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“Ethan,” Verity said, hating that her voice trembled.
His back stiffened, and he turned to her. He stared, his brilliant eyes growing distant by the second. The sudden tension in him was palpable.
“Does this lady know my sister?”
The lady in question turned around, her bright brown eyes raking over Verity. She spied jealousy and embarrassment in her gaze and sigh.
“Yes, I know of her, but I have never met her,” she said a bit spitefully. “It was the duke who convinced Lord Preston against marrying her. The argument was rather…persuasive, and that is how I knew of it.”
“You have overstayed your welcome, Sarah,” he said icily. “Get out, or I will have you tossed out.”
The lady paled, and her hand fluttered to her throat, sudden regret lining her face. “Ethan, I am sorry, I do not—”
“Out!”
She jolted, and with a muffled cry, rushed from the room. Verity walked further into the room so the lady might pass her, but she never removed her gaze from Ethan’s sudden indecipherable expression. At that moment, he reminded her of the cold, aloof duke she had met the first time she entered this home.
“Is it true?” she whispered, recalling Catherine’s tears and questions as to why the earl had not offered for her after their night of impetuous passion.
A slight tremor went through his tautened frame. “Does it matter?”
His answer had a terrible, hollow ache rising in her chest. He should deny this, she thought dazedly. Verity stared at him, a painful sensation gripping her chest. “The reason Lord Preston did not offer for Catherine after…after he had taken her to his bed was that you convinced him otherwise?”
“Yes.”
She flinched, the wound in her heart flaying open. “You were the source of my sister’s greatest unhappiness.”
“Yes,” he said with brutal honesty.
She could barely see him through a film of tears. “Why?” she rasped. “Why would you act so callously toward her? What exactly did you do, Ethan?”
His eyes burned through her. “I never met this Catherine that Oscar often spoke of, nor did he ever reveal her full name, I suspect to spare her reputation. We were both six-and-twenty, rakes shy of walking into the traps of marriage-minded mothers and their daughters, determined to remain bachelors until duty required us to marry,” he said flatly. “He told me of a girl who came into his room at a house party and confessed her love for him, and how he fell under her charms and could not help himself. When he came to me, babbling about compromising a lady but was uncertain if he was ready for marriage, I told him not to be a fool. It took two to climb into a bed, and she clearly wanted to trap him for marriage. A thing we were not yet ready for.”
Verity recoiled. “Catherine had no such notions! They met and danced at several balls and engaged in discourse before…before…”
“He was not publicly courting any lady I know of,” he said . His jaw was tight, clenched, as were his hands by his sides. “I did not believe her genuine in whatever feelings she claimed to own for him, the ones he seemed both uncertain and excited about. It was I who convinced him to delay his offer of marriage and follow me to a house that boasted the loveliest courtesans. We drank and indulged in all manner of debauchery, and when we stumbled from that house, Oscar thought it a lark to order the coachman away, and climbed atop the driver’s box.”
Verity stepped away from him, her heart beating so fast she felt pain. The memory of Catherine’s screams and her fainting away at the news of the earl’s death almost cleaved Verity into two. “I do not wish to hear anymore,” she whispered, or she might scream and rush forward to slap his face.
They stared at each other for painful minutes.
“We raced through the streets of London like two drunken fools,” he hissed, his expression a grimace of pained torment. “I did nothing to temper the speed at which Oscar urged his horses, but sat there like an indulgent fool, sipping from a whisky flask. I am still uncertain to this day what the horses hit. But Oscar lost control, the carriage careened, and everything after became bloodied.”
Tears slipped down her face, and she wiped them away. “I understand it now,” she murmured. “The ease at which you took in Thomas and the ease at which you married me. You felt as if you owed Lord Preston…and that you owed Catherine. Tell me, Your Grace, is guilt the only thing holding our marriage together?”
He took a step toward her. “I also feel such regret, Verity. It is not only guilt and grief that haunts me.”
Verity’s heart shattered, and she gripped the edges of her gown, turned, and ran from him.
