Good God, how could she still be attracted to him? How could she desire him still, when she despised him beyond reason? When his hand reached toward her cheek, her knees nearly buckled. His caress was imminent. It was going to destroy her resolve and make her forget, briefly, why she never wanted to see him again.
“Larissa-“
“Don’t touch me!”
She jumped back, nearly tripped on the stairs. Her pulse was racing. That had been too close, her senses returning nearly too late to stop him.
“Don’t touch me again,” she repeated in a calmer, though scathing tone. “You use that as a tactic to bend my will to yours, but I’m aware of that now and won’t be-“
“Larissa, marry me.”
Moisture sprang immediately to her eyes. “You ask too late.”
“I know, but to not ask would be one more regret to add to the rest.”
She should have turned to leave then. She should have ignored the pain in his eyes that was ripping at her heart. That she couldn’t bear to walk away from him yet infuriated her, and that came out in her tone.
“Nothing you can say will rectify what you’ve done, so why do you put us both through this?”
“Because I need to wipe the slate clean, and there are still things you don’t know that must be confessed before I can do that.”
“Your needs are no longer a concern of mine.”
“Hear me out at least. It won’t take much of your time. And I actually have more fuel for you to add to the fire, lies I told you, and why I did.”
“I’ve already realized that just about everything you’ve ever said to me was a lie,” she replied. “There’s no need to confirm that.”
“Hardly everything,” he said with a sigh.
She had the feeling he wanted to caress her again. Was he experiencing the same pull that she was, which was almost irresistible? Very well, so perhaps he hadn’t hated touching her, hadn’t laughed at how easy it had been to seduce her. Perhaps this powerful attraction really was mutual. But that changed nothing. He had still used her to get at her father. He hadn’t hesitated to trample the innocent on the path to his goals.
It was probably guilt that had brought him there. She understood why he might be feeling it now. But she didn’t care. She was done feeling sympathy for a man who didn’t deserve it. And assuaging his guilt would only be a benefit to him. It would be nothing but pain to her, to hear it all spelled out, how he’d used her.
Yet the words came out before she could stop them. “Make your confession, but please keep it brief.”
He nodded. He smiled softly. He had to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep from touching her.
“The lie began from the start. I brought you to my house because from the moment I first saw you, I wanted you. That had nothing at all to do with your father. He would have been easy enough to find at his office, once he returned. Fortunately, you didn’t point that out when I mentioned needing an address so I could find him.”
“I was too upset that night to think of anything,” she said in her defense.
“That was rather obvious and to my benefit, because I was so taken with you, I wasn’t thinking very clearly myself, so probably wouldn’t have been able to come up with a better excuse to move you into my house. But it worked. You moved in. And then I faced the dilemma of how to keep you under my roof as long as possible, because I couldn’t bear the thought of being denied even one extra day with you, when I’d already accepted the fact that our time together would be limited, and end, once your father returned. Keeping you without funds or the need for them was my solution to that.”
“Need for them?”
“You had mentioned your brother would need a physician, so I had mine summoned for you. His visit wasn’t an annual occurrence as you were told, he was there specifically to see to your brother.”
“One kindness on your part doesn’t excuse-“
“Rissa, that was no kindness, that was to keep you from selling any of your possessions to pay for a physician, which would leave you with coins in hand to find lodging elsewhere. To further insure that you wouldn’t be selling anything, I invented that excuse to lock up your jewels. My servants are actually all quite trustworthy.”
“Had I requested them back?”
“The key to my safe would have conveniently- for me-gone missing.”
After that confession, it occurred to her to ask, “There was never a theft at the warehouse where our things were stored, was there?”
“No. I merely had anything of value there moved to a different location, in case you wanted to go there to see what was left. It would have all been returned to you, which was why I mentioned my own involvement in searching for the ‘thieves,’ so you wouldn’t wonder at how easily the items could be recovered. Stealing from your family wasn’t on my agenda.”
“No, just thoroughly ruining us.”
The bitterness in her tone was thick enough to cut, bringing a frown to his brow. “Are you deliberately failing to see that these are two unrelated issues?”
“Hardly unrelated when you managed to accomplish two goals with one-“
“From the moment you entered my house,” he cut in, “your father was all but forgotten in my mind. I lived and breathed you. You consumed my every thought. Everything I did was done to obtain you. But I convinced myself that the only way I could have you was with the excuse of revenge. I couldn’t have you by normal means, couldn’t marry you because your father was my enemy-“
“He was never your enemy.”
“At the time he was. In my mind he was. At least allow that what one believes is a truth for him for
however long he believes it. I saw your father as being directly responsible for my brother’s ruination, which also made him indirectly responsible for his death. Yet I was merely going to ruin him financially. I wasn’t going to exact any harsher revenge. An eye for an eye, as it were. He could rebuild, reestablish. Albert was dead, or so I thought. Your father wasn’t.”
“Why are you telling me this when it doesn’t pertain to me? You seduced me with no intention of marrying me. That pertains to me! Admit it.”
“I have admitted it. I merely wanted you to know why I felt that I couldn’t marry you, and why it finally didn’t matter.”
“I know why it doesn’t matter. My father told me your brother isn’t dead as you’d thought, He was your motive; now you have none. That doesn’t excuse what passed before.”
“He told you that, but he didn’t tell you I’d already realized it was over before then, before your father arrived Christmas morning. Or don’t you remember what we were discussing just prior to his showing up?”
“I recall you saying you couldn’t marry me because of my father.”
“After that, Rissa. I realized during that conversation that you were all that mattered to me. I told you so; if you’ll try to remember. The vendetta was over as far as I was concerned. I even tried to tell your father that nothing had been done that couldn’t be rectified, but you interrupted with your interpretation of what I’d done.”
When he was admitting to all these lies, what he was telling her now was to be believed? She’d be a fool to let him dupe her again, but then she was a fool for standing there listening to him at all.
“Are you done confessing?”
It was probably her stiffness that made him realize he was getting nowhere with her, that nothing would breach the shell of her bitterness. His expression turned so sad it nearly made her cry. But she wasn’t going to relent, she wasn’t…
“No, actually, you might as well know that I was in your room that night, the night you thought I was, awake, and driving myself crazy with wanting you. That silly story about sleepwalking was a lie. The locks were put on your doors because I couldn’t trust myself not to enter your room again without permission.”
“And what you told me of your past, to gain my sympathy?” she recalled. “All lies as well.”
“Your
sympathy is a wonderful thing, Rissa, and yes, I used it. But it wasn’t necessary to invent a pitiful past to stir your compassion. Everything I told you of my childhood was true. I had merely never told anyone else about it before, because I despise pity.” He smiled wryly. “Your pity I wanted, though. Your pity is such an amazing thing.”
“Your lies were pointless.”
“Excuse me?”
“I could have left at any time if I had really wanted to. Your lies wouldn’t have stopped me.”
“You had your brother to think of, not just yourself. You wouldn’t have left without funds.”
“No, certainly, but there were a few more valuables stored at my father’s office that I never mentioned to you, a titled painting and several antique maps my father had intended to sell, but didn’t get around to doing before he left. The maps would have fetched a nice price.”
“And the painting is La Nymph.”
She blinked. “How did you know that?”
His laugh was quite hollow. “A logical guess, since I happen to have been searching for that painting for a client for several months now, and it was known to be in the possession of a ship owner, just not which one.”
“Why that painting in particular?” “Have you seen it?”
She frowned. “Actually, I recall my father rushing me out of the storeroom the last time I visited the office when he was there, because he didn’t want me to see it. He mentioned something about it being inappropriate for innocent eyes, so I assumed it was a nude.”
“Indeed, but a rather risque one by all accounts,” he replied. “And my client will likely pay you a half million pounds for it.”
She blinked again. “Is he out of his mind?” “No, just very eccentric, with more money than he will ever be able to spend.”
“You’re teasing me. I don’t find that very nice under the circumstances, but then why should that surprise me?”
He sighed. “I swear I’m not. You know him well enough. It’s Jonathan Hale who wants to get his hands on that painting so much that he’s hired me to find it. Now I’ve found it. It’s in your possession. I’m sure he’ll be contacting your father about it just as soon as I tell him.”
“Why would you tell him, when it will be a benefit to my father? You did realize that, didn’t you?”
“If you would stop being suspicious of my motives long enough to think about what I’ve told you today, you’d have an answer to that. Have you never done anything that you bitterly regret now?”
“Aside from meeting you?”
He blushed, but continued relentlessly, “Didn’t you tell me how you despised your father for moving you to London and regretted how you treated him for it?”
“You compare childish pouting to what you did to me?” she demanded incredulously.
“No, I am merely reminding you that none of us are perfect. We cannot always do as we aspire to; we too often act on emotions that shouldn’t be released. I wasn’t used to being controlled by emotions, Rissa. Good God, I was even under the foolish belief that I didn’t have any, since so many years had passed without anything provoking mine. Then I met you and I suddenly had too many emotions stirring all at once.”
The golden heat was entering his eyes again. She began to panic. She’d managed to remain unaffected by his closeness this long, or at least to give that impression, but she didn’t think she could withstand again being devoured by those seductive eyes of his.
“You’ve finished. Please go.”
“Rissa, I love you. If you’re never going to believe anything I say to you again, at least believe
that.”
She left instead, ran up the stairs to hide behind a locked door where she could cry in peace. She wished he hadn’t come. She wished those last words of his weren’t going to haunt her, but she knew they would.
CHAPTER 26
Larissa didn’t go down to dinner that night. Her family was returning to London in the morning, which allowed her to use the excuse of packing to avoid a last night of socializing. A kindness on her part, that she not inflict her rotten mood on the Applebees.
How could she have been so unlucky, to have come downstairs today at the precise moment that Vincent was being led across the hall? And so foolish not to have taken the cowardly route as had been her first impulse, instead of giving him a chance to speak to her.
She could have recovered, eventually, without hearing his grand confession. Now she knew the worst, but also the best-if she could believe it. And there was the rub and the source of her sorrow. She couldn’t believe it.
How does one trust again after being so thoroughly lied to? She’d never been lied to before, thus had never figured that out for herself. And Vincent was asking too much of her, to forgive, to forget, to accept him as he was without suspicions. How could she do that when he could lie so convincingly, so expertly, that she’d never be able to know when he was being truthful with her?
Of course, everyone made mistakes and had faults, but not everyone had such ruthless faults as Vincent did. Someone else might be able to overlook them, to say that only love mattered, but she had too many doubts for that someone to be her. Yes, she still loved him. The wrenching in her heart today made that bitterly obvious. But she despised everything he’d done and she’d never get beyond that simple fact long enough to forgive him.
She was dreading going to bed, knowing she wouldn’t get much sleep that night. So her father’s
knock at the door was very welcome, even if the subject that he brought in with him wasn’t.
“I was informed that Lord Everett paid you a visit today,” he said as he joined her in front of the fireplace where she had been sitting, staring blankly at the dancing flames. “I hadn’t realized that he might follow me here to find you, or I would have seen to it that he never get past the door. I hope you know that I had expressly forbidden him to see you, to no avail, obviously.”
“It’s all right,” she replied. “I doubt he’ll try to see me again.”
“You turned him down, then?”
“You knew he was going to ask?”
“I’d gathered that was his goal, yes. He claims to love you. Do you have reason to doubt that after your experiences with him?”
“Yes-no,” she corrected, then with a frustrated sigh, added, “I don’t know anymore.”
“I’m sorry, Rissa. I know you haven’t wanted to talk about what happened. But I have assumed, from your state of melancholy, that you love the man.”
“I did. I don’t now.”
He smiled gently. “Would that it were so easy to turn love off and on with a few simple words. Here, take these and read them,” he said, handing her two letters. “I’ve had them in my possession for several days now. I wasn’t going to show them to you, since they might upset you again, but perhaps that decision was a mistake on my part.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Those letters. They were given to me when Everett handed over the deed to our home. I didn’t know it until he was gone. How much do you know about the brother?”
“Not much. He rarely spoke of him. When he was mentioned, it was in connection with Vincent’s childhood, which was pathetically lonely-he says that wasn’t one of the many lies he told.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore. As for Albert, they weren’t close except for a very brief time when they were young. Albert was their parents’ favorite, you see. He went everywhere with them, while Vincent was never included. I gather that Vincent was in the habit of cleaning up his brother’s calamities, though, a brotherly duty, as he saw it. Mind you, everything I just told you came directly from Vincent, a known liar.”
He ignored the bitter tone, said, “You’ll find those letters enlightening, then.”
She stared at her father, waited for further explanation. He gave none, merely nodded at the letters now in her hand. She read them, both. They were Albert Everett’
s letters to Vincent. She had to read the first one again to make sense of it, then once more.
Finally she said, “This first one does paint a rather dastardly picture of you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, from a child crying foul. And Albert even admits it in the second letter, that he hadn’t grown up yet, at least not to a point where he would take responsibility for his own actions.”
“You would think that Vincent would have suspected as much.”
“When, as you say, he didn’t really have much association with his brother?”
“You’re defending him?” she asked incredulously.
“No, just trying to see this mess from his perspective-and well aware that given the same set of circumstances in my own family, I probably would have acted exactly as he did. Actually, I may well have acted much worse and have called the man out who had so ruined a member of my family that he chose to kill himself.”
“But revenge is pointless. You’ve always said so. You’ve raised us to believe the same.”
“Revenge is, yes, and particularly when you don’t have the means to inflict it. But when you have a victim driven to the point of death, and the one responsible escapes without any consequence whatsoever, then it’s a matter of trying to visit justice on the guilty one.”
“You really are defending him.”
George chuckled. “No, because we don’t really have all the facts and never will have them. Even Albert admits he was drinking heavily most of the time that the events occurred, so wouldn’t remember exactly what brought him low. Lord Everett is guilty of drawing his own conclusions. But given the known facts, his conclusions were hard to dispute.”