Tears were burning, threatening to fall, shame rising, acidic and choking in her throat. Her lashes lowered.
“Look at me,” he insisted.
She opened her eyes at his bidding, his gaze burning into hers.
“I will never strike you,” he said. “You have my word as a gentleman.”
Sybil wasn’t certain she believed him. But then, although he had shown her anger, he had certainly never done her violence. She was the one who had struck him, much to her everlasting shame. She was no better than her father.
“Forgive me,” she blurted. “I shouldn’t have struck you, Your Grace.”
“Call me Everett, if you please. And I accept your apology, though there was no need to issue one. We have both been at our worst this evening, I expect.” His pale eyes had thawed.
There was no longer ice in them but a depth of warmth she hadn’t seen since the day they had met under the wide blue skies, when everything had seemed so much simpler. The warmth, she suspected, was deceptive. And she didn’t want his pity.
“Try it.”
She frowned at him, intensely aware of his touch still on her chin, the way he held her face as gently as if it were made of fine porcelain. As if one wrong move would make her chip or shatter.
“Try what?” she asked, the air between them shifting again.
Danger and anger no longer swirled. Instead, a heaviness had taken their place.
“My name,” he murmured. “Say it.”
She wanted to deny him, and yet she also wanted to try his given name. Even if doing so felt dangerous. Yet another intimacy broached from which there could be no return.
“Everett,” she said.
He stared at her, saying nothing. For a moment, she thought he would kiss her. That he would lead her to the bed and at last take what he had come for this evening.
But instead, he nodded slowly, then leaned into her, pressing a chaste kiss to her cheek.
“I’ll bid you good evening, Sybil.”
And then, just as quickly as he had come, Riverdale withdrew from her chamber, leaving her alone once more.
CHAPTER 7
Everett couldn’t live with the knowledge that Sybil had been beaten by her father without answering it in kind. How badly the bastard had hurt her, he didn’t know, for she hadn’t been forthcoming, and neither had he seen scars. Perhaps, for his sanity, hecouldn’tknow the full extent of what she had endured.
As it was, he had ridden through the night to arrive at Riverdale Abbey by morning light. He’d spared only enough time to refresh his mount before continuing his journey to Eastlake Hall, a place he had vowed to never again visit after that god-awful wedding breakfast.
And yet Eastlake Hall was where he’d found himself. The hour was unfashionably early as he tossed his reins to a stable lad. Everett didn’t give a bloody goddamn. This was not a polite social call.
This was a reckoning.
He could only hope he didn’t cross paths with the bastard footman who had dared to touch Sybil, because Everett didn’t have even a modicum of civility in him at the moment. He was all wild, furious beast, demanding retribution. Capable of anything.
He brazened his way past servants flitting about in preparation for their day, and after climbing the winding staircase and finding his way to the Marquess of Eastlake’s bedchamber door, he paused only a moment before bursting through it.
The curtains were tightly closed. The room smelled of sour breath and gin, and the snores rattling from a distant bed told him that his father-in-law was still sleeping off the effects of a night of dissipation. It was time for the Marquess of Eastlake to wake and face the consequences of his actions.
Everett stalked through the darkness toward the bed, making certain he could discern only one lumpy form in the midst of the disheveled blankets. After he was confident the marquess was alone, Everett wielded the riding crop he still held in his hand, sending it through the air with a vicious whir that ended in the sickening crack of leather upon skin.
The marquess shrieked as he shook into wakefulness.
“W-what is happening?” he stammered, clearly half asleep and shocked.
