“Frederica? How did you find yourself in such a den of vipers?”
Her brother’s angry voice cut through her despondent musings once more. His words unwittingly reflected Leonora’s cautious denunciations. Mayhap she should have heeded the warnings of her best friend.
She inhaled deeply, weighing her words and her confession both. “With Father gone to the country, I had a rare freedom of motion. Mother is…Mother. She scarcely notices I am her daughter because I am not a fan or a pretty new gewgaw she can acquire. I found your belongings in a trunk, and they fit well enough. I-it seemed providential.”
Dear heavens, how she hated the hitch in her voice. The glaring evidence of the tears she was doing her best to avoid shedding. She would cry, that she knew, and it would be a soul-deep weeping, the ugly, raw sort that would leave her with hiccups, swollen eyes, and a red nose. The sorrow invading her chest like a contagion as they gently swayed through London would not be denied. But neither would she break down in the company of her forbidding brother. She would wait until she was alone and the silence was unbearable, and then she would fill it instead with the bitter sounds of her agony.
“Your discovery of my outgrown, outmoded waistcoats seemed providential?” Benedict thundered. “Damn your foolish hide, Frederica. How did you imagine, even for a moment, that you could enter a gentleman’s club dressed as a man—apingme, no less—and go undetected? One must pass through three locked doors and a forbidding manservant just to gain entrance. If you had been caught at any step…” his words trailed off as he shuddered.
“But I was caught,” she pointed out, swallowing down the knot in her throat this reminder produced. “By Mr. Kirkwood. He knew at once I was a female.”
“As would a blind man,” her brother snapped. “Of course Kirkwood saw through your flimsy disguise and, swine that he is, instantly cooked up a plot to gain what he desired most, regardless of the cost.”
Had he? Cold acceptance settled over her, so visceral and shocking her stomach clenched. It would certainly seem he had. She recalled now the missive she had seen upon Duncan’s desk bearing her father’s name. Had he already written to her father with his demands then?
But if he had, why would he have orchestrated what had happened between them this evening? And even if he had done, how could he have been so certain she would not only attend his masque but also ask him to ruin her? Nothing made sense. Not the sweetness of his touch and the beauty of his lovemaking, and certainly not his cold, unflinching countenance afterward as he had laid bare all her secrets without a care.
“He did not…” she paused, struggling to gather her rioting thoughts. “Mr. Kirkwood did not plot anything, Benedict. I had to beg him for future entrée to his club, and even then, he allowed for no more than three additional visits.”
“I am certain one would have sufficed,” her brother clipped, his tone frigid. “If he allowed more, it was merely to obtain additional weaponry in his assault against our family. Weaponry which you amply provided him with this evening, my lady.”
She closed her eyes against the sight of her brother, so icy, detached, and disgusted with her. Perhaps she deserved his disgust, his censure. She had knowingly and willingly ruined herself this evening, and it did not matter if Duncan had deceived and manipulated her to gain the revenge he sought against the man who had fathered him. No one—not a single person in London—would pardon Frederica’s sins. Not even her own flesh and blood. Especially not them, she realized as she opened her eyes once more to study her brother’s grim countenance.
He had already judged her. His disgust for her was palpable, permeating the air of the carriage with a familiar sense of dread. She did not require his approval, but a part of her nevertheless wished for his understanding, if nothing else.
“You may believe what you wish of me, Benedict.” Her agitated fingers, yet ungloved, twisted in her skirts. “But I entered into my sins willingly, knowing exactly what I was doing.”
Benedict paled. “It would have been better if he had ravished you.”
His lack of concern for her wellbeing appalled her, though she knew she ought not to be surprised. She was not cut from the same cloth as her family, and never had that sad truth been more apparent than now. “For whom? Surely you would not wish for your sister to be taken by force.”
Her brother’s dark gaze glittered, his lips compressing. His tone was cruel, lashing. “I would rather my sister be ravished than know she willingly played the whore for Duncan Kirkwood. You are all but betrothed to the earl. How could you have done something so heedless and selfish?”
She flinched beneath his stinging scorn and the knowledge he would have rather her be taken against her will if it meant preserving his own pride. Had he ever cared for her at all? They had never been close as some siblings were, but neither had she supposed Benedict loathed her as he must.
“I do not wish to marry Lord Willingham,” she said baldly. “He is a cold and unctuous man. If anyone were to ravish me, it would be his lordship and not Mr. Kirkwood.”
Of that, if nothing else, she was certain. Duncan, at least, had been tender and gentle. He had made her body and her heart sing with his reverent touches and kisses. Willingham made bile climb in her throat. His touch was meant to incite fear rather than pleasure, and he enjoyed the knowledge of the hurt he inflicted. She had seen the malice in his eyes. There was no mistaking it.
“You do not know of what you speak,” Benedict said dismissively. “The earl is a gentleman, the legitimate heir to a duchy. Kirkwood is a baseborn bastard with a doxy mother who thinks he can ape his betters and become one. You have allowed your foolishness to distort the manner in which you view him, but allow me to assure you that Duncan Kirkwood is not a gentleman. There is no good in him. He ill uses all the lightskirts at his club. You are no different to him, Frederica. Is that what you would become? Another harlot in dampened skirts, plying her wares for Kirkwood and the lords who line his pockets?”
Her brother’s venomous diatribe had its intended effect, piercing sensitive parts of her she would have preferred to remain unscathed. Something inside Frederica toppled and fell. The last thread of hope she’d been clinging to snapped as she thought of Tabitha, the lovely golden goddess who had seemed to wear her heart on her sleeve for Duncan. Had he bedded her as well? Was Frederica one in a sea of so many, each with her purpose, used and then set adrift?
But she refused to reveal her doubts or concerns to her brother. This evening had proven to her, beyond a doubt, where his loyalties lay, and they were most assuredly not with her. Indeed, in that moment, ruined, abandoned, and denounced by her own brother, Frederica could not help but feel no one else in all the world was loyal to her.
Not her brother who detested her.
Not Father or Mother who found her a burden they could not wait to rid themselves of.
Not dear Leonora, who would have her conform to society’s strictures.
Not Duncan, who had traded her for the fires of revenge burning bright within him.
No one.
But she still had herself. She had always had herself, and that would suffice. She raised her chin, pinning her brother with a cold stare. “The Earl of Willingham has forced kisses upon me. He has left finger marks upon my arms, along with the promise I shall endure more and learn to enjoy it as his wife. Forgive me, brother, if ruining myself seemed a more preferable option.”
Benedict returned her stare. “I know Willingham, Frederica. He would never ill use a woman. I do not believe he hurt you. He is not capable of it. The earl is a prince among men, and a man I am honored to call friend. You could ask for none better.”
