Never Fall for Your Fiancee, page 23
“Both.” All the color seemed to drain from his face, which took away most of the satisfaction of hearing him admit she mattered. “In the beginning I tried to convince myself it was purely a carnal attraction, but this goes beyond lust, Minerva. Is it just me who feels it?”
She made him wait several seconds before she sighed and flicked her gaze briefly his way. “No.… It’s not just you.” At least he was in turmoil, too. Somehow that made her feel less foolish for pouring her heart and soul into a futile kiss. “Shall we blame the forced proximity? The odd circumstances? The fact we are pretending to be an engaged couple to all and sundry? The beautiful atmospheric abbey, the deserted beach…?”
“You could blame any and all of those things.… However, for me, I shall call it what it is. Attraction … passion … undeniable affection. Something which could be much more if we both took a chance on it.”
Her silly heart soared again, buoyed with forlorn hope. “You … have an affection for … me?”
“Well, it should hardly come as a surprise. You are inordinately nice.”
He smiled without humor and stared at their interlocked fingers. “But I have too much affection for you to indulge my feelings with no consideration of the potential consequences. The Standish male makes for an exceptionally bad husband and I was resigned to never be one. I will not make promises I am unlikely to keep, Minerva, as much as I want to. Not to you. I care for you and respect you too much to pretend to be anything other than what I am. Another untrustworthy man, who will probably ultimately disappoint you in the long run—just like your father and that good-for-nothing Romeo who deserted you.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I am not in a position to offer marriage. Just myself for the time being…”
And there it was.
The offer doubtless many an unsuitable woman received from an aristocratic man—the temporary, insecure, and unbinding commitment of becoming his mistress. She should have expected it, just as she always expected to be disappointed by a man, but it hurt nonetheless—because the disappointment came from him. Her knight. When clearly her knight, like every fairy tale, had been entirely a flight of fiction.
“And I dare not ask you to take a chance to wait and see if I might change as our relationship develops…” He paused and stared at her intently as if he expected her to say something, agree to his insulting offer.
“No.” She forced the word out as she removed her hand from the cocoon of his. She wanted a better life. One independent from the financial and social shackles that bound her. Becoming a rich man’s mistress, as well as belittling all she was and all that existed between them, was as transient and unreliable as her piecemeal woodcutting. In fact, it was worse. With woodcutting there was always hope amongst all the uncertainty. As a mistress, there was no hope, just the certainty that eventual abandonment was inevitable. “Please do not ask me that again.”
He stared down at his lap. “Of course … Sorry I brought it up.… It is doubtless for the best.… I suppose I must accept we are two people who, if I had not been born who I am”—another tactful reminder of the chasm between their stations—“might have been perfect for one another but are doomed to be nothing more than a short interlude in one another’s lives.… More’s the pity.”
“I think I preferred my excuses.” She wanted to leave. Or shout and scream and slap him for wounding her. “They sounded less depressing.” Or callous. She turned away and stared back at the distant sea on the horizon. Even that had lost its magic. “We should go.”
“But we are still friends, aren’t we?” He sounded sad and she didn’t care. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“You haven’t hurt me.” Just cut me to the quick. “I am far too sensible to have ever expected promises from you or be deluded enough to want them.” And she had too much respect for herself to agree to his debasing proposition. “Only a fool falls for a scoundrel, after all, and only an idiot would tie herself to him.”
She thought he was different. Because with him, she was different. Happier, lighter, even younger. But not anymore. He had spoiled something she thought was lovely and turned it vile. Diminished her and all that she was, when she had fought so hard to be something.
Just never enough.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat and blinked the threatening tears away. It was never easy to hear you weren’t quite good enough—an almost but not quite—but to hear it from Hugh, a man she had allowed herself to care deeply for, was somehow worse.
“Minerva…”
“There is nothing left to say, Hugh. You asked, I said no, let us leave it at that.”
She would give him some credit for his honesty. He could have blithely seduced her with empty promises of more and cast her aside, as men of his ilk often did with women who were beneath them. But he had respected her feelings and been truthful about his intentions from the start. And that, too, was so typically Hugh.
“If it’s any consolation, I am truly sorry I cannot promise you more today…” His expression was intense, more serious than she had ever seen it. “But I will promise you one thing today. I will be there for you, should you ever need me. Wherever, whenever … You can always count on me to come to your aid.”
“My own personal knight in shining armor.” The bitterness leaked into her tone.
“At best, my armor is tarnished, but the knight beneath is not all bad, I hope.”
“Nor all good.” More was the pity. She was too angry to look at him. Too disappointed and humiliated and hurt.
“I care for you too deeply to lie to you.”
“I know.” Just not deeply enough to want it all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Where the hell have you been?” Diana met them at the stables as they pulled to a stop. “I have been tearing my hair out!”
“There was no need to worry. Hugh thought I needed a break so we went out for a drive. He did tell Payne to inform you we would be back in plenty of time for dinner.”
In his misery, Hugh hadn’t given any thought to the inevitable confrontation with Minerva’s sisters. Perhaps he should have, but he was too preoccupied with the gravity of what had just occurred to care about anything else. He had bared his soul, offered himself to her as truthfully as he could, warts and all, and she had politely turned him down. He should have expected it, because even as he had offered it he wasn’t entirely sure precisely what he was offering above an attempt to give deep affection and monogamy a go to see if they did have a future. But still, her calm, categoric refusal had cut like a sword.
I am far too sensible to have ever expected promises from you or be deluded enough to want them.
He couldn’t really blame her. He wasn’t a good bet. The sorry truth of that unshakeable fact made his tainted Standish blood boil.
Diana’s eyes swept the length of her, taking in the disheveled hair, the sand stains on her skirt, and her kiss-swollen lips, then glared. “Oh, we shall discuss all that at length later, dear Sister, let me assure you, but right now we have a much bigger problem on our hands. Come!”
With that she strode off, expecting them to follow. Diana took the servants’ staircase behind the kitchen rather than enter the family part of the house, marching directly to Lucretia’s door. She tapped it and whispered against the wood. “It’s me.”
They heard a key turn in the lock, then came face-to-face with a wide-eyed, harried Vee when it opened. “Oh, thank goodness! I’m at my wits’ end. Thankfully she’s sleeping again … for the moment, at least…” The youngest Merriwell stepped aside while Diana herded them all into the darkened room before locking the door again.
As his eyes adjusted, Hugh began to make out a Lucretia-shaped lump on the mattress. There was an odd smell in the air. A bit like spirits mixed with cheap perfume. “What’s wrong with her? Is she sick?”
“She’s drunk!”
Diana marched to the nightstand and turned up the lamp, and the full extent of the problem was shown in stark relief. Next to the lamp was an empty decanter. He recognized it as the one from the library. Another similarly drained wine bottle lay on its side, uncorked on the floor. A third was cradled in Lucretia’s pudgy arms as she snored loudly.
“She pleaded another headache this afternoon before we went to the Ladies’ Society and retired to her room. I didn’t check on her, because Mr. Peabody suggested a ride, and by the time we came back she was in a right old state. Fortunately, she had dragged herself up here, so your family haven’t collided with her yet—but she’s been singing so enthusiastically it’s only a matter of time before they do. Our dear, grieving, alcohol-averse mother has a substantial pair of lungs.”
Vee stood nervously wringing her hands. “I’ve been trying to sober her up, I even asked Payne to send up some coffee, but that was over an hour ago and I haven’t seen him since.”
“Well, at least she’s finally quiet. I didn’t think I could take any more Mozart.” Diana leaned over the actress’s prostrate body and attempted to slip the wine bottle from her grasp. That apparently had the power to rouse the woman from her deep slumber, and she hugged it tight, blinking out of one bloodshot eye in the harsh light.
“Turn the lamp off! Devil child!” Her hand flailed around searching for the bedcovers, and when it found none, hoisted her skirt up to cover her face, rewarding them all with the sight of her garishly striped stockings. The sort worn by thespians on the stage. “I am trying to sch-leep!”
“There’s no way she’ll be fit for dinner. While that is bound to raise your mother’s suspicions, it’s probably just as well she avoids the dining room, as I doubt she even knows her own name at the moment—let alone the one she’s supposed to have. But I have no idea how we are going to explain it without confessing she is too fond of the hard stuff.” Diana shot daggers at the lump in the bed. “Because I’ll bet that a few servants saw her wandering the halls as drunk as a sailor and they must have told Her Ladyship. Or if they haven’t yet, they soon will. Gossip like this is priceless.”
“Payne will deal with the servants.” Hugh turned to Vee. “Can you go find him and ask him what the blazes he thinks he is about not fetching that coffee!”
Vee didn’t need to be asked twice, utterly relieved to be able to escape the room. He couldn’t blame her. The final minutes of the ride home had been pure torture, and Hugh had had plans to hide in his bedchamber and lick his wounds in private until he didn’t have the overwhelming urge to rage at the heavens for cursing him with his father’s blood, or weep because she confessed she had a deep affection for him, too, but was determined to leave him despite his tentative olive branch. “I’ll think of something to tell my family and I’ll get Payne to find an easily bribed maid to stay with her.”
Hugh had no qualms about removing the wine bottle, prizing Lucretia’s fingers from the neck when she attempted to hold on for grim death. He was going to wring Giles’s blasted neck when he got hold of him. He should have known there was something peculiar about a brilliant actress from the London stage being readily available at the drop of a hat. The damn woman was a drunkard! An unreliable drunkard he was now well and truly stuck with.
“It’s probably best to let her sleep it off for a few hours and then once she is coherent, I shall have some stern words with her.” He strode to the window, opened it, and tipped the remaining wine from the bottle ceremoniously out of it. “Clearly I need to put the alcohol under lock and key!” He glared at Diana. “You shouldn’t have left her alone all day!”
It was an unfair barb, but he was at the end of his tether, furious at fate, his father’s bad blood, his suddenly yearning, needy heart, and Minerva’s quick acceptance of his logical reasoning without putting up a fight. If she’d have taken a chance on him to be a better man than his ancestors, then he damn well would have been! For her! Because she was worth the effort. Hell—he would lock himself away with her in Hampshire, away from all temptation that might fire his wayward Standish blood, dedicate himself to their relationship until he was certain he could continue in that vein.
But she was too sensible to want anything from him, let alone the distant promise of marriage, and he was too unworthy to warrant the chance. Minerva had too much experience of unworthy men to waste another minute on one, and he hated both her wastrel father and the unreliable Romeo even more as a result. If it weren’t for them, he might have stood a chance! But thanks to them, she would leave and he would never see her again. For her, goodbye would mean goodbye. A clean cut. A clean slate. A fresh start. Not at all what he wanted. Too final. Too painful.
Too tragic.
Beneath his ribs, his heart still hurt. If this was what affection did, he shuddered to think what actual love would do to his body.
“And you shouldn’t have taken my sister off alone! I knew you were a despoiler! I warned Minerva you couldn’t be trusted! But I let my guard down and at the first opportunity, you stole her away!” Diana’s pointed finger jabbed him in the chest much too close to his battered heart. “If she’s been ruined, you’ll have to answer to me!”
“I have not been ruined, Diana…”
“Or so you think! There is more than one way to ruin a woman, Minerva, and this repugnant rake probably knows all of them! Did the blaggard promise you marriage in return for favors? I suppose he took you to some filthy inn somewhere so he could have his wicked way with you away from prying eyes!”
Hugh grabbed the jabbing finger before it did more damage to the organ Minerva had already bludgeoned. “I did not ruin your sister!” He’d wanted to. Lord knows he had wanted to. Ruin her and make her his, then never let her go. “And I resent the implication.”
“Resent it, do you?” The most confrontational Merriwell placed one hand on her hip and gestured to Minerva with the other. “Look at the state of her! Do you deny you never laid so much as a finger on her? A man like you? London’s very own Don Juan!”
Hugh did not need another lecture on the sort of man he was. “We have better things to concern ourselves with than your scurrilous accusations, Diana. Can we focus on the problem in hand?”
“Là ci darem la mano … Là mi dirai di sì…” Lucretia’s garbled warbling came from under her petticoat tent at a volume and pitch guaranteed to offend the ears, the choice of song farcically fitting in the wake of Diana’s suspicions—the rake’s infamous seduction scene from Don Giovanni. The one where he tries to lure a good girl away from her morals and her fiancé. Like his mother, Hugh was coming to loathe Mozart.
“I knew it! I knew you couldn’t be trusted!”
“Vedi, non è lontano…”
“Stop singing, Lucretia!” He yanked the petticoats from the woman’s face. “You need to be quiet!”
“Did I ever tell you I played Zerlina at Drury Lane? It was a triumph…” He yanked the petticoats back.
Bloody Giles!
The sister’s finger jabbed again. “What are you going to do to rectify your grievous wrongs, Lord Fareham?”
“Nothing, Diana!” The woman he desperately wanted to be able to ruin finally found her voice above the cacophony. “Because nothing happened.” Her eyes flicked to his, and he couldn’t read them. “I wasn’t ruined. Hugh hasn’t despoiled or seduced me. We did some sightseeing! I saw the sea. That is hardly a crime.”
“The housekeeper said Payne is in his quarters.” Vee burst back through the door, looking distraught. “Apparently he has warned everyone on threat of death he is not to be disturbed, even in an emergency.”
“What the blazes!” Hugh marched to the door himself, desperately needing to strangle someone, and that someone might as well be his insubordinate butler. “We shall see about that!” Clearly the whole world had gone mad today. Nothing had felt right since he’d waltzed with Minerva. He turned to her, and in fairness had to admit that thanks to his reckless curricle driving, she did look like she had been thoroughly ravished. “I’ll be back.”
She nodded, apologetic when she had nothing whatsoever to apologize for, aside from rejecting him, which added more fuel to the flames—when he wanted her to be as furious at fate as he was. Wanted her to fight for him—for them. To at least give it a chance.
“We will hold the fort until you do.” What a typically selfless and utterly annoying Minerva thing to say.
“Of course you will.” Better that than take a stand for something that could be wonderful if …
Bloody what-ifs!
Hugh slammed the door and took the servants’ stairs two at a time up to the third floor and hammered his fist on the door to his butler’s quarters. “Open the blasted door, Payne, or I’ll knock it down!”
He heard a key turn in a lock, and the door opened just enough for his butler to squeeze through before he pulled it shut behind him. “Thank goodness you are home, my lord…”
“Don’t ‘thank goodness’ me, you layabout! What the devil do you mean abandoning the ladies to deal with that drunken actress alone? Is this how you behave in my absence? You promised to fetch coffee and then came up here to rest on your laurels!”
“Something unexpected and urgent came up, my lord.”
“Something unexpected! And urgent to boot? Here—in your comfortable private quarters well away from the crisis below?” Hugh folded his arms and blinked.
“We have a visitor. Or rather, you have a visitor. A most insistent one. Thank goodness he arrived after everyone had retired and I was able to intercept him. For the sake of discretion, I brought him up here, where I have been guarding him since. Patiently awaiting your arrival.” Payne pushed open the door to reveal an older man lounging in a chair by the fireplace. Arrogant emerald eyes locked with his, and Hugh knew exactly who he was before his butler introduced him.
“Mr. Alfred Merriwell, my lord. Miss Minerva’s father.”
His first reaction was to pummel the wastrel to a bloody pulp. Instead, he set his jaw and walked calmly into the room, sensing trouble in spades. “Mr. Merriwell … an unpleasant surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
