Regency 02 - Betrayal (13 page)

Bri turned suddenly as the door to her
chamber creaked open. “Brewster, is that you?”

A short laugh greeted her inquiry. A short,
male laugh. “No, it is I. Your beloved.” Steyne spat the last word
as if it were something distasteful to him.

Bri stood and clutched her robe closer to her
breasts. “Get out,” she said evenly, trying to mask her fear. Was
she to be raped even now, when under the protection of her
family?

Steyne sauntered closer, his hands shoved in
his pockets. “What is there between you and Prestwich, my dear?
Anything I should know about?”

“No,” Bri said quickly. “I hate that
man.”

“Do you?” the viscount said mildly. He
stopped in front of her and gazed at her intently. “I wonder.” He
fiddled with the cuff of his shirt, his eyes never leaving her.
“You do know what they say about love and hate,” he finally uttered
into the lengthening silence. It was not a question.

Of course she knew, but she chose not to
think about that either.

Bri stared at him haughtily. “It is not
proper for you to be in my bedchamber, my lord.”

He stared at her for a long moment before
replying. He fisted his hands on his hips, then dropped them to his
sides, then he crossed them over his chest. His eyes were shuttered
and she couldn’t read his thoughts. That frightened her more than
anything.

“I want something from you,” he said
finally.

Lady Rothsmere took and involuntary step
back. The sudden blaze in his eyes told her exactly what he wanted.
“I will scream if you touch me,” she hissed through clenched
teeth.

“Scream all you want, my dear. It will do you
no good.”

Bri sucked in a sharp breath. “What have you
done to Brewster?” It came to her in a sudden flash that Brewster
was more than just her jailer. She was also her protector.

A smile of quite frightening malice curled
Hadley Steyne’s lips before he took on an expression of false
sympathy. “You need not worry that she will interrupt. I have taken
care to ensure that she is out for the night.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Bri’s
feet seemed to grow wings. The viscount was unfortunately between
her and the door leading out into the hall but she thought she
might be able to reach the dressing room and lock herself inside.
Just as she reached for the door handle, she felt a hand grab her
nightclothes and jerk her back with enough force to send her
sprawling.

The force of her landing succeeded in freeing
her from his hold. She scrambled towards the bellpull. He caught
her before she had made it ten feet. She wished her room were about
a quarter the size it was. Then she might have had a chance of
escape.

Then she saw the book on the floor. It was a
rather large volume covered in leather and lying half under the
bed. It must have fallen last night when she was reading. Thank God
for the laxity of her servants!

With a strength borne of fear and hate, Bri
threw the book at her betrothed with all her force. It caught him
in the shoulder and he once again lost his hold on her. This time
she was able to regain her footing and dash towards the outer
door.

She tripped and hit her head on the
bedpost.

Steyne rose to his feet with one hand
cradling his shoulder and his eyes blazing with rage and hate. With
not a trace of gentleness, he hauled her to her feet. She swayed as
a wave of dizziness threatened to overtake her. With lightening
swiftness, Lord Steyne grabbed her around the waist to steady her
and set his lips to hers.

Instead of screaming, Bri nearly swooned
again. The man smelled and tasted like strong spirits, stale cigar
smoke and sweat and her head was pounding. His hands were on her
body and she wished suddenly that Adam had left her to die in
Newgate. Anything was better than this!

Even Adam. Oh, God! Her heart and soul
screamed out to him, partly in anger and partly in fear. If only
life were like the romances. Then her hero would save her before
the dastardly villain could steal her virtue.

The viscount’s lips left hers for only a
moment as he tossed her onto the bed. Bri struggled to sit up and
get away from him but her head protested the sudden movement
required and he was on top of her and bruising her lips against her
teeth again. His fingers fumbled for the edge of her nightgown and
then the button of his breeches.

She kicked and hit him, trying desperately to
dislodge him. Her fear was quickly becoming an insanity borne of
desperation. She had experienced this all before and she knew how
painful it was going to be. She couldn’t let it happen again.

But it was too late. She screamed then as he
entered her body in one painful thrust. She felt and saw the
blackness rising towards her and she reached eagerly for it. She
slipped into blessed oblivion and avoided the worst of the pain and
humiliation.

Or so she thought.

“Bri!”

Adam sat up in bed, the sound of his own
voice jolting him awake. He realized he wasn’t in his own bed. A
sleepy Raven opened her eyes partially and smoothed her hand over
his arm. He looked down at her through eyes glazed with a
remembered nightmare.

Even as he sat there, mere moments after
waking, Adam could not recall exactly what it was he had dreamed.
He knew it had something to do with Bri yet he could remember
nothing about it. Almost as if it hadn’t really been a dream. More
like a feeling. She needed him.

Adam flopped back down on the pillows and
stared unseeingly up at the ceiling. Why on earth would she need
him, of all people? She hated him. Didn’t she?

There was no help for it. He must pay her a
call on the morrow and make sure she was all right.

“Oh, dear God!”

Bri came awake to the sound of a tray
clattering to the floor. She opened her eyes and looked around
groggily. She recognized her room and her maid, Brewster. The
woman’s face was twisted into a mask of horror.

A puzzled frown crossed her own features
before she remembered the events of the night just past. Bri’s gaze
swung wildly around the room, looking for the source of her
pain.

“He’s gone, my lady,” the maid said in a
soothing voice. It was a voice one would use to calm a frightened
animal.

Bri returned her gaze to her maid and tried
to sit up. The searing pain between her legs made her wince and she
nearly gasped.

The reality of her situation came crashing
down on her in that moment and she inhaled sharply. She was to be
subjected to such horrid treatment for the rest of her life. And
she could do nothing about it. Her hand flew to her mouth while the
other struggled to pull her nightgown back down over her exposed
flesh. She saw blood on the bed, her nightgown, and her legs and
struggled to hold back hysterical tears.

Her eyes flew back to the maid. “He-he
r-raped me,” she whispered, wide-eyed.

Brewster sat on the bed in a major breach of
proper servant behavior and gathered the girl in her arms. “I
know,” she said in the same soothing voice she had used before. “I
know. Let it all out, do.”

And she did. Brianna Derring, Countess of
Rothsmere, wept in the arms of her maid as if her only love had
died and she had to face the frightening world alone. She cried
until she thought her head would burst. She cried until righteous
indignation took over and forced her to dry her tears.

Then she sat back and glared at the window.
“This is all his fault.”

Brewster stood and went to draw the drapes to
let in the early afternoon sun. “Of course it is, my lady. The
viscount is a snake, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

“Oh, I forgive you, since it’s true,” Bri
replied calmly as she rose gingerly from the bed. She barely winced
this time. She moved over to her dressing room to wash and dress.
“I wasn’t talking about him. I meant Adam Prestwich.”

Bri wandered into the drawing room later that
afternoon to await the arrival of those gentlemen she had danced
with the night before who wanted to pay their respects. She stared
at those members of her family already in the room. There was only
her Aunt Clara and the woman hired to act as her duenna when Aunt
Clara was busy or under the weather.

Mrs. Blodgett was a bulldog type of woman who
had a perpetual glare. She invariably treated Bri as if she really
were the dimwitted debutante she pretended to be even though the
woman knew otherwise. Bri didn’t like her in the least.

“Ah, my dear, here you are at last.” The
viscount came towards her with a smile on his face and his hands
outstretched.

Bri managed to suppress the urge to recoil
from his touch. She hadn’t even noticed him standing near the
window. She placed her hands in his and allowed him to kiss her
lightly on the cheek.

“Thank you for last night,” he murmured into
her ear.

She jerked away from him. He released her
with a laugh and the look of lust that had just occupied his light
eyes disappeared.

She was tempted to tell her aunt what had
happened just to see the viscount’s look but she knew the futility
of such an action. Women had little rights and if it were known
that she had been with him, even forced by him, she would have to
marry him immediately. As it was, she only had until the end of the
Season to try to get out of her predicament.

Mathers, the butler, entered the room to
announce the first set of visitors and Bri sat down to receive
them.

Adam had, of course, spent an energetic night
in the arms of his mistress just as he had decided he would. His
heart hadn’t been in it, but then, it never had been. And he was
discouraged to realize that Bri was as much in his thoughts as
ever.

More, in fact. There had been that
embarrassing scene when he had awakened from a nightmare only to
call for Bri like a besotted schoolboy.

And ever since that blasted dream, he
actually felt guilty for having been with his mistress. He felt
guilty for his life and all the stupid decisions he had made.

His guilt had led to a confession that even
now, later the same morning, he cringed to remember.

“I’m married,” he had informed Raven calmly.
He could feel her shock in the stiffening of her body as it lay
along his. “And she’s dying.”

He had paused and waited for recriminations,
for disgust, anything but the silence of his beautiful companion.
He should have known better. Raven was far too perceptive to assume
the worst of him.

“Tell me about her,” was her reply. He could
hear nothing more than curiosity in her husky voice.

Adam laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “I would
rather not. I would like to forget her very existence. I don’t like
that I am reminded of her now. I was foolish enough to believe that
if I just pretended she never existed, she would have the decency
to disappear. But decency was something she knew nothing
about.”

Raven had lifted herself slightly so she
could look down into his face. She said nothing for a few moments.
He just looked back at her. He saw awareness in her eyes and then
she was rising from the bed and putting on her silk dressing gown.
She knotted the sash securely at her trim waist and tossed a
matching, albeit larger, robe at him and left the room.

Adam lay back for a few minutes pondering the
perversity of life. Here he was, confessing his sins to his
mistress, fully intending to cut ties with her, and she knew
it.

He finally rose and donned the gown. He
followed the path taken by his mistress and found her in her little
sitting room. It was her favorite room, he knew, the room in which
she could usually be found.

He had found a glass of port thrust into his
hand and then she pushed him into a chair. “Relax,” she commanded
softly. “Talk when you want. Say what you want. I will listen and
it will go no further, Adam. And then you should leave and sort out
your life.”

Adam stared at her uncomprehendingly. She
sighed. “Adam, you need to talk to someone. I am the only one you
can talk to right now. You know me well enough to know that I will
not judge anything you may tell me and I will not tell anyone else.
You also know I will help in any way I can.”

She left out the part where he was going to
end their association, he noticed. He decided not to mention it
either, yet. He settled into his chair and closed his eyes. He
didn’t want to see Raven’s face as he talked.

“Her name is Carlotta. I met her in Spain
right after the battle of Vitoria. I fell in love with her and
married her. I caught her in bed with another man and left her to
her pleasure. After I shot him, that is.” He realized his voice was
curt, almost defiant. He struggled for calm.

“Steyne was that man.”

It wasn’t a question, he noticed. “Yes. The
bastard deserved far more than he got, I can assure you.”

“So you left her there.”

“Yes. I returned to Cornwall after the war
was over and tried to forget that chapter of my life. Then Boney
escaped and I left to fight him again. I was wounded at Quatre Bras
and so escaped being in the actual slaughter of Waterloo. I was
sent home with a fever and a minor wound.”

“And you were awarded for your bravery.”

“And I was awarded for my bravery,” he
growled. He finally looked at her. He wanted to see her reaction to
what he was about to say. “I was a coward, my beautiful swan. I was
not supposed to be on that field. I was not supposed to be anywhere
near it. I was there praying for death.”

“You must love her very much.”

He had looked for mockery, for contempt, but
her face was full of compassion. Damn it, he didn’t want her
compassion! He didn’t want her pity. He wanted her to hate him, to
despise him for his weakness. Instead she was watching him with
that damned sad look and tears in her eyes.

Adam came to his feet and hurled his glass at
the closed door. “I don’t love her! I hate her. I wished for death
to escape her. To rid myself of her.”