For so many years, she’d thought that emotion in his eyes at the Christmas Ball had been youthful folly. “Why didn’t you?” she whispered.
His lips were gnarled with bitterness.
“Because it wasmewho’d been the country bumpkin in London, Charlotte. Green as a sapling. I had no elder to guide me and I was…” He snorted. “I was fleeced at every turn. Plucked and hustled. My new exciting crowd of friends took me to gaming dens and we’d wager on the most preposterous contests. At first, it was just a bit of fun. I was rich and the dukedom had enough money. I told myself it was only a few quid.” He quaffed his brandy in one gulp. “But those cardsharps can smell a gullible young fool of a newcomer at thirty paces. They beguiled me. Befriended me. Duped me. I’d no idea. And it spiralled. Ilost guineas and guineas. I got…scared. So, I gambled more to recoup the losses. Except one never does, you know. I started to offer my unentailed lands and deeds to businesses. I was likely hoodwinked lock, stock and barrel. And I…I bankrupted the estate.”
Charlotte closed her eyes. “Oh, Marcus, why did you not tell us?”
“Why!” he almost yelled. “I’d returned to hell. Mother was ill, your father had died, and I so wanted to help you all. Damn, how I wanted to help. But there was no money, nothing, and I was still drowning in debt and creditors. I was…”
“If you’d told us…”
“No.” His voice was hoarse. “I was shamed. A disgrace to you. I could not bear to look at all the people here who relied upon me, whom I’d betrayed. Tenants and townsfolk. I’d nigh thrown away their future. And then there was you, my dear Charlotte, who in my absence had been left destitute through no fault of your own, while I…” He fisted his chest. “I had thrown away any future we might have had on the turn of cards and roll of dice.” His breath heaved. “I could not look you in the eye because…” His throat bobbed. “Because…there was worse…”
Charlotte hugged arms around herself, eyes moist. Could not speak.
“Because when I was desperate,” he continued in a whisper, “and full of cheap liquor, when I was so afraid and drowning, I…” He turned to the fire and she strained to hear him. “At a card game of deep play, I… I cheated.”
“Cheated?” She’d never known anyone as honourable as Marcus.
But he slowly nodded. “You recall our venerable butler who taught us some tricks?”
“Y-yes. Old Lanton?”
“I-I thought if I could just…gain some back, I could make a new start. So, I… I cheated.”
Charlotte swiped away a tear. She knew the gentleman’s code. Raise a fist to your wife and theTonshrugged but if one was labelled a cheat… You and your family would be ostracised from society forever.
Another tear fell. Because for Marcus to do such a thing was so contrary to his nature, it meant he had been in an exceedingly desolate place.
With no other hope.
“And?”
“Old Lanton’s tricks were for children. I was caught.”
“Oh, Marcus.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the mantle. “The…the man I cheated… I shall forever see that moment in my mind’s eye. He looked at me with such…distaste. And then he leaned forward and slapped my cheek with his glove, demanding recompense, and no apology I could stutter out was enough, so…”
“No, Marcus, not…” She rammed a fist to her mouth.
“So, two days later,” he rasped, “at a dawn full of drizzle and mist, I found myself in Saint James’ Park, readying to face a duel of honour with Lord Woodford, a man twice my age. All my so-called friends had deserted me, of course, and only Cousin Thomas stood at my side.” Marcus twisted, his face stark with pain. “My hand was shaking so badly I could hardly lift the pistol from the black velvet of the box. I was sick to the stomach. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to kill.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Soldiers say that when you think your life is to end, you see past moments flash before your eyes, but that wasn’t so with me.” He shook his head and stared to her. “I saw the future I’d thrown away. I saw a prosperous estate. Our Christmas Ball. My mother smiling. I saw you.”
Charlotte let the tears flow. Could picture it all. Marcus scared and alone in a fog-cloaked field, a pistol in his young quaking hand. Back-to-back with his opponent. Ready to walk, turn and…
“Did…did you…”
“I stumbled those twenty paces whilst with each step I vowed… I vowed that if I lived, then I would never cease until I had recouped all the monies. I vowed to work till I dropped.” Marcus lowered himself into the chair beside her. “But I knew I could not do that with a man’s death scarring my soul. So, I turned, straightened my trembling arm. And I…I shot in the air.” His lungs heaved. “Then I waited. I waited for death. Or another chance at life. I waited for pain. I watched Lord Woodford’s pistol lift. Watched the barrel level and steady at me.”
Charlotte held her breath.
“And he too shot in the air.”
She let it flow.
“I fell to my knees as Thomas rushed to me. And I promised there and then on my father’s grave to fulfil my vow.” He flung his head back in the chair. “Hell, Lord Woodford could see well enough the state of us both, dragged us to his carriage, and I found myself blurting all that had happened to me. He listened, told me he admired my honour during the duel and so…so he…lent me money, with conditions, a lot of conditions. But he aided me in brokering plans of payment with the creditors, guided me on business and gave me a chance, took me under his wing and I swore to him… I swore I would pay him back. Every single penny.”
Charlotte struggled with emotions so fierce and overwhelming. “Did-did your mother know of…”
