrayed him. If it had been his uncle, Tremaine would have no reason to involve Ruth.
Although she was no longer in Tremaine’s arms, she’d made no effort to put any significant distance between herself and the bastard. She’d agreed to become the man’s mistress. What further proof did he need that she’d told Tremaine his secret? Perhaps hearing the fact straight from her lips. Again a voice deep inside taunted him with his desire not to believe what was so plainly visible.
“You seem at a loss for words, Stratfield.” The viscount’s smug tone made him narrow his gaze at the man.
“Not at all.” He feigned nonchalance with a shrug. “I’m simply puzzled as to why my physical traits are of such great interest to you. Between you and Wycombe, it would seem buggery is becoming one of your favorite pastimes. A diversion that holds no interest for me.”
Fury darkened the other man’s face, and Garrick smiled bitterly. The balance of power had shifted in his direction.
“I doubt you’ll be quite this complacent when the Set discovers you’re a freak of nature.”
“You say that as if I care what people think.” Garrick shook his head in a fatalistic manner before glancing at Ruth. Despite her pale color, her features remained composed and unreadable. Guilty, simply by virtue of the fact that she didn’t deny Tremaine’s allegations.
“I think you care a great deal,” Tremaine said with a calculated look. “In fact, I think you’ll pay me to keep silent.”
“Pay you?” He laughed at the man.
The fact that he’d managed to do so amazed him. Tremaine was threatening to expose him to the world, something he fought long and hard to prevent. He didn’t know whether to choke the son of a bitch or to simply walk out and take his chances that no one would believe the man. But then there was Ruth. People would believe her.
The bitter taste of bile rose in his throat at the thought of her betrayal. If there was anyone’s throat he wanted to wrap his hands around, it was hers. How long had it taken her to run to Tremaine with his secret? He glared in her direction, and what little color she had left in her face drained away.
For a brief moment, he found himself thinking she was merely a pawn in Tremaine’s hands. The bastard could be holding something over her head. He swallowed hard as her betrayal pushed itself back into the forefront of his mind. He was making excuses for her again. She’d told this bastard his secret, and now he was supposed to pay for Tremaine’s silence.
He’d paid his uncle to keep quiet. Paying Tremaine would be no different. That wasn’t true. Despite providing his uncle with a living, he’d made the terms of agreement, not his uncle. He’d been the one to stipulate what Beresford could or couldn’t do. He’d clearly outlined the consequences if his uncle failed to abide by the agreement, and it appeared the man had kept to their bargain.
Instead, the least likely of sources had been his undoing. A woman. It was as if Bertha was taunting him all over again. The memories of the past welled up over him, and his body hardened with tension. He’d never thought it would be a woman who would betray him. Especially not Ruth.
A savage desire to hit something snaked its way through his body. She’d destroyed him. She’d told Tremaine the truth. Even if he paid the man, what would stop the bastard from revealing his secret to someo
ne else? The blackmail would never end. The viscount uttered a grunt of frustration as he glared at Garrick.
“You seem to have lost your tongue, Stratfield.” The man’s amusement was edged with anger.
“On the contrary. I’m simply trying to understand if I heard you correctly.”
“You did. I’m not asking for much.” Tremaine sent him a glare of intense dislike. It was obvious their conversation was not going the way the man expected. “I simply want you to revoke your demand for payment on all my investment loans.”
“I still fail to see why I would do such a thing. Your claims would be unsubstantiated.”
“Ah, but I have Lady Ruth,” Tremaine said smoothly as he took a step toward Ruth and caressed her cheek.
A bolt of anger lanced through him at the man’s gesture. The thought of Tremaine touching her at all, let alone bedding her, enraged him. He immediately condemned himself as a fool. The woman wasn’t worth the emotional effort. In the back of his head, a sharp voice protested the thought vehemently.
“You seem quite confident of your ability to bring me to heel like some dog, Tremaine.” He eyed the man with scorn.
“I don’t see that you have much choice.”
“There is always a choice,” he said as his gaze darted toward Ruth. She’d turned away from both of them, and there was a forlorn look about her that he recognized. He snorted softly. Why was he so damned determined to find an excuse for her betrayal?
“Then perhaps you should consider the best choice to make in this matter.”
“And I suppose that in exchange for my coin you’ll remain silent.” He narrowed his gaze at Tremaine.
“Precisely. And because your uncle’s investments directly affect mine, I shall expect the payment demands on his investments to cease as well.”
“Naturally,” Garrick said as he narrowed his gaze at the man.
The request to cease and desist in his attempt to ruin his uncle wasn’t all that unexpected. But it made him consider once more the possibility that Ruth really was a pawn in some twisted game Tremaine was playing.
He looked in her direction and studied her profile for a moment. Almost as if she could feel his gaze on her, she turned her head.
Was that sorrow in her beautiful violet eyes? No, she wasn’t any different than Bertha. She didn’t have a heart. She’d betrayed him in a span of days. No doubt, it had amused her to tell Tremaine his secret. He crushed the protest echoing in the back of his head.
“Well, are we in agreement then?” The viscount eyed him with confidence.
“I don’t think so.” As he met the man’s gaze, he knew he wasn’t going to agree. The fact amazed him.
“What?” Tremaine’s angry roar wasn’t surprising. “I’ll expose you, Stratfield. Don’t think I won’t.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll try to do your worst”—he smiled coldly at the man—“but I’m wondering who’s going to take the word of a whore or a bounder who hovers on the fringes of fashionable Society.”
Without waiting for the man’s reply he turned and headed toward the office door. Behind him, Tremaine was sputtering with fury, and it filled Garrick with a small nugget of satisfaction. His life in the Set was over, but telling this bastard to go fuck himself had felt good. He turned the knob on the door and opened it as Tremaine shouted out after him.
“You’ll regret this, Stratfield. I’ll see to it that this ruins your family, too. That young brother of yours won’t be marrying up in Society with everyone knowing your secret.”
An icy rage engulfed him at the threat. Slowly, and with great control, he turned around to face the man. The contented look on the viscount’s face dissolved into a look of fear as Garrick studied him with a deadly calm.
“If you do anything, anything, to hurt my family, Tremaine, I’ll kill you.”
The menacing sound of his voice echoed loudly in the room, and the viscount swallowed hard. The man’s expression suddenly changed back to one of malicious satisfaction, and Garrick saw Ruth’s eyes widen in horror as she stared at something over his shoulder. In the deepest recesses of his mind, he wondered why she would be horrified for him. He turned his head and met the wide-eyed look of a stockily built gentleman he didn’t recognize.
“Mr. Millstadt, what a surprise.”
From her breathless greeting, Ruth knew the man. But then she knew a great many men, he thought bitterly. With a sharp grunt of fury, he pushed his way past, and strode down the hall without a backward glance. In less than a minute he was out on the street, where he ordered Jasper to drive him to the Club.
Throwing himself into the leather-cushioned seat of the Berline, he seethed with a fury unlike anything he’d ever known. Not even the night he’d caught his uncle trying to enter Lily’s room or the day he’d caught Tremaine in Seymour Place had he been this angry. If he’d given way to his impulses moments ago, he would have pulverized Tremaine until the man couldn’t walk and then repeated the exercise.
Ruth.
The image of his hands wrapping around that beautiful neck of hers wasn’t satisfying at all. He wanted to hear her pleading for mercy. Bertha had made a fool of him all those years ago, and he’d allowed Ruth to do the same thing. How could he have been such a simpleton?
Once more a woman had humiliated him, but this time he wasn’t infatuated. He was in love, and the pain of her betrayal was a knife carving into the heart of him. His jaw clenched, he drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. Arms folded across his chest, he dug his fingers deep into his biceps.
She’d betrayed him.
The knowledge still left him stunned. It was almost impossible to believe given everything they’d shared. The image of her in Tremaine’s arms filled his head again, and it made his blood flow hot with anger once more. The thought of her with that son of a bitch sickened him. Christ Jesus, how could he still love her in spite of what she’d done?
Her betrayal cut deep. So deep he knew there was little Tremaine or anyone else could do to him that would come close to the excruciating pain of her treachery. Ever since that terrible night in Bertha’s room, he’d lived in fear of his uncle revealing his secret. Lived constantly on edge at the thought of someone exposing him for the freak of nature he was.
The irony of it was that it was a woman who’d revealed his secret. Something that never would have happened if he’d simply stayed away from Ruth. His fist hit the buttoned leather seat as the vehicle rocked to a halt in front of his club. To hell with Tremaine. He refused to let the bastard dictate to him. Not waiting on Jasper, he stepped out of the small carriage and climbed the steps of the Club, two at a time.
Lord Tremaine was going to find himself ruined by the end of the month. The bastard could do his worst, but Garrick refused to be blackmailed. Ruth might have betrayed and lied to him, but there was one thing he’d learned from his experience with her. His physical defect didn’t define him. He’d been a fool to care what others thought.
He charged through the Club toward the gymnasium. He needed to hit something, and if he couldn’t hit Tremaine, then a punching bag would have to suffice. Tremaine might find it pleasurable to humiliate him, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing would be as painful as knowing the one woman he wanted above all others had deceived him.
18
Ruth stared at herself in her dressing table mirror. The dark circles under her eyes only emphasized her age. Her elbow resting on the well-polished maple tabletop, she cradled her forehead in her hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this exhausted.
She’d barely slept last night as the entire scene with Garrick at the orphanage yesterday afternoon had played in her head over and over again. Although Tremaine had said he would visit her last night, he’d never showed. For that she was grateful. It had given her time to think about how the bastard had coerced her into doing as he wanted.
At the time, she’d been terrified of Garrick discovering she was in love with him. But seeing him struggl
e with Tremaine’s threats yesterday had nearly done her in. The thought of his being blackmailed was abhorrent, particularly when Tremaine had made her a part of Garrick’s pain. A teardrop rolled down her cheek, and she brushed it away. With shaky hands, she swept her hair up and used hairpins to hold the shape she’d created on the top of her head.
She’d invited Allegra to come for breakfast several days ago, and she needed to put on the best front possible where her friend was concerned. She’d not even managed to formulate an explanation as to Tremaine’s sudden presence in her life. Something Allegra was not going to let go so easily. With one last glance in the mirror, Ruth stood up and headed downstairs. When she reached the foyer, Simmons emerged from the back of the house. She forced a smile to her lips.
“Good morning, Simmons. I expect Lady Pembroke to arrive shortly. Please let Dolores know that I’d like breakfast to be served as soon as her ladyship arrives.”
Simmons always had a serious expression on his face, but today he appeared grimmer than usual. She frowned as he bowed his silent acknowledgment of her command before handing her the morning paper. As she took it from him, she noticed him hesitate for a fraction of an instant.
“Is everything all right, Simmons?” A shiver streaked down her back as his hesitation became even more pronounced.
“I believe the Town Talk is particularly ugly this morning, my lady. Perhaps the Times would be a better choice of reading material.”
His words made Ruth’s heart skip a beat, and her fingers curled around the paper Simmons had given her until she heard it crackle softly. Tremaine. The bastard had changed his mind. It had taken more than an hour for her to convince him that it was in his best interest to try one more time to persuade Garrick to accept his terms. But something told her the bastard hadn’t waited. What had he told the papers?
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