“The doctor told you to stay in bed,” Devlin remarked.
Brahm glanced over his shoulder at the youngest brother. “You carried me to the chaise so I could attend the burial.”
Maybe the two of them found some kind of enjoyment in reliving these memories, but Wynthrope didn’t. What he remembered of that day was feeling as though his chance to
ever prove himself to his father was gone. Most people probably would have felt a strange sense of loss, but all Wynthrope had felt was relief from the burden. He never admitted that to anyone, not even North. North had been the most distraught at the funeral. Of course, he had been their father’s favorite, having been born to a woman the viscount actually loved as opposed to the wife he tolerated.
“What has this to do with what you have done for the three of us?” he demanded of his brother.
Brahm turned fully this time, their father hanging over him like some strange specter of the past.
“I took your father from you,” Brahm explained, his voice hushed. “If I had not tried to take the reins, he might be alive today.”
“Or you might both have been killed,” North informed him hotly. “Good God, Brahm, you are the last person I would expect this kind of maudlin behavior from.”
“Yes,” Devlin agreed. “Especially after all that rot you fed me about forgiving myself.”
Their oldest brother smiled sadly. “I meant it. I know I have to live with what I have done, and I think I have forgiven myself for it. But as the head of the family it is my responsibility to look after the three of you, your wives and your children. And if anyone tries to harm you, I will remove that threat.”
His conviction raised Wynthrope’s brows. “So you had Daniels deported out of a sense of duty?”
Brahm frowned at him. “I did what I did because you are my brother, you arse. I want you to have a good life. I want you to be happy. I do not want you to spend your days wondering if you had just done that one thing differently if you might have changed everything. I do not want you to have the regrets that I do.”
“Father’s death was not your fault,” Devlin insisted.
“Perhaps not. It doesn’t matter now. But I have done enough harm to this family over the course of my life. If I can do anything good for it…if I can do anything for the three of you, I will do it. Do you understand?”
Wynthrope was beginning to believe he did. This wasn’t duty. This wasn’t guilt. This was love. He wasn’t certain he deserved it, but he appreciated it. And in his heart he swore that someday he would return the favor.
“Thank you,” he said simply, meeting his brother’s gaze. His brother looked surprised by the words, but Wynthrope refused to take them back. He might not always like Brahm, but he had a sneaking suspicion he was starting to love the blighter.
W
ynthrope allowed another two days to pass with no word from Moira before he went to see her.
It was a cool day, gray with a light drizzle thickening the air. Umbrellas were useless; the damp sunk into every pore and fiber of one’s being. The rain was much like Moira herself, he thought as he sunk lower in the seat of his carriage. No matter the precautions he thought he had taken, no matter how hardened he thought he was, he had been powerless to stop her from invading every aspect of his soul.
Her house seemed too quiet and too still as he jogged up the steps and rapped the knocker against the door.
There was no Nathaniel waiting to tell him to go away as there had been before. And Chester was polite, if not his usual jovial self, as he allowed him entrance. One might think there was nothing amiss, that everything had picked up exactly where he and Moira had left it before that horrible night.
No, not horrible. Making love with Moira had been the most incredible experience of his life. It was only what happened afterward that made it so awful.
She was in her library, just where he expected her to be. Dressed in a gown of rich moss green that made her skin and eyes glow, she was the loveliest woman he had ever laid eyes on. Color bloomed high on her cheeks as she stood and watched him enter the room. She was not immune to him. That was good. Right now even her anger was preferable to nothing at all.
“Mr. Ryland,” she greeted him coolly as she set her book aside and rose to her feet. “This is a surprise.”
He closed the door behind him. “Is it?”
Long, elegant hands clasped in front of her. “Yes. I rather thought now that you had managed to disentangle yourself from this unpleasant situation, you would want to stay disentangled.”
She didn’t really believe that, did she? She had to know that he wouldn’t leave things this way.
“I promised you an explanation. I have come to deliver it, if you will listen.”
Her natural curiosity got the better of her, a fact that warmed Wynthrope’s heart. “All right.” If she had truly made up her mind against him, she would have told him to leave and take his explanation with him.
She sat down in a chair rather than the sofa she had occupied—no doubt so he could not plant himself beside her. He seated himself in a chair opposite her, the best position for looking her in the eye.
“This story goes back many years,” he told her, surprised at how suddenly nervous he was. “I will try to make it as brief as possible.”
“As you wish. It is your story.” She said it as though she had already decided it was going to be more lies. Frustration
gnawed at Wynthrope’s gut. What the hell did he have to do to please this woman? He had made an awful mistake, yes, but couldn’t she forgive him for it? It was as though she believed he had set out to hurt her, as though that had been his intention from the start.
He took a deep breath. “I was but a lad, just back from my Grand Tour when a man named Daniels approached me in a tavern. He asked me if I would be interested in serving my country. I should have known better than to believe him, but I was young and stupid.”
He went on to tell her the whole story about how Daniels duped him, how he had trusted the old man and had been made a fool. He even told her about North’s involvement and how Daniels had blackmailed him into stealing from her by threatening to reveal what he knew about North. He knew now that Moira would not repeat the information to anyone. She would not do that to Octavia. Regardless, at this moment being honest with her was more important than North or Octavia.
“So that was the reason for my behavior at Bow Street,” he concluded. “I am sorry for putting you in an embarrassing situation, but I could not let Reed know the truth for North’s sake.”
“Of course,” she replied softly, but he had no idea if she meant it or not. “Thank you for telling me. I believe I understand your motives better now. I do wish you had shared this information before, however. It would have spared a lot of pain.”
Did she refer to Nathaniel or to herself? Did she blame him for her friend’s injuries? She had to know he would have prevented it if he could have. He would have taken that beating himself to spare her any more pain.
“You have your tiara back; surely that must be worth some
thing.” He cringed at his own words. Christ, that was quite possibly the worst thing he could have said at this moment.
The expression on her face told him it wasn’t worth much at all. “Actually, I do not. I gave it away.”
“You what?” He could not have heard her properly, had he?
She made a great show of straightening her skirts, as though she couldn’t bear to face his disbelief. “I gave it away.”
He was practically choking on suspiciousness. After all the effort he went through to make certain she got the tiara back…“To whom?”
Still she did not look at him. “That is none of your concern.”
“The hell it isn’t!” So much for this being a dignified, calm conversation. “I risked my life to reclaim that damn thing for you.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “Did you? I rather thought you reclaimed it for yourself, to save your own skin. Or perhaps you would rather I say North’s skin.”
“Neither.” He gritted his teeth. He had bared his soul to this woman, revealed the folly of the past, and she reacted with no more emotion than if he had told her what he had for breakfast that morning. “It was for you.”
Moira folded her hands in her lap like a prim and proper schoolmistress. He wanted to believe it was because they were trembling, but there was nothing at all in her looks or demeanor that would give him cause to believe that. “Well thank you, but if you had taken the time to discuss it with me, you would have found out that you needn’t have bothered.”
“I thought it meant something to you.” Everyone thought it meant something to her. Sweet Jesus, that was one of the reasons he felt so awful taking it!
“It did.” She might have smiled if she hadn’t been talking
to him, he could see it in her face. “It was a lovely gift from my husband, but it was not worth the trouble and pain it brought down upon those dear to me. It was not worth Nathaniel being hurt. It now belongs to someone who cares about it a great deal more than I ever did.”
Understanding washed over him, mixing with the disbelief that flooded his mind. If it were anyone else he wouldn’t think it possible, but he knew better than to put anything past Moira. The tiara now belonged to the person who had wanted it so badly in the first place—badly enough to hire someone to steal it. “Aubourn. You gave it to the new viscount.”
She didn’t confirm his suspicion. She didn’t have to. One look at her and he knew the answer.
“So Daniels was telling the truth when he named Aubourn as his benefactor.” And to think he had believed it was just another of the old man’s lies.
He stared her down until she blushed and nodded. “Yes.”
His fist came down on the arm of the chair so hard, he felt the reverberation all the way to his shoulder. “That son of a bitch!”
“What right do you have to judge him?” Her gaze was sharp as it pinned him to the chair. “You have no right at all.”
What?
“So, you pity him, but not me?” He could not keep from sneering at her strange sense of loyalty. “He is responsible for this whole debacle.”
Her chin came up defiantly. “Not all of it.”
No, the rest of it was probably his fault, even though he had been as much a victim in some respects as she had. “So you do not blame him for the attack on Nathaniel?”
“No. He told me he had nothing to do with that and I believed him. And I told him he could have the tiara.”
“Of course you did.” Mocking her probably wasn’t the best course of action either. “It is not as though he would lie to you.”
A deep flush rose up her throat to darken her face. “Not everyone has to lie and use people to get what they want.”
He ignored that barb. “He certainly wasn’t honest, was he?” He wasn’t about to let her act like Aubourn was some hapless pawn after all his greed had put them both through. “You said yourself, he could have simply asked you for the frigging tiara.”
She flushed even darker. Whether it was due to his language or having her own words thrown back at her, he wasn’t certain. She did not back down from him, however. She wouldn’t be the woman he thought she was if she did.
“Leander suffered under the mistaken notion that I would never give the tiara up because Tony and I seemed to adore each other so.”
“So he decided to steal it? That’s sweet.”
Moira’s hazel eyes narrowed at his sarcasm. “He knows it was wrong. He tried to terminate his agreement with Daniels, but Daniels would not allow it. Leander never meant for anyone to be hurt, and he knew nothing of the violence against Nathaniel.”
It could be true. Daniels never did like being told what to do, but it burned that she so readily believed Aubourn and not him. He hadn’t even made an agreement with Daniels—not without coercion—and yet she absolved Aubourn of everything. Was she insane? The man had hired someone to steal from her. At least Wynthrope had been blackmailed into betraying her. The viscount had no such excuse.
What was it that made him so much harder to forgive than Leander Tyndale? Was it because Wynthrope had shared her bed? Or because Moira had deeper feelings for him than he dared hope?
Or maybe it was just that her pride had been bruised. She felt used and discarded, and that never sat well with a woman.
“You were not so understanding when you saw that I had my throat cut when I tried to refuse Daniels.”
She recoiled as though he had struck her. “I gave you the tiara. Even though you lied to me and used me, I gave you what you wanted so you would not get hurt again.”
“And to protect yourself, Minerva, and Nathaniel,” he reminded her. Why was he being such an ass? Surely he wasn’t jealous of a girl and a fop, was he?
She rose from her chair, and he did as well, uncertain of what her next move might be. She marched right up to him, sticking a trembling finger in his face. “I would have given you that godforsaken bit of shine long ago if you had only been honest with me. If you had come to me and told me about Daniels I would have given it to you without question, but you did not trust me.”
Shite, were those tears in her eyes? “Of course not! We hadn’t known each other that long.”
“But we certainly got to know one another, didn’t we?” Her voice was thick with pain. “And still you kept it from me.”
Yes, he had been wrong, but why did she keep going on about it? What did she want from him? “Don’t lecture me about secrets, Moira.”
“Don’t you dare compare, Wynthrope.” There was a tremor of rage and deep emotion in her voice. “And in case you have forgotten, I did trust you with my secret. And look what it got me. Made a fool of.”
He understood that feeling. Had he not confessed just as much to her minutes earlier? “Is that why you are so angry? Because you are embarrassed? That’s the one thing that is different between me and your dear Leander. He didn’t wound your pride. I did.”
“Of course you wounded me, you cur!” The flat of her hands slammed against his chest, knocking him backward but not off balance. “You made me believe you cared about
me. You made me believe I could trust you, and then you proved just how little I could trust you, and how very little you trusted me.”
“I couldn’t trust you not to try to help me in some way.” Damn it, hadn’t they been through this already?
“Of course I would have tried to help you, but not in a way that would have put you or anyone else in danger. I would have given you the tiara, and all of this might have been avoided. Nathaniel would not have been hurt. You would not have been hurt.” There was such rawness in her gaze, he could scarcely stand to look at it.
“That is easy for you to say that now.” As easy as it was for him to see that she was right, that he should have been honest from the beginning.
“
I
would not have been hurt.” The words were practically ground out.
His throat was so tight no words could come out, even if he had known how to reply.
“It is easy for me to say those things because they are the truth. I trust the people I care about, Wynthrope.” How wary and resigned she now sounded. “Even though I did not know you that well, I had already begun to care for you, and even if that was not the case, I would have helped you regardless because you are Octavia’s family.”
“Why?” It was nonsense to say such things. No one should be foolish enough to trust a stranger. He knew that all too well. “How could you have known you could trust me?”
“I couldn’t,” she admitted. “But it is a chance I would have taken. You do not understand that, do you?”
“No.” What did she think he was, a total simpleton? “People can get hurt when I take such chances.”
She actually looked sorry for him, as though he were the one with the foolish notions and not her. “No. People got hurt because you didn’t take the chance. The only person
who can get hurt by taking a chance is you, and I believe that is what you really fear.”
He scowled. “That’s a load of rot.”
“It is not.” She was like a dog with a bone, this one. “You are afraid to trust because you think you will be hurt, or worse yet that you might hurt someone else. Well, I am sorry to enlighten you, Wynthrope, but you do more danger to yourself and others when you do not trust at all.”
“You do not understand.” And she probably never would. The idea made him both angry and sad. How could they ever possibly have a future when neither could make sense of what the other was saying?
“I understand that you did something foolish when you were very young. Do you think you are the only person to ever make that mistake? I married a man who could never love me just to get away from my parents. How foolish was that?”
“Fine.” His jaw was tight. “You want to know the real reason I didn’t tell you about my past?”
“I would love to.” Had she always been this caustic, or had she picked it up from him?
“You are right. I was afraid. I was afraid of what would happen when you found out. I was afraid you would not understand. I was afraid of losing you.”