The Most to Lose (28 page)

“Hadleigh’s purpose was to take advantage of you, and it’s a point to your credit that you didn’t realize what he was doing. It means that you’re not as coldhearted as he. It means your mind is not as twisted with hatred as his.”

Jonah stared at Celie’s friend for several long seconds. There was something quite pretty about her, and he wondered why she hadn’t been spoken for. Or if she had, why she hadn’t accepted anyone’s offer.

“Why are you doing this?”

She looked at him as if he’d just asked the most ridiculous question imaginable. “Because Celie is my best friend and I can’t stand by while my best friend is miserable and not try to do everything in my power to help her.”

He caught an evasive look in her eyes before she quickly hid it. “And the other reason is?”

“There is no other reason, my lord,” she said with a laugh.

“I think there is. Another reason that is equally as important to you as trying to keep your best friend from suffering.”

Lady Amanda tugged on her gloves as if preparing to leave. “If there is,” she said, avoiding looking him directly in the eyes, “it is a reason I intend to keep to myself. Now, if you will kindly make yourself presentable, I will go to invite the Duke of Hadleigh for what I pray will be his downfall.”

Jonah watched Lady Amanda Radburn walk from his room, then went upstairs to shave and dress for tea.

Chapter 21

Y
ou what!

Celie stared at her best friend as if she’d lost her “You can’t be serious!”

“I’ve never been more serious in my life. Lord Haywood should arrive momentarily. And so should your brother.” Amanda reached over and clasped both Celie’s hands in hers. “There are some things you don’t know—important things. And you need to be aware of them.”

Celie shook her head. “I’ve heard all I need to. You don’t know what it’s like to realize you were nothing more to your brother than a pawn he could use to ruin the man he hated. And”—she took a shaky breath—“you don’t know what it’s like to find out that the man you’ve always loved only pretended to love you to destroy his most hated enemy.” She felt a fresh onslaught of tears fill her eyes.

“If that were true, I wouldn’t lift a finger to help Lord Haywood get you back, and you know it.”

Celie looked at the serious expression on her friend’s face. “How can you think Jonah loves me? You heard him. He only used me to get even with Hadleigh for everything he’d done to him after Melisande’s death.”

“And you don’t think he could have been lying?”

Celie shook her head. “I’ve always known Jonah couldn’t love me. But I’d loved him for so long I let myself believe he could.”

“Then you need to hear the truth with your own ears. You need to hear how your brother used not only you but Lord Haywood to achieve his revenge. That’s the only way you’ll ever trust Haywood.”

“What makes you think Hadleigh will come once he finds out Jonah will be here?”

“Because he doesn’t know—yet.” Amanda smiled when she heard a commotion at the front door. “But he will soon.”

Celie recognized her brother’s voice and looked up as the butler admitted him into the room.

“Cecelia.” He rushed to the sofa where she was and sat beside her. He turned toward her and clasped her hands in his.

She pulled her fingers out of his grasp and rose to her feet.

He rose to stand beside her. “Please, allow me to explain. Nothing is what you think. You have always been the most important person in the world to me. I would never have let anything hurt you.”

“Wouldn’t you have?”

“No. You don’t understand. It was Haywood. I had to—”

Jonah’s voice echoed from the foyer, and his sure footsteps thudded as he made his way toward the drawing room. Her heart thundered in her breast.

The door opened, and he stepped inside the room.

His gaze focused on her first, but that wasn’t a surprise. They were so attuned to each other it wasn’t uncommon for her to realize the precise moment Jonah walked into a room. Or for him to find her the minute he arrived. She didn’t know what it was, but it had been that way between them from the beginning.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Hadleigh bellowed.

“I invited him, Your Grace.”

“Then you can uninvite him! I don’t want him anywhere near my sister!”

“If Lord Haywood’s company is so disagreeable, you are welcome to leave, Your Grace. But if you do, I’m afraid you will never see your sister again.”

Her brother opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. Celie kept her gaze focused on where Jonah stood near the door.

“Celie?”

This was the man to whom she’d given her body. To whom she’d given her heart and her soul. The man who’d rejected everything she’d offered him. Who’d stomped on her heart and ground it beneath his heel.

She should hate him. She told herself over and over that she should, but the part of her heart he possessed refused to turn away from him. He held too tight a grip on her emotions for her to let him go.

“Are you all right?”

She shook her head. She wasn’t all right. She doubted she would ever be all right again. “I…”

She’d convinced herself that now that she knew the truth she wouldn’t feel the same about him. But she did. She still loved him. She still missed him. And she still wanted to run into his arms and have him hold her.

“Do us a favor,” her brother interrupted, “and leave Cecelia alone. You’ve done enough damage.”

“This is my home, Your Grace, and I would like Lord Hay-wood to stay. I, for one, would like to hear what he has to say.”

“Well, I wouldn’t!”

Amanda’s mouth curved upward. Celie couldn’t believe it. She was smiling.

“No, Your Grace. I don’t imagine you would.”

Her friend, the one person in all the world who’d stood at her side even when it would have been to her advantage not to, stepped close to her and placed her hand on her shoulder. “You need to hear everything, Celie.”

Jonah ignored Hadleigh’s hostility and took a step into the room. “I need to talk to you for a moment.”

“No!” Hadleigh crossed the floor in long, angry strides. “Get out! You have nothing to say to my sister.”

“Your Grace.” Amanda lifted her hand and stepped in front of Hadleigh. “Don’t you think it might be best if you allow Lord Haywood to explain? After his admission to Lady Kendall, I’m sure there’s nothing he can say to sway your sister’s opinion of him. But it’s evident he won’t give up until he tries one last time.”

“He’s done enough damage. He admitted he deceived Cecelia. That his only intent in asking her to marry him was for her money.”

“That’s only partly true,” Jonah said. “I needed your money, Celie. I’ve never denied that. But there’s something I want you to know before I leave.”

“You can’t believe a word from this murdering liar, Cecelia. You know you can’t.”

“Murderer, Your Grace?” Amanda said, taking an obvious step away from Jonah. “I had no idea Lord Haywood had committed murder.”

“Of course he did.”

Hadleigh glared at Jonah, and Celie saw a look of hatred in her brother’s eyes she thought had lessened in the three years since Melisande’s death.

Amanda clasped her hand to her throat. “No wonder you believed his admission so readily. What I don’t understand, though, is why you considered allowing Celie to marry him in the first place.”

“I allowed it because…” Hadleigh halted in midsentence.

In the flash of an eye, Celie realized that if her brother had finished his thought, she would have heard something she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to handle.

“Wouldn’t you like to boast of your success, Hadleigh?” Jonah dropped his shoulders as if admitting defeat. “I mean, what satisfaction is there in victory if no one is aware of the plan you orchestrated to achieve your triumph?”

“Shut up, Haywood. There was no plan.”

“Of course there was a plan. And I played into your scheme perfectly.”

Amanda wrapped her arm around Celie’s waist, and Celie braced herself for what she was about to hear.

She knew that whatever was about to unfold wasn’t a secret to Amanda. Amanda already knew what Hadleigh had done and thought it was important for Celie to know it, too. And tragic enough that she expected Celie would need her support.

“What plan is Jonah talking about?” she asked.

“There was no plan. You’re listening to the ravings of a desperate man.” Hadleigh turned his hostile glare in Jonah’s direction. “Get out!”

“I will, as soon as I congratulate you.”

Jonah moved slightly. Celie’s heart raced. There was a warning look in her brother’s eyes that frightened her. There was a determination in Jonah’s she’d never seen before.

“I underestimated you, Hadleigh. When you issued your threat that you’d wait until I had the most to lose, then take it all, I thought you meant earthly possessions. But you didn’t, did you?”

“Shut up. You deserve to lose everything. You deserve to rot in hell.”

“Did your sister know what you intended? Was she involved in your scheme? Or was she just the pawn you used to trap me?”

Celie shifted her gaze to her brother. “What plan? What is Jonah talking about, Hadleigh?”

“There was no plan! He’s only trying to make trouble. He’s desperate. That’s all.”

“Someday, you’ll have to ask him, Celie. But when you do, be prepared.”

“Out!” Hadleigh bellowed. “Get. Out!”

“No, Hadleigh.” Celie knew if she was ever going to hear the truth from her brother’s mouth, she had to force the issue now. “I would like to hear what Jonah has to say.”

“Cecelia,” her brother said in a stern voice, “I don’t know what you hope to prove by such defiance. Listening to this scoundrel’s lies will do nothing except force you to relive how he used you to exact his revenge against me. Don’t you realize that he’ll only tell more lies in his attempt to convince you that what he admitted to Lady Kendall wasn’t true?”

She turned her focus on Jonah. “Were they true, Lord Haywood? Were the things you said to Lady Kendall true?”

Jonah paused, and she knew then that he considered lying to her. When he spoke, the pain inside her chest hurt more than she thought she could bear.

“Yes, Celie. In part, they were all true.”

Amanda wrapped her arm around Celie’s waist when she staggered.

“See, Cecelia! I told you Haywood was nothing but a blackguard from whom you needed protection.”

Jonah ignored Hadleigh’s outburst. “I meant it when I said how much I hated your brother when he turned his back on me that first time and all of society took their cue from him. I spent many hours considering what I could do to regain my acceptance. But I knew nothing would force society to welcome me back.

“And every night, when I fell asleep on the cold, frozen ground in the Crimea, with little food in my belly and only the rags on my back to keep me warm, I planned what I would say and do the minute I stepped back on English soil.

“And when I received word that my father and brother were dead, I blamed Hadleigh. I deceived myself into believing that if I had been here with them, I could have made them realize the destructive path they were traveling and changed the outcome of their lives. And if not, at least I would have been here to bury them.”

Jonah held out his arms in surrender. “But all my plans were nothing more than that—idle imaginings. Ramblings of loneliness. And self-pity. And helplessness.

“I didn’t act on any of them. And I would never have done anything to hurt you.”

He took a step toward her.

“I couldn’t, Celie. I would never do anything to hurt you—because I love you.”

“Liar!”

“I said the words I knew Lady Kendall wanted to hear—
needed
to hear. I took the blame for Melisande’s death even though I didn’t cause it. I told a grieving mother that I was responsible for everything that happened that night. And I did my best to convince her that your death wouldn’t affect me. I needed her to believe I didn’t care for you. I would have said whatever was necessary in order to save your life. Because I couldn’t imagine a life without you in it.”

“No!”

Her brother’s loud denial blasted through the silence.

“He doesn’t love you, Cecelia. He’s incapable of the emotion. Don’t you realize how great a fool you made of yourself by thinking he could ever love you?”

“That’s not true, Celie. I love you. No matter what you think of me, or how much you believe you hate me, I want you to know that I love you. I have from the first day I saw you again.”

She didn’t know what to believe. Her roiling emotions couldn’t make sense of what her mind told her.

“Jonah, did you only want to marry me for my dowry?”

Jonah stopped, then closed his eyes and shook his head. “No, Celie. I wanted to marry you because I loved you. I’ve always known that Hadleigh controls your dowry.”

Celie felt the bottom fall out of her world. “Hadleigh controls my dowry.”

A frown deepened across Jonah’s brow. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, Hadleigh.” Jonah’s voice brimmed with disbelief. “Was there
no
limit to your deceit? Wasn’t it enough that you used your sister to achieve your goal? Did you trust her so little that you needed to keep the terms of her dowry from her?”