“My Lord, the Countess of Winters has arrived.”
“Excellent,” Roger said, pushing away his papers and leaning back in his chair. “Send her in.”
A few moments later, his stepmother entered the room in a rustle of stiff skirts. He smiled instinctively, but his smile quickly fell when he saw the look on her lovely face.
“How dare you!” she snarled, coming to stand before him, trembling with anger. “Do you think I still want anything to do with you after you stole Allison away like a thief in the night?”
For some reason, he’d thought that she’d understood why he’d taken Allison with him to France, but apparently, those bastards had gotten to her already, turning her against him.
“I needed her with me,” he said coldly. “I didn’t harm her in any way.”
“She told me everything that happened,” she replied, just as coldly. “She was terrified. And if she’d come to any harm, I would have hunted you down and killed you myself.” She sniffed. “You know my sons will destroy you once they know you’ve returned.”
“I can handle them.” He shrugged, seeing his chances of her giving him the money he needed disappearing like smoke in the wind. “But I need some help. Do you think you could possibly give me a small loan?”
She laughed bitterly. “I no longer have any funds of my own. Lucien has cut me off completely. He found out about the child we took from him. He married that trashy little gamekeeper’s daughter and forced me out of my home. Can you imagine! He exiled me to a cottage in the country, but I managed to prevail upon a friend to let me stay with her here in London. I am selling off my jewels to maintain my lifestyle, and it’s all your fault!”
He cringed a bit to hear of her dire straits but didn’t feel that he was entirely to blame. She was the one who had approached him with her plan to get rid of Serenity Pratt. He’d been happy to help out, but she was the one who hadn’t been able to bear the thought of her precious oldest son and heir marrying someone so lowborn.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he told her placatingly, but what really bothered him was not her reduced circumstances but the fact that she no longer had money to lend him. However, he also knew that her jewelry was worth a fortune. “But if you could find it in you to give me the proceeds of one of your more valuable pieces of jewelry, I’d be able to help you out once my fortunes have changed.”
Her angry gaze turned calculating. “If I did give you one of the jewels, do you promise me that you’ll make Lucien pay for what he’s done to me?”
Roger nodded emphatically. “That, my dear stepmother, is a promise I’d be happy to make.”
A few more plans were made, and then Roger escorted her toward the front door. To his surprise, he found that Allison was waiting in the foyer, looking lovely as ever in a cerulean gown that matched her lovely eyes.
“Allison,” he said with a smile. “So good to see you.”
She drew herself up to her full five feet and gave him a look that would have incinerated a lesser man. “I wish I could say the same, Roger. I was shocked when Mother said she was coming to visit you. After what you’ve done, I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”
He frowned. “What have I done? I didn’t hurt you in any way during our trip to France. I fear you’ve given your mother the wrong impression.”
She lifted her chin, suddenly reminding him of Lucien. “You kept me trapped in a dingy hotel room for weeks! You abandoned me when Lucien’s detective arrived and forced me to return to London with a... commoner!”
“I gave you the choice to return home, and you took it!” he fired back.
“What about Anne?” she cried. “You killed her!”
He smirked and shook his head. “I did no such thing. As my lawyers will tell you, I had no knowledge of those men’s plans. It isn’t my fault they were in my employ.”
The countess gave him a furious look and ushered Allison toward the door, which his footman hurried to open. “I’ll be in touch.”
* * *
IN THE FADING EVENINGlight, Fiona stood on the back stoop, watching Molly and Ginny play with the two puppies. She’d decided to introduce them to the newest residents of Brookhaven first, believing that the two girls needed the warm furry friends more than anybody.
Ginny still hadn’t spoken to her, but a half-smile curled her lips as she hugged one of the puppies, and Fiona dared to hope that she might come out of this entire horrible experience without any lasting scars. She was still young and hopefully resilient.
She frowned suddenly, wondering how resilient she had been at sixteen. Had she ever really recovered from the things that had been done to her or had she just pushed them all to some deep dark corner of her mind where they crouched like hidden monsters, waiting to be unleashed?
“It seems as though they like the puppies,” Morgan said from behind her, his voice warm in her ear.
The temptation to lean back against him, to let him take her in his arms the way he had the other night, was nearly overwhelming. This man did things to her that she’d never imagined possible. He made her want to trust him, to let him help her, to make love to him...
“Of course, they do,” she whispered. “Everybody loves puppies.” She turned to look up at him, so handsome in the twilight. “You have such a knack for knowing how to make these children’s lives better. I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done.”
He shrugged and dropped his gaze, looking a bit embarrassed. “I should have done it sooner. It embarrasses me to think that you and my brothers have been making a difference all these years while I was so self-involved, so unaware...”
