Redeeming a Rake (7 page)

“Were there any women?”

“Every woman who’s ever shared my bed, how
should I know? I never sent thank you notes inquiring if my
fumbling revolted them. I assume it did.”

Covering his face with his hands he ensured
he wouldn’t have to see her disgust, but her wistful sigh made him
glance through his fingers. Was she blushing? “Have you fathered
any children?”

“None that I know of.”

“Have you ever stolen anything or acquired
property by ungentlemanly means?”

“I never cheat! I do have some honour.”

“Cheating aside, do you own any property
that makes you feel uneasy?”

Geoffrey looked up with an indignant
expression. “Why should I feel uneasy?”

“Have any items or properties come into your
possession that caused innocent parties to suffer?”

He groaned in horror as he remembered
countless eyes filled with tears, horror and fear. “Am I supposed
to remember every lady in distress? Where is the guilt of the
husbands and sons? Why is it my fault? Why must I be the one who
feels guilty?”

She ignored his loud angry questions and
asked in a calm soothing voice, “Their names?”

“Must we do this?”

“Acknowledging your injuries is the first
part of the healing process. How badly do you want to feel better?”
Geoffrey groaned into his sleeves and muttered another long list of
names.

The pen finally fell silent. Looking up he
watched her stare unseeing at the desk. Was she finished asking
questions? He sighed in relief; he wouldn’t lose his only friend.
She’d never know… “Have you ever taken a woman against her
will?”

The question caused panic and horror. “Don’t
ask that question!”

“Who was she?”

Geoffrey voice cracked as his throat
constricted, “I’ve ruined countless lives. There’s no need to list
every single one of them on that blasted piece of paper. No more
questions. I can’t bear it.”

She was staring at the paper on the desk
with a mixture of sadness and disgust. “Were you drunk? Were you
angry they didn’t want you? Were you being vindictive?”

Geoffrey clutched his chest as he strained
to gulp in enough air to breathe. “I already feel like I’m writhing
in the flames of hell. I’d give anything to go back and undo what
I’ve done. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not enough.”

Geoffrey’s shoulders sagged as he was forced
to face his ugly past. “I came to London at nineteen. I was a
beautiful naïve boy. I fell into Lady Pelham’s bed thinking I’d
landed in paradise. I followed her around like an obedient spaniel,
desperate to do any small thing that might give her pleasure. The
last time we were…intimate, in my boyish exuberance I confessed
that I loved her and wanted to protect her. She laughed and said I
was a sweet silly child and then ordered me back into my breeches
as if I was a footman. I was hurt. I reached for her, for
reassurance, but she slapped my hand and told me to be a good boy
and run along. She had a pressing appointment with her milliner. I
thought she loved me, but I meant less than a new hat. Something
inside me snapped. I turned on her like a mad dog. I hate myself
for what I did.”

“If you’d loved her, you would never have
hurt her.”

“You don’t know what I felt.”

“Perhaps not, but it wasn’t love.”

“You can’t know that!”

“There’s no need to shout Geoffrey.”

The cool tone of her voice made him feel
worse. “Please don’t hate me! I’ve never ravaged another woman…not
like that…” He cursed his tongue as her eyes narrowed. She was
going to keep digging until she knew the worst and then she’d never
speak to him again. He was going to die a friendless wretch after
all.

“What do you mean, not like that?”

He sucked in his breath as the pain
deepened. “I didn’t hurt the young ladies I won, not intentionally.
Please don’t look at me like that!” Geoffrey cringed as she ogled
him like a spilled chamber pot.

“What do you mean you won them?”

“I had the women in lieu of other
winnings.”

“Did the young ladies offer their bodies as
collateral?”

“No.”

“Who instigated the substitution?”

Geoffrey eyes were closed against the look
on her face, his mouth a thin line of self-contempt. “I did. The
first time I was playing with Lord Standish. He’d lost everything.
I owned him and he owned his pretty sister, Lady Penelope, who
counted my father as one of her admirers. Being addressed as Lord
Worm was irritating, but her interference in my search for love
made me…enraged. Every time I tried to make myself pleasant to any
decent female she’d soon be whispering in the lady’s ear my
father’s stories of my unsuitability and then the young lady who’d
previously found my company agreeable would have nothing to do with
me. Lady Penelope was so proud of her success she made sure I knew
how many women she’d saved from my repulsive company. After I
offered to exchange his debts for his sister Lord Standish offered
to make her marry me, but I only wanted to…”

“Rape her?”

“No, I wanted to make the proud harpy moan
with pleasure from my touch. I wanted her to willingly purchase her
old life with her body.”

“You wanted to degrade her and make her feel
like a prostitute.”

“Yes…it’s ugly and I hate myself for even
suggesting it. I wish I’d never met the cursed female.”

“And did she come willingly?” The words had
a choking sound that made Geoffrey’s empty stomach heave. Placing
his hands on her desk for support, he hung his head in shame. “I’ve
never seen a woman so bruised and battered outside the slums of St.
Giles. I told her to put her clothes back on and leave. She begged
me to take her; said her brother would kill her if she returned a
virgin. There was a doctor waiting. She was hysterical. I told her
to consider the debt paid, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“You didn’t…?”

“God knows I didn’t want to! I tried to get
her to put her clothes back on, but she wouldn’t. I didn’t know how
else to end it. I just wanted her to leave.” Geoffrey felt his
whole being throb with pain as his only friend dropped her quill
and covered her face. “Tolerance?” Panic flooded his senses; the
thought of losing her warmth and sunlight sent him half mad with
fear. “Forgive me!”

A few minutes later she looked up with wet
eyes. “It isn’t my forgiveness you need to seek. How many ladies
did you win?”

“Five if you count Lady Clara Farley. I was
undressing and the next thing I knew she was trying to slit my
throat. I disarmed her and sent her home a virgin. After that I
decided there were safer ways to get…revenge.”

“And the other three? You bed them?”

“Yes.”

“Their names?”

“Lady Bernice Michael, Lady Sarah Edgely and
Miss Catherine Foley.” Geoffrey closed his eyes as the pen
scratched his sins onto the paper and spoke without thinking, “What
would you have done?” The pen was abruptly lifted from the paper,
but her eyes paused an eternity on the paper before looking up at
him. “Forgive my impertinence…don’t answer!”

“To save my sister the horror, I’d have lain
with you. If I’d cried the whole time would you have beat me for
ruining your pleasure?”

Her matter of fact tone was like a hard
slap. Clawing his silk waistcoat was a futile attempt to ease the
burning ache. Nothing would ever make him feel better; he was going
to die a friendless wretch. “I could never insult you with such a
degrading proposition. I would have made you my Duchess. Why can’t
I keep my tongue out of the gutter? Slap me! Call me The Devil’s
Corpse. Tell me I’m a worm, but don’t hate me.”

He would have married her? As Tolerance
tried to order the thought from her head she could see herself
getting out of her parent’s carriage with the hood of her cape
pulled forward to hide her face. She would have already met the man
who’d won her. She’d know instinctively he wouldn’t hurt her. He’d
lift off her hood, take her face in his hands and kiss her. She’d
forget why she was there until he whispered in her ear that he had
a special license in his pocket and the necessary priest and
witnesses in the next room, but it wouldn’t have been like that for
the women who suffered Geoffrey’s angry lust. They would have been
terrified and if wise, barely sensible after downing a large dose
of laudanum.

She didn’t have to imagine the horror of the
young women delivered into a strange man’s power and expected to
sacrifice their bodies for the good of their families. She could
still feel her stomach heave in fear as she was shoved into her
bridegroom’s bedchamber by her mother and told to do her duty with
only a faint idea of what that would entail. She pushed the horror
of her short marriage from her mind and reminded herself it could
have been worse; it might have lasted for decades. Glancing up she
found pale blue eyes pleading for mercy. “I don’t hate you, but…”
He covered his face with his hands and bowed his head. Was it an
act? How far had the devil fallen into hell? Could he even climb
out? “…what you’ve done… Have you known fear Geoffrey? Fear you can
taste; that bitter taste of sick that burns your throat and makes
you feel faint, fear that makes you wish you were dead? That’s what
they felt on finding themselves in your power.”

“I told you, I wish I’d never touched them,
never met them. I hate myself for what I did. Isn’t that
enough?”

“Do you know the taste of fear?”

“Yes, I know fear! The sound of my father’s
footsteps…”

“That’s what you made them feel. You might
as well have been wearing your father’s shoes.”

‘No! I’m not my father. He was an evil
bastard. I wouldn’t beat my infant son for being afraid of me. My
children wouldn’t need to be afraid of me; I wouldn’t marry someone
who’d sit there without saying a word as her child screamed for her
as he was pummelled in the next room. She just sat there doing her
bloody embroidery.”

“Your mother doesn’t strike me as a woman
who doesn’t care.”

Geoffrey snorted in contempt. “The Duchess
wouldn’t raise a toast to my passing; she’d probably say it was
rude to celebrate the devil. Well I don’t care if she hates me, I
hate her. She nearly killed me smashing a large vase on my head
when I was a youth. I have a large scar on my head to prove it. She
never loved me. Why would she? I’m my father’s son. She gave up on
me before I was out of nursery skirts. I hate my family. They’ve
taken every opportunity to grind my face that I don’t deserve to
breathe let alone be the Duke of Lyndhurst. Everyone thought my
father was a God. He was so handsome, so intelligent, so charming,
the salvation of the Lyndhurst inheritance. He was a heartless
bastard! When I got up the nerve to tell him I wasn’t going to be
treated as an inferior to my older bastard brother he rang the bell
and ordered the footmen to throw me out of the house. Grayson
watched smiling as I was thrown down the marble steps. My noble
father cut off without a penny and then persuaded the countryside
that I was mad. I had to live in the dower-house which had a roof
with more holes than tiles. The boot-boy slept up at the Hall in a
bed. I slept on a straw pallet on a rotten floor after eating table
scraps from a slop bucket. I’ll never forget the disgusting smell
of roasting hedgehog and being too hungry not to eat it. When I
grew out of the clothes I had to petition my mother for new ones
through a servant. I was given my bastard brother’s cast-offs which
were too big. I was the laughing stock of the shires until I
inherited my maternal Grandmother’s fortune at nineteen. The Duke
was furious that I escaped two more years of humilations. Why
didn’t she send for me? Why couldn’t she love me? I was a good boy.
I could have been a good man.” Tolerance sanded the list and rose
from her chair. The room crackled with silence as she walked around
the desk to his side. The list folded into a small square, he
intently watched her face as she took hold of his waistcoat pocket
and tucked the list deep inside. “Tolerance!” The word was an
appeal for kindness.

“I know of only one cure for guilt. You must
make restitution and put right what you can. Return all property
and money tainted by blood or pain to the original owners or their
heirs. Find the people on the list or their closest living
relatives and tell them you’re sorry for what you’ve done and beg
their forgiveness. There is a chance that as you complete the list
you’ll find some peace. Change and heal or stay the same and die,
it’s your choice Geoffrey.”

He looked at her in horror as if she’d
instructed him to hang himself. “Beg? Graysons never beg! I can
return a property, but I can’t beg.”

“Many of these people will
have suffered heartache and deprivation. You know what that feels
like. You had three year of it in your youth. You’ve caused others
to suffer as you were forced to suffer. Are you proud of
that?”

“You don’t understand. I can’t beg. I’m the
Duke of Lyndhurst.”

“Is it so important to feel superior to
other people?”

“Yes…no…it’s just the way
it is. I’ll give them my money. I’ll give them my house. Hell, I’ll
give them the portraits of my ancestors, but I can’t
beg.”

“You’ve spent the best years of your life
causing misery because you were miserable; does that make you feel
proud?”

“You make me sound like my cousin
Strathmore. If you think I’m heartless you should try crossing a
man who’s made an art of taking offence.”

“Is your pride so precious? That strikes me
as pathetic.”

“My father could treat me like a dog, but he
couldn’t take my pride. I’m a Grayson. We never beg. Ever!”

“Does it make you feel proud to know you’ve
become your father?”

“I’m not my father!” The roar of rage had a
tone of despair. “I’m not all bad…I can be kind.”