With that singular sentence, Benedict felt the earth drop out from beneath his feet and his blood freeze in his veins.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Turmoil left Benedictunable to sleep a wink the previous two nights. In truth, he hadn’t sleptwellin over a week. Benedict flopped into the chair in the drawing room, careful to keep his back from the broken spring. He slumped forward, elbows on his knees. Exhaustion threatened to take him. Every time his eyes drifted shut, they found Eliza’s, wide and devastated.
That afternoon, he had accompanied West and Bella to Wayland’s. There, Benedict had spent the afternoon with Wayland and his men. They had formulated a plan—one Benedict still loathed. Now, in the quiet of their house, the weight pressed into his chest, threatening to suffocate him.
Bella settled primly on the settee beside him. Benedict had been surprised when she agreed to go to Wayland’s with him—to warn the man. But Bella had one singular line in the sand, and that was rape. And now, after their conversation with Wayland, he knew why—and hated himself for it.
West passed Bella a glass of her gin before handing Benedict a scotch.
“West, could you give us a moment?” Benedict asked. The other man nodded with a final, lingering look at Bella.
She took a heavy sip, studying the glass when she pulled it from her lips. “Go on then,” she said.
“I knew there had been an incident with Draycott while I was at university. That he’d made advances, and you banished him from the house. But I didn’t… Did Father offer your—you—to pay his debts?”
“Don’t be naive, Benedict. It doesn’t suit.”
The ache under Benedict’s breastbone burned—pain for the girl his sister once was, before the world taught her to be invulnerable. “Did you— Did you not feel safe to come to me?”
“What was I to say? How was I to write such a thing? ‘Dearest brother, our beloved father found himself in high water with a stodgy baron, and rather than own that debt, he assured the man he could help himself to my virginity.’ You would have left immediately and returned home. And for what?”
“To protect you!”
“I can protect myself! The danger was over well before you could have arrived.”
“You shouldn’t have had to!”
“Someone had to. Do you suppose he was the first of Father’s friends to touch me improperly? No, he was merely the boldest, the most determined, and the one with Father’sexplicitblessing. And the one he could threaten me with forevermore.”
The sharp, angular, spiteful person his sister had become now made horrifying sense. Their father had needed only to threaten Benedict with a wretched marriage for Bella to ensure his cooperation. He had understood implicitly that to threaten Bella bodily was Benedict’s line.
This new, hateful understanding snapped something inside Benedict irrevocably. Whatever meager sentiment for his father had remained in his heart—this intelligence had crushed it into a gnarled, mottled hatred. Benedict now felt he could beat the man fair to death. Hour after hour his fists would know fleshuntil Ambrose Sinclair’s body matched his wretched soul. He had spent his whole life trying to earn a father’s love that had never existed in the first place.
“Did he… Did you?”
“He did not claim my virginity. I struck him the way West taught me, then I kneed him in the bawbels and slashed at him with my hairpin.” She demonstrated by tugging at the silver pin she religiously wore. Her hair fell around her shoulders. In her fist was no delicate, carved hairpin but a dagger. The little edge that jutted out allowed her to brace her thumb while her fingers wrapped around the shaft. The decorative end tapered to a sharp point that he’d somehow never noticed, and the other side remained long, thin, and incredibly sharp.
“You’ve been wandering about withthatin your hair all this time?”
“Yes, I’ve shown great restraint in not using it on you. You should be grateful.”
“Bella, I don’t even… Are there other weapons hidden on your person?”
“Not at present.”
Benedict opened his mouth to retort before the comment penetrated his mind. He was left to flap his jaw for a moment before closing it with a headshake
“Quite right,” Bella chirped.
“The hairpin was… sufficient?”
“Yes, I suspect the slice along his cheek was enough humiliation for one evening. I escaped and he was gone before dawn.”
Benedict nodded, contemplating his scotch for a moment. Bella took another sip of her gin.
“I need to thank you,” he said after a moment.
