Love With a Scandalous Lord (24 page)

T
here were moments when Rhys wondered how he could possibly go through with his marriage to Camilla. He was fairly certain they would be happiest if they led completely separate lives. She’d already indicated that she would not object.

For him, time spent with Lydia was blissful torture. He hoarded every smile, laugh, and word like a miser. A portion of her that he could store away and take out in later years to reflect upon. How could every moment spent with her be both joyous and sorrowful?

He sat in his drawing room, a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets on his lap. He’d reread
Hamlet
earlier, before moving on to other reading. He’d imagined Lydia’s enjoyment as she’d watched the play performed in Harrison Bainbridge’s saloon. He suspected she’d been as overwhelmed there as she’d been at the Royal Albert Hall. She took such joy in life. She held none of the cynicism so central to him.

He would hear of her from time to time, he was certain. Perhaps on rare occasion their paths would cross. And he would forever be left to reflect on what might have been had he not made such ghastly mistakes in his youth, had he possessed a stronger character.

He turned his attention back to Shakespeare. The man had been wise in all things. If only Rhys were half as knowledgeable, perhaps now he would not find himself facing years of loneliness. Even marriage to Camilla would not ease the ache in his heart. Rather he suspected it would only cause it to increase.

He glanced over as he heard the hushed entry of his butler. “Yes, Rawlings?”

“A young lady has asked to see you, Your Grace.”

His first thought was that Lydia was here, and his heart beat with the anticipation of seeing her. But Rawlings extending the silver tray with the card resting on it assured him it was more likely to be Camilla, although she was not prone to presenting him with her cards.

He lifted the card, read the name, and felt trepidation slice through him. Nodding, he rose to his feet. “Tell Lady Whithaven I will see her.”

He straightened his clothes, retrieved his jacket from the chair where he’d laid it earlier, and slipped it on. He combed his fingers through his hair and rubbed his chin. He was in dire need of a shave. He was certain the lady only wanted reassurances that he would hold her secret close. He thought it would behoove him to look reputable when he gave such a promise.

She strolled into the room and stopped, as petite and lovely as ever. A footman closed the door behind her. Only then did she approach Rhys, her red-rimmed eyes roving over him. She’d obviously been weeping, and it pained him to have caused her any worry or concern.

He bowed. “My dear Countess.”

She shook her head slightly as though caught in a dream. “I didn’t know it was you.”

“I never intended for you to know, but a situation arose which required I reveal myself.”

She pressed her fingers to her lips while unshed tears welled in her eyes. “She said you were the kindest and gentlest of men.”

“I am honored Lady Sachse spoke so highly of me, but I assure you—”

She shook her head vehemently, while more tears gathered and spilled onto her cheek. “Not Lady Sachse,” she rasped. “My dear friend Annie.”

Rhys thought his legs might buckle beneath him. “Annie?”

“I didn’t know you were Quentin’s brother. Until you attended our ball, I had no name to associate with you. I knew you only as Lady Sachse’s lover. I had no idea who you truly were. Now that I know, I am obligated to confess all. May I sit?”

“By all means.” A splendid idea, because he thought at any moment he would no longer be able to support himself. “May I offer you something to drink?”

“Yes, please,” she said as she sank into a chair near the one he’d been sitting in earlier. “I would welcome strong spirits if you have them.”

He had an intense craving for them as well.

“I have just the thing.” He poured the last of his brother’s whiskey into two glasses and handed her one. He cautioned, “Sip it. It burns and warms and brings a sense of peace.”

“I fear nothing shall bring me peace.”

But she did sip the whiskey, while he took a gener
ous swallow. He’d come to favor the strong drink and had contemplated asking Grayson to send him more.

She set the glass on the table between them and eased up in the chair. “I am certain we must have met at Annie’s wedding, but I was newly taken with Geoffrey and hardly noticed anyone else.”

“I must confess to remembering little of their wedding. I was sixteen and only in attendance because duty dictated. I made my escape as soon as it was allowed.”

“Annie was most unhappy with Quentin. He had rather…morbid tastes.” Her cheeks reddened. With a visibly shaking hand, she reached for her glass and took another sip of whiskey before setting it aside.

She gave him a tremulous smile. “I can see why so many ladies sought your counsel. You give a lady a chance to form her thoughts.”

What he was trying to do was form his own. He moved until he was kneeling before her. Taking her hand, he squeezed it. His chest tightened into a painful knot. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know Annie was your friend. I can never forgive myself for causing her to take her life—”

“I hold Quentin completely responsible.”

“Then you do not know the whole tale.”

“I know much more than you think. I know he abused her in bed. I know he sent her to you and told her if she did not seduce you, then he would make her life more miserable than it was.”

His hand went limp around hers. “Sent her to me?”

She nodded, her eyes reflecting her own horror at what Quentin had done.

“Why would he do that?”

“He was a voyeur. Your rooms shared connecting walls. Annie said he could see into yours without being
seen himself. He’d sent servants to you before, and he was bored with that distraction. He wanted to tempt you with an unforgivable sin.”

Rhys lunged to his feet, his heart thundering, his stomach roiling. He’d been nineteen, only just beginning to experience the pleasures a woman’s body could offer.

“He watched,” he rasped, unable to believe it, unable to get beyond the sense of violation he felt.

He spun around and pierced her with his gaze. “You are mistaken. He would not have sent her to me when it was his place to get her with an heir. He would not have risked my seed taking hold.”

More tears spilled onto her cheeks. “She was already with child.”

He staggered back, dropped into a chair, and bowed his head. It could not be.

“She had told him only that day. He wished to celebrate. Dear God, but he was the vilest of creatures. I dared not tell anyone because I did not wish to tarnish my dear friend’s memory. Following her death, I heard the rumors that it was the second son who had betrayed the first, but I alone knew it was the first who had betrayed the second. Although I suppose Lady Sachse knew as well.”

Rhys’s head came up. “Lady Sachse. How did she know of it?”

“I’m not exactly sure. I know only that Annie mentioned that Lady Sachse had sought to comfort her. But Annie maintained that all the comfort in the world could not lessen her disgrace, her abhorrence over what she’d done. She was quite beside herself when she came to see me. That night she took her life. I lay the blame at your brother’s feet.”

Rhys scraped his fingers through his hair. “I knew he was demented, but this revelation sickens me. You’ve mentioned it to no one?”

“No. I would not have had the courage to come to you tonight except that you looked so unhappy at my ball. Unhappy and yet announcing your intention to marry Lady Sachse—which is a marvelous pairing. You were both incredibly kind to me. I suppose once you are wed that she will cease to be as generous and will no longer share you with her lady friends. I am amazed she did so at all. If you were mine, I think I would keep you to myself.”

Yes, there were many things he was beginning to think Lady Sachse had kept to herself.

“Rhys Rhodes. By God, we should have guessed,” Reynolds said.

From within the shadowy confines of his carriage, Whithaven watched as his wife climbed into hers. He clutched the linen handkerchief while his anger boiled.

“At least now the monogram makes sense,” Reynolds mused.

That Reynolds had found an identical handkerchief bearing the same crimson initial among his wife’s things brought Whithaven no comfort.

“Some years back I remember there were whispers that he’d betrayed his brother,” Kingston told them. “I suppose we should not be surprised he would betray you as well.”

“Don’t sound so superior,” Reynolds said. “Simply because you didn’t find evidence of a handkerchief doesn’t mean he hasn’t bedded your wife.”

“I keep my wife well pleasured. Make no mistake about it. I daresay she has no cause to look elsewhere
for her satisfaction.”

“Are you saying I have not your skills in bed?”

“I am saying if the shoe fits, wear it.”

“I’ll have you know, of late my wife can scarcely keep her hands off me, so
this
fellow cannot be as talented as rumored.”

“But at some point, obviously, it was not you she wished to put her hands on.”

“Gentlemen,” Whithaven growled. “Fighting among ourselves will hardly make this problem go away.”

“What do you propose?” Reynolds asked.

Whithaven narrowed his eyes as another carriage came around the corner. It bore the ducal crest.

“I say we find out where he’s going.”

It took Rhys less than ten minutes to find the first peephole in what had been Quentin’s bedchamber. It was hidden behind a painting of a fox hunt and looked in on the room where Rhys had slept when he was younger and in residence.

A room where he’d lost his virginity to a seductive upstairs maid who’d visited him in the middle of the night when he was sixteen. He thought he might be ill.

By the time he arrived at Camilla’s, he’d remembered every sexual encounter he’d experienced in that bed. Not a single one of them initiated by him.

He was shaking with such fury and a sense of violation when he walked through her door that it was all he could do to follow her butler into the solarium without smashing objects along the way.

Stretched out on a fainting couch, she smiled at him. “My dear Rhys, what brings you here so late at night?”

“You never told me that you knew Annie.”

“Annie?”

“Quentin’s wife.”

“Ah, yes. Annie.” She gracefully glided a hand toward a nearby table. “Have some wine, Rhys.”

“I believe I’ll pass.”

She shook her head with a
tsk
. “Suit yourself.”

She poured herself some and gulped it down.

“How did you know Annie?” he demanded.

“Does it matter?”

“I believe it does. The night you and I met, I’d just left my brother. He was in residence here in London. I was walking away from the house when you happened by in your carriage. You knew who I was. I did not think to wonder at the time how you knew, when I’d never before set eyes on you. How did you know who I was?”

“I am certain our paths must have crossed at some time.”

He banged his fist on the table, and she jerked.

“I want answers. We made a bargain back then. You took me to your smaller town house. You offered me shelter, food, anything I wanted if I would make myself available to you. I was desperate and accepted your offer. Only you never came to me. Never. You sent other women to me.”

“You were young, virile. I was generous to share you.”

“How did you know I was virile?” he growled.

“Rhys—”

“I found peepholes in my brother’s room. So I ask you again. How did you know I was virile?”

“Because I watched you!”

He felt as though someone had just bludgeoned his
heart.

She drank greedily, her hand shaking so badly that the wine spilled onto her gown.

“Why?” he rasped.

“The old Sachse, my dear departed husband—may he rest in hell—was a cruel man. He and Quentin were friends, two sides of the same bad penny, as it were. They had an appetite for voyeurism, and a young man still in his prime could provide them with quite a bit of entertainment.”

A shudder rippled through Rhys that he thought would fracture him in half. He walked to the table, poured himself a full glass of wine, and swallowed it down in one long gulp before daring to look at Camilla. “Have you nothing stronger to drink?”

“In the cabinet.”

Caring only that its contents were as dark as his thoughts, he grabbed a decanter, splashed the liquid liberally into the glass, and quickly downed it. “How many times did you watch with them?”

“Only once. I could tell you that they forced me to watch you”—he could see her blinking back tears, striving to maintain her composure—“but I wanted to reassure myself that the…act…was as disagreeable for every other woman as it was for me.”

She sat up on the chaise. “My God, Rhys, the care with which you touched Annie.” She shook her head, her tears brimming. “It was the first time I ever wept.”

“And in your smaller town house, where you allowed me to live…how many times did you watch me there?”

She lowered her gaze.

“Damnation!” He swiped his hand across the table,
sending the contents spilling and crashing to the floor. “You are well and truly sick of mind and revolting of heart!”

“I know,” she whispered plaintively.

He wanted to double over from the pain of it. “Did your ladies know we were being watched?”

She jerked her head up, a horrified expression on her face. “No, of course not.”

“Why, for God’s sake why?”

“Because I discovered old Sachse wasn’t the only man who had no finesse when it came to bedding his wife. I believed that at least once, a woman should be with a man who didn’t plow into her as though she were a field to be furrowed.” She came to her feet. “And because my husband was a sadist. I was sixteen when we married, and by the time I was knowledgeable enough to realize that what he’d convinced me was the way of things was only
his
way…it was too late for me. Even your skilled touch would not carry me to the heights I’ve seen you carry others. And so I found my satisfaction in giving you to other ladies.”