Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (25 page)

An odd, garbled kind of laugh seemed to work its way up Geoffrey’s throat and lodge there. She jerked her gaze up and found that mocking sneer on his lips. “Oh?”

Just that one derisive utterance; a clear indication that nothing she said next would matter, but still, she’d not leave until she’d said it all.

Abigail thought to the great many arguments that had ensued over the suitability of Alexander as a match. “He was the illegitimate son of a powerful and wealthy barrister from Connecticut. It didn’t matter,” Abigail said quietly. It had never mattered. Oh, it had to Mama and Papa but not to her. “My parents claimed he merely sought the wealth that marriage to me would bring.” All the burning resentment she’d carried for so long had gone, instead replaced by recognition with the decisions she’d made. “It turned out my mother and father were indeed, correct. Alexander had planned it all. We were attending a soiree at one of the homes of a leading member of society. Alexander lured me to the host’s library and fool that I was, I went.”

She could and would forever regret her personal folly, but she now accepted her own culpability in that one, great mistake. As a woman, she’d made the choice to follow Alexander. “We were…” She felt herself coloring. “Discovered,” she finished lamely.

Geoffrey’s already taut body, stiffened. A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye.

She rushed to have the whole of the story told. “My father threatened to cut me off without a penny. I didn’t care. But Alexander did.” Even now she wondered if the threat leveled by her father had been real. As a child, and until she’d been discovered in Alexander’s arms she had thought her father loved her with an unconditional love…after that moment, she’d begun to doubt the depth of that love.

Abigail took a step toward Geoffrey. She held her palms up. “I thought my heart died that night, Geoffrey. I hated my parents for forcing me to give up my family, forcing me across the sea.” She managed a tremulous smile and took another step until only the space of a palm separated them. “But then I met you, Geoffrey. And it all became clear. If there had been no Alexander and no scandal and no rejection by my parents,” she lifted her eyes to his. “There would be no us.” She raised her hand to his cheek. “And that would be the greatest tragedy. I love you.”

***

Geoffrey stiffened at the feel of Abigail’s satiny smooth palm upon his cheek. His eyes closed.

He didn’t want her story to matter. He didn’t want to care that there had been another man who’d teased her, and showered her with pretty compliments and bouquets of flowers. He didn’t want to care that she’d lain with that nameless man, and given him the gift all ladies were supposed to cherish.

Except the nameless man now had a name.

Alexander Powers.

Geoffrey didn’t want to care.

But he did…and he hated himself for it.

I love you.

He stared unblinking, gaze fixed upon her long, elegant fingers. Then, found the strength to close his fingers around her wrist and remove her hand from his person. From the moment he’d met Abigail, she had lied to him. He’d laid himself bare before her and shared every, agonizing bit of Emma’s betrayal, his father’s death, and yet deceived him with her silence, not sharing the guarded secrets she carried. She’d made him care for her…he winced, no,
love her
, and how had she repaid that love?

By opening him up to Society’s censure. What a bloody fool he must seem? He’d courted her with the most honorable of intentions. He did so against his own better judgment, against his own mother’s adamant protestations. Once again, he’d allowed his selfish desires to supersede responsibility.

Geoffrey released her.

“Tell me, madam,” he said, arching a brow. “Did you have any intentions of telling me of your,” he ran his eyes over her person, “lack of virtue.” She jerked as though he’d physically struck her. Guilt stabbed at him, but he shoved it aside, embracing instead the pain of her betrayal.

Her regret merely stemmed from the fact that he’d discovered her duplicity. “Come, no answer, Miss Stone? Would you have waited until our wedding night for me to discover your secret?”

Her eyes flared wide. She held her hand extended up, toward him. “Wedding?”

A sharp, ugly chuckle escaped him. “What intentions did you expect of a gentleman courting the Duke of Somerset’s niece?”

She wet her lips, and lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “I did not allow myself to dare dream of marriage to you, Geoffrey.” Her eyes bled agony.

For all that had transpired last evening at Lady Ainsworth’s soiree, the sight of Abigail’s suffering threatened to shatter him. He stretched a hand out, and then remembered himself. With a ragged sigh, Geoffrey stepped away from her. He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes. God help him for being the same, weak, reckless fool he’d always been.

Abigail’s face shifted, and in his mind became another. A long-buried memory resurfaced; Emma’s harsh laugh as she’d at last confessed the truth to him. Geoffrey hadn’t mattered to her. He’d merely been a wealthy, titled gentleman who could give her unborn babe a name. He blinked back the remembrance and steeled his heart. He’d not be fooled. Not again.

He clapped his hands, slowly, and rhythmically. “Brava, madam, your false innocence could rival the greatest Covent Garden actresses.”

Her midnight black brows stitched into a single, mutinous line. “I’ve not lied to you.”

“A lie by omission is still a lie.”

She snapped her mouth closed, and glanced to a point beyond his shoulder. “There is nothing I can say,” she said softly, as though she were speaking more to herself. Then she squared her shoulders, and tossed her chin up; even with her hair hanging in long, limp strands about her person, she had the regal elegance to rival a queen. “Tell me what I can say to make you understand. Tell me what you’d have me do?”

She stood there, chest heaving up and down, her eyes imploring. Ahh god, even with her betrayal, the sight of her suffering hit him like the edge of a steely dagger being plunged into his gut.

He spun around, and stared at the wood panels of the door, unable to confront the sight of her. Because he was so very close to capitulating, and saying to hell with all her treachery.

He could not do that. Not again.

Thunder rumbled in the night sky, and shook the door…a reminder of the sins of his past, of the selfish man he’d been who’d put a woman before his father. The muscles in Geoffrey’s stomach tensed. His father had paid the ultimate price for Geoffrey’s desires.

“Madam, there is nothing you can say.” Nothing that would take away the dull ache that throbbed inside his heart.

And before he did something foolish like take her in his arms and throw aside his pride and honor, Geoffrey jerked the door open.

Sheets of rain slanted down sideways and pounded upon the marble floor.

“Geoffrey, please,” she begged.

He gritted his teeth so hard, pain radiated along his jawline. “I am the Viscount Redbrooke and you no longer have leave to use my Christian name.”

A spasm of grief contorted Abigail’s face, and he gripped the sides of the door, embracing the bite of the rain upon his cheeks. He silently cursed himself a thousand times a bastard. Even now, he couldn’t bear the sight of her anguish…and that it was at his hand…

She gave a jerky nod, and walked the remaining distance to the front door, with the kind of regal carriage that could rival a queen. “I’ve reconciled the shame and sins of my past. You’re no different than everyone who has judged me and found me wanting, Geoff…my lord.” She stopped so that her slippers touched the tips of his toes. She leaned up close, and her breath fanned his cheeks, the warmth of her mint-scented breath drove back the chill inside him. “But I’m not unlike you. I loved and trusted…and was deceived.”

Geoffrey’s lips pulled back in a sneer. “We are nothing alike, madam. I am a respectable proper lord, and you…you are a fallen woman.” He motioned to the entrance of the doorway.

Abigail recoiled like he’d struck her across the face. “Very well,” she whispered, her voice hollow. “I needed to come, and now I-I k-know.” Her voice broke and he momentarily closed his eyes, and searched for the resolve to not capitulate and take her in his arms, but they were standing in the entrance of his home, and faced the threat of discovery.

He peered out into the raging storm. “Where is your carriage, Ab…Miss Stone?” She would always be Abigail.

Her lips twisted in a macabre rendition of a smile and she pulled the hood of her cloak back into place, obscuring the precious lines of her face. “You needn’t concern yourself with me, my lord.”

His jaw tightened. “Regardless, I’d see you to your arrangements home, madam.” She stiffened as he took her by the hand and guided her outside. The wind and rain whipped her thoroughly sopping cloak about his legs. Rain soaked his hair, and beads of water ran in steady rivulets down his forehead, into his eyes. Geoffrey and Abigail stopped in front of her hired hackney.

The misgivings of handing her up into the waiting carriage reared in his mind. “You’ve taken a hackney?” he shouted into the storm.

The driver pulled the door open.

“I could hardly take the duke’s carriage to your home,” she spat into the rain.

The driver made to hand her up, but Geoffrey tightened his grip about her wrist, keeping her at his side. “It is not safe for you.” Not on this night. Alone, with this driver. She’d deceived him, shattered his heart, but he’d not have any harm befall her.

Just then, a young servant scrambled down from the top of the carriage, a cap pulled low over his eyes. The young man’s livery revealed him to be of the duke’s staff. Lightning illuminated the sky; the flash of light displayed the protective fury in the servant’s eyes.

Abigail took advantage of Geoffrey’s distractedness. She tugged her hand free with such force she went reeling toward the street. Geoffrey’s heart lurched as she stumbled sideways, and tipped over the side of curb. Geoffrey reached out to steady her but the fabric of her muslin cloak slipped through his fingers. “Abby,” he shouted even as the driver reached out righted Abigail before she could fall.

She nodded her thanks, and allowed the man to hand her up into the carriage. Her eyes caught and held Geoffrey’s. “Rest assured, I’ll never again burden you with my presence. Good bye, my lord.”

Good bye, so much more permanent and all the more aching for its finality than good night. He took a step forward, but the driver closed the door.

From perched atop his seat alongside the driver, the young servant scrambled back up into his seat. He glared down at Geoffrey as though he’d sized him up and found him wanting. Geoffrey’s throat worked up and down.

Just then he found, he rather agreed with the young man…he didn’t much like himself.

Geoffrey stood there staring, long after the carriage disappeared from sight. The finality of Abigail’s departure from his life threatened to cleave him in two. He sucked in an agonized breath.

“Geoffrey, come inside!” His mother called from the gaping front door. “Geoffrey!” she called again. “Think of the scandal.”

He gave his head a shake, and numbly moved through the rain, strode up the stairs, and into the now soaking wet foyer. Geoffrey stared blankly down at the puddle Abigail had left upon his marble floor. The servants would come, they would dry away all remnants of rain and with it they would wipe away the remaining trace of her from his life.

“I am proud of you, Geoffrey,” his mother said quietly and then picked her way carefully around the wet floor and made her way back abovestairs.

Geoffrey stared down into that wet puddle. A boulder-like pressure weighted upon the spot where his heart had once beat.

At least one of them could be proud of his shameful behavior that evening.

A gentleman should make decisions that are clear, well-thought out, and not driven by emotion.

4
^th
Viscount Redbrooke

~24~

Abigail stared blankly out into the passing London streets. The grind of the carriage wheels against the pavement was swallowed by the pounding stream of rain, and the nearby rumble of thunder.

She tried to drag up the deserved indignation at Geoffrey’s self-righteous outrage but found herself wholly numbed. Abigail could not fault Geoffrey his feelings. Since their first meeting, she’d known him to be a man who valued propriety and honor above all else. Such a gentleman could never forgive her indiscretion.

And yet, knowing that, and accepting it did nothing to lessen the agonizing pain that ripped at her insides.

Abigail pressed her forehead against the carriage window, and closed her eyes. Because in her heart, she’d held onto the fragile thread of hope that mayhap she mattered more to him than even his sense of propriety. She had allowed herself to believe he would recognize she, like him, had been betrayed.

In the end, he’d likened her to the heartless woman who’d attempted to trap him into marriage.

She dropped the curtain and settled back into her seat, acknowledging the hideous, horrid truth—with her silence, she’d not been different than his Emma Marsh. Abigail had allowed Geoffrey to court her with the most honorable of intentions all the while, knowing, she could never be an acceptable match.

A bead of rain trickled down her cheek. Followed by another. She wiped it away but another drop swiftly replaced it. Then another. And another.

She started, realizing they were in fact tears.

Abigail sank the back of her head onto the hard squabs of the rented hack. Sharp laughter worked its way up her throat. After Alexander’s betrayal, she’d thought herself incapable of ever shedding another of the salty droplets. It turned out she’d been wrong.

Lightning lit a crisscross pattern across the sky, followed by a sharp crash.

She gasped as the carriage jolted sideways. It tipped on its side. The loud, frantic whinny of the horses broke through the fury of the storm.

She closed her eyes on a silent prayer as the conveyance seemed to right itself.