Phoebe squared her gaze on his. “As your wife, you would permit me to travel?” When most gentlemen would squelch their wife’s freedom, he would send her out into the world without marital strings attached? Why then, with his betrayal did his disregard pull at her heart?
“I would,” he said without hesitation. “I will,” he amended.
There had been so many lies between them she could not sort through them all in a weeks’ time. But by the firm resolve in his eyes, she did not doubt the sincerity of his pledge. He would let her go. “You would let me go,” she pressed. “Even as you insist on wedding me regardless of my feelings on the matter?”
“I would.” He set his jaw at a resolute angle.
She furrowed her brow. He’d have her at any cost, but then also set her free? What sense did that make?
Edmund closed the remaining space between them, so the flimsy chair posed the only barrier. Then, he continued coming, a tiger stalking its prey and she stiffened, her body at war—conflicted with the desire for his kiss while her mind rebelled at his very nearness that threatened her reason. He stopped behind her so her back met his chest, placed his large, powerful hands upon her shoulders, and dipped his mouth close to her ear. “Do not mistake my generosity. Your freedom will not be to visit the beds of others. I will not share you.” His hot breath fanned the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck and shivers of awareness shot through her.
Her eyes fluttered closed and she gave thanks that he could not see that frailty. “Y-you would demand my faithfulness?”
“Yes.” He shot his tongue out and licked at the shell of her ear.
“W-would you offer the same?” She hated the stammer and question together that showed her desire for him, still.
Edmund wrapped his arm about her and stroked his hand down the front of her gown, smoothing the flat surface of her belly, as though reacquainting himself with her body. “Would you want me to offer you the same?”
He’d deliberately evaded responding to her question. He would take others to his bed. Did you expect anything else from the notorious scoundrel, ruthless in all matters? Why should the idea of him taking another woman to his bed eat at her like acid being tossed upon an already opened wound? Edmund’s telling equivocation had the same impact of a bucket of cold water being tossed upon her ardor. She spun away from him. “Your business will be yours.”
His expression grew shuttered. “We are understood then. Your freedom will be yours and mine will continue to belong to me.”
At his indifference, a ball of emotion lodged in her throat and she swallowed several times to drive back the swell of pain and regret. “You offer me the freedom to travel and see the world. Don’t you see? I wanted that dream with my husband at my side,” she whispered. “I wanted a husband who would have torn apart with his bare hands any ship I’d ever dare climb aboard that he was not on.” Edmund stilled, his face a set mask, he gave no indication that her words meant anything to him or mattered in any way. Pain cleaved her heart. She’d been a hopeless romantic, just as Honoria had charged. The hopeless part of that charge all the more aching and poignant. Phoebe took a slow, shuddery breath. “Then there is nothing else to say.”
Edmund bowed. That polite, gentlemanly gesture so at odds with this feral, unrepentant blackguard, so that an image flashed to mind of him as he’d been at one time, a small boy with the lessons of polite Society ingrained into him. At what precise moment had those kind rules of decorum been coupled with this baleful, savage figure who moved by the rules of his own making?
Phoebe studied his silent departure until he opened the door, stepped into the hall, and then closed the wood panel behind him, leaving her alone. Somehow, the deal she’d made with Edmund seemed like a deal entered into with the devil. It was a deal that would see her eternally unhappy. The strength drained from her legs and she sank onto the edge of the nearest seat. She covered her face with her hands and for the first time in more years than she remembered, proceeded to weep.
Chapter 16
Edmund fixed on the synchronic rhythm of his footfalls in the empty corridors of Lord Waters’ home. Doing so kept him from thinking on the agony in Phoebe’s eyes brought about by the edge of betrayal he’d thrust into her. She asked why he wanted her. And as he took his leave of her home, he realized—he did not know. This desire to claim her and know that no other could or would ever touch her was a consuming need that drove back all the logic and reason he prided himself upon. Yes, he wanted her. He’d prefer her as she’d been before he destroyed her innocent naiveté, but he’d have her in any way he could have her.
He turned right at the end of the corridor and collided with a small, slender figure. He immediately steadied the young woman, more girl than child.
“Lord Rutland,” Justina’s sunny smile ravaged at a conscience he never knew he possessed. It was winsome and innocent and hopeful. It was Phoebe’s smile before this afternoon. “How lovely it is to see you.”
Foolish girl. As foolish as her sister. He inclined his head. “Likewise, Miss Barrett.”
An excited gleam lit the young lady’s blue eyes. “Were you here to see my sister?” Her innocuous question twisted at his insides; another unwanted, unpleasant reminder that he was in fact—human. Before he could respond, she cast a furtive glance about and then returned her attention to him. She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “My sister was ever so eager to see you.” The blade of guilt twisted all the deeper—a sentiment he’d never experienced before Phoebe and, frankly, one he’d have happily gone through his life without.
“Is that so?” he asked stiffly, abhorring the image of a bright-eyed Phoebe eagerly awaiting his arrival, only to have him crush the foolish misconceptions and hopes she’d carried of him and for them.
Miss Justina Barrett gave an emphatic nod. “Oh, yes. Why, she couldn’t even read her Captain Cook and then she excused herself.” She lowered her voice all the more. “I think she went off to listen at the keyhole.” At which point she’d heard the truth of his lies. A stone settled in his belly. “And my sister never listens at keyholes.” Mischief sparkled in the girl’s eyes. “I do. But not Phoebe.” She prattled on and her words entered his ears and slid out, unheard. What if Phoebe had remained in the parlor with her sister, waiting and reading? Where would they be in this moment? He gave his head a shake, his lips tightening involuntarily. No, this had been inevitable. Eventually, Phoebe would have uncovered the truth of him. Better now without even more lies between them and more fanciful hopes and dreams on her part.
Suddenly, the presence of this innocent girl and her bright eyes—Phoebe’s eyes—and this blasted house and the extent of his deceit, were too much. The young lady opened her mouth as though she wished to say more, but he cut into those words with a short bow. “If you will excuse me, I—”
“Rutland, my dear friend.”
…am destined to be trapped here with Phoebe’s siblings as a penance for my sins. He turned to greet the smiling Andrew Barrett. Of course. Tamping down impatience, he inclined his head. “Barrett, I was just—”
“I was just heading to my clubs,” the man said tugging at his lapels. “Congratulations are in order, I understand.” He’d wager a sum Phoebe would likely disagree with those felicitations.
He grunted as Andrew Barrett slapped him on the back. Men didn’t slap him on the back and certainly not foppish dandies just out of university. Even if it was the man he’d now call brother-in-law. Alas, just like the Barrett girls, the male Barrett didn’t know to be properly wary or fearful of Edmund, Marquess of Rutland.
“When is to be the happy occasion?”
Nor did they put insolent questions to him that required he share the details of his life.
Justina Barrett clapped her hands. “Oh, how splendid! A grand wedding. It shall be—”
“Justina, go abovestairs now.”
They turned their heads in unison to the harsh command uttered from the entrance of the corri
dor. Phoebe stood with her shoulders proudly squared and glared at him with a host of loathing and fury within her blue depths.
Agony lanced at his heart and twisted the blackened organ, mocking him with the truth of some small life that resided there. He unwittingly raised his hand to his chest to rub the dull ache there. So, this was pain.
Justina’s smile dipped, as she looked back and forth between Edmund and her sister. “I—I was merely congratulating the marquess on your upcoming nuptials.” She wrinkled her nose. “Surely, you’d not have me be rude.”
Andrew Barrett cut in before his sister could speak. “Yes, surely you’d not have her be rude. The chap,” another slap on Edmund’s back, “is to be our brother, after all.”
A brother? Good God. Edmund dissolved into a fit of choking. Who were these people who’d welcome the devil into their fold? How, with their own father’s black soul, could they not see his like soul? Phoebe narrowed her gaze on Edmund. She knew. The look in her eyes said as much. And he detested that truth with every fiber of his rotten being. “The marquess has matters of business to attend. We are to be married within the sennight.”
Within the next day. By the hatred teeming from her eyes, it was wise not to point out as much.
“A sennight?” the younger Barrett’s exclaimed in unison.
“Oh, well this, indeed, calls for a celebration,” Phoebe’s brother said and flung an arm around his shoulders.
“Andrew—” Phoebe called out.
“Isn’t that right, Rutland? It only seems right as future brothers we have a celebratory drink at the clubs.”
It was Phoebe’s turn to dissolve into a paroxysm of coughing. The shock stamped in the lines of her face far preferable to the hatred from moments earlier and he welcomed that crack in her veneer. He held her stare. “A trip to our clubs, then.” Her gasp was lost to her brother’s eager response. Knowing her need to protect her sister and brother from the truth of her own circumstances, Edmund took a bold, calculated step closer, and another, until he stopped before her.
“What—?”
He captured her hands, silencing her with that subtle movement. “A pleasure, as always, Phoebe,” he whispered.
If a single look could kill, he’d have been a dead heap at her furious feet. He raised her fingers to his lips and dropped a kiss atop her knuckles. A faint tremor shook her frame and he delighted in that slight quake that hinted at her awareness of him still. He dropped his lashes and studied her, wanting her, reveling in the knowledge that soon she would belong to him. What had come to pass between them could never be forgiven, but there would still be passion, and her body’s desire for him, and that would be enough. His gut clenched. It had to be.
Edmund released her hand. She blinked several times and then snapped her hands to her side and buried those long fingers in the folds of her skirts. With a knowing smile that only sparked a glint of outrage in her eyes, he bowed his head and with an unwanted shadow at his side, took his leave of Phoebe.
As he exited the viscount’s home, Andrew Barrett prattled on and on at his side until his ears ached. The young man accepted the reins for his mount and looked to Edmund as he swung his leg over his horse, Lucifer. “I daresay a visit to Forbidden Pleasures is in order.”
He said nothing but merely nudged his horse into forward motion and rode alongside Phoebe’s brother. Who was still prattling. A lot. On and on until he allowed his mind to move away from the incessant noise about the cut of his collar and tie of his cravat and instead fix upon his circumstances with Phoebe. Her profession of hate was not inconsistent with anyone else’s opinion of him and that antipathy had never before mattered when the sentiments had been expressed by others. In fact, he’d quite reveled in the disdain for it kept people away. It protected him from hurt and feeling, because as a boy he’d once felt and he’d decided early on he didn’t like what went with that. Her disdain, however, mattered. He guided his horse onward. Andrew Barrett fell quiet, having either run out of discourse on his garments or at last taken hint of Edmund’s total lack of interest.
The crowded streets grew more and more sparse as they continued along the cobbled roads to the less fashionable end of London. They reached the front of Forbidden Pleasures and dismounted, tossing their reins to waiting servants.
Barrett rushed forward with an eagerness Edmund had never felt about any aspect of life. He started for the same five damned steps he’d climbed too many times over the years. Had he always been bored by these senseless amusements? A servant opened the door of the famed hell and he moved forward. Suddenly, a tiredness with the depravity of it all consumed him. He cast a glance back at his mount, filled with a desire to return to his own, empty home which, for the first time, was preferable to the familiarity of his clubs, when from the corner of his eye his gaze collided with two statues adorning the small brick columns framing the opposite side of the entrance. He stared unblinking at two adornments he’d passed many, many times before. Not once had he given them much notice—until now. Of their own will, his legs carried him over and he paused beside one of the ghastly pair. The hideous creature sat atop a skull and a collection of bones. His heart started.
“…On the outside, you are correct, they really appear quite fearsome. But they’re not really. When you know them, when you learn all those pieces about them that you’d not ordinarily know…”
The world tilted and swayed beneath him and he gripped the edge of the column.
“Rutland?” Phoebe’s brother’s concerned question came as though down a distant corridor.
Instead, Edmund stood while the strong, secure walls he’d constructed about himself proved how ineffectual they’d truly been these years, cascading into a heap of useless stones about his uneven feet. Phoebe’s disdain mattered because she mattered. He wanted to be more…because of her; more worthy, more honest, more…everything. Not the material anything, over the years that had never filled the emptiness within.
“I say, Rutland, are you all right? You have a ghastly pall about you.”
He blinked back the haze of madness that clouded his vision and glanced about. Wide-eyed patrons hurriedly stepped around him. Amidst all those cowering dandies rushing by stood Andrew. Concern etched the planes of the young man’s face.
He’d be concerned about him. The man who’d broken his whimsical sister’s heart and illusions. It was not every day that Edmund found himself humbled by his own unworthiness. “Fine,” he managed on smooth, modulated tones that could only come from years of perfecting that apathy. Relinquishing his grip upon the stone pillar, he started up the steps and entered his clubs, somehow not the same man he’d been before.
Phoebe paced before the hearth wishing she’d donned something other than blasted slippers so there might be some kind of furious, frustrated rhythm to match the turbulent emotions swirling through her. “To the blasted clubs,” she muttered to herself. “With my brother.”
The audacity of him. She growled. Then, an unrepentant blackguard like Edmund, the Marquess of Rutland, was guiltier of far worse crimes than making friendly with her impressionable brother, after he’d shattered her heart and hopes. For them. Of them. She clung to the outrage of him going off with her brother, to one of those notorious hells, for it kept her from dissolving into a crumpled heap of despair over his betrayal. She fed the rage, gave it life, allowed it to become her breath. Otherwise, drawing any other air with ragged pain would be impossible and she’d cease to be.
“Why should he not be with Andrew?”
Her sister’s befuddled question rang a startled shriek from her and she spun around. “Justina.” I forgot you were here. “I—” She scrambled in search of a response other than the truth. How could she impart the truth of Edmund’s deception without also destroying her sister’s illusions of life? “I don’t want Andrew at those hells,” she easily amended. No, Edmund had stolen her innocent hope. He’d not take her sister’s, too. She firmed her jaw. Just as she’d not allow him to sull
y her brother with his rakish ways.
From her seat upon the ivory sofa, with her knees pulled up to her chest, Justina appeared girl-like in her artless pose. “I daresay it’s not the marquess’ fault Andrew seeks out those clubs. He is quite scandalous in his pursuits.”
Phoebe frowned. Her sister’s pronouncement provided a momentary, welcomed distraction from the sting of Edmund’s behavior. “Not Andrew.” Her brother was good and honorable and—
Her sister snorted and swung her legs over the edge of the sofa. “Come.” The fabric of her white muslin dress settled noisily at her feet. “Never tell me you’d be as trusting as Mama to fail and see the truth about Andrew.” The truth about Andrew? “He really has become quite the scapegrace.”
“Justina!” The exclamation burst from her. Andrew was but eighteen and just out of university. He was not one of those gentlemen to create gossip and break hearts and care about nothing more than his own pleasures. And yet…she chewed her lower lip. There was the garish attire and his mention of seeing Edmund at their clubs and… She widened her eyes. How could she have been so very blind? Over the years, her brother had become someone she didn’t recognize. She turned away from her sister’s sunny smile and stared down into the empty hearth. Then, as evidenced by Edmund in his scheming had made a total mockery of her feelings and love, thus showing Phoebe had a remarkable lack of insight where anyone was concerned.
She started as her sister patted her on the back. “It is all right. It does not mean he is a bad person. It just means he is a…person who enjoys things he should not enjoy,” Justina finished with another one of her patent grins.
Regret pulled at her. In listening to Justina, it was much like glimpsing back at the hopelessly hopeful woman she herself had been. With that humbling thought came the aching reminder of Edmund’s treachery. She ran a tired hand over her face. She’d made him out to be more than he was. The actuality of Edmund, the Marquess of Rutland, was that he was just a man broken and ruined beyond repair by life. A life she didn’t truly know anything of. But how I wanted to… The hole where her heart had been could never be healed. She expected to always feel this knife-like agony cutting through her, mocking her for the innocence that had clouded her vision to the warnings leveled at her by Honoria.
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