He let go of her hand. Said the words that would set her free.
“I killed a man.”
Livy had suspected that Hadleigh’s past was dark. He’d alluded to it more than once, and even as a girl, she’d sensed that he had his demons. Why else would he drink and brood so much and at times seem so lost? Nonetheless, his admission took her aback.
“Why?” The word popped out of her mouth.
She knew Hadleigh: if he had committed such a sin, there had to be a reason.
His expression stark, he said, “Do you know how my sister Beatrice was scarred?”
Livy drew her brows together. “My parents said Aunt Bea had a riding accident.”
“That is true, but there is more to it. She was riding in the park when she came upon a man named Griggs beating a street urchin. She interfered, and Griggs retaliated by whipping her horse. She was thrown and nearly trampled. In truth, she was lucky to escape with only the scar.”
“Howbraveof Aunt Bea to stand up for that boy.” Livy’s voice trembled with emotion. “Andshameon that blighter for hurting a lady who was only doing the right thing.”
“At the time my sister was hurt, I was sixteen,” Hadleigh said tonelessly, “and I swore to avenge her honor. Not just hers, but that of my family. Before Beatrice’s injury, she was feted by all of Society, poised to make a match with a duke. We Wodehouses were the envy of thetonfor our happiness. Then Griggs came along and destroyed everything.
“My beautiful sister was shunned because of her scar and became an object of ridicule. Our mama was beside herself with despair and locked herself in her bedchamber. Livid at everything that had befallen the family, our formerly doting papa spent more and more time away from us, the source of his unhappiness. When he died two years later, it was in his mistress’s bed. My mama followed him to the grave soon thereafter. She died, I think, of a broken heart.”
“Oh, Hadleigh,” Livy whispered, hurting for him. “How dreadful it must have been to witness your family in such pain.”
He gave a terse nod. “When I inherited the title at eighteen, I was consumed with the need to avenge my family’s honor. Looking back, it seems absurd now: how could revenge possibly give me back everything that I had lost? But I was a reckless, arrogant fool. I made it my life’s mission to destroy Griggs. He was a rising middle-class industrialist, and I used my influence to crush him. Rumors in the ears of the right men in the right clubs was all it took to blacken his reputation, to get his loans denied and investors to flee. His business crumbled. He came to me, begged me for mercy…and I turned him away.”
Swallowing, Livy asked, “What happened next?”
“Beatrice begged me to stop, told me this was not what she wanted, but I was obsessed with righting the wrong done to her. I had Griggs in the corner, and I wasn’t about to stop until he had lost everything. Several weeks later, I had my wish: Griggs was found dead in his flat. He had hung himself, but I was the one who put the noose around his neck.”
Hadleigh’s dark confession sent ripples of shock through Livy. Yet she also knewhim…and no matter how hot-headed and arrogant he might have been as a youth, she knew that he had not meant for this fellow Griggs to die. Even now, anguish was written over his features, shadows of remorse swallowing up the blue of his irises. He stared off into space, statue-still save for the shallow heaves of his chest. It was as if he were trapped in that time, cursed to relive his actions over and again.
Livy reached for one of his hands again. Surprised to find how cold he was, she chafed his large palm between both of hers.
“What you did was wrong,” she said. “But you did not mean to kill Griggs, did you?”
“No.” Hadleigh’s reply was hoarse, his gaze sheened with moisture. “I was hell-bent on destroying his happiness the way he had destroyed that of Bea and my family, but I didn’t think that he would…” He jerked his hand from hers, clenching it into a fist. “It seems impossible now that I did not consider the consequences of cornering Griggs the way I did. Of forcing a man into a situation so desperate that he would see only one means of escape.”
“You were young and rash,” she said quietly, “and Griggs had hurt your sister and your family. While that does not excuse your actions, I can understand your anger.”
“I cannot tell you how many times I’ve asked myself,Why didn’t you see what was coming?How could you push this man into taking his own life? What the bloody hell were you thinking?” Hadleigh’s voice was as choppy as a tempest-tossed sea. “And I have no answers, nor will I ever.”
Livy said nothing. There was nothing shecouldsay. All she could do was sit by Hadleigh’s side and share his burden the best she could.
“There is more,” he said. “Griggs had children, a legitimate son with his wife and a bastard daughter with his mistress. I sent money to support the boy, anonymously of course, but I lost track of the daughter. She emerged several years ago and was behind a nefarious plan to hurt Beatrice. To destroy my sister, the way I had her father. She nearly succeeded, too.”
Livy’s heart wrenched at the guilt in Hadleigh’s eyes.
“How horrible,” she whispered.
“If anything had happened to Beatrice…” He shoved both hands through his hair, his elbows planting on his knees. He stared at the carriage floor. “During the fight to save my sister, Griggs’s daughter fell off a high platform, and I grabbed onto her. I was the one responsible for this cycle of revenge, and I wanted to save her, to stop the violence I’d started. I told her to hold on, but she looked up at me and smiled and…and then she let go.”
Livy shuddered at the harrowing image. The words he’d said to her that fateful day at the pond surfaced.
Not you too. Bloody hold on, do you hear me?
Had he been thinking of Griggs’s daughter, the woman who had chosen violence and death over his help? Whose choice had destroyed his attempt at atonement?
Overwhelmed by the tragedy of the story, Livy sat bogged in heavy silence. Her throat thickened at the thought of all that suffering. Suffering that, she realized, had never really ended for Hadleigh. All the years she had known him, he had held this inside. Had been hurting in ways she could not have begun to fathom as a child.
