Tempting the Marquess (25 page)

A ruinous mistake, even.

“Charles?”

“What now?”

She couldn’t blame him for being cross with her. She had put him in an impossible position.

“I think I want to go home now,” she said in a small voice.

“Thank God!” He wheeled the curricle around so quickly they nearly overturned. “Do you suppose anyone will believe that we went for a drive and got lost?”

“I doubt it,” she said in an even tinier voice. “Not if they found my note.”

“You left a note?” His voice was strained.

“Of course. I didn’t want them to worry.”

He made a sound that was somewhere between a groan and a laugh. “What exactly did this note say?”

“Just that I was sorry, and that they shouldn’t worry. And that I was heading to Scotland with you.”

“Livvy! Your family is going to think we’re eloping!”

She stared at him, horrified. “No. Surely not. They know I love Jason.”

“You’ve a fine way of showing it,” he grumbled, “running off the day before your wedding.”

“I panicked. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll tell everyone this was all my idea and that you only agreed to go along with it when I threatened to go alone.”

“That will only work,” he said, “if whoever comes after us doesn’t shoot me on sight.”

“I don’t think that will happen. They’ll probably want to beat you first.”

“Oh, well, I feel much better now.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything before they have time to lay a finger on you. I only meant to reassure you about the shooting bit.”

He laughed.

“If you’re laughing, does that mean you don’t hate me?”

“Of course I don’t hate you. I can’t say I’m pleased about the mess we’re in, but we’re in it together. Laura bailed me out of any number of scrapes, and now it’s my turn to help you out of yours.” He transferred the reins to one hand and patted her knee.

That simple touch made tears well up in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Wait, do you hear horses?”

Charles reined in his bays at the side of the road the better to hear. Sure enough, the sound of hoofbeats carried through the silence, and soon two riders were visible.

“Now we’re in for it,” Charles said glumly. “That’s Jason on the chestnut filly. Who’s that with him?”

Livvy squinted her eyes against the setting sun. “That’s my older brother.”

“Wonderful. Now I’ll have people fighting over who gets to kill me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Olivia chided. “Once I explain the situation, Henry’s more likely to hug you. And in any case, Henry wouldn’t kill you. He might beat you until you wished you were dead, but he wouldn’t kill you.”

They waited in silence until the riders pulled up abreast of them.

“I’m going to kill you, Charles,” Jason said in a deadly calm voice as he kicked out of his stirrups and swung down to the ground.

“You can have him once I’m done with him,” Henry interjected as he too dismounted. “The bounder ran off with my little sister. It’s my right as a brother to pound him into the ground.”

“See, I told you he wouldn’t kill you,” Olivia remarked to Charles.

“I’d prefer he not beat me, either,” Charles replied, “so now would be a good time for all that explaining you promised to do.”

“Oh, of course. Jason, Henry, neither of you are to lay a finger on Charles. This was all my idea. I panicked earlier, and for some reason the only place I could think of that felt safe was the library at Haile Castle. Charles only agreed to escort me when I threatened to go alone on the post.”

“Why did you panic?” Jason asked quietly.

“I’ll tell you,” she said, “but only if you answer a question of mine first.”

“Very well,” he agreed.

“Do you trust me?”

“What kind of question is that?” he asked.

“One with a simple yes or no answer. Do you trust me?”

“I don’t really think that’s a fair question given today’s events,” Jason argued.

“It’s entirely fair. If you trusted me, you wouldn’t have thought I was eloping with Charles.”

“What the hell else was I supposed to think upon hearing that you were headed to Scotland with another man the day before our wedding?”

“I love you. I love you too much to ever leave you, but I need you to love me enough to trust I’m not going to run off one day. I’m not your mother, Jason,” she said softly.

A long, uncomfortable silence followed.

“Well,” Charles said with forced cheer, “it seems like you two have a great deal to talk about, so why don’t you drive Olivia back in my curricle, Jace, and I’ll take your horse. Here, Livvy, hold the reins while we change places.” He jumped down and went over to Jason. “Don’t worry,” he said as he passed Henry, “she’ll be safe with him.”

“It’s not her I’m worried about,” Henry replied. “A Weston female in a temper is not a pretty sight.”

“Oh, shove off, Hal.”

“See what I mean?” Henry said. “I ride hell- for-leather to rescue her and that’s the thanks I get.” He looked at Jason. “See that you don’t fall too far behind us. I’m still in the mood to plant a facer on someone.” He swung himself back into the saddle and rode off.

Charles followed suit, leaving her alone with Jason.

He climbed into the curricle and sat beside her. His fingers brushed hers when he took the reins, and when he set the horses in motion, she swayed into him. His thigh brushed her skirts and she fought the urge to press closer to his heat.

“Why did you run?” he asked again.

“It’s a bit complicated. When I saw Charles this morning, we got to speaking about my, um, adventure, and he told me something I hadn’t known. You remember you had gone back to Charles’s apartments so he could tell you something?”

“That’s right. His horrible secret. Come to think of it, he never did tell me.”

“Yes, I know that now, but all this time I thought he had told you that night. Charles should really be the one to tell you this, but I—”

“If it’s to do with Charles, is it really important?” he asked.

“It’s not just to do with Charles. It’s to do with Laura, too. You see, she wasn’t running away the day she died.”

“Don’t start this again, Olivia,” Jason warned her.

“I’m not starting anything. I’m ending it. All the lies and accusations. Laura wasn’t ever involved with another man. She loved you, Jason.”

He shook his head. “How do you explain Lord Verney’s visits to the town house the week prior to her death? I wasn’t in residence. What business could he possibly have had with Laura? And if she wasn’t running off, why was she carrying a small fortune in jewelry along on her early-morning ride?”

“Laura was paying off a debt for Charles. She didn’t have enough money to cover his losses, so she asked Lord Verney if he would accept jewelry instead. They agreed to meet in the park early that morning.”

Jason was silent for a long time. “How do you know all of this?”

She swallowed hard, bracing herself. If he had been so furious about the brooch, she didn’t want to imagine how he would react to learning about the diary.

“When I was reorganizing the library at Haile Castle, I came across a diary. I had already found the brooch by that point, so when I skimmed one of the entries, I recognized that it must have belonged to Laura.”

“Clearly you didn’t just replace the book on the shelf.”

“No,” she admitted. “I know it was wrong of me to do so. Even as I read it, I knew I shouldn’t. But I was so fascinated by you, I just couldn’t help myself.

“I wanted to tell you about the diary the night you found the brooch. Actually, I had been planning on telling you about the brooch that night.”

He made a sound of disbelief.

“I was. I already knew that I was falling in love with you, and I didn’t want secrets between us. But then things got so out of control that I forgot.”

“A likely story,” he said scornfully. “Even if it is true, which I very much doubt, you should have told me about the diary once I had found the brooch.”

“I couldn’t tell you about the diary. Not without talking to Charles first. The knowledge contained within was likely to have the greatest impact on your relationship with him. Charles was adamant that you not be told. He believed himself responsible for Laura’s death, and he was certain you would blame him, too. He feared you would prevent him from seeing Edward.”

Jason said nothing, so Olivia pressed on.

“At that point, of course, neither of us was aware you suspected Laura of having an affair. Once I learned about your suspicions, I told Charles he had to confess to you or I would do it. I couldn’t let you go on thinking Laura had betrayed you.

“And up until today, I thought Charles
had
confessed to you that night. I thought that was what changed your mind about me, about us. That you had realized that you could trust and love again. I realize now that I misinterpreted some of your words, perhaps because I wanted so badly to believe this magic transformation was real. When I realized it had never happened at all, I panicked. All this time I thought you loved me. You never said the words, but I simply thought two people couldn’t be the way we were together without love. But if you still believed all that nonsense about all women being unfaithful, that meant you didn’t trust me not to run away someday. And if you didn’t trust me, you certainly didn’t love me.”

Jason sat, unmoving as a statue save for the little flicks of his wrist as he guided the team.

“Please,” she begged. “Say something.”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say. I can barely take it all in.”

She nodded, her eyes bright with tears. “I never wanted to fall in love, you know. I never thought I would meet a man like one of the heroes in books, and I was worried I’d end up with my heart broken. This last month has been like a perfect dream. I want you to know that I don’t regret loving you, Jason.”

When at last they reached Weston Manor, Jason drove round to the stables. As he handed her down, she realized he looked more disheveled than she’d ever seen him, and there was a lost, wild look in his eyes.

And she had been the one to put it there.

Did he hate her? she wondered.

Did he wish she’d never come into his life?

She refused to believe he had been happy, living as he was. If one could even call it living. He had been drifting along, simply existing. But there was no denying his life had been far less complicated before she had come into it.

He was always so strong, so steady, and she found it unnerving to see him so undone now.
Reach out to me
, she wanted to say.
Let me be your support. You don’t have to go through this alone.
But he
did
have to face these demons alone. She couldn’t heal the hurt inside him, no matter how much she wanted to.

Jason began to walk, not toward the house but out on the grounds. She followed him, knowing there was still more to be said between them. It was painfully cold, but Livvy found she was oddly grateful for the weather. If she focused on the fact that her toes felt like icicles, she wasn’t thinking about everything else going on.

Which was really a very good thing, because if she actually thought about everything that had happened that day, about where she had started and where she was headed, she suspected she would look even more lost and confused than Jason did.

Finally he spoke, and she knew from his tone of voice that the man who had been her lover was gone and in his place was the reserved marquess she had first met. It was an effort not to break down entirely.

“I believe I can safely say certain things were brought to light today which neither of us has come to terms with as yet. Your flight, if nothing else, indicates a situation more complicated than cold feet. You want me to trust you, but I am not sure you trust me, or if you even trust yourself.”

Olivia heard Jason speaking, but she was having difficulty focusing on his words. There was a blessed sense of numbness settling over her.

“I’m afraid there is no couching this in niceties. Are you in a condition that necessitates we wed to morrow?”

A condition? Did a broken heart count as a condition? “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Was he breaking their engagement? After her precipitous flight with Charles, did an engagement even still exist to be broken?

Broken, broken, broken.

Broken trust.

Broken heart.

A broken engagement fit in nicely.

“I shall have to speak plainly,” Jason said. “Is there a chance you are with child? Have your courses come?”

Olivia suddenly felt as though she were standing too close to a fire. Despite all the wickedly intimate things she had done with Jason, discussing her courses was too embarrassing. In any case, she wasn’t talking to Jason now, but the Marquess of Sheldon.

Her cheeks flamed, but she shook her head. “I am not with child.” For the briefest moment, she thought she saw a flash of disappointment cross his face, but that was foolish, she told herself. If anything, he was likely relieved.