Always Proper, Suddenly Scandalous (30 page)

But she’d not loved him with a woman’s heart.

And she hated herself for it. Because he deserved far more than her.

“You deserve someone better than me, Alexander,” she said softly.

Alexander shook his head; a golden lock fell across his brow. He strode across the room and stopped at her feet. “Don’t you do that,” he bit out. “Don’t you dare, Abby.” His chest rose and fell with the force of his emotion. “I love you.”

Oh, God. For the wrong she’d inadvertently done him, he still would love her.

She closed her eyes.

“But you don’t love me.” That broken and pained whisper cut across the quiet. “The gentleman who left…” he said, those five words flat.

Geoffrey.

Her heart sped up. He’d been here in the room with Alexander, and had taken his leave. Surely with his great sense of propriety he would applaud her marriage to Alexander. Alexander’s presence had in a way, freed Geoffrey of any obligation he might feel toward her. “I…” She studied the tips of her slippers. She loved Geoffrey. Even with all that had come to pass between them.

“He doesn’t deserve you, Abby.”

A humorless laugh escaped her. “How can you believe that when I’ve betrayed you as I did?” Her duplicity, though unintentional, had hurt him, and for that, Abigail could never forgive herself.

He touched his hand to her bruised and swollen cheek. “Because I love you, Abby. And that is what you do when you love someone. You forgive them. Love is not logical.”

No. For if it were, she’d return to America under the mantle of Alexander’s affection and live out a comfortable life in the land that had been her only home, surrounded by her siblings. But Alexander deserved far more than that. “You are going to find a woman—”

He spoke, his words a hoarse please. “Don’t, Abby.”

“Who deserves you,” she continued. “And the time will come when you realize that she holds your love, and I’ll be nothing more than a dream of something that once was.”

Alexander’s throat moved up and down. “There will only be you.”

Abigail did not labor the point with him because not long ago, she’d been like him. She had believed herself shattered by his perfidy.

It had taken Geoffrey to show her the truth…that her heart hadn’t fully lived—until Geoffrey had entered her life.

Alexander raised her hand to his lips, and placed a kiss upon her knuckles. Then, with a long, elegant bow, he took his leave.

Abigail stood there long after he made his solemn exit. The fire crackled in the hearth; the embers popping and hissing loudly. In the span of mere hours, the entire foundation of her world had been shaken by the truth of her parent’s deceit, Geoffrey’s profession of love, Alexander’s reappearance in her life.

Her gaze snagged upon the forgotten items Geoffrey had brought with him.

Abigail angled her head, and studied the blooms of aconite and ivy. She wandered over and picked up the rain-dampened bouquet, and raised it to her nose, inhaling the sweet scent of the red bloom. She’d believed guilt had driven his offer of marriage. And yet…

She touched the tip of her finger to the spriggy, harsh ivy leaf. Were these romantic gestures of a gentleman motivated by a sense of guilt and rightness?

Abigail set the bouquet down, and reached for the oddly shaped box no larger than the span of her hands together. She turned it over, and then set it aside.

She loved him.

Loved him with a depth of emotion that defied humility and pride.

For the first time since the carriage accident a week ago, Abigail smiled. She embraced the liberation of acknowledging her love of him.

She would wed him.

Just as soon as he returned to her.

When consuming spirits, a gentleman should demonstrate restraint.

The 4
^th
Viscount Redbrooke

~30~

From the alcohol-induced stupor Geoffrey had dwelt within for twenty-six hours, eighteen minutes, and…he glanced bleary-eyed up toward the ormolu clock…the blasted numbers were too small.

He tugged out his watch fob and tried to bring the numbers into focus. Hell, he’d lost count. Twenty-six hours, now nineteen minutes, and…he picked up his half-drunk brandy and tossed it back. It didn’t matter.

Time had ceased to matter.

None of it mattered.

“You must speak to him. I’m ever so worried.” From outside his office door, his mother’s murmured words cut across the numbed haze that gripped him.

The wood panel of the door drowned out his brother-in-law, Waxham’s response.

Geoffrey reached for the nearly empty bottle of brandy, and poured himself a tall glass. They could all go to hell.

Because now, Alexander Powers, once a faceless bastard who’d broken Abigail’s heart was real. A vise-like pain gripped his heart. The other man had stood there looking like one of Michelangelo’s damned sculptures, a golden foil to Abigail’s dark beauty.

No amount of alcohol could drive back his remembrance of the masculine possessiveness and love in Powers’ eyes.

I love you
,
Abby
.

Geoffrey clenched his eyes tight but could not, would never be able to escape the dagger-like pain cloying at his insides. Until he died, he would forever remember the moment of Alexander Powers’ return…because it had been the moment when all Geoffrey’s hopes of earning her love had died a swift, and agonizing death.

Geoffrey had caught her as she’d fainted and he would cherish every last one of the thirty-seconds or so when he’d cradled her close.

He’d handed her off to her brother, and fled faster than Abby’s fabled Hermes.

Ever since, Geoffrey had been foxed.

“Please, speak to him. It is that…”
woman
.

“Abigail,” Geoffrey whispered. “Her name is Abigail.”

Waxham spoke. “I…” But his words were muted.

The door opened.

Geoffrey swiped the back of his hand across bloodshot eyes. “Get the hell out, Waxham. I’m not accepting company.”

The door closed. “I should hope not. You smell horrid.”

Geoffrey’s eyes shot open. His sister stood near the door, gazing at him with far more concern than he deserved. He’d been a bastard to her.

“Mother asked Christopher try to reason with you. I assured her I would speak to you, Geoffrey.” Her lips twitched. “I don’t believe she found any comfort in that.” Sophie wandered over to the full floor-length windows, and threw the curtains wide. “Mustn’t have you sitting here alone in the dark.”

He flinched at the sharp burst of sunlight that streamed through the windowpanes.

Whatever words she cared to utter about Abigail would be a futile waste of her energies. The devil with his silver tongue couldn’t convince Geoffrey that Abigail had been anything but the most perfect thing to have ever happened to him. For a brief moment, the gods had seemed to think him worthy of happiness, and sent Abigail into his life.

And he’d spit in the face of his fate.

Sophie advanced further into the room and claimed the leather winged back chair at the foot of his desk. “I told her I’d speak to you about Miss Stone.”

“And?” Geoffrey slurred. He reached for the decanter of brandy, but Sophie leaned over with far more speed than he imagined her capable of, and yanked the bottle off his desk.

She set it down on the floor beside her. “And, as a young lady, I have it on good authority that other ladies do not admire a gentleman who wallows in self-pity.”

He growled. “I’m not wallowing.” Pause. “Perhaps I am,” he conceded. “May I have my bottle?”

Sophie wagged a finger at him. “No more of that,” she murmured. “You will not win back your Miss Stone if you’re…” she wrinkled her nose, “smelling like a hot pig in a summer sun?”

There would be no winning Abigail back. He’d lost her before he’d ever had her.

He sat back in his chair and swiped his arm across his eyes. “Please, leave,” he said.

Sophie drummed her fingertips along the arms of her leather seat; the grating sound echoed around his mind. “You know, I don’t think I will. You need a friend.”

A harsh chuckle escaped him, and his arm fell back to his side. It appeared Sophie and Sinclair were of like opinions. “I don’t need a friend.”

I need Abigail.

His sister went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “For years, Geoffrey, I’ve believed you to be a pompous ass.”

At one time Sophie’s vulgar language would have appalled him more than the charge she now leveled at him. It had been Abigail who’d forced Geoffrey to confront the weaker aspects of his character and aspire to be a better, more honorable person.

“That is because I am a pompous ass.”

Sophie smiled. “Yes. There is truth there. But you weren’t always that way.” She scooted to the edge of her seat.

No. His life had been irrevocably changed when he’d come upon his father’s body that stormy night five years ago. Geoffrey appeared to be the same cowardly bastard he’d always been, because even after all this time, he couldn’t find the courage to tell Sophie of the events that had precipitated their father’s death.

Sophie continued on, seeming unaware of the inner turmoil roiling through him. “And you haven’t been that way since you met your Miss Stone.”

“She isn’t my Miss Stone,” he said, tiredly.

For a mere flicker in time, Geoffrey had been fortunate to have her in his life but she had always belonged to Powers.

Sophie’s smile dipped. “Oh, dear.”

He glanced past her shoulder, toward the gold brocade curtains.

She sighed. “You are supposed to ask, ‘what, Sophie?’”

“What is it, Sophie?” He wanted nothing more than his half-drunk bottle of brandy.

“You love her rather desperately, don’t you?”

The vise about his heart tightened, and he rubbed his chest, to dull the steady, throbbing ache, to no effect. “I do,” he breathed the word into existence. And he’d uttered them, too late. In the end, she’d not believed him.

Alexander Powers’ tall, powerful visage flashed to mind and Geoffrey buried his head into his hands. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes in a desperate attempt to rid himself of the image of Abigail and Alexander together. She would leave. She would board a ship with the man who had in fact been faithful to her…and exist as nothing more than a memory in Geoffrey’s heart.

The crackle of leather, followed by the flutter of muslin fabric registered.

Sophie knelt down at his feet and took one of his hands between her own. “Geoffrey, she is not lost to you.” She gave a faint squeeze.

“She is,” he said, his voice hollow.

“You must go to her.”

Geoffrey pulled his hand free, and climbed to his feet. “I did go to her, Sophie.” He dragged a hand through his mussed hair, and proceeded to pace a small path in front of his desk.

“And?” she prodded.

“And the gentleman she loved,”
Loves
. “Has come for her. It would seem some kind of misunderstanding occurred.” He grimaced.

Misunderstanding. One seemingly innocuous word. Yet, it represented the death of Geoffrey’s dreams

Sophie wrinkled her nose as though she’d taken in a distinctly unpleasant odor. “A misunderstanding?”

After Geoffrey had handed Abigail over to her brother’s arms, he’d fled but not before he deduced that some manner of lie had been told to separate Abigail and Powers. Odd to think if that one untruth hadn’t been perpetuated, then Abigail would have never come to London and Geoffrey would have never lost his heart to her generous, spirited hands.

Even suffering as he was, he could not bring himself to regret having met her.

Instead, Geoffrey would have to find solace in knowing Abigail was once again happy—even if that joy came in the arms of another man.

His heart lurched.

Oh god, this would destroy him.

His sister sat back on her heels. “Hmph.” She tapped her finger alongside her jaw. “Well, there is nothing for it. You must fight for her.”

Geoffrey froze mid-movement. Could he fight for her? At one time, Geoffrey had believed nothing mattered more than his pride and honor. What Sophie proposed would require him to set aside all those aspects of his character, and humble himself in the vain hope that Abigail would forget her love for Powers, and…

His breath died on a long sigh. “No, Sophie.”

Her cornflower blue eyes went wide in her face. “But…”

“No,” he said, this time more adamantly. He’d caused Abigail enough pain. She’d been bruised and battered and nearly killed because of Geoffrey’s faithlessness. He remembered back to that miserable night when she’d stood before him, pleadingly in his foyer. A good deal of her suffering had transcended physical wounds. “I cannot.”

Sophie stood, with fire snapping in her eyes. “Then you do not truly love her.” With a flounce of her curls she turned around and stormed toward the door.

Denial tore from him, harsh and guttural. “Don’t.” He could imagine how someone such as Sophie believed him incapable of that emotion. Geoffrey had been an utter bastard to Sophie over the years. “I cannot cause her more pain,” he said at last.

Sophie spun to face him. Her gaze moved over his face. “Oh, Geoffrey,” she whispered.

He looked away, hating that he’d become an object of his sister’s pity.

“Please, let me help you.”

Unless she could convince Abigail differently of the feelings she carried in her heart, then nothing could be done. His throat moved up and down. “I do not deserve your kindness, Sophie.” Not after the great hurt he’d done his family all those years ago on a different road, on a different thunderous night.

“You are my brother,” she said simply. “I love you. Now, we must devise a plan.”

“No,” he said.

Her widened eyes indicated she heard the finality in that succinct utterance.

She folded her arms across her chest, a determined glint in her eyes. Then, she nodded once. “Very well, Geoffrey. But this is not done.”

He stared at her as she took her leave.

It was done.

It had been done the moment Alexander Powers entered the Duke of Somerset’s parlor.

A gentleman should always be punctual.