The Love of a Libertine

by Jess Michaels

  He leaned in, catching a whiff of orange blossom that took him to fantasies that were unfulfillable. “I forgive you,” he whispered.

  Before she could respond, the rest of their party joined them and Morgan stepped away from her. It was so odd how he could feel so upset, so angry in one moment, then a few words from Elizabeth could change his mood and his thoughts.

  “Have any of you seen my brother?” he asked, casting Elizabeth a quick glance. She gave him a small smile in return. Encouraging. Comforting.

  “I saw him go out on to the terrace from the east parlor,” the Duchess of Donburrow said. “Katherine followed him.”

  “Ah. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll seek him out,” Morgan said. “I was not finished talking to him and I think I owe him something.”

  “We’ll be here for a while,” Brighthollow said. “You’ll join us when you’re finished with your conversation and we’ll all go in to supper.”

  “Very good,” Morgan said as he exited the room and walked down the hallway. As he entered the east parlor, he saw the shadow of his brother and Katherine past the glass doors that led outside. They were standing close together. Katherine had her arm around him.

  Morgan sucked in a breath and stepped onto the terrace. The couple turned and Robert scowled as he returned his attention to the garden below.

  “Good evening,” Morgan choked out. “You look lovely, Katherine. May I speak to Robert alone?”

  She shook her head. For the first time since Morgan had met her, she didn’t look welcoming toward him. She looked protective.

  Robert had that. Robert deserved it. Morgan knew it when he got past the complications of their brotherly bond.

  Katherine smoothed her hand across Robert’s back once more. “I’m not sure I should leave you two alone. Will you come to blows or will one of you throw the other off the terrace?”

  “No,” Robert said, and glanced at her with a look of chagrin. “For my part, at least, the answer is no.”

  Morgan inclined his head. “I don’t have any intention of carrying on.”

  Katherine considered that for a moment, looking back and forth between the men. Then she nodded. “Very good. I’ll see you two in a moment.” She leaned up to kiss Robert’s cheek. When she whispered something to him, Roseford’s expression softened.

  Then Katherine slipped into the house and the brothers were alone once more.

  “I-I overreacted,” Morgan admitted, though the words choked him. “I’m…sorry.”

  “No. Well, yes,” Robert said, facing him without moving toward him. “But I deserved it, I think. I shouldn’t have talked about your past without discussing it with you first. I’m sorry, as well.”

  Morgan blinked. He hadn’t expected that. He almost didn’t know how to respond. But at last, he nodded. “Apology accepted.”

  Robert let out his breath in a long stream. “And I overreacted, as well. My feelings about our father are…complicated. And being compared to him is like my greatest fear come to life.”

  Morgan’s eyes went wide. Because Robert had been raised by the man, he supposed he’d never fully considered his brother’s past. His brother’s pain. That was a failing, he could see that now.

  “You aren’t like him,” Morgan said softly. “I met him once, you know.”

  Robert drew back. “You did? Usually he made note of such things in the files he kept on each…each…”

  “Bastard?” Morgan said softly.

  “Each child,” Robert finished.

  Morgan let out his breath in a low whistle. “Great God, what he must have said about me.”

  “They aren’t that detailed,” Robert offered. “But if you’d like to see yours, I’m happy to turn it over to you when you are next in London. What did he do when you met?”

  “I was at school. He paid for my education, so there I was, the bastard son of a courtesan surrounded by fops with true connections.”

  “That must have been difficult,” Robert conceded and there was nothing but kindness in his tone.

  “At first,” Morgan said. “But I learned to…entertain them.”

  Robert gave a small chuckle. “Yes, I can see that your charm would serve you well. As it does now.”

  “The previous duke materialized one afternoon. I was drawn out of my studies, taken to this room and left alone with a man I’d only ever seen in passing and in the miniature my poor mother kept beside her bed.” He sighed. “He just…stared at me. He stood in that room and stared at me, and when I tried to speak, he stopped me.”

  He flashed back to that day. He’d felt so small next to this man. He’d known Roseford was his father, but there had been no affection when the duke looked at him. Up and down, circling him like Morgan was a pony to be evaluated at market.

  “He started drilling me with questions about my studies, about my marks in school. After I answered he said perhaps I wasn’t entirely worthless, and then he left and I never met with him again.”

  Robert flinched. “How old were you?”

  “Nine,” Morgan said.

  Morgan stepped up next to his brother, and for a moment they stared out over the garden together. He could see the shadow of Elizabeth’s gazebo in the distance. He thought of her and he felt a little…better.

  “It is difficult knowing what he was,” Morgan continued. “And that I meant so little to him.”

  “None of us meant anything to him,” Robert said. “That’s not meant as comfort, mind you. Nor to dismiss what you experienced when he took the whim to meet you. I only say it out of understanding. He was a cruel man, unable and unwilling to control himself. He took what he wanted, he never thought of the consequences. He caused nothing but destruction.”

  Morgan flinched. “I have inherited that from him.”

  “So did I,” Robert said. “Until I chose to be better.”

  Morgan glanced toward the house where Katherine had departed a few moments before. “Because of her.”

  “Aye. Anything good I’ve managed to become is because of her,” Robert said softly.

  They were silent for a moment, but there was no animosity to it. At last Morgan cleared his throat. “Earlier…before we started pushing and swearing, you said there were two reasons you spoke about my past. What was the second reason?”

  Robert’s expression softened a bit further. He pivoted to face Morgan and closed any distance between them physically. But it felt even deeper than that.

  “Because I was worried about you,” Robert admitted softly.

  “You…you were?” Morgan asked.

  “Yes. Of course.” Robert shrugged. “I don’t know how to be a good older brother. I never had an example in my life. There is no one more qualified to offer sound advice about the subject of siblings then Brighthollow. He all but raised Lizzie, and their relationship is very close. So yes, I spoke to him about you long before I asked him to consider you as an employee, in the hopes he could help me be…better.”

  “I see,” Morgan breathed. It was harder to be angry at Robert for turning to a friend for support. For trying to find a way to be there for Morgan.

  “I’m sorry Lizzie heard anything about it. Perhaps she gleaned some information from him or from Amelia about your past. Perhaps Katherine mentioned it in passing, I don’t know. But it was not cruelly meant. I am not our father.”

  Morgan shook his head. “I…I know that in my heart. I have just hated that bastard for what he did to my mother, for what he did to me, for so long.”

  “I understand that,” Robert said, and clapped a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. “Someday you’ll get me very drunk and I’ll tell you what he did to my mother. What he did to me. And we’ll sob into our tankards and come out closer than ever. But not tonight.”

  “No,” Morgan agreed. “Not tonight.”

  “Let’s join the others before they send a search party in the fear that we’ve killed each other.” Robert motioned to the door, and they exited and walked up the hallway to
gether. “I must mention that you seem to have had some good influence on you since we talked in the parlor. I cannot imagine who that could have been.”

  “That’s enough, Roseford,” Morgan muttered, but he found himself smiling regardless.

  His brother stopped. They were a few feet from the parlor where the others were gathered. Morgan could hear their voices drifting out into the hallway.

  “Honestly, Morgan, I only want for you to be happy. Stable. And while I like Lizzie, I do wonder at the ramifications if you happen to…to like her too.”

  Morgan bent his head, for his brother was only saying out loud what he already knew himself. “Yes.”

  “You must know this already, for you are so very clever, but you can’t play here,” Robert continued. “You can’t shit where you eat and expect Hugh to smile and say nothing. After everything Lizzie went through—” He stopped himself.

  Morgan wrinkled his brow. Everyone kept alluding to that, even Elizabeth herself. Something in her past. Something that made all those around her so very protective.

  “What did she go through?” he asked.

  Robert shook his head. “It’s not mine to say. I like to think I learned my lesson about speaking out of turn about someone else’s past.”

  Morgan felt a swell of disappointment but also understanding. He couldn’t fault Robert for not repeating the mistake he and Morgan had nearly come to blows over.

  With a sigh, he stepped a bit closer to the parlor door and saw Elizabeth. She was at her brother’s side, talking quietly to him and to the Duchess of Donburrow. She was so lovely. But Robert was correct that she wasn’t the kind of woman a person could trifle with.

  “I…understand what you’re saying,” he choked out. “And perhaps I do need to distance myself from Lady Elizabeth in order to stop things from becoming…confused.”

  Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “You must do what you think is best. Let’s rejoin them.”

  His brother entered the room, but for a moment Morgan hung back, just continuing to watch her until her gaze darted to him like she sensed his presence. Her brow wrinkled and then she smiled in question, in support. She smiled so sweetly that his rotten remnants of a heart thudded.

  He didn’t want to step away from the strange connection he’d made with this remarkable woman. But if he didn’t, he feared the father he and Robert had discussed on the terrace would find a new life in Morgan, himself.

  And he didn’t want that even more.

  Chapter 11

  Lizzie sat at her desk in her study, her mother’s plans for the garden laid out before her. Now they were marked up, containing her notes with a few changes. Morgan’s responses in that firm, even hand. She stared over the conversations she’d shared with him through this method and smiled.

  Still, she felt restless. The communication on the plans was the bulk of how she’d interacted with Morgan. At least since the gathering a few nights before when she’d found him fighting with the Duke of Roseford. He’d maintained his distance since. She’d done the same.

  And though she knew that was for the best, it still felt like a loss, somehow. A regret that she could add to all the others until the pile felt overwhelming.

  There was a light rap on her partially open door and Amelia poked her head into the room. “Lizzie?”

  She forced a smile and got up to wave Amelia in. “Yes?”

  Amelia shifted as she rested her hand on the doorjamb. Her gaze darted about and wouldn’t focus on Lizzie. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  Lizzie lifted her brows. She didn’t like this. “Er, what is it?”

  “Well, Charlotte and Katherine and I got to talking two nights ago, while you were playing pianoforte after tea that day it rained? It was lovely, by the way. Your playing is always so lovely.”

  “Amelia,” Lizzie said. “Why are you trying to soften me? What is going on?”

  “There’s going to be a ball tonight,” Amelia burst out. “Here.”

  Lizzie caught her breath. “A ball, tonight?” she repeated. “What are you talking about?”

  Amelia at least had the wherewithal to look chagrined. “It was such a last-minute thought. It isn’t going to be big, just a small gathering. Some of the local gentry and our party. One of Hugh’s friends from an adjoining county is coming. It will be delightful, I assure you.”

  Lizzie stared at her. Amelia looked as though she’d done something wrong and even though that wasn’t entirely true, there was still a twinge of pain that accompanied the news. Amelia had not only decided this without talking to her, but planned it with her friends, rather than with Lizzie.

  “Why wasn’t I included in the discussion?” Lizzie asked softly.

  “I know you have little interest in such things,” Amelia said with a blush. “And you’ve been so involved in your garden preparations.”

  Lizzie nodded, as if accepting that answer, even though she doubted it to her core. She knew Amelia didn’t think she could handle the preparations for a ball. It was one more example of how her family tiptoed around her, like she was glass. And not solid glass either. More like an important family heirloom that had already been chipped or shattered, then repaired and placed back on the shelf. It was for looking, not using or enjoying.

  She hated it. She hated the idea of a ball, too, but the other was worse.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, of course I am very excited about the gathering,” she lied. “Is there any way I can help with the preparations?”

  “No, just bring your lovely self and try to have fun,” Amelia said. “Now I must go speak to Masters. I’ll see you at tea later today, yes?”

  “Of course,” Lizzie called out because Amelia was already ducking away, leaving the door open behind her.

  Lizzie walked to the fireplace. She stared into the flames and clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides. Pressure felt like it was building inside her. Pressure over her family’s view of her, pressure over what she’d done to cause it, pressure over the attachment she didn’t want to feel toward Morgan Banfield, and pressure because she didn’t want to lose that attachment either.

  It seemed she lived in a world of in-between. Never quite belonging, never quite finding her place. “Bloody hell,” she muttered.

  “Well, that’s unexpected.”

  She pivoted to find Morgan standing at her doorway, lounging lazily against the doorjamb with a grin on his handsome face. She blushed as she realized he’d heard her curse and bent her head. “Excuse me, I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone.”

  “Apparently so,” he said with a laugh. “But don’t stop on my account. If you’re upset—” He stopped talking and his brow furrowed as he looked at her. He straightened and stepped into the room. “You are upset. What’s wrong?”

  Lizzie spun away from him. Of course, he would materialize to tempt her and then see right through her. Of course he would, because that was just her luck. Just her weakness.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she muttered.

  “I’m afraid it does.” His voice was closer now and she peeked over her shoulder to find he was just a long step away. He could almost reach out and brush his fingertips along her bare arm. She wanted him to do just that. She wanted him to kiss her even though she recognized the folly in that.

  She sighed. “It’s nothing important,” she assured him. “It’s just Amelia’s ball tonight. She…sprang it on me just now and I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “She sprang it on you?” he repeated.

  Lizzie laughed at the look of surprise on his face, even though she felt no humor in the situation. “Yes, they…they do that sometimes?”

  “Why?”

  She lifted her chin and tried to maintain a little dignity. “To force me to attend.”

  His lips parted and for a moment there was a flash of anger that crossed his face. Defensive…of her? “That seems…uncharacteristically cruel of the duchess,” he said.

  “No,” she said s
wiftly, to defend her beloved sister-in-law. “Amelia would never, ever be cruel to me or to anyone else. It isn’t that I can’t go. It’s just—” She cut herself off. How did she say this to this man who saw everything? How did she tell him without him seeing the past play out on her face? “It’s complicated.”

  He did exactly what she feared. He leaned in and those dark brown eyes flitted over her, easily taking what she fought so hard to conceal. His frown deepened, concern lining his face. “Why is it complicated, Elizabeth?”

  Her lips parted. His question was said in such a warm, hypnotic tone, and he looked so accepting. As if she could whisper the truth to him and find a safe place to fall after the inevitable collapse. Worse yet, she wanted to whisper what she’d done, what she was, all her secrets.

  And that was, of course, exactly why she couldn’t. She had already determined it was time to distance herself from this man who saw too much. If she wanted to maintain her sanity, she had to do it now.

  “Morgan,” she whispered. “I think we should…talk.”

  He arched a brow with a half-smile. “Nothing good comes of that sentence, does it?”

  “And yet we must regardless,” she said, and motioned to the chairs before her fire.

  As he moved to them, she went to the door. She stared at it. Propriety said to leave it open. That a lady such as herself shouldn’t be alone with a gentleman. Especially one she had so inappropriately kissed over and over again. Especially one who always looked like he would devour her if he had a chance.

  But propriety and privacy were two different things. She didn’t want the world to hear what she was about to say. And that need to protect the sweet moments they’d shared won over everything else. She pushed the door shut and his pupils dilated when she did so.

  “Please sit,” she asked as she did the same. He joined her and was silent as he waited for her to take the lead. It wasn’t a natural state, but she struggled to do so regardless. “Morgan, I…we…” She shook her head. Gracious, she was an educated, literate person. Why was it so hard to find words?

  “Take your time,” he soothed, and she watched his hands twitch in his lap like he wanted to reach out to her.