Beauty and the Earl (24 page)

Of course, people needed people every day and couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. She knew that keenly enough.

The door to her chamber opened a second time, and now Violet had to force her smile at the intrusion. “No tea,” she reiterated.

“Yes, miss,” the same little maid said, with flaring cheeks. “But you have a visitor. Miss Olivia Cranfield.”

“Olivia!” Violet said, jumping to her feet and moving for the door.
 

At the same moment, the servant stepped aside and Olivia burst into the room and rushed to embrace Violet. She heard the door close to give them their privacy but hardly registered it. Not when her best friend was here.

She drew back and Olivia urged her to the window seat where they perched together.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming back?” her friend asked.

Violet shook her head. “I didn’t know where you were. When we arrived and we were told you’d left this residence, I didn’t have a thought of where to write. And I didn’t dare send a message to Liam’s home in case you were there.”

Olivia’s expression wavered slightly. “No, I’m not there. I let a smaller place almost as soon as you departed. I didn’t want Malcolm to see me staying here, in case he thought I was still under the direction of the Rothcastles. Of you.”

“Of course,” Violet said with a shake of her head. “And has he decided that is true? Will he see you?”

Olivia nodded. “Yes. He comes to me every night.”

“Excellent!” Violet clapped her hands together. “Then my actions didn’t permanently damage his regard for you. I feared I had destroyed your chance for happiness.”

Olivia cleared her throat. “He comes to me, but he is changed. I feel him holding back. And when I try to explain myself, when I try to tell him my heart, he only distracts me in the most pleasurable ways. And then leaves me before the night is over.”

Violet lowered her hands at Olivia’s brokenhearted expression. “He wouldn’t come if he didn’t feel something for you. He is conflicted.”

“Yes, I’m certain that is true,” Olivia said. “But what side of the conflict he will come out on is another story entirely.”

Violet caught her hand. “I never meant to catch you up in my difficulties. Not after the true friend you’ve been to me.”

“I was happy to be caught up,” Olivia said with a smile. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have even met Malcolm. And I cannot live with that idea, even if he never comes back to me again.”

It was funny. Her friend had just expressed the same feelings Violet had. Despite the ending, she was happy she had come to Bath. Happy she had met and made love to Liam. Loving him was worth the fall. It was even worth the pain.

“I doubt he’ll never come back,” Violet reassured her friend.

Olivia smiled. “Yes, I intend to simply break him down. Wear him out until he can do nothing
but
love me back.”

Violet laughed at her friend’s teasing, but she couldn’t deny the pain of it.
 

“Does he tell you anything of Liam?” she asked softly.

Olivia shook her head slowly. “No. That subject is off limits between us, I’m afraid. But the fact that they have remained in Bath rather than departing to avoid Lord and Lady Rothcastle’s arrival certainly says something, doesn’t it?”

Violet pressed her lips together. “You are right,” she finally said. “Before Liam would have done anything to escape the confrontation Ava has brought down upon him.”

“So you see,” Olivia said, squeezing her hand. “You saved him.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Violet got to her feet and smoothed her dress, still watching out the window toward that long, lonely road. “And even if I did, he will hate me for it for the rest of his days. The disdain on his face a few days ago told me that better than any words he could ever speak.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia whispered. “You have been hurt, and I wish I could repair your heart.”

“You can’t.” Violet smiled even though she felt no joy. “That is the way of broken hearts. They only heal with time and distance.”

In that moment, she realized what she had to do.
 

“I’m leaving,” she whispered.

Olivia jolted. “Leaving?”

“Yes. I believe there is a stage leaving for Hertford in a short time. I could make arrangements there for transport to Romwell.”

Olivia shook her head. “But what of the duke and duchess? Did they not make some arrangement with you?”

She nodded. “They did. But I will break it. They will understand, I think. And it isn’t as if I had much to do here at any rate.”

“Don’t you want to see Liam again?” her friend asked, her expression softening.
 

She stiffened at the inquiry. “Of course I do,” she said softly. “I want to see him so much that I ache whenever I think of it. But he doesn’t want to see me. And if I forced that issue, I would only find ruin and deeper heartache. It is time for me to forget this folly. To go to my son and live the simple life I was meant to have.”

“And there is nothing I can say to dissuade you?” her friend asked, searching her face.

Violet laughed a hollow laugh. Unless Olivia could tell her that Liam loved her, that he would forgive her and welcome her and her son into his life…well, there was nothing else to say.

“No,” she answered softly. “I never should have returned to Bath in the first place. I let my heart lead me when it was time to put my head in charge. I must remedy that now.”

Olivia looked as though she might say something more, but at that moment a flash of movement caught Violet’s eye from the road outside her window. There was a man, riding hard up the road toward the house.
 

“Malcolm,” Olivia gasped, pressing her hand to the glass.

“Has he ever come to you in the middle of the afternoon?” Violet asked softly as they watched him turn toward whatever place Olivia had been staying at before Violet’s arrival.

Olivia’s breath was short. “N-No. Not since the first day.”

“Then it seems you might have worn him down far faster than you thought.”

Olivia’s stare jerked to her and Violet smiled. “Go to him. Write to me in Romwell in a few days and let me know all the news.”

Olivia briefly embraced her. “I wish you would stay.”

“I can’t,” Violet insisted as she turned her friend and pushed her toward the door with laughter. “Now go!”

Olivia didn’t have to be asked again. She hustled from the room, her eyes bright with excitement and love that wouldn’t be stopped by anything in the world.

Violet turned and looked around her. She hadn’t unpacked, so it would be easy enough to slip away to the coach and make her escape. And now that she knew Olivia would be happy there was no other reason to stay.

“No other reason at all,” she said, gathering up her reticule and ringing for the little maid to make arrangements for her departure.

Chapter Twenty

Christian came to the entryway to Liam’s office and stopped there, his bright blue eyes flicking over the room and analyzing all he saw in an instant. Liam felt him stare at the scar across his face, the way he held his arm. They were the remnants of the accident that had stolen Matilda’s life that horrible winter night.
 

Liam’s first reaction was to clench his fist, hating how he was being judged by a man who had no room to do so. After all, Christian bore his own scars. He still leaned on a cane from his injuries, though perhaps not as heavily as he had before Ava came into his life.

Liam pushed the anger in his reaction back, trying to remember why he was doing this.
 

Slowly, he nodded to the other man.

“Rothcastle,” he said.

Christian met his stare with an even one of his own. “Windbury.”

That was all that was said for what seemed like an eternity, until Liam pushed cleared his throat.
 

“Come in, won’t you? This is getting ridiculous.”

To his surprise, the corner of Rothcastle’s lip tilted slightly in a smile.

“Some would say our entire feud has been ridiculous,” he said as he did as Liam asked and stepped into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“A lot of people with opinions who don’t understand,” Liam said with a shake of his head. “My sister, for one.”

“And mine.” Now Christian’s smile was gone, replaced with pain. But to Liam’s surprise, no anger any more.
 

His own pain returned at the thought of Matilda. And yet it had faded a little with time, with Violet’s entry into his life. He had never thought that would happen.

“Yes, neither of them wanted to be party to what was between us,” Liam whispered.
 

“And we made them party to a battle we didn’t even understand,” Christian said, his tone heavy with regret.

Liam stiffened. “What do you mean we didn’t understand? I understand exactly how I feel about you.”

Christian’s mouth went tight and Liam could see he was fighting to control his emotions. After a moment, he spoke again, his voice frustratingly calm.

“Obviously over the years, you and I developed our own reasons to hate each other,” he said. “But I only mean that our fathers and grandfathers instilled that hate in us from birth. And no one knew the cause of it. Why did our families despise each other?”

Liam paused. Had his father ever shared that information with him? All he could remember were the admonishments to despise, to battle, to never trust.
 

“I have no idea,” he finally admitted with a shrug. It felt like he was giving over the upper hand to Rothcastle and he didn’t like it. Old habits, it seemed, died hard.

“I do now.” Christian reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew two packets of letters.
 

He moved forward and set the letters on the edge of the desk near where Liam stood, then took a long step back away from him. Liam stared at them, but made no move toward them.

“You can read them for yourself,” Christian said. “Keep them if you’d like. But I would be happy to give you the annotated version for the sake of time.”

Liam arched a brow. “With your own slant?”

“You think I would lie and then leave these with you to uncover the truth anyway?” Christian asked with a tilt of his head. “You may despise me, but I hope you give me more credit for intelligence than that.”

Liam let out a long sigh. “Why don’t we start before all that? What made you seek out these answers you claim you’ve found?”

“Ah,” Christian said and his gaze slipped to the sidebar across the office. “May I have a drink?”

“Of course,” Liam said.
 

Christian crossed to the bar and quickly poured himself a scotch. He held up the bottle and Liam nodded, so he poured a second one. As he returned to Liam, he held out the glass.

“I was like you, Windbury. I never cared why our families hated each other, I did as I was told to do and as I learned to do. And when Matilda died, well, I lost any sense of reason at all.”

“As evidenced by your actions toward Ava,” Liam said softly. He motioned to the chairs by the fire and they took them.

Christian stared at the fire. “Yes. I did something horrible when I took your sister in revenge. But since it ended with our marriage, with the fact that I love that woman more than I have ever loved another person or thing…I won’t apologize for that.”

Liam flinched. Hearing this man profess his love for Ava still stung. And yet, as he looked at Rothcastle, he could see for the first time that the duke truly felt what he declared. There really was a deep and abiding love for Ava in this man.
 

“Are you saying that your marriage to my sister made you wonder about the origins of our family feud?” Liam said, avoiding the tender subject of love.
 

Christian nodded. “The more I loved her, the closer we grew, the more I felt I needed to know what had taken things to such a desperate level between our families. And so I began to seek out the answers. I searched family homes, I looked into vaults, I asked questions. And finally, I found the first pack of letters sitting untouched in a secret compartment in my father’s old desk.”

Liam glanced at them. “All right, Rothcastle, I’ll ask. What do these letters magically reveal?”

“Your great-grandmother, Eleanor—do you know much about her?”

Liam wrinkled his brow in confusion at what seemed like a change of subject. “No, she was long dead, as was my great-grandfather, by the time I was born.”

“Well, Eleanor was quite the diamond of the first water the year she came out in Society,” Christian explained. “She caught the eye of my great-grandfather, Bennett. They even got engaged, and I suppose the world would have been a very different place until she met a dashing young man named Edward.”

Liam shook his head. “My great-grandfather.”

“Yes.” Christian sighed. “My letters were ones she wrote to my great-grandfather. The other letters are ones I managed to collect from one of your family estates when I convinced Ava to take me there a few months ago. They are to
your
great-grandfather, as well as a few other things she wrote or received about the situation.”