He growled and in his seething, there appeared a quiet fury far more menacing than he’d been any other moment prior. “What did he do?” For his sharp inquiries earlier, these four words revealed so much more than a powerful duke expecting a glimpse into her past.
What did he do? So vastly different than “What did you do?” For when she’d been discovered with George rutting between her legs by the town gossip, not her mother, nor father, nor George’s mother had seen her as blameless. Instead, she’d been found guilty as the wanton harlot who’d seduced a nobleman who’d never bind himself to a vicar’s daughter. And in Derek’s question, that slight, but very meaningful, difference set him apart from all others she’d ever known.
He did not press her to continue but allowed her to find the words in her own time. How had she ever believed him to be a beast? “He promised me marriage.” Her lips pulled in the corners in a bitter smile. What a naïve fool she’d been. “I was fifteen, which is hardly an excuse,” she said on a rush. “And...I believed him when he promised to go off to Gretna Green with me. He left.” She grimaced. “Business to see to in London. While he was gone, what I’d done...we’d done, was discovered and my father turned me out.”
The old horrors of those long ago days came rushing back with the same potent fear that had gripped her then. Her sister and brothers crying, blending with her pleading, as she’d been ushered out the front door and forever sent away. Desperate to have the telling done, she hastened to finish. “Afterwards, I went to him...” Her mind balked. For even with this fragile moment of intimacy shared between them, Lily could not drag forth the words to tell the darkest, most painful part of that night. The bite of rain as it stung her skin. The pain of being thrown onto the pavement like rubbish to be swept away...and then climbing into that stranger’s carriage. For no respectable man or woman could ever be forgiving of a woman who’d gone from maid to mistress.
Agony threatened to tear her apart and she struggled to breathe from the pain of that. In those series of irreversible mistakes, she’d lost all right to the only thing she’d ever wanted in life—a family of her own. Giggling children. A husband.
Except, Derek would not allow her those secrets. He guided her slowly around and she braced for his harshly probing stare. Instead, the tenderness of his gaze threatened to shatter her. “What happened when you went to him?”
Her heart trembled, at the gentle insistence in that question. Why could he not be the bellowing, jeering duke she’d first met? Or even the one from moments earlier who’d probed her, seeking the secrets of her past? With the sick shame of her greatest mistakes stabbing at her belly, Lily lowered her gaze to his snowy white cravat, wanting to be free of it. Nay, needing to be free of it. “I discovered I was nothing more than a plaything.” The shame of that day assaulted her with the same hot humiliation and agonized hurt as years ago. “I arrived in London, at his doorstep.” A little moan escaped her and she bit her lip hard to stifle any further telling weaknesses. “The butler tried to send me ’round back for scraps.” She spoke so quickly her words ran together. “I had traveled for six days. I was hungry and scared and I barged inside. I knew if I saw him...” She closed her eyes. The foolish hope of George had sustained her through fear.
Derek settled his hands on her shoulders and gave a slight squeeze; an unspoken encouragement that brought her eyes open. “He did not even remember me,” she whispered into the quiet. “He did not know my name or care that I’d given him my virginity.”
“Oh, Lily,” he said quietly, just that, two words.
A tear slipped down her cheek and Derek brushed his thumb over the single drop. “It was the night of his betrothal ball.” A sound half-laugh, half-sob burst from her lips and she buried it in her fingers. “Rotten timing. As such he was eager to have me gone. He and his mother,” your mother, “turned me away. They handed me a purse.” As if she’d been a whore in the Dials. Three pounds had been her value. “I was instructed to never again darken their doorstep.” And she hadn’t. Until now.
She expected a rush of all the oldest hurts and regrets and bitter anger at reliving those moments. Now, dwelling in these walls with Derek and knowing they’d spurned their own son and brother opened her eyes—George and his mother had been soulless. There had been a deficit of their character that was a thing to be pitied. The tension in her chest eased. For the pain of reliving those agonizing moments in her life, there was something freeing and cathartic in breathing the words aloud. Forgiveness: for herself. She slid her eyes closed briefly under this absolution she’d believed to never know.
The ormolu clock atop the fireplace mantel ticked away the passing of the moments. Derek’s soft curse echoed from the walls and she flinched, braced for his icy disdain. This is why he’d inquired. To know, as he should, about the woman whom he’d turned the care of his niece over to.
Then, the man whispered about as a cold, unfeeling monster pulled her tenderly into his arms. Drawing in the deep, sandalwood scent that clung to him, she pressed her cheek against his chest, taking what he offered, selfishly. Taking for once in her life, because she deserved it. “It was my own fault,” she said, at last claiming ownership of those mistakes. How many years had she spent holding George to blame when, with her impulsivity, she’d proven equally to blame?
He palmed her neck and guided her gaze up to his. “It was not your fault. He was a heartless cad and you were but a girl.” The icy fury emanating from within his blue eye bespoke of revenge and the threat of retribution. Because of her?
When was the last time anyone had believed her worthy? After all, she herself had long since ceased believing in her own value. A chill racked her spine. In a moment, when the ugly truths were told, that fury would be appropriately turned on her. Even knowing that and aching at the thought of his loathing, she owed him even more. Lily stepped out of his arms and when he made to reach for her, she held her palms up. She did not deserve Derek’s defense.
Then he asked the question that had been inevitable. The one he most deserved an answer to. “Who was he?”
Lily looked down at her tightly clasped hands. “That man was your brother,” she strained herself to hear those faintly whispered words.
Chapter 16
The moments ticked by and those five words danced in the air. For their potency, they may as well have been the distant cannon fire from long ago that still haunted him.
Derek stared dumbly at Lily, not processing that whispered admission. She rubbed her hands over her arms, back and forth, as though chilled. He let his arms fall to his sides, a hollow emptiness in his belly. The man who’d deceived her, despoiled her, and ruined her had been—“He was my...” His voice emerged raspy to his own ears.
“Brother,” she said, her words stronger. She spun away from him and danced like a fey creature avoiding discovery. “George,” she added, as though he needed the name, as though there was another brother.
George.
The man she’d loved and given her heart and virtue to had been—George. Perfect, flawless, and charming while living, George had been very much the sought after nobleman. A cold numbness went through him as he sought to work through the complexities of that very truth. He took a step away. And then another. Then another. Until he found himself at the edge of the stone hearth. Numbed by her revelation, Derek stared down into the fire and this time, did not think of the lick of flames on his skin. His breath came hard and fast imagining Lily, a girl of sixteen, alone, at the mercy of his merciless family, and they’d turned her away. He gripped the edge of the mantel and welcomed the sharp bite of wood into the soft flesh of his palms. How she must have hated every member the Winters family—and deservedly so.
“I was young,” she whispered, misinterpreting the reason for his silence. Dazed, he turned slowly back. “Though that is no excuse.” Not meeting his eyes, Lily clasped her hands together and studied the interlocked digits. “I believed he’d marry me.” Color slapped her cheeks. Did she love
George? Did she love his dead, caddish brother, even now? His insides twisted. “It was never about being a duchess, it was foolishly about...” Her words trailed off and she slid her gaze away.
What had it been about? The question screamed around his turbulent mind. With wooden footsteps, Derek returned to her side. “It was about what?” he urged harshly, tipping her chin up and forcing her eyes to his.
She winced and agony stabbed him. Did she believe he’d condemn her in this moment? Then why should she not? Everyone else before, including her own parents, who should have protected her, had instead turned her out. “I thought I loved him.”
“Did you?” That gravelly question ripped from somewhere deep inside his chest where jealousy dwelled for the brother who’d possessed her heart; that blinding emotion lived with a rage for the man who’d stolen her virtue.
“I was in love with the dream of a man who did not exist.” A bitter, broken laugh escaped her. “Isn’t that the greatest irony? I gave up all for him. A man I hardly knew. Outside, like the cheapest of whores.” Her speaking made what they’d shared real in a way that knifed at him. George had known her smile. The taste of her lips. Except...some of the agonizing pressure weighting his chest eased.
George had not known the depth of her soul. Not the way Derek did. Lily glanced down at her hands and spoke, drawing him back from his jumbled musings. “I built those moments into something they had never been.”
And something they could never have been. Not with George who’d taken his pleasure where he wished and then moved on to the next. Women had been no different. Derek thought of Lily, as she would have been; a girl of fifteen, meeting his older brother. With his ducal arrogance and charm, she would have been helpless against George’s seduction.
What if I had seen her first? What if all those years earlier, he’d actually seen the world in front of him? Lily would have been a bright-eyed girl with a riot of midnight curls, unbroken by life. She would have been a reason to remain in England.
A vise-like pressure squeezed at his chest. Then, he’d been too blinded by his pursuit of greatness and fleeting moments with skilled courtesans, to notice the vicar’s daughter. And through that folly of his youth, George had been there all the while, noticing her...and then, ultimately robbing Lily of her innocence. A heavy curtain of rage descended over his vision, momentarily and completely blinding him to his earlier jealousy and shock. He’d always known there was blackness to his soul; standing here with his mother and brother dead, wishing them to the devil, was now proof of that.
A black curse escaped his lips.
Lily recoiled. “F-forgive me.” She made to rush around him.
“Stop,” he barked. She immediately complied, her shoulders proudly straightened, even as she avoided his gaze. He studied her through hooded lids. Did she truly know him so little that he’d condemn her for her crimes the way others had? This woman who’d seen beyond the beast and scars to the man? Did she believe him incapable of that same gift she’d given him? “What happened after my family turned you out?”
She wetted her lips and skittered her gaze about. “What happened?” Her wide-eyed stare put him in mind of a fragile deer trapped in the hunter’s snare.
“Tell me.” Coward that he was, he didn’t want to hear the truth. Yet he needed it, anyway.
Lily threw her arms up. “What would you have me say?” she spoke in pleading tones and stalked forward in a soft swish of her night-rail, emotion burning deep inside her expressive eyes. “Would you have me tell you all the vilest, most horrible details?” Her lower lip trembled. “Would you have me tell you that I was found outside this very townhouse on the street by a powerful gentleman who offered me employment as a maid?”
The muscles of his stomach spasmed. She hugged her arms to her chest and he ached to take her in his arms. The clock ticked loudly in the corner as Lily stood there, her body so tightly held, a strong wind would likely shatter her. And he knew before she even uttered the words...
She drew in a shuddery breath. “Would you have me tell you how after two years, the old, kindly gentleman required altogether different services of me?” Her words emerged as a faint, broken whisper.
Oh, God. Even expecting it as he’d been, the words gutted him. “Lily,” he rasped.
“How he threatened to turn me out without references and, instead, offered me a place in his bed or nothing at all.” She panted.
Agony tightened in his belly and he wanted to clamp his hands over his ears to blot out the flood of those gut-wrenching words.
She was relentless as she advanced, coming toward him, ravaging him with every word she uttered. “Do you want to know the woman you hired to care for your sister’s child has been nothing but a whore for the past six years?” Her words caught on a sob.
Yes, he’d known the words were coming. The self-hatred she wore that could only rival the same he cloaked himself in, stood as testament to her belief she was the whore she spoke of. Even expecting them, however, could not dull the blade of shock that ripped through him. Unable to face her in light of what his brother had visited upon her, Derek slid his gaze away. An ugly slithering of green envy snaked about him. Equal parts jealousy at the man who’d laid claim to her body and burning hatred for the same bastard who’d taken advantage of a young girl sent out alone in the streets, melded into a vicious blend of madness.
Then she stumbled back. Her eyes formed round moons as she slapped a hand over her gaping mouth. “I w-will leave,” she said quickly, jerking his attention back. She staggered further away from him, all but sprinting to the door.
He’d wager his other eye she’d been running since she was fifteen and, yet, trapped all at the same time. “What will you do?” His quietly spoken words halted her once more.
Lily lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “I will survive,” she said in a flat, emotionless tone that sent a chill running through him.
She would survive. Just as she’d done for years. When surviving meant sacrificing her body and laying herself open before a base lord who’d take his pleasures with her, for the fleeting security. The maddening bloodlust pounding through his ears was the powerful beat that had pulsed through him in the thick of battle with enemies bearing down on him.
He stood stiffly, willing her with his silence to continue. When it became apparent there was nothing more she intended to say on the matter, he took a step toward her, craving the stinging fury and indignation she’d displayed when she’d stormed his household. “Why did you not tell me before?”
A sad laugh escaped her. “You would have had me come to you, asking for a position on your staff, after such a confession?”
“Yes,” he said plainly and she flinched. “I would have you tell me the truth.”
“Come, Derek.” She gently chided. “You’d have never granted me a position.”
Would he have? He looked over the top of her head. Would the man he’d been a week ago, the same man who’d sought to destroy his former friend’s happiness, have done anything but mock Lily and call her a schemer and a grasper? Shame tightened his belly. He didn’t much like the man he’d been. He liked even less the haunting truth of her words. “Very well, then.” He fixed a probing stare on her, searching? For what? Answers he did not want? Questions he did not know? “Why did you come to me?”
“I had no choice.” She spoke in such emotionless tones, that ice skidded along his spine.
So tired of serving a base lord’s pleasures, she’d come here, to the household no person cared to be—trusting he’d grant her a position. “What of your family?”
He was grateful when she broke across the tense guilt gripping him. “My father was...” she grimaced, “is the vicar at your family’s estate in Carlisle.” A wry, mirthless smile formed on her lips. “One can hardly maintain a level of dignity within the parish if the daughter who was discovered by the village gossip remains on as an indelible memory of that day.”
Oh, God. His gut clenche
d. Even now, the man who’d turned her out had been, and was in fact, still the vicar on his properties? Her father had turned her away and she’d come to his family. He scrubbed a hand over his face, thinking about the reception she’d received from his mother who’d protected that coveted title of duke for her son like she guarded the gates of a kingdom. Lily would never have received his family’s support. And in the end, she’d little recourse but to open herself to some lecherous nobleman who’d taken advantage of a desperate girl. With all the wrongs his family had committed, she’d still shown Derek more kindness than any other person since Toulouse.
“That bastard,” he said quietly.
Lily gave him a sad smile. “No,” she said softly. “It was not his fault, Derek.” She’d defend the coward who’d sired her, even so? “There was my sister and my brothers, and what livelihood exists for a vicar whose daughter gave herself to his employer’s son, in that public way?”
He winced, hating that she should defend the man even now. Who’d defended her? Pain threatened to cleave his heart in two.
With the truth echoing between them, Derek slid his eye closed. By God, if his brother was not dead, he’d kill him all over again. He’d use his scarred and marred hands to take his limbs apart and then choke him for what he’d done. “How you must despise me,” he whispered.
Lily moved toward him. His body, attuned to her every nuance felt her beyond his shoulder and he faced her. She stood before him pale and uncertain when she’d only been bold and proud. Another spasm racked his heart. What had the Winters’ done to her? “I did,” she said at last. “I hated anyone and everyone who shared his blood.”
And yet she’d come here anyway. She’d come for employment to be free of her post as mistress, when she’d deserved far more repayment, of which no amount could ever right the injustices done.
Lily took his hands in hers. “But then I realized something as I was here. There is Flora.” His niece. The sole person of any goodness who shared his blood. “And there is you. And there is only good in the both of you.”
Rescued By a Lady's Love (Lords of Honor, #3) Page 22