“It’s nothing,” she said. “Iknowit’s nothing. I don’t want your pity.”
But the tone of the room had softened with Felicity’s observation and her friend backed away, less accusation in her stare.
Elise looked at Lucien again and he nodded slowly, as if encouraging her to say something, do something, brave something. And she had to now. There was no choice left. It was fitting that there would be an audience,thisaudience for what was to come.
“I came here last night, because the new Duke of Kirkford attacked me,” she explained softly. “I had nowhere else to go—Ambrose has made certain of that. Ishouldn’thave turned to Stenfax. I deserve none of his kindness, nor anyone’s understanding. I know that.” She cleared her throat and turned away. “Under normal circumstances, I would simply walk away. I realized that would be better foryou.” She looked at Stenfax again. “But…I can’t.”
“Why?” Gray ground out. “Why do you claim you can’t stop this madness?”
She shook her head. “Because something from the past has reared its ugly head. Something I thought I…I had managed. I was a fool to think I had. And I must tell you the truth.” She let her gaze stray to Stenfax and found him staring back at her, even and almostready. Like he knew something terrible was about to come and he braced for it. He didn’t know the half of it. “I must tell you everything.”
Gray’s new wife stepped forward then, a gentle look on her face. Elise almost wept to see it, for it was the only kindness in this room full of anger and misunderstanding and apprehension.
“May I make a suggestion?” Rosalinde said softly. When no one answered, she plowed ahead anyway. “Why don’t we go into the adjoining parlor and sit? This is obviously a highly emotional moment for everyone and it might make it easier, yes?”
“A fine idea,” Stenfax croaked.
Rosalinde moved toward Felicity, who was still staring in disbelief and pain at Elise’s black eye. She took her elbow and gently guided her from the room.
Stenfax shot Elise a look and she thought he might move to her, but Gray stepped in beside him instead and the two men left the room with her trailing behind them, outside their circle. Once she was done, she would never be let in again.
But then, she hadn’t expected to be. Whatever she’d shard with Stenfax this past little while had been stolen from the start. She’d never expected it to last, only hoped it would. And that had been her own foolish doing if she was now disappointed.
They entered the parlor off the breakfast room and Rosalinde situated everyone. She and Gray sat on the settee, her hand placed firmly over his. Felicity sat in one chair while Elise sank into another. But Stenfax did not sit.
No, he remained standing at the fireplace, his eyes locked on her.
“Begin,” he said.
Elise drew in a long breath and kept her gaze on him. “I hardly know where to begin,” she whispered.
“Why don’t you start with the night you decided Lucien wasn’t good enough for you,” Felicity snapped.
Elise flinched and shot her former best friend a look. “I-I would start there, but that isn’t the start of the story. The story starts not with Lucien and me, but with my late husband.”
Lucien folded his arms. “Kirkford.”
She nodded. “Yes, Kirkford. He had always hated you, Lucien. Gray, too, but mostly you. I heard about it for years after, though I didn’t know it then. Do you knowwhyhe hated you?”
Lucien wrinkled his brow as he stared at her. “I have no idea. We were in school together and I though he was an ass, honestly.”
“Hewasan ass,” Gray muttered. “Don’t know what that bloody well has to do with this.”
“Let the poor woman speak,” Rosalinde said softly. “I’m sure it will all become clear.”
Elise gave Rosalinde a look of gratitude before she continued, “Yes, he hated you in school. He said you were ‘golden’. No matter what, you always were popular, always were liked, where he…struggled.”
“So he hated me because I had more friends in school. I don’t really give a damn,” Lucien said, his frustration clear.
She held up a hand. “Thatisn’twhy he hated you. Well, itis, but it isn’t why he wanted to destroy you. About three and a half years ago, you were in a club, gambling at a table with him. He was drinking and, apparently, cheating. You caught him.”
Lucien looked confused for a moment, and then his face brightened with recollection. “Yes, I do remember that. He was drunk off his head and blustering. He’d just become duke, I think, and wanted to be treated as royalty. When I realized he was cheating, I called him out on it. He flipped a table and threw a punch—”
“And got publicly and permanently banned from the club,” Elise finished for him, holding his gaze evenly.
Lucien drew back a little and nodded. “Yes, that part happened too.”
“Well, it humiliated him. As you said, he had just become duke and he felt he deserved to be respected and revered. Everyone knew of your…financial situation, and yet you were still accepted. Liked. It was a final stray for Kirkford.”
