Pearl on Cherry (36 page)

He hoped the same. For now—he only saw the gray cloud of shame his father left over his head.

And it was a big fucking cloud.

Chapter 19

Clarissa napped with her head on William’s shoulder as they sat and waited for the boat.

He had hand-fed her entirely too much at breakfast.

But the meal was sumptuous, and he was doting on her like it was his great pleasure and nothing could stop him.

He would check his pocket watch every few moments, glare at it and then go back to peppering her with kisses and stuffing her full of food.

She was so engrossed by him, she wondered after they’d departed if they’d been entirely appropriate.

It was very obvious they were lovers.

But she couldn’t help it. With each touch, she was absorbed into his world a little more and could see little else but him.

Her inner forearm tingled as he kept stroking it while they waited for passage onto the ship.

The seat was slightly uncomfortable, but William more than made up for it by making her cozy and warm.

It was a rather chilly day, and it snowed quite a bit last night.

She hummed, half asleep. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and for some odd reason, stiffened at her side.

Someone was approaching them, but many people had passed through here over the last hour, and it failed to bring this type of response from him before.

She glanced up at his eyes, searching his face.

His jaw twitched and tightened while his eyes held this fierceness that almost frightened her.

The newcomer stopped, and William stood directly in front of her, blocking her view.

“We have nothing to say to you,” William said, his tone terse.

“This is most welcome news. Perhaps for once, you’ll listen instead of barking about how you’re not the worst son known to man,” came the curt reply.

She bent to the side, trying to peek, but William spread out, his hand in front of her face, keeping her from seeing. She might as well have had that damned blindfold back on for all the good it did her, seated here and unable to view what was obviously his father.

“This is the girl you mean to protect from me? Why cover her up? I’ve met with her before, only her listening skills are worse than yours.” His father laughed. “You’ve found a way to fool her—apparently your acting skills have improved.” He snorted.

“Feel free to leave at any moment—we plan to board our ship very soon,” William said, his shoulders broader than she’d ever seen them.

She gripped his hips from behind and leveraged herself up to standing.

His hands flew back and stabilized her, then kept her in place so she couldn’t budge.

“William. You cannot hide her from me. Whether she sees me or not, I intend to speak to her. She did not afford me the opportunity to tell her what you really are when last we met.” His father shifted to the left so she could see him.

He wore the ugliest scowl she’d ever seen. “I have no wish to hear your false claims against this wonderful man I love dearly,” she told the brute known as William’s parent.

“You love him to your soul’s destruction. He rips women to shreds, then tosses them aside like a soiled rag. His mother left because of him,” his father sneered.

“She left because you were never once faithful to her, and she could not abide the sight of you any further. I don’t blame her for leaving us both behind, though I was but a small child. You made her miserable, and the way you flaunted your whores in front of her was nothing short of reprehensible,” William said so low and quiet, she wondered if his father heard him.

“Your memory is painted the way you wish it to be. You were too young to remember anything clearly at all,” his father responded, glaring at him.

William stepped back, trapping her against the bench they had waited on. “I remember plenty, and the servants recalled in great detail the way you treated her.”

“Then it’s my fault you turned out as you did? You pretend you copied my evil example, but I wasn’t bedding the maid. I’m not the one that got her with child, then turned on her in a moment’s notice. I caught you. You had beaten her. There were stripes across her backside and thighs. You did that!” His father’s showered him with spittle.

William wiped his face dry with a hanky, then shoved it back into his pocket. Her heart was pounding, and she gripped his shoulders now for support.

“She asked me to do that to her. She taught me how. I did not harm her. How many times have I told you this?”

“Enough I can see straight through you to observe the blackness in your heart. I’ve heard about you and your prostitutes and how you tie them to furniture, to trees in your garden and beat them—giving them your money as if this could compensate for your cruel treatment of them. Is this what brings you happiness?” His father threw his hands up in the air and took two steps closer. “I should have had you hung when I caught you with your cock unbound and inside poor Sophie’s ass. She was forced. No woman lets a man put himself up their backside for pleasure. Your lies disgust me!” He leaned in. “I paid her to leave, and I sent her to a doctor to get rid of the baby you put inside her!”

“It wasn’t my child.” William whimpered for a moment. “She tricked me. But of course you never believed that either. She was having carnal relations with both your butler
and
your driver. She was a wanton woman, but I didn’t know. How I could have? I was only eighteen.”

Her heart lodged in her throat. “Oh God—you threw him out, didn’t you?” she cried out, pointing at this true couillon before her. “You are the worst parent imaginable. He was bleeding inside, broken, and you chose to believe he was capable of . . . o-of . . .” She shook her head, unable to complete the sentence.

William turned around and faced her. “I found Sophie after he cast me aside. I gave her money, tried to help her, but it was too late. She tried to abort the baby herself, and she bled out. She died as I was carrying her in my arms to the doctor.”

“Oh, sweet man, I am so sorry.” She cupped his jaw. “Of course you tried to help her.”

William’s eyes glistened with tears, and his face contorted in anguish, his lips trembling. “I did. I really did, but I was too slow. I was hungry, and Father had struck me in the face, causing me to fall backward and twist my ankle. I could barely walk.” His eyes scrunched and reflected absolute pain and degradation as tears rolled down his cheeks. “Please believe me—you must believe. I tried. I didn’t know . . . I . . . I didn’t know.” His voice cracked and almost went hoarse as it went up in pitch with a panicked tone.

“I
do
believe you.” She leaned in to kiss him, but his father yanked him back and had him in a stranglehold, up against a solid concrete column.

“You won’t find your mother in France. Genevieve’s not there. I got rid of her!” his father bellowed in his face.

She smacked at the man who was smaller than William, but so full of rage and bitterness that it made him seem inhuman with his strength.

William bucked and kicked wildly, and it was clear he was trying not to hurt his father but merely get away.

Clarissa yelled for help, but no one was around.

She ran over to the bag William had been a little overly protective of and jammed it into his father’s back as hard as she could.

The edge hit with a sharp cracking noise into his spine, and he crumpled to the ground.

She pounded the bag over and over into his gut, screaming as loud as she could, “I love it when William ties me up, when he whips me, spanks me and takes me in the ass. And I’m a good girl. I’m not some trashy harlot. Will you ever see how beautiful and innocent your son is?
Will
you?” She spit on him as he rolled into a ball on his side.

She kicked him in the behind and was about to do it even harder when William wrenched her away.

He tucked her up in his arms, hauled her off and whispered, “Shhh . . . It’s all right. No more. He’s down. He can’t hurt us now.”

She sobbed, and her chest caved in with each powerful exhale. “I hate that man and all he stands for!”

“I know, sweetheart. I know . . .”

“This is what you were hiding from me?” Her eyes shot to his face filled with dread. “You thought I’d believe like he did that you were the monstrous wretch in all this? That you harmed that woman who tricked you?”

He nodded, but barely.

“Never, William.
Never
. I
know
you—and you could never. Oh God! The pain you’ve been through.” She wept in his arms, clinging tight to him.

It was like she had been lashed open by something stronger than a whip, and it stung. Her insides throbbed with a piercing pain.

How had he endured this harsh treatment from his father for so long?

It was unthinkable that he could even keep from breaking his father’s bones to bits, since clearly William was capable of doing that. She’d seen him do it now with both Miller and Tyrone.

Yet he refrained when he had the opportunity to bust his father in half and leave him broken and bleeding.

“Do you still want to be with me in France?” he asked, his voice soft and shaky.

“No. I’m sorry, but I need the familiarity and comfort of your bed. We can go there after we wed. It can be your surprise to me.” She caught her breath and wiped her tears away.

“But I want to share my heritage with you. It’s where my mother’s from,” he said softly, cupping her cheek, absorbing what was left of her tears with his hands.

“I will. I want to know all of you, but right now, I need you. I need our home. Is that all right?”

He smiled with a warmth in his eyes that melted her heart. “Yes, my lovely one. That would be quite all right indeed.”

He took her by the waist, brought her back over to his bag that had spilled open at some point.

Or maybe it had been emptied by his father, because that dratted man was gone, and on the ground lay ropes, skimpy, silky panties William had no doubt created—with matching lacy brassieres.

Just seeing his art strewn about carelessly made her cry even harder.

“Oh God—he saw, and he’ll tell,” she said, pointing at the mess William was gathering.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll give him what he wants—he can have the rail station. We’ll find another way to get my shipments in from France so I can keep on making these for you.” He picked up a delicate pink satin sash with a few pink pearls on it and dropped it in the bag. “That’s what I’ve been having Elizabeth do for me that has kept her so busy. She and Samuel have been trying to find alternative ways for me to have my items shipped.”

She crouched down, helped him scoop up the remainder and like a bedraggled rat, she shuffled back out to his motorcar with her mind racing.

On the drive home, he spilled out all his dirty secrets and held her hand tightly to his thigh.

“After Sophie passed away, I drank. A lot. I boxed, too. I wanted to end myself, but I was too cowardly to take a pistol to my temple, so I took it out on others. The Vanderbilts’ oldest son took me in. He helped me out when he found me passed out, drunk on the street one night. He sobered me up right away by telling me what I already knew—I was stronger than this. Had to be. My mother wouldn’t want to see me this way.”

Her eyes went wide. “What happened? What did you do?”

“First let me tell you why I wanted to break bones. My father got physically violent with me and from that day on, whenever I hit another man, I pictured my father’s face. I imagined each bone I broke on his body was for my mother. Like those bones would add up and be enough to bring her back home. A reckoning of sorts.”

“My poor sweet man,” she said, squeezing his hand.

“It helped in an odd way. It helped me to let go after a while, but it was never enough. I just wanted a woman to look at me like I mattered. Like they wanted to be with me, and I wanted that feeling to go away.”

“What feeling?” She scooted closer.

“That feeling of being discarded—of being walked away from. Of being less than nothing.” His eyes glazed over, and he sounded far away.

“Oh my Lord—so when I run,
you
chasing me is the hardest thing in the world for you to do.” The realization hit her in the chest so hard, she could barely breathe. She placed her hands over her heart, bracing herself, trying to subdue the throbbing ache somehow.

What she had put this dear man through unknowingly! Why hadn’t he said something?

He sucked in his bottom lip for a second, pressed them together and his brow scrunched.

“Please tell me—does it almost break you to come after me when I run?” She was barely louder than a whisper.

He released his lips with a shuddering, sobbing sigh. “Yes, sweetheart, it does. It about decimates me each time you do it, but you’re worth it. And when you said you went after my father and the aggressor against Pauline—I thought for certain I’d cease to exist.”

“I am beyond sorry.” She was sick with herself, nauseated over what she’d done. How could he even look at her? She wanted to slide into his lap, stroke his body, worship him and pour out nothing but love on him as a sort of balm on his wounds. “How can I ever make amends?” Her fingers slid down her chest to her belly that was now roiling.