Once upon a courtesan, p.21
Once Upon a Courtesan, page 21
“I’m sorry this has been unpleasant, Miss Comerford,” the marquess said. “I truly am.”
“As am I,” Lord Reginald agreed.
She looked to Silas again. “Come, walk me out.”
She took his hand and he sent a quick look toward his brothers before he let her take him from the room. They hadn’t even reached the foyer when Poole was calling for her carriage with a great glee in his tone.
She sighed. “He must have been listening.”
“I don’t give a damn about the butler,” Silas said, catching her arms and forcing her to look at him. “Please don't let them push you out of my house or my life.”
She stared up into this face she had come to truly adore. “Silas, we both knew this was temporary. We said it from the beginning. If it’s ending anyway, why not give in on this with your brothers? It gives them a point in this argument, gives them a reason to loosen their grip on anything else they demand. I can see they both want to do that.”
He glanced back at the dining room and there was such a longing on his face that it broke her heart. “I don’t care what they want,” he whispered.
She shook her head. “Of course you do. Let me go. Talk to them. Try to work it out. Don’t be so bullheaded about an affair that you won’t let yourself have what you’ve wanted since you were a boy.”
“It is more than an affair and you know it,” he said, his voice broken and his eyes stormy seas.
Her carriage was already arriving at the door and for that she was happy because him saying those words made her heart soar and crash all at once. She cupped his cheeks and leaned up for a kiss. His arms came around her, almost desperate to keep her. But when she pulled back, he allowed it.
“It can’t be. And you know it. Good night.”
She stepped away then, didn’t even hear whatever snide comment Poole made when he helped her into her rig, didn’t feel the carriage move when Ingram set them on the road back toward her house. She was numb. That was a good thing because she knew when this pain came, it would be powerful. It would be changing.
How could it be anything but when she’d just walked away from the man she loved?
CHAPTER 21
Silas could hardly hear over the pounding of his heart as he strode back into the dining room after Arabella left. She’d left him and it was perfectly clear that it wasn’t just for the night or for show. She was ending this and he hadn’t felt such a pain in a very long time.
“I’m sorry she felt she had to leave,” Charlie said as Silas entered the room.
Silas shook his head. “No, that was the purpose, wasn’t it?” He threw himself back in the chair. He couldn’t muster enough energy to speak angrily anymore, so his tone was flat, instead. “To drive her away. To take her from me so that you two could dance me all the more on your string.”
“Take her away?” Reginald repeated with wide eyes. “Do you know what you sound like?”
“Like a man who loves a woman,” Silas shouted.
For a moment that statement hung between them, stunning all three of them equally. He hadn’t allowed himself to recognize until now when it was being threatened. When he’d had to watch her walk away and felt like she’d ripped his heart out and put it in the carriage with her.
“You’re in love with her,” Charlie repeated softly. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt such a thing before. But it’s there and I won’t apologize for it. Arabella is sunlight streaming into a room where you’ve only ever had the curtains drawn. She is laughter in the midst of sorrow. She is bright and glorious and when I’m with her, I feel…happy. She makes me happy.” He shifted. “The very idea of walking away from that, of not asking her to stay in my life forever, is a pain I cannot describe. And it’s one I won’t bear, not even to have you two in my life.”
“You sound like you’re talking about marrying her,” Reginald said, his hands gripped on the tabletop.
Silas swallowed. “Yes. If she would have me, I would marry her.”
He had no idea if that was possible, of course. He knew that what they shared was real. He knew she cared for him, perhaps even loved him, though he wasn’t certain of that larger feeling. But she might not agree to linking her life with his. She might push him even further away to protect herself…to protect him.
“If everything you wished for came true,” Charlie said carefully. “If you asked her to wed and she agreed, how do you picture that working? What would you have me say when it was brought up in clubs or at parties?”
He shook his head. “I expect you to tell anyone who bothers you about me to fuck off. And if you cannot do that, then roll your eyes and laugh and say something about bastard blood. That’s what everyone thinks of me anyway, isn’t it? You don’t have to claim ownership for anything I do. You can just be bemused by it.”
“I am bemused by it,” Charlie said with a sigh. “And perhaps a little envious that you have always gone your own way, never been constrained by all that goes along with being a son of the Marquess of Pentaghast.”
“Oh, trust me, I was more than constrained by that man’s name and expectations,” Silas said. “But it isn’t his name anymore, is it? They aren’t his expectations. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, or at least you don’t have to live the life he required.”
Charlie and Reg looked at each other and it was as if they had never considered that. For a brief moment, Silas wondered about their childhoods with their father. They’d both been grown when he met them, Charlie fifteen years his senior, Reg twelve. But what had Pentaghast done when they were boys to put them so firmly in line that they feared to stray even into their forties and he was dead in the grave for more than half a decade?
Silas leaned forward. “I wouldn’t ask you to invite us to your fancy parties, I want nothing to do with that. But why couldn’t you invite me and the person I hold dearest to Christmas? Or to the country estate for a week after the Season so we can all play croquette and watch the children swim in the lake? Jesus, you’re offering me family but acting like it’s a business connection.”
There was a long, charged silence and then Charlie cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s all we knew. Perhaps we could all learn something from you on the matter of following your heart.”
“I’d be happy to teach you. But not if it means losing my chance with her.”
There was a long silence and then Charlie leaned his hands on the table. “I wouldn’t take away your happiness. That seems more like our father’s way of running things than my own. And perhaps you’re right, the change in this family must come from us moving more toward you and away from him than the opposite direction. I’m sorry, Silas.”
“You’re saying you would accept me?” Silas asked. “And her, if I’m so lucky as to win her?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “I would accept you. And I doubt anyone could do anything but accept her. I think she would demand it and somehow make it the other person’s own idea.”
“She would at that,” Silas said with a chuckle.
He suddenly felt so…light. So free. He could stay here in London and still be who he was. He could start to create a family with the siblings who had once been taught to push him aside. And he would have Arabella. Or at least try his damnedest to win her.
But if Charlie seemed resigned to this arrangement, Reginald now squirmed. There was something troubled to his face and Silas sighed. “You’re going to cause me trouble, aren’t you?”
Reginald shook his head. “No. I’ve only ever wanted to protect Charlie. If he agrees to this new arrangement, I would do nothing but what he wishes. What you need. The problem is more that…that…”
“What?” Silas’s voice was sharper now. He couldn’t help it as his brother’s guilty expression created a fear in him that he couldn’t quite define. “What is it?”
“I was contacted by a man a few days ago,” Reginald said. “His name is Albert Comerford.”
It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under Silas’s feet and now he was falling. His ears rung and his hands shook as he managed to choke out, “Arabella’s father? You talked to her father about her?”
Arabella had never trudged in her life, but when she stepped out of her carriage and onto her drive, she almost felt as though she couldn’t fully lift her feet.
She’d done the right thing, of course. Setting Silas free, pushing him back toward his family, that was the best course. Now she could focus on forgetting her feelings for the man and he could focus on building the relationship he always should have had with his siblings.
But it didn’t feel like the right thing. It felt awful.
“Good evening, Miss Comerford,” Barnaby said as she stepped up to the door.
“Good evening, Barnaby. Is Julia at home, then?”
“No, she went out with Miss Reynolds again. She told me she wouldn’t be home until late.”
There was relief in that fact. She didn’t want her sister to read the pain she couldn’t hide for much longer. She forced a smile. “Well, then do you think you might have something light sent to my room to eat? And then you are relieved of duties. I’ll be in for the night.”
If her butler thought it strange that she’d left for a supper engagement but returned early and in need of food, he didn’t express it. He merely agreed to the request and left her to her own devices.
She took the opportunity to go into her parlor. The fires weren’t lit in the small room, not that she’d expected them to be. She’d been out, after all. Not likely expected back until late, if at all. But the dark suited her and she moved to the sideboard only by the moonlight streaming through the front window. She was pouring herself a drink when she heard a sound from the back corner of the room.
“I wondered how long I’d have to wait.”
She froze, for she knew that voice well, even if she hadn’t heard it for six years. She swallowed hard, set down her glass and turned toward him slowly. He was nothing but a shadow in the dark, the shape of a demon come to collect her.
“Father,” she said, and was proud her voice didn’t shake. “I didn’t expect you. How rude of my servants not to give you light and refreshment.”
“Don’t be stupid, you know they aren’t aware that I’m here.”
She inclined her head. “Of course not. If they were they wouldn’t have let you in.”
That was her standing order, after all. To keep away the man who regularly threatened her. She was even happier Julia wasn’t here. At least the threat was only directed at Arabella for now.
“As if you have the right to lock me out.” Her father moved closer and the moonlight hit his face. For a moment, she was ripped back in time to when she was a very little girl with no way to fight him. No way to stop him from hurting her with his words or the back of his hand. When she’d been terrified of him.
She still was, but now she could remind herself that she had power. Or at least she wasn’t a child who was entirely weak.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Have you come along to speak your threats in person? I’ve received them, you needn’t bother.”
“You’ve ruined my life,” he growled.
She shook her head. “Yes, so you’ve repeated ad nauseum. But I’ve been a courtesan for six years, Evelina joined me four years ago, Julia two. Why in the world would you break into my house now? I couldn’t have freshly damaged you, I’ve done nothing different.”
“I’ve been working toward a marriage,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “The middle daughter of the second son of Viscount Trafford.”
She stepped back. “Christ, Father, she cannot be more than two years older than I am. That’s disgusting.”
“What choice did you leave me?” His face grew red and spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke. “You and your sisters stole any chance I had of furthering myself through your marriages. And then you went and whored yourselves out so blatantly, damaging my name. It took me this long to work on Trafford. To convince him through a variety of means.”
“Blackmail him, perhaps?” she asked softly. “He has a secret family, yes?”
He arched a brow. “Seems you have your information, too.”
“What in the world would your disgusting bargains with Trafford have to do with me?” she asked.
“A few weeks ago you started up with that Windham bastard. All your scandalous activities started spiraling back to the country. The scandal rags were dripping with the stories of your races and gambling and running around like a fool with him. They named your sisters, they named me.”
She flinched. Using her own name, trying to tweak her father’s fury, it had been her biggest mistake. And now it seemed it was coming back to haunt her.
“And?” she asked coolly, though she had an idea of what happened next.
“Trafford said he was trying to avoid a scandal, not fall back into one. He refused the match, bought off my source of information about his other family. Matched his daughter to some other man before I could protest too publicly. I lost my connection to an increase in my worth because of you.” He got even closer and she backed up, but there was no more room to move. He had to her pinned against the table. “And it will keep happening. You will keep up what you are, and it will always damage me. But if you’re dead, then it ends.”
Raw, powerful fear roared through Arabella as she stared into the face of a man who should have loved her, but had only ever hated her even before she ran. A man who looked entirely serious about what he wanted to do.
There was a light knock on the parlor door and they both froze and looked toward it. “Miss Comerford?”
It was Barnaby. When she looked back at her father, she saw he had a gun out now. Pointed toward the thin door and the servant beyond.
“No,” she whispered. “Let me.” She hoped her voice sounded less shaky when she called out, “Yes?”
He hesitated when she didn’t call him in, but then said, “The food has been delivered to your chamber—a few of your favorites.”
“Good man,” she called back. “You’re so kind. Now, please, you and your lovely wife must take the rest of the night off, as I said earlier. I’ll lock up before I go up.”
“Yes, miss. Goodnight,” Barnaby said, his tone lined with confusion. But he didn’t try to come in and she heard his footfalls moving away. To safety. At least she could provide that.
“Funny how you’d protect a servant but you’d throw your sisters to the wolves and destroy me.” Her father caught her arm and dragged her toward the door, his fingers digging hard into her flesh and his gun pressed against her side. “Now, you’re going to write a letter of goodbye, Arabella. And we’re going to take care of this.”
“Fine,” she said. “Fine, I’ll do as you like. Let me write it upstairs. I can leave it where someone will see it.”
He glared at her as he pulled her into the hall. There the light was fuller and she gasped. He looked twenty years older rather than just six. And his gaze was wild and so cruel.
“If you alert anyone in this house to my presence, if you think you’ll get away somehow by tricking me, know that I will kill anyone who comes for you with no hesitation. Your servants, your sisters, your latest lover. I’ll shoot any of them without any remorse and let you watch them die.”
She nodded, blinking at the tears stinging her eyes. “I won’t do anything.”
He drew her to the stairs and they staggered up together and into her chamber. She looked past her bed, toward the dressing room. “I’ll write it in there,” she said, and pulled from his arms.
She went into the other room, ignoring the tub where she’d last been with Silas for the moment. To realize that might be the last time they were ever together in any intimate way was too painful. She would die and he might believe she’d killed herself. Might think it had to do with their supper tonight and the rejection of his family.
God, he would hate them and himself. She had to make sure he didn’t believe that. That her sisters knew she wouldn’t leave them on purpose. She had to leave clues that her demise had been at this man’s hand so she could protect her sisters from any retribution he might seek against them when he wasn’t satisfied with only destroying her.
She drew paper from a drawer in her dressing room and stood at the table, staring at that blank vellum for a moment. “What should I say?”
“That you know you’re a ruining whore who doesn’t deserve to live and that you went to the Thames to kill yourself. Wash away all that disgusting sin. Oh, and add that you’re mostly sorry to your dear father.”
She shut her eyes and drew a shaky breath. He had no idea that he was playing into her hand. No one she knew or loved would ever believe any of that nonsense.
My dearest Evelina and Julia,
This is all too much for me, knowing how I destroyed you.
She stared at those words, knowing that sometimes she had truly believed them to be true. Salvation had been so close to destruction for both her sisters. She blinked at tears and continued.
And I cannot go on with the guilt any longer. Not in harming you, nor in the humiliation I caused against our innocent father, who only wished to raise us with love and kindness. To free us all from my mistakes, I must end my life. Think of my favorite spot and know that I’m washed away from all the pain. With all my love to you and to Silus, goodbye. Arabella.
Her father held out a hand for the note and she watched with bated breath as he read it. Would he notice she’d spelled Silas’s name wrong? Or that she’d gone on a little too far about his kindness? Would he ask about her favorite spot, a little grove along the Thames that was just across from the house she now stood in? The one she’d now try to convince her father to take her to?
