“Inside. Keep everyone inside.”
“Perhaps Michael?—”
“No. Inside. Now.”
She turned to head back with a sag in her shoulders, but flashed an expression of sympathy in our direction before she rounded the corner. Something about her movement must have jolted Tom out of his shock. He snapped to his feet, throwing his leg back over the bench and striding forward, hands outstretched. An attempt to placate the viscount.
It took a moment to comprehend, to recognize. But he’d thrown himself between me and his brother. And though it was an entirely inappropriate thought, I rather wanted to kiss him again for the effort.
“Hugh…” he began. Seemingly, it was all he’d managed to plan out because he hung on the name, dragging it out.
“Sit, Tom,” he said, crossing his arms.
“No, Hugh. Please… It’s not?—”
“What I think? Please, enlighten me, Tom. Because I’d love an explanation beyond the obvious.”
“I…”
There was something about the single letter, barely a word. The desperation, the hurt, the fear, all wrapped in that syllable that cracked my heart, the fissure creeping along until the greedy, underused, muscle gave way. It broke, leaving that same, ill-considered noble sentiment that had been quelled by Tom’s lips, tongue, teeth.
I clambered to my feet. “It was me.”
Hugh’s only response to my outburst was a raised brow.
“I seduced him,” I added.
“What! No! He—I—no!”
“I did. I seduced him,” I insisted. Tom turned back to me, eyes full of something distressingly close to betrayal. I swallowed the instinctive guilt. Someday he would thank me. When the day came that he was grateful for the love of his family.
“Explain,” the viscount demanded.
“Hugh, he didn?—”
“Damn it all to hell and back, Tom. Inside. I can’t even look at you right now,” Lord Grayson hissed.
Silence crashed over us. The naked anguish on Tom’s face splintered whatever was left of my heart.
“Go,” I whispered.
Wordlessly, he turned back toward the house.
“The back steps, Tom,” Lord Grayson added.
His retreating form shrank still further, as though he’d been crushed under the weight of his brother’s disapproval and my confession.
Turning back to Lord Grayson, I steeled myself for the inevitable fist.
Instead, I was met with a stern slash of a mouth and inscrutable grey eyes, but his fists remained clenched, stacked underneath crossed arms.
“Are you trying to get him killed?” He laid the horrifying question between us with an eerie calm.
“No! Of course not.”
“Really, because your complete lack of discretion indicates otherwise. How long has this been going on?”
“Tonight. Just tonight.”
