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“It doesn’t matter.”
“Who was he?”
“A nobody.” She tossed her head. “His father owned a timber mill near Boston. I could never have married him without disgracing myself and my family.” He saw real emotion in her eyes for the first time. “Please don’t tell Mama I told you anything about it. It’s supposed to be a secret. I don’t know why I told you.”
“It’s all right. Your secret’s safe with me,” he said gently. “I’ll play my role to perfection,Miss Chandler. I’ll make you London’s reigning belle.”
Her face lit up. “I think we shall suit, Your Grace.”
“Perfectly, Miss Chandler.”
They shook hands on a deal that was mutually beneficial to all parties.
Even though it all felt empty, somehow.
When West returned home, he was greeted by the sound of laughter and excited voices. He followed the merriment to the music room. His sisters were clustered around Miss Beaton as she sat at the pianoforte, playing a sprightly air. Her eyes glowed and her hair had come loose from her cap, sending tendrils of soft brown curls around her shoulders.
“Lady Blanche, may I have this dance?” Betsy asked in a low voice, making a deep bow.
Blanche giggled and accepted her arm. The two of them twirled onto the carpet, pretending to be dancing at a ball.
West smiled and nearly walked into the room. He stopped himself just in time. His presence would only put a damper on the warmth and intimacy of the moment. He never spent time with his sisters of an evening. He was always out at the gaming hells indulging in fleeting pleasures. Burying himself under layer upon layer of iniquity until he couldn’t even stand to look at his face in the mirror.
He wasn’t carefree. He wasn’t happy.
He’d known that for a long time. Contentment was something that only belonged to otherpeople. He didn’t know what true happiness felt like.
He knew the taste of pleasure, the compulsion to gamble, the blessed oblivion of gin and whisky.
Miss Beaton—Viola—knew happiness. She glowed with it. That ready smile of hers, the dimples she bestowed upon the world so effortlessly, the charming way she had of humming under her breath as she walked.
She was joyful by nature, and happiness found her because she had a sweet and giving disposition. That was it, wasn’t it?
He’d suppressed that warm, open side of himself when he was still a young man. He’d vowed to become bad and wicked and he’d accomplished his goal so thoroughly that he’d become everything his father said he was.
It didn’t matter if he wanted to enter the music room and receive his share of Viola’s attention. Make her smile and then bask in the warm glow.
A memory, faint and hazy, entered his mind. His mother at the door of the nursery, watching him read to Belinda and Betsy from a picture book, her eyes lit with pride.
Brandan, she’d said later that day,you have a warm and a giving heart.Always remember that small acts of kindness multiply and yield richer dividends than all the gold and diamonds in this world. She’d ruffled his hair.You’ll be a good man someday.You’ll make some lucky woman a wonderful husband.
He’d wanted her approval and love with the same powerful longing that swamped his sensesnow. The craving for companionship, the lure of easy laughter and warm smiles, was only a memory from his past. He’d buried his weakness, his need for love, drowned it in gin, smothered it with hedonistic pursuits.
You’re wicked and shameful. Tainted by sin. Life is no bed of roses for one such as you.
It was too late for him to change. He’d do what he always did.
Walk away from his sisters, from their innocent laughter, from Viola’s wide-open smile. From the soft light in her green eyes.
Turn your back and walk away,into the dark night.
And head straight for hell.
Chapter Eleven
West finally stumbled home at well-past-inebriated o’clock. There was a lamp lit in the music room of the dower house. Viola hadn’t struck him as a late-night sort of person.
As he approached the house he heard the sound of piano music. But this was a far cry from the elegant air he’d heard Viola play earlier. This was something entirely different. Strident, almost bombastic chords, crashing into the air like waves battering a cliff during a squall.
