His Courtesan Bride (Brides of Mayfair 3) (27 page)

He closed the door behind them and asked of his sister, “What is it, Caro?”

She regarded him uncomfortably. “I have done something, brother, which you will be quite angry with me about.”

He instantly thought of Serena. Had Caro somehow chased her away?

“Go on,” he prodded, darkly.

Caroline wrung her hands nervously in front of her. “As you know, I have spent much time with Serena, since you brought her to Manning Park. I and the children adore her. She was my friend before. She is my friend and sister, now.”

“What is your point, Caro?”

She walked about the room, gazing at the books, then turned to face her brother. “I want you to know that I felt it my duty, to both of you, to speak the truth.”

Darius’s heart began to race. “What truth?”

“I told her about Henrietta…and the baby,” Caro said, finally.

For a moment, Darius didn’t react. He couldn’t, because he felt frozen to the spot. Finally, he was able to form words. “You did
what
?”

Caro sucked in a breath. “I had to! I could not stand by and listen to Serena go on about what a scoundrel you are. The pain of your betrayal has blinded her, Darius. She has been so fixed on her own heartache that she thinks she is the only one to have suffered. I could not let her continue with that mistaken idea. Indeed, you have paid a greater price than she in all of this. As her friend, and your sister, I had a duty to tell her. I care for you both, tremendously. How can I stand by and watch two people who are clearly in love, risk it all by refusing to be honest with each other?”

Darius smashed his fist down on the heavy oak desk. “So you took it upon yourself to share my deepest secrets with my
paid courtesan
?”

Caro frowned. “Don’t say it like an insult, brother, when we both know that it’s because of you that Serena had no choice but to become a kept woman.
Your
kept woman, as it happens. Both of you are equally guilty and equally innocent in all of this. So it is time for each of you to stop pointing fingers, call the match a draw, and get on with your lives. Together.”

Darius was dumbstruck. He had never heard Caro speak so bluntly before, to him or anyone else. It turned out his sweet little sister was a bit of a tiger, deep down. But that did not give her the right to interfere in his life.

“You should not have taken it upon yourself to share something so private, Caro. It was badly done,” he admonished.

“I apologize for it, and yet I am not sorry,” Caro replied. “It is no different than giving one of the children strong tasting medicine when they are sick. Perhaps because I am a mother, I have the stomach for such things. I do it out of love, and there is no difference between that and telling Serena the truth. I would do it again, if I had to.”

Darius ran a hand through his hair, and said, “I would have told her.”

“Really? When?” she countered.

He met his sister’s disbelieving eyes. “Eventually.”

“You mean,
after
she leaves you?” Caro demanded. “Brother, there is no time. You have only a few days left together before she returns to London, and to her life as a courtesan—another man’s courtesan, Darius. Serena has told me about the Duke of Balfour offering for her next. I cannot imagine you being agreeable to that.”

“Certainly not,” Darius replied. “Balfour is a bloody fool, and completely beneath her. He shan’t touch her, if I have anything to say about it.”

“What are you planning to do to keep her here?”

“You heard me hinting at it in the drawing room, a moment ago,” he explained. “I plan to propose marriage to Serena—as I wanted to do two years ago.”

Caro shook her head. “I’m sorry to say, I don’t think that is enough.”

“What do you mean, it’s not enough?” he asked, confused. “What else is there?”

“A proposal of marriage will not be enough to keep Serena with you,” Caro replied. “Her anger burns too bright. She will refuse you outright, if only to make a point.”

Darius wanted to refute his sister’s words, but he could not, for he suspected they were true. Serena was both passionate and proud. She would rather be paraded through the streets naked than concede to him. She was a born fighter, and she would go down swinging, if she went down at all.

That was one of the things he loved about her.

Caro was right. Serena would refuse his proposal out of principal, simply in order to even the score between them. He had to appeal to her heart, and the passionate emotions there, if he truly wanted to win her hand.

Darius knew what he had to do. And though he didn’t want to admit it to himself, he was afraid. He’d felt this way a few times during the war, right before a battle in which he and Havelock were determined to do something completely reckless and foolhardy. This was no different.

If his plan worked, he would win the day.

And if it didn’t, Serena would win.

But then they might both lose much more than either of them had bargained for.

Chapter 21

“
If one wants to cut out one’s heart and offer it up on a silver platter, then by all means, fall in love.”

–from
Memoirs of a Courtesan, by Lady Night

Serena sighed as she closed the book in her hands and leaned back in the wing chair. She had been reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, those to the Dark Lady, to match her dispirited state. The last lines of Sonnet 129 were particularly depressing:

A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell

How well the Bard knew the frailties of the human heart. How sad he made love seem. It promised happiness, but the joy was fleeting—it was either ahead or behind you. Very rarely did love last for a lifetime.

She knew exactly how that felt.

That was what Darius’s betrayal had done to her two years ago. In their little play, he had been the villain, callously leading the innocent girl she had once been to her doom.

Only now, Serena discovered that she had missed out on some of the story. She had not been given all of the scenes to read. And when you added them to the play of their lives, it changed the outcome, somewhat.

Caro’s confession had chilled Serena to the bone. If what her friend said was true, and Serena had no reason to distrust her—Henrietta had killed herself and her unborn child as a means to wound her husband. And wound him she did, Serena had no doubt.

It was difficult to get one’s head round such a dark and wretched thing. Suicide was bad enough. But to willfully take an innocent child with you was in another realm of wickedness altogether.

All this time, Serena had been plotting her revenge against the man who had hurt her. Little had she known, his late wife had already taken revenge upon him, spectacularly so. Nothing Serena could do would ever come close. Darius had paid a higher price for his sins than Serena could have ever imagined.

The girl she had once been—the one Darius had hurt—should have been ecstatic.

Serena was anything but.

A heavy, sharp pain pierced her chest, and her stomach felt queasy. Her emotions were raw. She kept thinking of Darius, of how he must have reacted when he’d learned the horrible truth. And yet, she didn’t want to feel anything for him. Feelings were dangerous things indeed. That was why becoming a courtesan had been so attractive to her, because emotions would never be involved.

Part of her wished Caro hadn’t told her Darius’s dark secret. If she hadn’t, Serena would be none the wiser. These last few days with him would have been spent simply having sex and engaging in light, witty conversation.

But everything was changed, now.

Serena’s plans were all shattered at her feet, like shards of glass. It seemed only now that she realized how sharp and dangerous they were.

The letter from the Duke of Balfour only complicated things more. He wrote of his heated desire for her, of the trinkets he would shower upon her, of the high regard others would have for His Grace’s mistress.

In three days’ time, Serena would become his lover. She had agreed to it. The papers were signed. And yet, at the moment, she could not imagine herself with anyone but Darius.

Serena took a deep breath, trying to steady her nerves. For the first time since her heartbreak at Telford House, she did not know what to do.

The cottage door opened quietly.

Serena didn’t move, for she knew who it was.

She heard him moving in the small entranceway. Serena knew his footfall so well, now. He usually came home about this hour, after his day’s work on the estate, and after having tea with his mother at the Hall. It had become their routine in these last three weeks. Like an old married couple.

Darius walked into the cozy drawing room, his masculine presence touching her like something physical. He stood before her, silently.

She had never seen him look so enigmatic. His eyes, which usually burned with heat or playful wickedness, looked flat and dark as a winter sky. There was anger there, and just under the surface, dreadful sorrow. It took Serena’s breath away.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Darius?” she asked, finally.

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he turned to gaze out the window. Seconds ticked by, then minutes before he said, “Why would I? It was never your concern.”

Serena hadn’t known what to expect, but somehow this reply was even more hurtful than she’d imagined. And yet, he was right. She had never given him reason to trust her with his personal pain.

“It would have changed things for me,” she said.

He turned his head to stare at her, his eyes now burning with cold, blue fire. “How? Would you have felt sorry for me? You should know me well enough to realize I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

Serena rose from the chair, crossing the room gingerly. She didn’t know what she was doing…following her heart, perhaps. That was why this was so difficult.

“I would have felt pity for any man who lost a child, especially in so cruel a circumstance,” she said.

She saw the muscles in his jaw flex as he worked to control his emotions. He leaned a hand against the window, his fingers curled into a fist. Then he let out a breath. “I cursed Henrietta to the devil for what she did. I hated her. And I hated myself for not seeing what she’d planned, for not being able to stop her. She told me only hours before that she would make me pay for my sins in the worst possible way. I thought she was merely ranting again. But no, the plan was forming in her troubled mind. Little did I know that her prediction would come true. She did hurt me, in the most terrible way a man can be hurt.”

“Caro said the two of you had been arguing…about me,” Serena said.

He stared off into the distance, as if seeing the scene play out again before his eyes. “Yes. We were arguing about you. It wasn’t the first time. Henrietta was a jealous woman. She never forgot what she saw that night between us in the Telford Gardens.”

A hot shiver ran up Serena’s back. She had never forgotten it, either. She’d been wild with passion in Darius’s arms.

“She wanted me to make her feel what you did, to prove that I loved her,” Darius continued. “I couldn’t, of course. She wasn’t you. We consummated the marriage, but it was only that, a consummation. That one time together was enough to make her conceive. She never even told me. Henrietta admitted the truth to Caro, and only after my sister had perceived the signs of pregnancy. I didn’t notice any changes myself, for I stayed far away from my new countess, conducting business at our other estates. I sought an escape from her suffocating presence.”

Darius continued, “It sounds awful doesn’t it? I lured the woman into marriage so I could acquire her money, then I shunned her. And her revenge was killing herself and our unborn child. Some would say a man like me deserved nothing less. I used her. I used you and ruined your reputation in the bargain. But I got what I wanted. I saved Manning Park and our family from ruin, but I paid a price for it.” He looked down, soberly. “I never could have grown to love Henrietta, but I would have loved that child. And the poor thing was made to pay for its father’s sins. I will carry that guilt forever.”

Serena stepped toward him, touching his strong arm. “I am so sorry, Darius. Truly, I am.”

He made no reply, yet his jaw clenched again. Hot, dangerous tension emanated from his masculine frame. She feared he would punch out the glass of the window.

In one, lightening quick movement, he swept Serena into his arms, crushing her against him. He buried his face in her neck, and she pulled him close, as close as she could. She felt the grief seeping out of him, and into her. She felt wetness on her neck. Tears. That was alright—tears were rolling down her face, too.

Serena cried for all of their losses—her broken heart, her mother, and for his poor, innocent child who would never laugh and play.

“I’ve been so angry at you, Darius,” she choked out. “All this time I’ve hated you for what you did to me. But it was because I loved you then. I daresay I’ve never stopped. And I’m tired, so tired of fighting against it.” She buried her face in his chest. He cradled her head in his hands and turned her face to look up at him.