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She stopped trying to yank her hand free, and he led her into the trees with as much decorum as he could. The narrow path twisted and turned, and soon they were well away from anyone—and possibly lost. William did not care.
He turned her to face him. “Talk,” he said.
“There’s nothing to say,” she replied.
“With you, there is always something to say.”
That was all the prompting she needed. “How dare you!” she hissed, slapping him hard across the face. “This is nothing to you, is it? You have your bride and her dowry. You have everything you bargained for, with no consideration for my feelings at all. And then you have the temerity to insult me as well, at the worst possible moment. I hate you! I hate you both! I hate you all!”
This was better, he thought as he rubbed his stinging cheek. Punishment for his crime. He clasped her upper arms and held her firmly, thwarting her attempts to wriggle free. “Keep talking,” he said, though her words would be painful to hear.
She glared at him with those magnificent blue eyes of hers. He needn’t have urged her to speak, because now that she’d begun, the words tumbled from her unbidden. “You want me to keep talking? Very well. You have your wish, my lord, and I despise you for it. You came into my life waving an old piece of paper claiming a debt is owed because two loathsome gentlemen”—she spat the word—“had the stupidity or the conceit not to realize that whatever they placed in writing might possibly have a bearing on someone other than their wretched selves. If my grandfather were alive, I would spit in his face.
“But let us leave the dead out of this for the moment. They have gone to their Maker, and He will hold them accountable for their actions since I cannot. And now there are two other gentlemen whose sole purpose in pursuing me is for their own selfish interests. Not for love. Not because they have any consideration for me as a person. There is not much difference between them and the first two, is there?”
William felt her accusations like deep cuts from a blade, his throat tight with emotion. Never had the word gentlemen held so much condemnation. He ran his hands up and down her arms, trying to soothe her.
She shook herself free of his touch. “I am also trying to understand who you are in an attempt to understand my future, but you tell me nothing!” she cried. “You wear a mask so fixed I cannot tell if you are happy or angry or bored or amused. I could list what I know about you on the fingers of one hand.”
“Louisa—”
“No!” she cried. She held up one of her hands, her fingers clenched. “Watch and see. One”—she held up her first finger—“both of your parents are deceased, and your father’s death made you viscount. That is two things”—she held up her second finger—“so I will count them as two, just to be generous. Three”—a third finger joined the other two—“your father left you in poverty, and I would wager—ha, wager, indeed.” She chuckled humorlessly at her irony. “I would wager that you are also deeply in debt through his actions. Four, as a result, you have but one item of any value, and it is of great value, at least to me, for what is more valuable than a human life? For that item is the vowel that holds me—my very person—wholly accountable for my grandfather’s sins. Lastly—”
“Enough, Louisa, please,” William said, feeling as if his soul was being torn asunder. He’d wanted her to speak, had urged her to, but he could no longer bear to hear the pain he had caused her. “You have made your point.”
“Lastly,” she continued, ignoring him. “You are counting on my father’s love for his only daughter to see you clear of your debts and obligations through the financial benefits marriage to her—to me—will bring you.”
“Louisa, stop,” William said, again taking her by both shoulders, more firmly this time. Her eyes were large, and her cheeks were streaked with tears, but she looked back at him with fire and defiance. His entire body ached from the strain of hearing her words, words he’d repeated to himself over and over again since that fateful day when Heslop had shown him the vowel. He longed to assure her that she could trust him, that he would do anything for her.
He opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t do it. His father’s words were a never-ending drumbeat in his mind: Stop crying. You’re supposed to be a man. Act like one . . .
“I am a fool,” she said in a dull voice. “There was never the hope of love for me, was there? Not with you, certainly. And the Earl of Kerridge has once again asked me to marry him. I am one of very few ladies who meet the high standards of the future Duke of Aylesham, you see, and have been forgiven for my flawed judgment in thinking that I—a mere female—should act with honor. I have only ever been a means to an end when it comes to men and marriage—merely a source of income or the breeder of heirs. What a glorious future I have.”
The bleakness of her words left William cold and hollow, the lump in his stomach a great dead weight. He had brought this terrible injustice upon her. And the knowledge that Kerridge had proposed to Louisa once again—after having the temerity to forgive her for acting honorably—made him want to do violence to the man. He drew her close and wrapped his arms about her, giving her what comfort she would take from him. Thankfully, she came without resistance.
“There,” he whispered in her ear. “You will feel better now that you’ve shared this, Louisa. You are a verbal creature. Words are your friends, as they are not mine. Be at peace.”
He kept his arms around her, simply holding her, until at last he felt the tension begin to ease from her body. He kissed her on the cheek and then handed her his handkerchief while keeping his other arm around her.
She dried her eyes and blew her nose. “I must look a sight.”
“You look as beautiful as ever; trust me,” he assured her. “No one will be the wiser.”
She looked up at him with skepticism and then heaved a sigh. “Well, at least it’s dark. I shall simply avoid getting too close to any of the lanterns for the remainder of the evening.”
“No one will suspect a thing.”
She tried to hand him his handkerchief.
“No, you may keep it.”
They remained silent for several minutes while he held her close, reluctant to let her go, desirous to ask her more about Kerridge without upsetting her further. “Louisa,” he eventually said with the gentlest of tones. “Will you tell me about your encounter with Lord Kerridge? The conversation was clearly upsetting to you.”
“There is not much to tell. Anthony and I joined the Meltons at the theater last evening, and Lord Kerridge came to their box during intermission when I was alone. He said no one knows anything about you beyond the reputation of your father and that I should act with caution, that everyone would eventually forget my ‘lapse in judgment,’ as he called it, and that his offer of marriage still stands.”
The dead weight in William’s stomach turned into a mass of strangled knots, and he could hear his father’s voice taunting him now. He’s raised the ante, boy. He’s called your bluff.
William drew in a slow breath before speaking. “I promised you before I left for Buckinghamshire that I would answer your questions. And I shall. But it is time to return to your parents now, or they will become concerned—if, that is, you are ready to join them.”
Her gaze dropped to the ground at her feet. “I’m fine.”
“Are you?” He would not, for the world, make her face the crowds of Vauxhall until she was ready.
She took several even breaths before lifting her face to his, looking to him as if she’d successfully mastered her emotions. “Truly, I’m fine now, thank you. Besides, they might send my brother out looking for us, and I would hate that above all things.”
William nodded. Perhaps the worst of it was over. Perhaps he had mitigated the damage Kerridge had caused, blast the arrogant man, although he doubted it. He took her hand in his—no struggling this time, thank goodness—and led her out of the dark wood and back to the lights of Vauxhall and genteel society.
Oh, and to a plate of thinly sliced ham. Considering the state of his stomach, it would surely be more than enough.
