*
Leonora felt asif she had received a blow to her midsection. As if all the air had been knocked from her lungs. She felt, for one sickening moment, the same way she had years ago as a girl during her fall from the banister at Marchmont Hall. Plummeting, the realization she could not save herself, the inevitable end awaiting her with all its horrible pain…the knowledge later, when she had wakened with the splint on her leg, knowing she would never again be the same. But now, she was more broken this time than she had been after that fall.
He married you to have his revenge upon me.
Her brother’s words echoed in her mind, adding to her mounting misery. She would not have even believed them had she not just walked into the words of the man she loved, overhearing the vitriol in his tone, bitter as poison.
She is completely in my control now, and you have no rights where she is concerned… I want nothing more than your suffering…
It was almost as if another man had spoken those words, as if another man stood before her now. The Marquess of Searle was even more of a stranger than she had supposed. Colder and more dangerous than she had feared. Vicious, just as she had always known.
And she was a fool. A hopeless, wallflower spinster, so green in the ways of men and women, she had fallen quickly beneath his spell. He had kissed her and touched her, held her, made love to her. He had made her feel wanted for the first time.
But he had not wanted her at all, had he? No, he had wanted to use her. He had wanted her only to gain some sort of vengeance upon Alessandro. He had used her and manipulated her, and she had given him her heart.
She pressed a hand to her stomach, the sudden urge to retch so strong and so violent she nearly lost control of herself. There was only one question she wished to ask her husband, for it would answer all the others, and it would tell her what she must do.
Leonora inhaled slowly, then exhaled, looking only at Searle. His green gaze was dark. Impervious as ever. “Did you marry me with the intention of gaining some sort of revenge upon my brother?”
He did not hesitate. “Yes.”
She cried out, unable to contain the sound of her own anguish even though she could not bear to appear weak before him. Or at least, not any weaker than he already supposed her to be.
“Leonie,” he said softly, stepping closer.
The mere sound of her name on his lips—nay, she reminded herself, not her name, but the one he had given her, the one that had begun to feel like hers—filled her with disgust, with rage.
With a crippling sadness.
“No.” She took a step in retreat, making certain she was beyond his reach. “I do not want you to touch me. Not now, and not ever again.”
“Leonie, you are my wife,” he persisted, his jaw going rigid. “I can offer an explanation.”
As she saw it, there was not one explanation he could offer which would not break her heart into tiny shards before grinding them beneath his boot heel for good measure. She swallowed against a humiliating rush of tears. “I do not wish to hear it, Searle.”
“Leonora, come back to London with me,” Alessandro urged.
She turned to her brother, a fresh ache in her heart. It had been too long since she had last seen him, far too long. He looked older, more lines bracketing his dark eyes and his mouth. His countenance was harsh and grim. He looked like a man who had stared into hell and could not forget what he had seen. Much the same as Searle did. But then he moved toward her as well, his brown eyes glittering with sympathy, his arm extended, and she found comfort in that gesture. Comfort in the familiar warmth of the brother she had always known and loved.
She nodded, thinking of nothing but her need to escape. To put distance between herself and Searle. “Yes, Alessandro. Take me back to London, if you please. I cannot remain here with him.”
“No,” Searle denied, his tone cold. Flat. “You will not leave me, Leonie.”
Her gaze went back to him as a horrible realization hit her. “You planned this all along, did you not?”
Dear God, she was an even greater fool than she had supposed. So easily led astray by a handsome man paying her court. It would seem she had learned nothing from all the years she had spent as a wallflower, living her life on the periphery. Handsome war hero marquesses did not dance with crippled spinsters, did they? Nor did they ruin them and then marry them.
He stared back at her, a muscle ticking in his jaw, before he responded at last. “I planned to wed you, yes. But everything that came afterward, Leonie, I did not plan. I could never have planned that.”
She felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. He was a monster. She had married a heartless, cruel, bitter man. “You ruined me intentionally.”
It was not a question but an accusation, though she need not have said it aloud, for she already knew the answer.
He inclined his head, his sensual lips flattened into a thin, grim line. “Yes. I did.”
Alessandro clutched Searle by his rain-flattened cravat. “What the hell did you do to her?”
Searle smiled grimly, calmly, almost as if he took pleasure in Alessandro’s lack of control, as if it was what he wanted. “What do you think I did to her, Rayne?”
