Page 104 of The Dangerous Lord

He glanced out the window, a muscle working in his jaw. “What if I ... tell you I did something so awful it left several people’s lives in ruin?”

“If you mean that story about your seduction of your aunt⁠—”

“The truth is worse than that—ten times worse.”

Did he imply that his uncle’s darker accusation was the truth? No, she couldn’t believe it. “I know in my heart that you’re decent and good, no matter what you tell me.”

“You think so?” He paused. “Very well. We’ll see what you think after you hear everything. You see, I didn’t seduce my aunt as Lady Brumley claimed, or even force myself on her as my uncle claimed.”

His gaze swung back to hers, wrought with grief and guilt and self-hatred. “The truth is—I killed her.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

On New Year’s Eve, we do well not to look ahead, but back. The man who cannot learn from past mistakes has faint hope of avoiding future ones.

Lord X, The Evening Gazette, December 31, 1820

Felicity sat frozen, uncertain how to understand him. “You mean, because she killed herself for love of you⁠—”

“No. She never loved me, and she didn’t kill herself, not for love or anything else. I killed her.”

Her hands began to shake so much she clasped them tightly together in her lap. “I-I don’t believe you. How could that be?”

He sighed heavily. “I should start at the beginning. The year I reached nineteen, I spent a long holiday at Chesterley with my father. We fought about everything. My aunt and uncle were often around during those battles. Uncle Edgar always took Father’s side, which aggravated matters. But my aunt ...”

His voice softened. “My aunt tried to smooth things over. She listened to my complaints with understanding, having endured my uncle’s formidable temper for three years. Although she wasn’t much older than I, she was a sensible woman who offered sound advice, so I turned to her a great deal. We spent so much time in each other’s company and she was so kind that I came to care for her very much.”

The carriage hit a rut, jolting them both, but Ian hardly seemed to notice. “And yes, I suppose I was infatuated with her and even desired her, although at that age young men desire anything in a petticoat. I doubt she realized my feelings. Despite the tales you’ve heard, Aunt Cynthia was always conscious of her duty to my uncle and never behaved toward me with anything but the most circumspect propriety.”

Though he looked at her, she could tell he didn’t see her. He saw his own past, and his despairing expression tore at Felicity’s heart. She wished he would come sit by her while he told his sad tale, but he wasn’t the sort of man to want a woman’s coddling at such a time. And she feared stopping the flow of words.

“One afternoon,” he went on, “I was walking past a cottage on my uncle’s estate when I heard noises coming from within. The unmistakable sound of flesh colliding with flesh. A woman weeping. A man shouting. I recognized my uncle’s voice.”

His large hands tightened into cannonball fists where they lay on his thighs. “I’d noticed bruises on my aunt before without realizing that her seemingly plausible explanations for them were lies. But I couldn’t mistake what I was hearing. So I stopped outside the door.”

It was so like her dear husband to leap to the defense of a woman. She could imagine how painful it must have been for him to hear his aunt being mistreated.

He uttered a low curse. “If I’d taken even a moment to think, I would have realized that any direct interference on my part would only further enrage my uncle. I could have either found my father and begged him to come, or knocked on the door with some lie about needing my uncle’s assistance.” He paused, as if unable to continue.

She willed him silently to go on.

He turned his gaze out the window. “But I didn’t take a moment to think. I acted in exactly the thoughtless manner my father always criticized. I burst through the door.”

He was silent so long that she finally whispered, “And was he ... Had he⁠—”

“Hit her? Oh, yes. She already had red marks on her cheeks and a black eye. She was huddled in a corner, sobbing as he stood over her with his hands still fisted—fisted, mind you!” His voice grew hoarse and thick. “My God, she was half his size, a little wisp of a thing. And the bastard had been using his fists on her!”

Horror filled her, deepening even more as she thought of how the sight must have tortured her beloved husband. “Oh, Ian,” she murmured sympathetically.

But he seemed not to hear her. “I went a little insane. I launched myself at his back. We ... fought, but he was no match for a hotheaded lad of nineteen nearly twenty years his junior. I soon had him on the floor and was pummeling his face over and over ... My fury was so feverish it blotted out everything but a lust for his blood.”

He dragged in a long breath. “And when my aunt came up behind me and grabbed my arm to stop me before I killed him, I shook her off with such strength she ... she ...” He broke off, nearly losing his voice. Then he squared his shoulders, his tortured gaze shifting to her. “She lost her balance and fell back against the stone mantle. She ... hit her head. The doctor said she died instantly.”

“Good lord,” she whispered, “your poor aunt.” But it wasn’t his poor aunt her heart broke for. It was him, her sweet husband. Who’d held all this blackness in him for so long in silence. She wished she’d known sooner.

“Yes, my poor aunt.” The words were heavy with self-reproach. “Caught between two violent creatures like me and my uncle, she had no chance for life or happiness.”

He buried his face in his hands. Desperate to comfort him, she leaned forward and laid her hand on his back. For a long moment, there was no sound inside the carriage save its creaking, the pounding hooves of the horses, and Ian’s tortured breathing. When she could bear it no longer, she said, “I understand your suffering, my love, but it wasn’t your fault.”