The Most to Lose (29 page)

Celie swayed and was thankful Amanda was there to steady her.

“I didn’t use Cecelia,” he answered with a hateful glare. “I
saved
her.”

“
Saved
her!” Jonah took a step closer toward the duke. “Did you once ask yourself if your sister would be of the same opinion when she found out what you’d done?”

“I didn’t need to ask her. She would have answered with her heart and been miserable for the rest of her life.”

Jonah’s eyes opened wide. “You fool! You arrogant fool!”

The muscles on either side of Jonah’s jaw knotted as the noticeable anger etched on his face intensified. His breathing became harsh and labored, and Celie knew that whatever her brother had done was meant to destroy her love for Jonah.

A numbing fear ate away inside her and she was frantic for answers.

“Jonah, explain what happened,” she pleaded, praying that he’d ease her fears.

She wasn’t sure what had transpired between Jonah and her brother, but she knew that Jonah wasn’t responsible for the damage that had been done. Her brother was.

Jonah took a step toward her and smiled. “Everything will be all right, Celie. Just remember that I love you. I will
always
love you. I have from the first night I saw you.”

“No, Celie,” Hadleigh bellowed. “Don’t believe him. He sought you out that first night to anger
me
! To antagonize me because he knew I was unable to stop him.”

“Celie knows why I approached her. I explained my reasons a long time ago. I have always been honest with her. Which is more than I can say for you, Hadleigh.”

“That’s a lie,” Hadleigh bellowed.

Jonah took another step closer to her. “When you are ready to hear everything that was done to destroy our future, you will have to ask your brother to explain it to you. You need to hear what he intended from his lips, not mine.”

Celie spun to face her brother and she knew in that moment that he had been behind everything that had happened to her. “What have you done?”

“I saved you! I kept you from ruining your life! And I intend to prevent this blackguard from destroying anyone else’s life ever again.”

Celie took in a gasping breath. She moved her gaze from the angry look on her brother’s face to the resigned expression on Jonah’s.

“Jonah?”

“None of this was your fault, Celie.” He took a step toward the door. “Always remember that. What happened wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It was all…mine. And your brother’s.”

Celie watched Jonah turn. He was going to leave her. If she didn’t do something soon, she was going to lose the only man she would ever love.

“Where are you going?”

Jonah stopped. “I’m going home—for as long as I have a home.” He walked to the door, then paused. “You’ll be pleased to know that the creditors you sent line the entry-way of my home, Your Grace. It won’t be long and I will have lost it.”

“You deserve to lose it. You deserve to lose everything. Just like I did.”

Celie heard the anger in her brother’s voice and felt her world shatter around her. What had he done?

Jonah’s bitter laughter startled her.

“The house? The Abbey? You can have it all. They mean nothing to me.”

“You’ll lose it all! I’ve made sure you will!”

Jonah’s shoulders lifted, then fell. “So be it.” He reached for the handle on the door. “Without Celie to share it with, it means nothing.”

Jonah pulled open the door, and Celie realized he was going to leave her. She had one question she needed to ask before he left. “Jonah?”

He stopped. “Yes?”

“Did you send the bills to repair Haywood Abbey to Hadleigh without his knowledge?”

Jonah smiled. “Is that what your brother told you?”

She nodded, and his smile broadened. “Oh, Hadleigh. Was there no limit to your lies?”

Celie’s world trembled. Her brother had lied to her. She looked away from him and back to Jonah. “Wait, Jonah. I’m coming with you.”

“No!” Hadleigh yelled, clasping his fingers around her upper arm to stop her.

“Jonah!”

He turned to face her. “You can’t come with me, Celie. I have nowhere to take you.”

“That doesn’t matter! Nothing matters as long as we’re together.”

Celie saw Jonah’s body stiffen as if her words had been attached to the end of a whip and cut through his flesh.

“It matters,” he said, then turned away from her.

The second before he disappeared from sight, he stopped and turned. But it wasn’t to her that he looked, but at her brother. And the glare in his eyes was the vilest, most hate-filled look she’d ever seen.

“I will grant you a few moments of satisfaction, Your Grace. You have accomplished what you intended. I have lost it all. I have lost Celie. But so have you.”

For several long, agonizing seconds, Jonah didn’t move. Then he slowly opened the door and took his first step away from her.

She wanted to run after him to stop him, to go with him, but there was nothing to be gained by begging him to stay. Or by going with him. She needed to find out everything her brother had done and undo what she could to save the Abbey.

Celie listened to the ominous sound of the door as it closed behind Jonah and felt her heart plummet to the pit of her stomach.

A fury unlike anything she’d ever felt before exploded inside her and she turned on her brother.

“What have you done?”

Chapter 22

W
hat have you done?” Celie demanded again, angrier than she’d ever been in her life.

Her brother’s shoulders lifted in indignant righteousness. “I’ve saved you from having to spend the rest of your life with a man who is incapable of loving anyone. He would have destroyed you just like he destroyed everyone who was foolish enough to care for him.”

“Are you talking about Melisande?”

“Yes! Because of him, she’s dead!”

Celie stepped back and stared at her brother. His pain over losing Melisande was plain. It hadn’t lessened, as she’d assumed, but had grown even stronger.

“Jonah didn’t have anything to do with Melisande’s death, Hadleigh. She ran out onto the street and was hit by a carriage.”

“Because she was running away from him! Because she loved me and Haywood wanted her to run away with him!”

“You fool! Melisande didn’t love you. She didn’t love anyone but herself.”

“That’s not true. We had an understanding. We were going to marry, but Haywood wanted her for himself. He was forcing her to leave with him.”

“If anyone was forcing someone to do anything, it was Melisande no doubt trying to convince Jonah to marry her.”

“No!”

Celie looked her brother in the eyes. “You always had Melisande on such a high pedestal you couldn’t see her for the person she really was.”

“I know what she was. She was the most beautiful person who ever lived. She was—”

“Spoiled to the point of revulsion,” Celie cut in. “She’d been pampered her whole life and allowed to do anything she wanted. She’d gotten by with the unthinkable.”

“No!”

“Yes! Her parents were as blind to her faults as you were. She was cruel and heartless. She belittled every other female with whom she came into contact and reveled in their shortcomings.”

“No!”

Celie slashed her hand through the air to stop her brother from defending Melisande.

Hadleigh was silent.

“She did. Because ridiculing everyone made her feel superior. Laughing at them made her feel more important.”

Celie couldn’t believe that someone as intelligent as her brother had been so completely taken in by Melisande’s beauty that he’d been unaware of the kind of person she was inside.

“You never liked Melisande, Cecelia. I always knew the two of you could barely tolerate each other.”

“
No one
liked Melisande, Hadleigh. If you had been able to see past her stunning beauty, you wouldn’t have liked her, either.”

“Stop it! You’re only saying such horrible things because Melisande was in love with the man you were foolish enough to give your heart.”

“Melisande may have been in love with someone, but it certainly wasn’t Jonah.”

“You didn’t see them that night. She was begging Haywood, pleading with him to leave her alone.”

“No, she wasn’t, Your Grace,” Amanda said from behind them. “She was begging Haywood to take her to Gretna Green so they could marry.”

Both Celie and Hadleigh turned to look at Amanda.

Amanda had been so uncharacteristically quiet since Jonah left that Celie had almost forgotten she was there. Hadleigh must have, too, but she’d gained his full attention at the mention of Gretna Green and marriage.

“That’s not true. Melisande and I were going to marry. Melisande’s father and I had come to an agreement years ago. Besides, Haywood wasn’t even titled then. He was the second son of a man destined to lose everything. Why would she want to marry him?”

“No doubt to pass off the child she was carrying as Lord Haywood’s babe.”

Several seconds passed before Hadleigh spoke. When he did, his reaction was as violent as the eruption of an exploding volcano.

“Lies! Who told you such vicious lies?”

Amanda stepped closer and faced Hadleigh as if he were a servant instead of the duke he was.

“They’re not lies, Your Grace. For your sake, I wish they were, but I know for a fact that Melisande was carrying a child.”

“How can you know such a thing? That was a story no doubt started after Melisande’s death by some jealous females.”

Amanda shook her head. “I’m not sure if you’d ever heard Melisande talk of Mrs. Crumpert, but—”

“Crumpert? Of course. Melisande called her ‘Crumpy.’ She was Melisande’s nurse, then her nanny, and eventually, she stood in for a chaperone when Melisande needed someone to accompany her.”

“Melisande’s mother dismissed Mrs. Crumpert without a reference after Melisande died because she was the only person other than Lady Kendall who knew Melisande was with child. Lady Kendall thought she could stop any rumors from circulating if she used the excuse that they’d come from a disgruntled former servant who had been dismissed. Without a reference, Mrs. Crumpert was desperate. She came to Lillian, my oldest sister, because she’d held a position with our family before leaving Father’s employ to go to Lady Kendall. Lillian, of course, took her in. She’s nursemaid to her two babes even now.”

Hadleigh shook his head as if he needed to clear it. “That can’t be. It can’t.”

“It is, Your Grace. Melisande was carrying another man’s babe, and she was desperate to find a husband before you announced your engagement. She wisely feared your reaction when you discovered you’d been duped. She chose Haywood because she considered him the most malleable of her acquaintances.”

“He refused her,” Hadleigh whispered as if talking to himself.

“Yes, because he didn’t love her. And he knew you did. Unlike you, he refused to betray your friendship.”

“But I thought—”

“You thought of no one but yourself and your need to exact revenge on an innocent man.” Celie faced her brother. “A man who’d once been your closest friend.”

“But Haywood didn’t deny it when I accused him of trying to steal Melisande away from me.”

“Would you have believed him?”

Hadleigh opened his mouth to say something, undoubtedly something to indicate that he might have, then closed his mouth and sank into the nearest chair.

“Dear God, what have I done?”

Celie might have felt sorry for her brother if he hadn’t been the cause of so much pain. “I want to know what you did, Hadleigh. I want to know
everything
.”

For several long minutes, Celie didn’t think her brother was going to admit anything, but eventually, he turned his gaze to Amanda.

“You know, don’t you? That’s why you brought Haywood here, because you know.”

“Yes, I know. So you’d best tell your sister yourself, because my version of what you did won’t be nearly so sympathetic.”

Hadleigh nodded in acquiescence, then lifted his hollow gaze to face her. Celie braced herself for the pain she knew would follow.

“I never meant to hurt you, Cecelia. Never.”

“But you have. You’ve hurt me more than I ever thought I could be hurt.”

Hadleigh’s shoulders sagged. “It’s just that I hated him so. I’d hated him for so long that destroying him was all I thought of. Do you know what that’s like?”

He paused. “Of course you don’t know. You’re so good. So kind. The only person in the world who’s done nothing to deserve this. But I didn’t think it would go this far.”

“How far?”

“I didn’t think you could ever love him. I didn’t think you would ever love anyone.”

Celie was glad she was sitting. If she hadn’t been, she feared her legs would have buckled beneath her. “Why did you think I’d never love anyone?”

“Because you refused every suitor who asked for your hand. Because you never showed interest in anyone. I thought you loved as I did. I thought you loved someone who couldn’t return your love. I thought you’d chosen to live your life alone rather than marry someone you could never love.”

“I had, Hadleigh. You were right—in part. I was in love with someone—Jonah. I’d loved him for as long as I could remember.”