Twice a Rake (35 page)

Quin staggered out through the door and stared at the approaching sounds in the empty darkness. “What do you want, you horse’s arse?”

“To start,” Jonas drawled, “you could tell me how many more bottles you have in there so I know how many I’ll have to dispose of before I leave.”

Fat chance in hell that would happen. “Go away.”

Jonas and his horse finally appeared in the moonlight, calm, in no hurry. He alit from his horse and tied the reins to a post beside the building. “Care to invite me inside?” he asked, letting himself into the hermitage before Quin had the opportunity to refuse.

“I told you to get out,” Quin half-shouted. God, it rang in his ears something awful. Another swallow would help. He downed some more as he followed Jonas back inside. The bastard had already settled himself into a chair by the window by the time Quin came through the door.

“Have a seat,” Jonas said, acting as if he owned the place and indicating the chair next to him. “We need to talk.” When Quin didn’t comply, Jonas roughly pulled on Quin’s arm until he sank into the chair.

Christ, that left his arse hurting. “Have a care, will you?” Quin said.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care.” Jonas pried the bottle free from Quin’s grasp and tossed into the hearth. It shattered, sending tiny splinters of glass flying through the small room. “Now cork it and listen.”

“I’ll plant you a facer, for that.”

“Later. You can do anything you want later. But right now, you listen. Your wife didn’t write the damned stories they’re printing in the new rag.”

“Bloody balderdash, she didn’t,” Quin mumbled. All of a sudden, Jonas thought he knew everything.

Jonas pulled a stack of papers from inside his coat and thrust them before Quin’s nose. “You don’t have to take my word for it. Read them for yourself. Draw your own conclusions.” Jonas moved a lighted candlestick closer before he stood and paced.

“I don’t want to read the bloody”

“Read them,” Jonas interrupted. “I don’t want to hear another word from you until you’re finished with the entire lot of them.”

Who had died and made Jonas king? Prinny would never stand for it.

Still, he ought to read them. He needed to know how bad it was—how soon he should expect Rotheby to toss them out. His eyes scanned the top page, devouring the words as he had so often devoured the pages of Aurora’s journal. It was a perfect sample of her writings, exactly like all the ones he’d read before. He might even want to try this particular one with her. “You’ve lost your blasted mind, Jonas. This is clearly Aurora’s writing. Strawberries and clotted cream in bed”

“Close your mouth and read the next one,” Jonas snapped. He used the same tone that had been so common amongst Quin’s tutors over the years—every time he was caught neglecting to work assiduously at his studies. Which, of course, was a rather frequent occurrence. Even more frequent after his father’s death, when Quin had started to raid the man’s ever increasing supply of brandy, kept so well hidden from his mother. He half expected a rap on his knuckles or a rolled piece of parchment to swat against his head.

With a scowl, Quin turned to the next sheet of foolscap. He read, expecting more of the same. But within moments, the words on the page scorched his eyes. Aurora’s fantasies had always been so innocent, so tentative. A blindfold here, strawberries in bed there. Perhaps making love in the middle of the day instead of the dark of night.

Quin flipped through the stack as fast as he could while still allowing his mind to register what they contained. Tying her and using a horsewhip on her until she bled. Mass orgies. Putting her on naked display before a room full of lusty men. And somehow, those were the tamer stories of the lot.

Aurora could never have written such things. She could never have imagined them either, for that matter.

What a fool he had been. He was so bloody dicked in the nob, he should be carted off post haste to Bedlam. Or maybe Newgate would be a better option, given his present murderous state.

He felt ill. So ill in fact that he rushed from the tiny building. Quin barely made it to the side of the river before casting up his accounts.

“Do you believe me now?” Jonas asked quietly from behind him.

There could be no more question of belief. “Christ, who’s behind this?” Quin asked so softly he almost didn’t recognize his own voice. He had to know. And he’d find the bastard and rip his head free from his shoulders, amongst other things.

“Does Aurora have any enemies? Anyone who’d want to hurt her?”

Who could possibly want to hurt her? Save Quin, of course, each time he lost his mind and blamed her for something ridiculous, something for which
he
was far more likely to hold the blame. “None that I know of. I can’t imagine she has any.”

Jonas moved beside him and sat at the base of the great oak leaning out over the river, tilting back to rest against it. “I assumed as much. So then the question turns to you. Let’s make a list. Who would want to hurt you?”

Quin laughed. “Where should I begin?” Cuckolded husbands, cheated gamblers, scorned mistresses, Phoebe and her family…

Wait.
Phoebe’s family
. Now there was a real possibility. He’d run off to the Continent after that foolhardy engagement, without giving her father or brothers a chance to defend her honor. Not that she had any more honor to begin with than he did, but that was beside the point.

Could it be Laughton, hoping for retribution? No, this felt too underhanded for Phoebe’s father. The marquess had never been one to mince words. The same could be said for Darlingshire. Laughton’s heir would be far more likely to call Quin out, challenge him to a duel, than to launch an attack against his wife and cast aspersions upon her character.

But that blunderbuss Griffin would take the back door out of a tavern before being caught with his breeches down. The lout had never liked Quin to begin with. It would be just like him to seek revenge through such despicable means.

He’d have to question Aurora about Griffin. If she would even allow him near her person again.

Quin took a seat on the ground next to Jonas, draping an arm over a propped up knee. “I’ll sort it out. I’ll take care of it.” Somehow. Good God, everything about his life had become a blasted nuisance since Aurora came into it. “You know, I’d rethink the whole idea of finding a bride, if I were you. They’re often more trouble than they’re worth.”

“Says the man who’s done everything in his power to avoid his wife,” Jonas came back with. “You’re neglecting her, Quin. She deserves better than that, despite the mistakes she may have made along the way.”

“What would you know of it?” Quin barked. “You should mind your own affairs.”

As expected, Jonas failed to even flinch from the rebuke. “I’ll mind mine when I’m satisfied that you’re not going to ruin what could be a very good thing. I spent the afternoon with Lady Quinton. She really is rather delightful to be around. You should try it sometime.”

“I’ll take your marriage advice when you’re married. Until then, keep your opinions to yourself.” Quin ground his teeth. What did Jonas know of it? The baronet was almost thirty and had never seriously entertained the notion of marriage. At least not that he’d let on to Quin. He’d kept the same damned mistress for at least the last six years. “And stay away from Aurora,” he added as an afterthought.

“She’s lonely. If you don’t spend any time with her and you keep her virtually imprisoned here with no interaction other than with servants, she’ll go mad within the year. Your wife was not built to be idle, Quin.” Jonas faced him, his eyes holding a serious glow in the moonlight. “So either you start paying attention to her, or I will.”

“You’ll stay away from her or you’ll answer to me.”

“You’ll uphold your responsibility to her or
you’ll
answer to
me
,” Jonas said, his voice holding a quiet threat. “And you’ll damned well learn to stay away from the brandy or I swear to you, I’ll take her away from you and put her somewhere you’ll never find her. She deserves better.”

“Of course she deserves better. My mother deserved better! I deserved better. But we didn’t get it.” Quin pushed off the ground and stalked to the riverfront. “And instead, I turned into him. I became an exact replica of my father, and there is nothing I can do about it. Every day, I am more like him. Every moment, I feel more of him creeping through my soul, coaxing me to drink, driving me to strike something.”

“If you strike her, I promise you that you will never see her again. Mrs. Marshall and Forster have already sworn their assistance. They won’t sit by and watch you lash out against that girl the way your father lashed out against you and your mother. Going through that once was more than enough for this lifetime—for anyone.” Jonas came up alongside him and skipped a stone across the placid surface of the river. The ripples danced in the light of the moon. “But you are not your father. You don’t have to be like him. You are your own man, Quin, and you make your own decisions in life. Right now, you’re
choosing
to follow his path.” He turned and walked back toward his horse, pausing before he mounted. “I’m asking you to choose a different path. I don’t want to lose a friend. But it is your choice.”

~ * ~

Quin hadn’t watched the sunrise come up over the river by the hermitage since before Mercy died. Not until that morning, after sitting there by the great oak the entire night.

He didn’t drink any more of his brandy. There was plenty left in his stores, so he could have drank until he passed out, and then woke up and had some more.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he spent the entire night thinking of Mercy. He always thought of her when he went there. It had been
their
spot, almost as though it had been created just for the two of them—their favorite place to go when they wanted an adventure, or just to escape their tutor and governess for a while. Mother and Father had always made certain the servants kept it well stocked, with logs to burn in the hearth, pillows and bedding, changes of clothes, bread and sweetmeats. Quin and Mercy could escape there, for a few hours or the better part of the day, sometimes even spending the night and watching the sunrise together while they fished in the river, laughing and talking about how fun it would be to leap from the branches of the old oak, to swim in the water without a care in the world. They never did. The branches were too high. He had believed he could climb it, but surely she couldn’t. She was just a girl, after all. A girl with skirts and any number of other things to hinder her.

Still, it was perfect. Their secret place that wasn’t a secret. Their haven.

Until that one day when he came upon Mercy laying on the riverbank, beneath the great oak with a pool of blood around her head. The day she died. The day his life changed forever.

For the next two years, the hermitage was no longer an adventure. It was a place to hide when Father went into a drunken rage. A place to lick his wounds in private, so Mother wouldn’t know how badly he’d been beaten that time. A place to fear discovery, if Father ever came out looking for him.

After his father died, Quin hadn’t been back to the hermitage. Until now. Until he was running from himself. Maybe he thought a part of Mercy was still there, where she’d laughed and lived and died. Maybe he thought she would have the answers he sought, that she could still speak to him.

But she wasn’t there. She didn’t speak.

Mercy was nothing more than a memory floating away with the current of the river. Not even the perfection of the sunrise washing the meadow in gold could bring her back.

Quin couldn’t sit there any longer, waiting for the ghost of a girl who had died at thirteen to come to him. He needed to find a way to repair things with Aurora. He needed to put an end to the lies being printed.

He needed to tell her he loved her—and of the changes that must take place because of that love.