“You’re a perverted reprobate,” his attacker sneered.
He tried once more to rise. There was no doubt he’d rather collapse back into a drunken slumber, but through the degrading sickness, his body prickled with stark unease. It was like a second sense, and it had saved his life many a time before.
A movement in the shadows alerted him to a second man’s presence. This silent enemy moved across the floor to throw the curtains wide. Sunlight bounced off mirrors positioned strategically around the room, stabbing at Christian’s eyes like a sharp hunting knife. Christian put his hand up to ward off the sun’s blows.
The presence of the men in his room indicated he didn’t have the luxury of being able to lie down and resume his sleep. So much for drink-inspired oblivion. He’d not endured two years on the battlefield of France to die in a brothel in his own country. Clutching the sheet to his body, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and attempted to lever himself up, gritting his teeth against the hammering in his brain.
He clamped down on his rising panic. Panic did not serve anyone. Fear was the enemy. He’d learned that many times on the battlefield.
“You’ll pay for what you have done.” The second man’s voice indicated he liked to smoke—it was thick and gravelly. Like smoke, his anger was barely contained.
Christian’s throat constricted, as if the proverbial noose were tightening around his neck. He didn’t need a sword under his chin to understand that these men were serious.
His mind quickly evaluated the likely avenues of escape. The windows were the closest options. Although the room was on the second story, if he jumped, he could land safely on the hedgerow beneath. Alternatively, the bedchamber door was wide open, so if he could slip past both men, he could make it down the servants’ stairs.
He
was
still at the brothel. The Honey Pot was high-class, and even though he’d been a frequent customer there since his return from the war, he had never, ever slept here.
He rubbed the back of his neck. What had happened last night?
Anger cleared the fog clinging to his brain, but only for a second. He ruthlessly clamped down on his temper. Anger was a weakness. When consumed by anger, men lost control. As a child he’d watched his father repeatedly lose control. His father’s rages turned him into a man Christian did not recognize, and as a boy he’d suffered from the consequences. Besides, it led men to make impulsive decisions, and he was anything but impulsive. “Other than taking a little pleasure in this miserable world, what exactly do you—” He paused. “—
gentlemen
think I have done?”
“Pleasure? Pleasure?” The sword finally swung away as the man’s anger overcame him, and he gestured wildly. “
Pleasure?
You brought a young, innocent girl here—here!—and defiled her,” he bellowed.
Christian’s fists clenched the sheets. His voice held steady, his tone even. “I beg your pardon. Brought a girl here . . . ? I did no such thing. I’ll call out any man who utters such scandalous allegations.” But because he was not stupid, Christian felt his world slipping out from underneath him.
He’d changed at Waterloo, and not just physically. The puckered, reddened flesh of his neck, upper right arm, and torso was a constant reminder to him, and everyone else, that he was no longer the man he once was. The ugly burns on the right side of his face twisted his mouth and eye, making him a monster. But it was his inner soul that had changed the most. He’d grown sick of the pain, the pity, and the nightmares. At first, the laudanum he took was a necessity due to the agony of his burns. Now he used the drug not to only dull the lingering pain of his wounds but also to soothe his inner torment. The memories of the flames peeling his skin haunted him still. . . .
He’d been weaning himself off the opiate gradually—had he overindulged last night? He swore under his breath. Why couldn’t he remember?
He wiped a hand over his eyes, attempting to clear their drunken haze and get a clear view of his accusers. Christian swallowed back more bile. He was in trouble—the man before him was none other than the Duke of Barforte, with sword drawn. Looking past the Duke, Christian noted that the Duke’s eldest son, Simon—an acquaintance more than a friend—was the second man in the room. His sword was also drawn. Simon’s pale blue eyes looked at him with a coldness that made his insides recoil.
Barforte moved back to the bed. “We shall see the proof!” He pulled the sheets away from Christian’s disfigured body. “She’s marked you,” he said, gesturing down at Christian’s naked body, “with the blood of her innocence.”
Christian knew before looking upon his nakedness what he would see. But still he had to look. He glanced down past his horrific scars, and the bile he’d earlier kept down rose again and entered his mouth.
Blood. Dried traces of blood.
Snippets from last night suddenly flooded into his head. Vivid images, erotic images that turned into confusion. He’d paid for a woman to come to his bed—Carla. Had there been more than one?
Christian gulped air into his tightening chest.
Yes, he’d drunk a lot last night. But he would have sworn he’d not taken laudanum. He had drunk enough to ignore the look of revulsion on his paid companion’s face. Before Waterloo, although brandy used to leave him slightly befuddled, he’d always remembered where he was and, most important, who he was with. The fight against Napoleon had ensured that he learned to keep his wits about him at all times. Then he’d been badly burned. Now he seldom remembered what day it was.
He ran a hand over his mouth.
Think!
He turned toward the two men and summoned to his face a calmness that his rollicking insides did not feel. “Gentlemen, I think there has been some kind of grievous mistake.”
“Mistake? Everyone saw my daughter leave the Duchess of Skye’s ball in your carriage!”
Real fear clawed at his chest, but he stayed calm. “Grayson Devlin, Viscount Blackwood, took my carriage last night. I walked and hailed a hackney.”
This was absurd. He had never even met young Harriet Penfold, the Duke’s only daughter. He did not attend balls any longer. A man whose face sent children running from the room was an object of pity and embarrassment at such events.
He tried to stand up, but the Duke pushed him back down. Christian repeated his denial, snapping, “I did not bring Lady Penfold here.”
“The state my daughter was in, I could get very little out of her except your name.”
“It was not me. She is mistaken.”
Think, damn it
. Why would a chit he’d never met accuse him of such a crime? She couldn’t possibly be trying to trap him into matrimony.
The cold spread and coated his skin. Could he have done this heinous act during one of his blackouts? Could she have gotten into his bed, and then, in the throes of one of his nightmares, had he . . . ?
He shook his head. The dense fog on his brain would not clear.
Simon spoke, his voice razor sharp, slashing at Christian’s already fragile conscience. “Now she’s a liar too. I would never have thought a man of your honor could do such a thing.” He coughed. “But I know of your condition. If not for that, and the fact you saved my brother William’s life on the battlefield at Waterloo, you’d be dead by now.”
The Duke didn’t look as if that counted for anything. “Pah! Previous heroics be damned.” He spat on the floor. “His father’s blood flows in his veins. I’m going to see you ruined. If I didn’t have to save Harriet’s reputation, I’d have you hung, drawn, and quartered. My daughter is hysterical, covered in bruises and cuts where you beat her, and is so traumatized she cannot be left alone.” He was purple with rage. “Like father, like son.”
Christian flinched under the low blow. He was not like his cowardly father. He’d proved it on the battlefield. Blood was not thicker than water. He would never hit or hurt a woman. Or would he?
He thought of the French woman who’d so casually set fire to the cart he had been trapped under, happy to watch his skin burn, and he knew, to his horror, this was no longer true.
To survive, he would. He’d do anything.
But could he have done such a vile act now that he was safe and the war was over? His mouth dried even further. In one of his blackouts, perhaps he would.
Fear, stinking fear, slid over his nakedness.
It seemed illogical that he’d been set up. He couldn’t for the life of him understand why anyone would go to such elaborate lengths to discredit him. He was nothing, a nobody. His injuries had made him a recluse from society. He was the decorated war hero everyone pitied and no one wanted to look at. They admired his sacrifice for mother England, but they did not want the constant reminder of it.
His stomach churned. He hated the pity. The flinching when people saw his face he could take. He flinched at himself too, hence his aversion to mirrors. But pity . . .
Simon voiced the question swirling in Christian’s mind. “Would you have us believe someone has impersonated you? Why would this occur? Stop denying the changes in you since Waterloo, and do the honorable thing. Leave England, or I cannot say what my father will do to you.”
Simon was right. Christian had no enemies that he knew of, and prior to the war he’d been one of the popular, lovable group of rogues known as the Libertine Scholars.
He and five of his friends had attended Eton together, and they’d taken to books and learning, drawn together by a desire to use their brains for more than just sport and whoring—not that they hadn’t partaken of their fair share of those, and then some more. So much so, they’d earned the nickname of the Libertine Scholars, sin and learning being a wickedly exuberant combination.
Those happy and enjoyable days now seemed a distant memory.
Christian ran a hand through his hair and licked his cracked lips. “Could you pass me the water jug—please?” he asked, stalling for time so that he could try to make sense of what he was hearing.
“Bloody cheek,” said the Duke, but Simon passed him a glass of water.
“I’d never do this.” He stared hard into Simon’s eyes and saw a shadow of doubt flickering in their uneasy depths. “I’d never hurt your sister. I abhorred my father’s behavior. I am nothing like him.”
“Perhaps you committed this terrible atrocity because of everything you’ve suffered. Perhaps it has unhinged your mind.” Simon could not hold his gaze. “I think it best if you leave England. And don’t ever come back.”
“I’m not running. I did not—I could not have done this.” But his voice lacked conviction.
“You know you have not been yourself since Waterloo. Grayson—Lord Blackwood—tells me the blackouts have been getting worse. Can you honestly tell me you remember everything about last night?”
Grayson. Grayson was the only reason Christian was still alive.
Damaged, but alive. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
He shook his head. “No. On my honor, I cannot categorically state I remember everything about last evening. But surely the ladies of the house will vouch for me.”
“We cannot find a woman among them who shared your bed last night. The madam didn’t even know you were here.”
This was getting ridiculous. Christian ran a hand over his face. God, he was tired. Since Waterloo he couldn’t remember when he’d last had a proper night’s sleep. His nightmares made sleeping next to impossible.
Every time he closed his eyes he felt the searing heat melting his skin and the horrifying smell of his impending death. The unbearable pain . . .
He sucked a steadying breath deep into his lungs.
The madam
did
know he was here. Christian was the Honey Pot’s most consistent customer. What woman in her right mind would want to touch him unless paid to do so?
Christian stood and began pulling on his breeches. “I paid for a woman to come to my bed—I do remember that. Something is amiss. I remember that the woman seemed very cheap. Usually I have to pay over the odds.”
Simon had the gall to look at him with pity. “You don’t remember bringing Harriet here?”
“God damn it, I did not bring your sister here. I walked here. I remember because I noticed the chill.” Christian suddenly halted in his dressing. “Maybe this has something to do with Harriet. Maybe someone is trying to discredit her, not me.” He swallowed. “If that is the case and I have been used as a tool for vengeance, then I will of course do the honorable thing and offer my hand in marriage to save her reputation.”
The room fell silent, and the Duke’s fists clenched by his side, his face flaring red with rage.
Holy hell, he’d said the wrong thing.
“So that’s what this has been about. You can’t get any gently bred woman to marry you, so you resort to dishonor in order to trap my only daughter.” The sword was back at his throat. “I should slit your throat from ear to ear.”
Christian looked toward Simon for understanding, but the coldness had returned to Simon’s eyes.
“You think I’d let Harriet marry you now? She’s so traumatized she can’t even say your name without shuddering.
You
marry her? Why, I’d sooner marry her to a leper.” The sword pressed into Christian’s neck. “No. I have a more fitting punishment in mind for you. With you out of the way, this incident never occurred. I’ll protect my daughter from disgrace and ensure Harriet marries a man befitting her station.”
Christian’s muscles tensed; the Duke wanted him dead. But he hadn’t survived months of agony to die at the end of a sword held by one of his own countrymen. Through lowered eyelids he appraised his chances of making it to the door. He’d learned that when the odds were stacked against him, it was far wiser to retreat, regroup, and live to fight another day.
He assessed the room, and a plan began to emerge in his mind. If Simon would just move away from the door, toward the windows, he could make it past the Duke. He might be scarred, but he was healthy and strong, something that many of his contemporaries overlooked.
He feigned a move toward the window, and Simon, seeing that his father’s sword had the door covered, moved to block that avenue of escape—perfect!