Lady of Pleasure (23 page)

Tears welled in her eyes. “He took a pistol and shot himself in the head before I knew what had happened. One of the servants later told me it had been going on for months and that Lady Stanbury had been forcing him to do things with another man while she watched.”

A sob escaped her. “He was all I had left of my family. And I failed in protecting him by allowing that…that monster to call on us, thinking it was innocent. Thinking he needed the sort of mother I could never be to him. I had ignored his protests when she took him out riding, thinking he was being silly and rude to a woman who had always been kind to us. So I…I made a promise to right what had been done to him. I hired a man to find proof of what she was doing to other boys. That man found that proof in a diary where she logged every single boy she had ever seduced. I paid him to retrieve it. I wanted to use it against her and destroy her life before the very eyes of society. Only the man I hired…he…he stabbed Lady Stanbury when she found him retrieving the diary from her room. He only did it out of fear but it was fatal. He barely got away with the diary.”

Ronan stared, his throat tightening. He had heard of Lady Stanbury’s murder years ago and how the killer who had snuck into her home had never been found. He had secretly cheered knowing it. Until now.

Theodosia swiped a lone tear that had escaped. “I was too wrapped in grief to know what I was doing anymore. I paid the man a thousand pounds and told him to disappear. He was inconsolable, after all, and I knew he didn’t do it intentionally. They would have hanged him, and he had children and no wife. So I…I took the diary and used it to hunt down every boy Lady Stanbury had ever wronged in the hopes of bettering their lives. I had the means to.”

She set a visibly trembling hand to the side of her face. “Hence my interest in Ridley. He was one of twenty boys. And sadly, the most affected. Unlike you. You were the strongest out of them all. You hated nothing. You were angry with nothing. Not even with women. Even though you had every right to be.” She captured his gaze. “I…I only meant to slip into your life long enough to ensure your finances were in order. I only wanted to ensure your happiness, Ronan, after what had been done to you. Nothing more. Truly. I mean that.” Her expression stilled. “I didn’t expect to fall in love with your strength and your intelligence and your charm. I didn’t expect to want you in a way I knew you would never want me. Nor did I expect to buy your affection and turn into the very thing I was fighting against. I wronged you. I thought I was protecting you from other women, but in the end, I was only hurting you and I’m sorry for that.”
His eyes widened. “Jesus Christ.” He edged back and back until he hit the wall behind him. The room seemed to sway and he couldn’t focus.

Her lips trembled. “I wanted one last night before I let you go. I planned on it. As we had agreed. But when I heard of Lord Gifford’s intentions toward Lady Caroline, and after I met her that night and knew how enamored she was with you and what you two shared, I knew I couldn’t keep you. And I knew I had to help you claim her in a way you wouldn’t. So I…I went through all of the letters you ever sent me and sent it to her along with the invitation you sent me. At the time, I thought it right.” She swiped her tears away. “The house in France has already been paid for. I also sent your aunt enough money to see her through the next five years. She was led to believe it was from you. Our association is now done. It’s over. As you had wanted.”

She was like God and Satan sewn together. He slowly shook his head from side to side, still in loathing and disbelief. “What you’ve done…you…you knew what that woman did to me for money and yet you still took me to bed?” He withheld himself from altogether calling her a fucking bitch. He raised his voice. “You still took me to bed?!”

She lowered her gaze, wrapping the chain of the locket around her fingers. “I met with my solicitor yesterday to finalize my last will and testament. I am leaving my estate and all of my assets to you and am asking that you hand me over to Scotland Yard for the murder of Lady Stanbury. When they hang me, and I know they will, as I was a willing conspirator in her end, you will get your justice, and all of my money will go to you. All you have to do is hand me over to justice and you will never want for anything again. I give you permission to hang me. You have earned that right.”

Although Ronan wanted to stumble out of the room and put as much distance between them as possible, he knew he was bigger than this. He knew he was bigger than her. He slowly crossed the room toward her, sensing that the loss of her brother was enough of a life sentence. Who was he to send her before a court to hang for a woman who had destroyed so many lives? Despite what she did to him?

He couldn’t do it.

Ronan sank down onto the bed beside her and said in a toneless voice, “There is no need to involve Scotland Yard. I will leave in a few moments and we will never speak of this to anyone again. Nor will I see you ever again. Nor will you contact me ever again. Nor will you continue to contact these boys who are now men. Do you understand? Leave Ridley be. Or you will answer to me. Or I
will
take you to Scotland Yard.”

Theodosia let out a sob and lowered her head onto his lap, digging her pale hands into his thighs, the locket slipping onto the linen. “I’m so sorry,” she admitted. “I am sorry I hurt you. I know nothing of the person I have become. This isn’t me, Ronan. It isn’t. I used to be more than this. I had a husband who loved me despite the fact that I couldn’t give him children. He, Harris and I were like a family. Eric knew Harris only had me and treated him like the son we never had. And then my husband died from typhus, leaving me and Harris broken and alone. And then Lady Stanbury—” Her shoulders shuddered as she sobbed harder.

With trembling hands he eased her out of his lap and away from himself. He rose, knowing there was nothing left to do but forgive this creature and leave. “I’m sorry for your loss. And I forgive you despite what you did.” He swallowed, mentally preparing himself for what he really wanted to know. “Did Lady Stanbury write about me in her diary?”

She still sobbed. “Y-yes. That is how I found you.”

Christ. “She detailed everything she did to me?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t read any of it. I didn’t. I only read enough to retrieve your name. I swear it. I was only retrieving names.”

The thought that his shame had been written in Lady Stanbury’s own hand turned his stomach. “Where is the diary?”

“I burned it,” she choked out. “I took the names and burned it. I couldn’t stomach it. I couldn’t read it.”

A breath escaped him. He felt like he could breathe again knowing that diary and all of its wretched, disgusting contents had been destroyed.

But then he remembered something as equally wretched.

Caroline hated him.

She despised him in the same way he had once hated Lady Stanbury. And though he knew he couldn’t erase what had been done to Caroline, he had to try. He had to.

After spending half the morning wrangling a skull-cracking headache from irresponsibly overindulging in port, Caroline slowly, slowly sat into the creaking leather chair before her brother’s desk. She tried not to gurgle up vomit.

She was
never
drinking again.

She miserably set Ronan’s coin onto the smooth surface of her brother’s desk. Tears blinded her. She had once believed that by holding onto Ronan’s coin, she was holding on to not only him but his dreams. When in fact, neither had ever been hers to hold.

Using the tips of her trembling fingers, she set the sovereign up onto its rounded edge and spun it with a hard, quick flick. She watched as the golden coin whirled and whirled back and forth, side to side, across the polished surface of the desk. It eventually slowed, tilted and rattled against the surface until it flattened and stopped, landing perfectly beside a large stack of unopened and unorganized invitations.

Invitations her brother hoped would find her a husband. Invitations he always had her gather so they could go through them together. She dragged them over and tidied the unorganized stack, setting them on top of each other. She paused, seeing an unopened letter from Lord Gifford addressed to her brother among the pile she had rearranged.

Her eyes widened. Why was Lord Gifford writing to her brother?

She glanced toward the open doorway. Despite knowing it was wrong, she grabbed up the correspondence. Turning it over, she frantically broke the wax seal on it and unfolded it.

Caroline blinked back tears and folded the letter with quaking hands. Oh, God. She tucked the letter away into the satin sash of her gown at her waist, knowing she couldn’t have her brother knowing of it or responding to it. She knew her brother well enough to say he would not only push her toward Gifford if he found out but would tirelessly
shove
her toward Gifford until she relented.

Even if she tried to move on after what had happened, even if she
could
move on, what man would have her now? Certainly not Lord Gifford. If he knew what she had allowed for, he wouldn’t be writing about how suitable she was for raising his children.

Her dreams of being loved for what she was had been that of a bullheaded thirteen-year-old girl who had never taken the time to grow up and look beyond acceptance. She hated Ronan for making her believe he was ever worthy of being loved.

She hated him.

Caroline stood abruptly, sending the chair she’d been sitting in tumbling backward. Gritting her teeth, she shoved the large stack of invitations viciously off the desk.

“Apparently, your rendezvous didn’t go as planned.”

She jumped and spun toward her mother who lingered in the doorway of the study. Her mother’s stance was stiff, her green-blue eyes anything but understanding.

Caroline swiped at her tears but could not bring herself to respond.

The dowager entered the room, her azure morning gown rustling from her steady movements. “I left when I saw you there last night.”

Caroline’s breath hitched. The woman with the veil. The one who had left the room early. “You told me you had a headache and retired into your room last night.”

Her mother stared her down. “Don’t turn this on me. I’m not the one who needs reprimanding. I could have easily humiliated you before all of those women and dragged you out by the ear, but what would that have accomplished? I knew you had to be allowed to follow your heart. A heart that would have kept sneaking out until it ended up with what it wanted. I only hope you walked away with what you wanted. I take it you went to bask in the glory of your beloved Caldwell? Is that why you went?”

Caroline blinked back tears. “Yes.”

“And who, might I ask, let you into that house?” The dowager continued to stare her down with lethal motherly power. “Someone had to give Luc permission to allow you entrance. Who was it? I demand you give me the name of the man, because I will ensure Hughes not only takes a crop to his head but never allows him to partake in any of our events again. In case you didn’t know, Caroline, Hughes and I have been coordinating champagne parties for years. He and I are part of the Whipping Society. Something your father was also a part of when he was alive.”

Caroline cringed. This was turning into a bigger mess, and although it was awkward, she knew it was best not to fester in lies. “Lord Hughes permitted me to stay.”
Her mother’s eyes widened. “
Hughes
? He knew? He knew you were there and yet he—”

“Mama, please. Don’t blame him. It wasn’t his fault. It involves too much for me to explain, but know that he was helping me. He meant well and did warn me. I simply chose to stay. I chose not to listen.”

Her mother slowly shook her head. “Your father and I brought you up to be independent in your way of thinking. You know that. It was our gift to you. We didn’t want to hide real life from you.” Her mother’s voice grew stern and unforgiving. “What you forget, however, is that society does not approve of such liberal independence from women. There are consequences if you decide to reveal your true self outside the limitations of societal constraints.”