by Stacy Reid
“And as she should,” a hushed voice carried to him. “He is a libertine. I always said she was a young lady of good sense.”
“A very rich libertine with a dukedom. A fine catch I would say,” another voice rebuffed. “But it is evident she is a young lady of good sense, despite circumstances that were certainly not her fault.”
Lucan’s lips curled in disgust. This was what he wanted, opinions of her shifted, but society was all too fickle. He walked toward the terrace and was surprised to see Belfry ambling beside him.
“Then you have no intentions toward the lady?” Belfry asked.
The look he dealt the man had Belfry tugging at his cravat in agitation.
“I meant honorable intentions,” he muttered, face scrunched in discomfort. “I mean no dishonor to Lady Constance, Mondvale. I merely wondered if the lady is free for a twirl in the garden,” Lord Belfry said.
Lucan smiled. “You may have better luck than everyone else. The lady is generous, I am sure she will afford you a dance.”
Belfry nodded eagerly and strolled over to Constance.
Lucan discreetly watched as she spurned the advance of the fifth man to seek her hand in a dance. She gave Belfry a vacant smile and after a few seconds the man departed, his face flushed in obvious embarrassment. What was the minx doing? Was not this what she wanted? She had railed at him that she had no friends, saying he had torn her from all she held dear, so why was she not basking in her restoration? Lucan needed her to be happy. He needed to know that he had brought good into her life, more than he needed his next breath.
He slipped onto the terrace, keeping her in his line of sight. She had yet to see him and he wanted it kept that way. Ainsley stepped from the shadows and walked over to him, and they stood in silence watching her reject partner after partner.
“What the hell is she doing?” Lucan growled in frustration, though he felt a deep sense of admiration in her actions.
“In the last three weeks Lady Constance has received over two dozen invitations to balls and picnics. She has attended only four events. The Countess of Fairclough sent an invitation to her daughter’s debut ball, and Lady Constance said no,” Ainsley informed him.
Lucan gritted his teeth. Why wasn’t she blasted heading out? He had been working so hard, pulling in favors to turn the tide against her and it was all for naught? “Is she doing well otherwise?”
As a favor to him Ainsley had attended each event as a guardian. Watching her from the shadows and reporting to Lucan his perception of how she was being received. Ainsley also served to smooth out any negative talk Lady Ashford and the Dowager Duchess had not reached.
Ainsley sighed and raked a hand through his hair. “You could go and visit her, Lucan, invite her to ride out with you. Better yet, she is standing right across from us. Go ask her to dance. She may be tempted to accept you,” Ainsley suggested.
Lucan glanced at him wondering if he jested, but his friend’s mien was contemplative. “I am sure you jest.”
Ainsley raised his brow. “You have not been sleeping or eating. You have forgiven debts of thousands of pounds. You gave Lord Prescott back his twenty thousand pounds and that very beautiful estate in Essex for a simple invitation to his lady’s annual ball. The invitation could have been secured for far less, I wager.”
Lucan went silent. “It is not time to approach her as yet.”
Ainsley laughed mockingly. “We know time waits on no man.”
Lucan went cold, knowing Ainsley referred to the painful experience of losing his lady. Lucan tensed as Constance suddenly stiffened. She tilted her head and stared directly at him. It was impossible for her see him, but then he recalled her passionate assurances that she could always feel his gaze upon her. Heated awareness rippled over his skin, Ainsley’s presence faded, and all Lucan could see was Constance. Her eyes widened, and a flush of color climbed her cheeks. She took an instinctive step toward him, then grounded to a halt. Her hands visibly trembled, she pressed a palm to her stomach and inhaled deeply. Her eyes darkened with roiling emotions, daring him to approach her.
Lucan’s heart jerked a painful cadence in his chest, and he found himself moving across the terrace floor, closer to her, unable to suppress the desire to just be nearer. He stopped shy of entering the ballroom, cocooned in the shadows. They stared at each other for what seemed like endless moments. It pained Lucan to see the unguarded delight glittering in her emerald gaze slowly dampened, before her expression shuttered. Her lashes lowered, and she subtly shifted away, halting the need urging him to walk over to her. A soft breath escaped his lips. No…it was definitely not the time to approach her, especially with Society’s watchful eyes still upon her.
Ainsley came up beside him. “When will you go to her and plead your case?”
To her? The pleasure that had warmed her eyes upon seeing him filled Lucan with hope, but he’d also espied the flash of raw agony, and the strength of her continued pain sliced deep. She needed more time. But to her family… He clenched his teeth as he faced what he should have done weeks ago, but had been delaying. “I have an appointment to see Calydon tomorrow.”
“Hell!”
Lucan understood Ainsley’s sentiment. In all his plotting, he never imagined he would be visiting Calydon under such circumstances. Calydon had stepped into Decadence the week before and Lucan had fought off the primitive wave of satisfaction that had filled him. Instead of forcing the confrontation he had plotted for so many months, Lucan had ducked out, shocking himself. It was then he had understood the depth of how much Constance meant to him. He had drawn on his coat and hat, collected his cane, escaped the building, and walked toward the Thames, watching the subtle currents that ran in the water. That was when he had realized he had abandoned all revenge against Calydon. Albeit too late. To have Constance in his life, he must do so with a clean slate, a heart clean of vengeance. And suddenly it had been easy. There had been no fight, no regret, just hope that she would forgive him for hurting her. And he would be able to claim the woman he had come to love.
Chapter Nineteen
The silence in Calydon’s library was a cold one, yet it had not discomfited Lucan. The man had expected Lucan, and he had been received with civility. Calydon’s duchess had floated in only a few seconds after Lucan was given entrance to the library, obviously pregnant and clearly hoping to make the tension that now seethed in the air less somehow. Lucan feared she failed abysmally. Calydon indicated she should wait in the drawing room, and she had only muttered “nonsense” with a smile and taken a seat.
Tension roiled in the air, and Lucan had been picturing Constance’s face for the past few minutes to thaw the icy rage that had flared inside and encased him upon seeing the man. Calydon roused Lucan’s ire instead of forgiving thoughts. Constance needed him to be forgiving, to be understanding. But it pained him to see Calydon standing in such wealth, experiencing such happiness and love with his duchess while Marissa rotted, beyond redemption, her soul lost and tormented if Lucan was to believe the church.
Lady Calydon’s dark beauty was quite stunning, and so was the apparent control her presence had on the duke. It was as if she grounded him and prevented him from attacking Lucan. A smile twisted his lips, and he fancied it was unpleasant from Lady Calydon’s blanch.
“Are you here to offer for Constance?” Calydon asked from where he stood by the windows. The man did not even face him.
“No,” Lucan said flatly.
The man turned with affected calm, but Lucan could see the controlled violence Calydon emitted.
“Why not?” The strident demand came from Lady Calydon. She shifted in the high wing-back chair she sat in, and rested her hand with tender care on her rounded stomach. Her gray eyes as she assessed Lucan were actually welcoming, which he found quite strange.
“I am here to lay the demons that haunt me to rest, nothing more.” He had no plans to get ahead of himself. This was just one hurdle he had to cross. After he had secured Constance’s forgiveness he
would approach Calydon for her hand.
“Marissa,” the duke murmured.
“Yes.”
Pain flared deep in Calydon’s gaze before he lowered his lashes, obscuring his eyes. “I never knew Marissa had a brother.”
Lucan flinched. No, he doubted she would have been proud to talk of her merchant connections. Not when she had aspired to move in loftier circles. “Is that why you thought nothing of treating her with such callous disregard?” he asked softly. “Because she had no one to defend her honor?”
Calydon thrust his hands in the pocket of his trousers and met Lucan’s gaze without blinking.
“I met Marissa when I was young,” Calydon said bluntly. “I was enchanted by her, though I knew I did not want a wife. You see, I was very turned away from the notion of marriage, and thought no woman would honor their marriage vows. I am now aware of how misguided I was.”
Lucan stared at the man. This was Calydon’s defense? He had not wanted a wife? “Yet you took Marissa’s purity and ruined her for marriage,” Lucan snarled.
Calydon grimaced. “We courted and danced around each other for a couple years…then I did take her innocence. And I did battle with offering for her afterwards. She knew how I felt about marriage, but after a few weeks I realized none of it mattered. For I loved her.”
“Love?” Lucan demanded the rage he was trying to fight firing to life.
“Yes, I loved her. What was later revealed as a bid to force my hand, Marissa accepted an offer from Lord Stanhope. I was young and foolish and saw it as a betrayal, despite dragging my feet to offer for her. I went to explain my initial reluctance and to ask for her hand when I saw her with him, making love. It was hard for me to reconcile her being intimate with someone that was not me. We argued and it became evident that she had been intimate with both of us from the very beginning. When she perceived she had lost a duke, she went for an earl.”
Lucan closed his eyes and turned away. Calydon told him nothing he did not know, but it was still painful to hear. It made it all the more real.
“I do not intend to malign your sister. I am simple presenting the facts as how they were for me.” Calydon’s voice was sincere. “I went away for a few months, and when I returned she was the Countess of Stanhope. It did not take long for us to resume our affair…and it lasted for years.”
“I know,” Lucan said.
Lady Calydon stiffened. “I don’t understand, if you knew, why you did—”
She flushed at the look he dealt her.
“I knew all from the moment Marissa met and fell in love with Calydon. We were close. I was her rock and she my joy. She wrote to me, and wherever I was her letters found me. Sometimes months later. But I knew every thought, every hope and dream she had in relation to you, Calydon. I know how flawed and imperfect she was. I know of her continued affair with you after marrying, I know of the brutal beatings she suffered. I know you claimed you loved her, but abandoned her to the cruelty of a jealous and possessive husband, the scorn of society, I know it broke her, and when she could bear it no more, instead of waiting for me, she took her life.”
The duchess rose and went over to Calydon. He wrapped her in his arms and Lucan could see the torment in the man’s eyes. “Marissa lied to me…mayhap to you, Mondvale. I wish not to shatter any belief you had in her, but Lord Stanhope had not been beating her. When she accused him, telling me of how he abused her I confronted him. He was eager to fight with me because he knew I was bedding his wife, and I was just as eager because I thought he was her tormentor. I almost killed him. I broke his bones and stripped his pride that day, all on a lie.” Calydon’s hand went to the rapier scar that flayed his left cheek. “And Stanhope gave me this. It was as he lay cursing I realized Stanhope thought I was the one abusing his Marissa. She inflicted the bruises herself. When I confronted her, she urged me to kill him so we could wed. I said no, and ended our association. A few days later she killed herself,” he ended on a hoarse note.
The depth of fury surging through Lucan rendered him speechless for a few seconds. “You fucking liar,” he snarled.
Lady Calydon jerked as if she had been slapped, and her eyes widened.
He took a step toward Calydon. “Marissa had not been self-inflicting her bruises. You think I did not corroborate her assertions with the servants? Stanhope beat her brutally for days before and after you and he fought. She did not lie to me. She is dead. Because of your actions.”
Calydon paled, disbelief dawning across his features. “It cannot be so. Marissa confessed—”
“You ruined my most cherished sister, and you stand here and defile her memory with such vicious lies? So I may think you are not as culpable?” The need for violence tore through Lucan and his resolve to forgive Calydon trembled.
Lady Calydon stiffened and her eyes flashed. “My husband did not ruin your sister, Mondvale. Sebastian and Marissa were both young and foolish, but my husband did not force ruin upon her. Yet you try to condemn him after you have hurt Constance in the most abominable way? Yes, we are aware you were the one to reveal her circumstances to society, and we are aware you must have only courted her to hurt her. It is your actions that are unforgivable, for Connie is innocent in all of this.” Lady Calydon’s chest heaved and she visibly shook, her gray eyes brewing with rage.
Lucan was unmoved. In fact, she stoked his anger with her defense of Calydon. As if the matter of his sister’s death was inconsequential. The crack in his resolve widened, and Lucan battled against the pain closing in on him. Where was the remorse for Calydon’s actions toward Marissa?
“I easily condemned your husband because he abandoned Marissa.” Lucan’s eyes bored into Calydon’s. “She was good enough for you to rut with, but not to understand. You did not care enough to delve deep inside and see the scared, lonely woman. She was only a means to you, Calydon. A means for pleasure. Her husband had been abusing her. Marissa would never have lied to me about that. Never. She came to you in her despair and instead of protecting her, you abandoned her though you had been her lover for years. I find your actions insupportable. She was not just a mistress, she was my most beloved sister. And we both failed her,” Lucan said into the painful silence that gripped the library.
He felt shattered. He had never admitted feelings of his own failure to anyone. They had boiled in him for months. His failure of providing enough for her, of being there for her when she needed him. If he had been at home, instead of seeking wealth, she would have been alive. If he had sought the connection he sensed his mother had hidden, he would have found the previous duke of Mondvale and Marissa would have been alive. But these were recriminations he had been over so many times, and dragging them up did not change the situation that Constance had been injured by his anger.
Calydon’s voice was regretful, “I was young and stupid, but I was in love with Marissa. My parents’ disaster of a marriage had given me a very poor opinion of the state. I saw Marissa’s infidelity as proof her feelings had not gone deep. I assure you when we were involved she was not being abused. When she demanded I kill Stanhope, she seemed so unhinged I could no longer see in her the woman I had fallen in love with. She was like a mad thing.”
“Yet you abandoned her,” Lucan snarled. He jerked back and started to pace the library. The confines of the walls pressed in on him. Murder? He could not credit it. But he knew Marissa had been desperate. Her letters had been infused with hopelessness, begging him to return and remove her from Stanhope’s clutches. The pain of what she must have suffered almost felled Lucan in that moment.
Calydon rubbed a hand over his face. “Many times I have wondered if I had returned to Marissa, even as a friend, whether she would have come to her senses and things might have turned out differently,” Calydon said at Lucan’s silence.
He glanced at the man, and he was not sure what Calydon saw in his face, but he tugged his duchess to him and whispered something to her. Lady Calydon gave Lucan a fulminating glare, then with a regal ti
lt of her head walked out the door.
He could not dismiss the possibility that Calydon was telling the truth. His sister had always been changeable, so he could almost put himself in Calydon’s place and understand why he had turned away. Murder? The circumstance would have been shocking to anyone. For the first time Lucan wondered whether even if he had been in England, would his presence have made any difference to the tragic ending of Marissa’s life? He had argued with her so much via letters to end her affair with Calydon. Lucan had given her wealth and had worked hard to ensure she was situated financially, and she had still been unhappy.
The door closed softly on Lady Calydon’s exit, and the veneer of civility Calydon had been showing stripped away. The man advanced on Lucan and cold satisfaction settled in his gut. He did not resist when Calydon jerked him by the lapel of his jacket and pushed him against the wall with controlled violence. Lucan smiled and welcomed the icy rage bleeding into his veins. The pain roiling in him needed an outlet. He wanted to howl, to fight, to do anything to stop the torment of imagining how his sister must have despaired.
“I cannot express the sorrow I have lived with for years in regards to Marissa. When she was happy she was such a radiant thing, but when things did not go exactly as she wished she could be destructive. I knew that, but never did I dream Stanhope would really start beating her. Nor did I ever imagine Marissa would take her life. It gutted me, and I eschewed all female companionship until I met my Duchess years later,” Calydon growled. “I deserved your anger. I deserved you trying to damage my business investments, and I assure you Mondvale, you have had some success. But what you have done to Constance is unforgivable. You hurt her. My cherished sister, when she was innocent in all of this. The harm you have caused her and Anthony is enough so that I promise I will ruin you.”
The ruthlessness Lucan had only read about glared from Calydon’s blue eyes. They were so cold, Lucan thought it was a wonder Calydon’s teeth did not clatter. Lucan creased his lips in a cruel smile, pain and rage edging him. He gripped Calydon’s hand where it crushed his jacket and pushed from the wall, standing toe to toe with him.