The Old Maids' Club 02 - Pariah (31 page)

Finn
. A fresh wave of tears sprang to Bethanne’s eyes, and her heart plummeted all the way to her toes.

“Sullivan has not admitted to fathering the boy, but neither has he denied it.”

“He’s not the father, I swear to you—”

“You are not aiding your cause, sister.” His tone gentled somewhat, and he leaned over to brush a tear from her cheek. “You aren’t aiding his cause, either. You can’t.”

“But he’s only tried to help us, Isaac.”

“If he really wished to help you, wouldn’t it be logical for him to offer for you?”

Offer for her? As in marriage? Bethanne tried to take a breath, but a vise-like pressure clenched about her chest, squeezing all of the oxygen from her lungs.

“I suggested that alternative first,” Isaac pressed on, his words coming out as an icy mutter. “The bastard refused.”

That only released the dam holding her tears back, it seemed, as a torrent followed in the wake of the first one that Isaac had brushed away. Roman wouldn’t marry her. She hadn’t even realized until this very moment that she might want him to. The pain of his rejection struck like a hot blade through her gut.

But why
would
he marry her? She was a spinster with a child, and she’d never placed enough trust in him to reveal any of her secrets, save those he’d discovered on his own.

No, she had no right to expect anything of him, least of all a promise of a lifetime. He’d given her far more than she had ever deserved.

And now, he was to be repaid through a duel with her brother.

Isaac sat with her and let her cry until the tears would no longer flow. During her entire ordeal, he held her hand and whispered soothing nonsense, and reminded her so very much of how Father was when she or Miranda had a fit of pique. The realization was frustrating. She didn’t want to see her father in her brother—not now, not while he was threatening such a ludicrous proposition.

Damn Isaac and his misplaced sense of honor.

When she finally staunched the tears, Bethanne dried her eyes with the handkerchief Isaac handed to her. On a shuddering breath, she asked, “May I try to talk to him? May I attempt to change his mind?” As soon as she asked, she realized the futility of such a prospect.

But she had to try. She had to somehow convince one of these two foolhardy men to relent, and the likelihood of changing Isaac’s mind seemed rather slim.

Isaac bored through her with his eyes, as though he were trying to see inside her mind, inside her heart. After a long moment, he gave a curt nod. “Very well. But if he does not, he and I still have a dawn appointment.”

After gingerly extricating herself from the bedding, Bethanne leaned up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Despite his penchant for duels and his lack of skill with a pistol, Bethanne loved her brother dearly. She only hoped he knew it.

Thwack!

Roman hefted the axe overhead to bring down again, ignoring the increasing strain in the muscles of his shoulders and back. The pain wasn’t bad—certainly not nearly as painful as the ache in his chest from how poorly he’d protected Bethanne.

He should have realized Shelton would strike. No, that wasn’t quite right, since he
had
sensed it. Roman had seen the violence in the younger man’s eyes. He’d known the blow was coming well before it ever started in his direction.

What he hadn’t anticipated was Bethanne trying to come between them.

When he ought to have been protecting her, instead, she had tried to protect him. He’d never seen anything more preposterous in his life. Nor had he ever felt so hollow as he did when she fell back against him, unconscious.

For a moment she seemed lifeless, and his breath had gone shallow, and his heart had stopped, and he had felt the same blinding need for answers and retribution as he’d felt on the fields of Waterloo. At the end of that fateful day, he’d stood over the bodies of the men who’d served beneath him, unable to do anything but weep as he held the damned glass vial in his hand when instead, he ought to have been wielding a weapon.

But then she’d let out a soft moan and shifted in Roman’s arms, and the feeling returned to his limbs at the same time as the breath returned to his lungs. After he’d settled Bethanne in her bed under Joyce’s care, painstakingly extracting himself from her presence, he and Shelton had discussed what was to be done.

As her brother, Shelton certainly had the right, not to mention the responsibility, to defend her honor. The simplest solution to it all, of course, would be for Roman to marry her. God knew he wanted to. But simple did not equal best, and his wants could not supersede hers, let alone her safety.

Sharing a bed with her would be an impossibility. That was something Roman could never trust himself to do. What would he do if, heaven forbid, he fell asleep before leaving her? He might harm her in one of his episodes without ever waking.

That was not an option. He couldn’t hurt her. It was bad enough that he’d been unable to prevent her from being hurt, but to have it at his own hands?

Roman would never be able to live with himself. There were far too many crimes against humanity he’d committed against strangers in the name of war. To allow such an atrocity against the one piece of lightness in his life?

No, marriage was not an option. Because of that, what choice did Shelton have but to slap a glove in Roman’s face? And while Roman wished no harm to the man, he could not refuse him the right to defend his sister’s virtue. What sort of gentleman would he be if he denied such a thing?

So he’d accepted the terms. And he’d left.

He’d been chopping wood for easily two hours before any of the Hassop House servants stumbled upon him and tried to intervene. Roman had sent the footman away. When Milner came out to ask how he might be of service, Roman had ordered the butler back to the house with the added instruction to keep the rest of the staff inside and away from him as well.

Another hour or more had passed, and the sun was lowering in the sky, casting the land in orange and pink light. Finally, Roman cast the axe aside and took a seat on the stump, allowing his body to rest while his mind ran rampant with errant thoughts.

That was where he still sat when Bethanne came to him, walking across the snow-dusted Hassop House lawn with the rising moon at her back, casting her aglow in ethereal light. Shelton was with her, though he kept his distance. The image before Roman was so surreal, he thought it was a dream at first. Then he wished it was, because the sight of her caused his heart to constrict and his stomach to seize. His Bethanne seemed so delicate and fragile in appearance, yet the strength and fortitude she carried inside would rival even the most battle-honed soldier.

But she was neither a dream nor an apparition. Roman stood when she drew near, cursing himself silently for the shadow of a bruise forming along her forehead. “Are you well?” he asked as she stepped before him. His hand itched to reach up and caress her cheek, but he could not allow himself such freedom with her, particularly not with her already irate brother standing sentry twenty paces away.

Damnation, why hadn’t he selected Crandall from the start? He could have had the man in the cottage and kept himself out of it all along. At least then, most of the problems she was facing now could have been avoided.

Alas, he was too selfish for such a thing.

She looked up at him, and the remnants of her tears shimmered in the moonlight in her twinkling eyes. “I’d hoped you would be here.” The mist of her breath feathered out from her mouth and crystalized in the air between them.

“You oughtn’t to hope for such things.”

A fresh wave of pain washed over her countenance at his words, and he felt like the worst sort of cad. Yet she didn’t back away from him, and she didn’t cower before him. She never had.

She ought to fear him. She would be much safer if she did.

Her tongue darted out between her lips and wetted them. “Will you walk with me?” Before he could decide whether it was a good idea or not, she started off, heading toward the path through the park.

Roman followed her and within a few strides had matched her pace, with Shelton trailing them by a good distance.

Calmly, confidently, she placed her hand on the crook of his arm as they walked, as though it were the most natural thing in the world she could do. He felt anything but calm or natural, however. Her dainty, elegant hand nearly scorched a path through his body, sending flaming licks of awareness on a war path to his loins even through both her glove and his coat. Her nearness invaded each of his senses. He smelled only her sweet rosewater scent. He could almost taste her, as he had when he’d stolen kisses which he had no right to. The soft hum of her breaths filled his ears, as did her gentle footfalls over the snowy ground that seemed such a stark contrast to his heavy, crunching tread. Her warmth enveloped him like a cocoon, wrapping around him and keeping him trapped within her.

They crossed over the footbridge as the creek tinkled by, the frost-covered rose trellis overhead lit by the bright moon. Roman wasn’t entirely certain Bethanne knew where she was leading them, but it didn’t matter.

Everything ceased to matter in that moment but the two of them. This would almost certainly be the last time he would have with her, after all. Roman intended to make the most of it. After tomorrow morning…

No. He would think about that tomorrow morning. Not before.

They came to a wooden bench beneath a copse of trees, and Bethanne took a seat. Roman sat beside her, still surrounded by her heat and scent and being. Some ways off, Shelton stopped beneath a tree, crossing his arms over his chest and taking up his position.

Roman watched her, noting the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, and the way her fingers fidgeted with the edging of her redingote as Lady Rosaline’s fingers always toyed with her quill. Finally, she met his eyes, beseeching him with the green depths of hers. “You cannot follow through with this duel with my brother. I can’t possibly allow it.”

Alas, somewhere deep inside he’d known she would try to put a stop to it. Roman shook his head. “That is not possible, Bethanne.”

“But you don’t understand,” she implored him, inching closer to him on the bench, which only served to distract him from the matter at hand. “Isaac—he’s killed a man in a duel before.”

“Ah.” He wished she wouldn’t worry for him. The entire situation would be easier for her if she didn’t care.

Bethanne carried far too many worries upon her too-narrow shoulders already.

“Please,” she whispered. Her voice sounded reverent in the night air.

She looked down at her lap, and her fingers suddenly stilled against the fabric of her redingote. Inadvertently, Roman reached over and took her gloved hand in his. She jumped at the contact, but then relaxed as he wrapped her petite, gloved hand inside his. A series of trembles coursed through her body and radiated over to him.

He shouldn’t have done that. He doubted that Shelton could see the contact from such a distance, but that did not give Roman the right to touch her.

“There must be another way.”

“There is not. Your brother seeks satisfaction for your honor. He has every right to that.” He hated the finality in his tone, the utter certainty. Worse yet, he loathed the downcast expression which took over her face before she turned away from him.

Still, she did not remove her hand from his. The knot in her neck bobbed slightly as she swallowed, and her sniff rent through the air like a gunshot. “Isaac mentioned…he said there might be another means of obtaining satisfaction.”

The urge to draw her onto his lap, to wrap her in his arms and kiss until she could never shed another tear in her lifetime, to never let her go was overwhelming. “There
could
be,” he said slowly, cautiously, so as not to needlessly raise her hopes. “But it is not something I can do. Surely you understand that.”

Her breaths came in short, little bursts then. “Why?” Her voice was a strangled cry.

Without thinking, he drew the hand he held closer to his body, as though to offer comfort. She tugged it away from him and pushed to her feet, quickly putting some distance between them.

Beneath the light of the moon, the sight of her pain-filled silhouette was like taking a ball in his chest. Bethanne wrapped her arms across her chest, and she shuddered as silent, wracking sobs threatened to fold her body in two, even as the heavens opened above and a new blanket of snow began to form around them.

He ought to stay away. He had no right to offer her comfort. Yet he couldn’t stop his feet from moving toward her; nor could he prevent his arms from reaching out to her from behind, wrapping around her waist and pulling her back against him.

She felt right in his arms, which only made what he must tell her next all the more difficult. “I cannot possibly marry you.”

She just stilled against him, silent, voicing no argument at all, which made finding his voice next to impossible.

“Bethanne, you must see reason. I’ve nearly hurt you already. I should never have agreed to stay in the cottage when I slept, because I could have hurt any of you.”