“What is it?” the other young lady asked, concern lacing her tone.
“Good in him? In a man who should use me in a game of revenge he’d exact against Honoria’s aunt, his former lover? I think not.”
His frown deepened. He’d not taken Margaret as his lover. Which he supposed was neither here nor there, and yet, Phoebe believed that untruth and he wanted her to know that despite the many lovers he’d taken, her friend’s aunt had never been one of them. As though that would bring his innocent young wife any consolation, a voice jeered.
He really should go. There was no point in visiting a room of three ladies who’d likely rather have his blood than his company. Edmund turned to go, again.
“I for one imagine even one such as him would care a great deal.” The loyal defender of his worthless self, intoned. “You should tell him,” she added as an afterthought. The lady was incorrect in this regard. He didn’t care a great deal about anything. Except her. He cared about Phoebe. His wife’s murmured response was lost to the walls dividing them.
As the garrulous one carried on, Edmund took a step toward his office. “A gentleman doesn’t like to have his wife going about being kissed by other men.”
He froze. A crimson rage descended over his vision, momentarily blinding him and he wheeled slowly back around. That. He cared very much about that.
“I for one agree with Gillian,” the more jaded, of the ladies chimed in. “A heartless cad such as the marquess will hardly tolerate another gentleman forcing his attentions on his wife.”
The muscles in his body went taut. The crimson fury turned black until he breathed, tasted, and smelled the death of the man who’d touched Phoebe. A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye. The moment he discovered just who touched his wife, he’d hunt the bastard down and choke the breath from his worthless body for daring to put his hands upon the person that belonged to Edmund. A growl rumbled up from his chest.
“What was that?”
Silence reigned.
Christ. Edmund turned and peered down the hall plotting his escape just as the door opened. A young lady peeked her head around the edge of the frame. Her eyes went wide. A dull flush heated his neck.
“Oh, hullo,” the young lady said with a smile as though she hadn’t just discovered one of the darkest, most black-hearted lords in the realm listening at the keyhole. She turned back and called over her shoulder. “It is merely your husband, not some gossiping servant,” she said with such innocent cheer he winced.
Edmund moved woodenly through the doorway, keeping his face an expressionless mask. At his presence, the previously talkative ladies fell silent. He remembered to sketch a bow but remained with his attention fixed on his pale wife. Edmund recalled his visit to her chambers last evening. She had lain with her back presented to him. Now in the light of day, he took in those details that had escaped him the previous evening. The cut at the corner of her mouth. The bruise on her neck. Then with a dawning, creeping horror all the darkest, ugliest possibilities slipped in of Phoebe on her back with some bounder above her, rutting between her thighs while she fought and cloyed for freedom. I was at my clubs. I was at my clubs while she was alone. He drew in a slow, calming breath, one heartbeat from madness. When that had no effect, he drew in another.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Miss Fairfax and Lady Gillian exchange looks and then wordlessly the two young ladies hurriedly took their leave.
That sprung Phoebe back to movement. She jumped to her feet. “You do not have to go,” she called after them, her voice a high squeak. Edmund stepped aside allowing her two silent friends to slip from the room like white ruffled geese in matching steps until he and Phoebe were alone. He reached behind him and drew the door silently closed.
“Who?” he asked quietly.
She slid her gaze away from his and made a show of studying the tips of her slippers. “I don’t—”
“Who?”
Phoebe picked her head up. “Does it matter?” She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “It could have been any number of irate husbands who sought revenge on the man who took their wife as his lover.”
His stomach churned with nausea. Bile climbed up his throat, until he thought he might be ill. “Is that what happened?” he hardly recognized that strangled, garbled tone as belonging to him.
Her hesitancy served as his confirmation. Edmund closed the distance between them in several long strides and hovered before her. In a world where he was decisive and moved with purpose, now he was at sea. So this was what it was like to be preyed upon.
He stretched a hand out and brushed his fingertips over the mark on her neck. His heart pounded loudly in his ears, nearly deafening. When he trusted himself to speak he asked the question he didn’t really want an answer to. “Did he—?” Ah, God help him for a coward. One single utterance would shred what was left of his worthless soul.
Phoebe fisted the fabric of her skirts. “No.” She gave a brusque shake of her head. “He did not.” Edmund slid his eyes closed and sent a prayer skywards to a God who apparently did exist. He opened them again just as his wife touched her fingertips to a heart pendant at her neck, an inexpensive bauble that gleamed bright. “The Marchioness of Waverly came upon us…him…and she clouted him over the head. The marquess saw to my carriage. And then I returned home.”
How coolly emotionless she spoke and yet the faintest tremble to her lithe frame indicated the mark left by the monster who’d touched her. And Edmund had not been there. He stared at the crown of her dark tresses. He’d promised that she’d be afforded the protection of his name. Instead, he’d left her dependent on the timely arrival of strangers. Edmund had never hated himself more than he did in this moment. The Marquess of Waverly, brother to Lord Alex Edgerton, a man whom he’d sought to publicly humiliate for perceived injustices after Margaret’s betrayal, no less. For this, Edmund would eternally owe that family his fealty. What a humbling, shaming moment. “Who?” She paused and for a long moment he suspected she’d withhold that name, and it would forever haunt him knowing that a gentleman who moved about polite Society had dared kiss her mouth and marked her skin.
“Lord Brewer.”
“….I’ve had so many other men’s wives in my bed, surely you don’t expect me to remember yours…?”
Oh, God. Not trusting himself to speak, Edmund turned on his heel and left. A volatile fury with a lifelike force fueled his movements. He strode through the corridors and with each angry step he took, he lashed at himself with the memory of his wife, injured, assaulted, nearly raped for his crimes. Rage roiled in his belly and he fed the familiar, safe emotion. He reached the foyer and bellowed for his horse.
A short while later, his mount was readied and he swung astride the magnificent black beast with one purpose in mind. Edmund guided Lucifer through the crowded streets, the fashionable end, onward to the hallowed halls of White’s. He dismounted before the famous, white façade structure and tossed the reins to a nearby street urchin. The boy accepted the reins and waited with the promise of coin as Edmund strode inside the legendary club. The club he’d taken membership at for the company it afforded him, but had studiously avoided through the years, unless it suited his purpose of revenge. As such, Edmund knew all those men who owed him a debt and where they spent their afternoons. He stepped inside the respectable club feeling like the sinner stepping through the church doors for Sunday sermon. Ignoring the buzz of whisper generated by his presence, he strode through the crowd, scanning the crowded tables, in search of one.
And then he located him at the far right corner of the room, with a bottle of brandy and tumbler before him. Thoughts of Phoebe and her tear-stained cheeks and her marked neck filled his mind, and Edmund increased his stride. Just then, Lord Brewer glanced up and his gaze landed on Edmund. All the color leeched from the bastard’s face. The faint trail of fingernail tracks upon his cheek stood as a stark contrast.
Madness lapped at Edmund.
Phoebe’s fi
ngers. Fighting when she shouldn’t have had to.
He came to a stop at Brewer’s table.
With courage he didn’t know the other man possessed, or perhaps it was mere idiocy, Brewer gave a cocksure grin. “Rutland.” He raised his glass in salute. “How is the marchion—?”
Edmund hauled the man from the seat by the lapels of his jacket and dragged him so they were eye to eye. “If you ever touch my wife again, by God I will kill you dead. I will take you apart with my bare hands and relish the sounds of your screams while I do it.”
The muscles of the viscount’s throat moved up and down. “Y-you who’ve made a c-cuckold of most gentlemen in this room would issue that threat?” In the absence of a pledge to steer clear of Phoebe, Edmund buried his fist in the other man’s nose. Brewer cried out as blood spurted from the broken appendage and he stumbled into the table and then landed hard on his back.
The viscount pressed a hand to his face. Blood seeped through his fingers and he continued undeterred. “If it is not me, it will be another,” Brewer spat and a chill ran through him at the final reckoning of his sins. He would not pay the price, but rather Phoebe. By God, she’d not pay for his crimes. “And you will be no different than any other m—” He cried out as Edmund came over him and punched him in the face again. Edmund rained down his fists, pummeling the other man so that crimson stained his face and through it, he saw this man’s frame atop her. Her cries. Her pleas. Because of my sins. He reached for the barely moaning, limp viscount’s neck, when hands scrabbled at his back. Powerful hands hefted him from Brewer’s frame and dragged Edmund back. He kicked out at Brewer with the toe of his boot and fought against the stranger’s powerful hold.
“By God, Rutland, I detest you but I’d still not see you spend your days in Newgate for offing one like Brewer.”
Edmund wrenched free of the man’s hold and turned to face the Earl of Stanhope. Panting from his exertions, the earl’s hair fell over his brow and he glared at Edmund.
Edmund glowered back and Stanhope must have sensed his intention to go and finish Brewer for he wrapped a powerful hand around his forearm and forcibly dragged him through the club. Edmund fought against his hold. “By God, let me go, Stanhope,” he hissed.
The earl, this man who’d competed with him for another woman’s affections eleven years ago ignored his commands and continued propelling him through the club.
They reached the front of the club and a majordomo pulled the door open in eager anticipation of Edmund’s departure. He braced for the other man to toss him, but the earl followed behind him out into the street. They stood at the front steps of the club with passersby casting the rumpled pair curious looks. “I well know this isn’t your usual choice of establishment, nor will you find yourself welcomed with this showing,” the earl muttered, as he yanked a kerchief from his jacket and dusted off his brow.
Edmund eyed the doors, contemplating entering the club once more and destroying Brewer. He took a step toward the club.
“Do not,” Stanhope said in clipped tones, anticipating his efforts.
He flexed his jaw. “He touched my wife,” he said on a hushed whisper.
The earl arched an eyebrow and stuffed the white fabric back into his jacket.
A dull flush heated Edmund’s cheeks as Brewer’s charge melded with Stanhope’s accusatory look. In a bid for revenge against the man who’d dueled him for Margaret’s hand, he’d orchestrated his own wife’s ruin and then sealed that ruin with his own kiss. He swiped his hand over his face. Who had he been?
Stanhope slapped a hand on his back. “Come with me.” It was not a question.
And the man Edmund had been fifteen days ago would have sneered at Stanhope and had a mocking rejoinder for that request. The man who’d been shaped by Phoebe’s good and his own desire to be more followed the earl to his carriage. One of Stanhope’s grooms pulled the door open and then motioned him inside. He hesitated, as too many years worth of wariness reared its head. Perhaps it always would.
Edmund climbed inside.
But then mayhap he was strong enough to battle that guardedness. He claimed a seat on the bench and through hooded lashes studied Stanhope who whispered something to the groom. The young man nodded and closed the door behind him. The earl claimed the opposite bench, rapped once, and the carriage rocked into motion.
He sprung forward on the edge of his seat. “My—”
“My man will see to your horse,” he assured him.
“What the hell do you want?” he snapped fisting the edge of his seat.
“To talk.”
He blinked several times. “What could you have to say to me?” By rights, Stanhope should attempt to bloody Edmund the way Edmund bloodied Brewer just moments ago.
“Other than go to hell?” Stanhope drawled. “You’d be surprised.” The ghost of a smile died on his lips. “I have hated you for years, Rutland.”
With that statement the earl could keep company with most of polite Society.
“I do not any longer.”
Edmund went still.
“I pity you.”
There it was. That unwanted, loathsome emotion. It was on the tip of his tongue to say he didn’t need anyone’s pity, but yet, the truth was, he’d been a pitiable creature these years. A soulless beast.
“I let go of my past,” Stanhope continued quietly. “While you,” he nodded his chin at him. “You remained firmly stuck there and I would have been stuck there right alongside you if it wasn’t for my wife. Whom I love. And any man who reacts the way you did this afternoon at White’s is also very much in love with his wife.”
The air slipped from his lips on a hiss as Stanhope, this longstanding enemy found his weakness. He braced to have that discovery turned against him as a weapon to inflict a lethal blow. Stanhope winged a blond eyebrow upwards. “You are wondering how I’ll use that information against you.” A crooked grin formed on his lips. The carriage rocked to a slow halt and he rapped once on the roof of the carriage. “I’ll use it against you by helping you. Go to your wife and put your past behind you.”
Before Phoebe had entered his life, Edmund would have scoffed at Stanhope or any man who dared believe he could change. Or, for that matter, that he’d want to change. The muscles of his throat bobbed up and down. His wife had forced him to look at the parts of himself he’d long buried; his secret hunger to be viewed as more man than beast…and more than that, a man capable of being loved and loving in return.
Edmund looked out the window at the façade of his townhouse. He looked at Stanhope squarely. “Why?”
“Oh, do not mistake me,” the earl said rolling his shoulders. “I still think you’re a miserable bastard but life does that to all of us, then. And if we are fortunate, then we can accept saving in the unlikeliest place.”
He furrowed his brow.
“With the love of a lady.” Stanhope’s driver pulled the door open. “Now get the hell out, Rutland.” He eased those words with a half-grin.
As he stepped down, Edmund tried to force out the appropriate words. He turned back and stuck his hand inside the carriage. “Thank you.”
This man who’d battled him for another years ago, looked at the offering a moment, and then put his hand in his. There was something freeing in the broken chain that tied him to a dark, ugly past he no longer wanted a part of. “Go,” Stanhope said again.
With that, Edmund turned from his past and stepped toward his future.
Chapter 26
From her perch on the windowseat overlooking the streets below, for the tenth time, Phoebe read the familiar words in The Times.
In a not uncharacteristic show of ruthlessness, the Marquess of R, violently assaulted the Viscount B. No one can glean the details surrounding the incident, however…
She tossed aside the paper where it landed in a soft thump at her feet. Phoebe knew precisely the details surrounding that particular incident. Following her admission yesterday afternoon, he’d stormed off and s
he’d not seen a glimpse of him since.
His defense could be explained by purely self-serving reasons as her friend had suggested. Edmund’s concern for being viewed as weak and made a cuckold of before other gentleman could surely explain away the vicious fire in his eyes or the primitive growl as he’d stormed from the room. Yet, Phoebe had seen more there. A more that indicated this had not been entirely about him, but rather her.
A knock sounded at the door and she glanced up.
“His Lordship has requested your presence in his office,” the servant politely informed her.
Phoebe swung her legs over the edge of the bench and settled her feet on the floor. He would summon her. Her heart slipped. Edmund could not be bothered to find her himself and speak to her on whatever matter he wished to speak to her. With a murmur of thanks, she woodenly shoved herself to her feet and made her way from the room, through the halls, and to Edmund’s office. As she walked through the corridors, servants rushed past her, arms filled with valises and trunks. Her trunks. Edmund’s request forgotten, with a frown on her lips, Phoebe followed the flurry of activity to the end of the hall. The front doors opened, sunlight streamed into the marble foyer as servants carried her belongings outside.
It appeared as though her husband had tired of her. What did bored gentlemen do with new, unwanted wives?
“My lady, do you require any help?” a servant asked at her shoulder.
Phoebe gave her head a clearing shake. “Er, no. Thank you,” she added absently and then turned on her heel, making her way to Edmund’s office.
The office where he plotted the ruin of men. She thought of her own name in that book. Honoria’s. And young ladies. No one was spared from, as the gossip columns called it, his ruthlessness. Who knew the gossips could be correct about anything. Phoebe stopped outside his closed door. She should be glad he wanted her gone. And yet, regret stabbed at her sharp and painful as a dull dagger sticking at her heart. You are a fool, Phoebe Eloise. She raised her hand to knock and then thought better of it. Edmund could send her away but regardless, this was now her home. She pressed the handle. And she’d not rap on the door like a recalcitrant child summoned by her father. Phoebe opened the door and stepped inside.
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