“How comforting.” Rees drained his glass in one burning gulp. “I will remember that on my wedding night when I am bedding Sterling’s—”
“Stop.” Rafe’s hand came down hard on the table, making the glasses jump. “That is the brandy talking, and it is ugly talk besides. Whatever happened between that girl and Sterling, she is going to be your wife. You cannot think of her that way.”
But he did. God help him, he did. The thought of Sterling’s hands on her, Sterling’s mouth—
Except.
The memory surfaced through the brandy fog: Victoria’s face that afternoon, pale and tearful. She had not looked triumphant when he had accused her of conspiring with Sterling. She had not looked calculating or clever.
She had looked like someone drowning.
“How dare you!” she had cried, and there had been something raw in her voice. “Damian Herford assaulted me!”
Rees poured another drink, his hand unsteady now, brandy splashing onto the leather arm of his chair. The word ‘assaulted’ echoed in his mind, refusing to be drowned out by alcohol. He had assumed she meant seduction, the usual dance of pursuit and surrender that ended in compromise. But what if...
“Did she seem willing?” Alistair asked quietly, as if reading his thoughts. “With Sterling, I mean. A torn dress does not sound like someone eager for an assignation.”
“Since when has Sterling cared about willingness?” Rafe’s voice held old anger. “Remember the Winters girl? And that merchant’s daughter two years ago? The man collects ruins like some collect snuff boxes.”
Rees’s stomach turned, the brandy suddenly sour. He knew—they all knew—what Sterling was capable of. Had not that been part of his rage at the club, hearing about another girl’s reputation being destroyed? But he had assumed Victoria had been foolish, naive—not that she had been...
“She said he lured her with a forged note.” The words came out slowly, as if Rees was testing their weight. “Said he trapped her against a wall, arranged for witnesses to find them at the perfect moment.”
“Sounds exactly like something that bastard would orchestrate,” Rafe said grimly. “He always did enjoy the game more than the prize.”
The room seemed to spin slightly, though whether from the brandy or the realization creeping through him, Rees could not tell. If Victoria was telling the truth—if Sterling had truly assaulted her, planned her ruin for sport—then she was not some calculating schemer who had traded her virtue for a chance at marriage. She was a victim, desperate enough to trap an innocent man because society had left her no other choice.
And he had stood in her drawing room and accused her of conspiring with her attacker.
“Christ.” He set down his glass with a shaking hand, pressing his palms against his eyes. “What if she is telling the truth?”
“Then you are marrying a woman who has been through hell,” Alistair answered simply. “And perhaps you might consider being kind to her instead of adding to her torment.”
But she had still trapped him. That fact remained like a stone in his chest, heavy and undeniable. Whatever Sterling had done to her, she had chosen to pass her misfortune on to him. She had hidden in shadows while he walked into her snare; she had signed contracts with Mrs. Dove-Lyon to steal his freedom.
“Even if Sterling forced himself on her,” he said slowly, “she still chose to trap me. She made that decision.”
“What other choice did she have?” Rafe’s question hung in the smoke-filled air. “You know what happens to ruined women. Would you rather she had thrown herself in the Thames? Become some man’s mistress? Watched her sisters lose any chance at decent marriages because of her scandal?”
Rees reached for his glass again, needing the burn of alcohol to chase away the growing doubt. The truth was, he did not know what he would rather she had done. He only knew that in five days, he would be married to a woman who might be a victim, a villain, or something more complicated than either.
The brandy did not provide answers, only numbed the questions that kept multiplying in his mind. Was she Sterling’s victim or his accomplice? When he took her to his bed—and he would have to, eventually, if not for law then for expectation—would she think of Sterling? Would she compare them? Would she close her eyes and pretend?
Or would she lie there, grateful for rescue from social death, hating him for not being the husband she had dreamed of when she was still innocent, before Sterling had destroyed everything with his cruel games?
“I need another drink,” he said, though his words were beginning to blur together.
“You need to go home,” Rafe said firmly, signaling for their coats. “And tomorrow, when your head clears, you need to think about what kind of man you want to be: the kind who adds to an innocent woman’s suffering, or the kind who might actually deserve the sacrifice she made in trapping you.”
Rees wanted to protest that he did not deserve any of this, thathewas the victim here. But the words would not come, choked off by the memory of Victoria’s tears, the break in her voice when she had said Damian’s name.
He would know the truth eventually. Time would reveal whether she was the schemer he had accused her of being or the victim she claimed to be. But by then, they would be bound together permanently, two people trapped in a marriage neither had chosen freely.
The thought should have filled him with rage. Instead, standing unsteadily as Alistair helped him into his greatcoat, all he felt was weariness and the nagging suspicion that he had already made everything worse than it had to be.
In five days, he would marry Victoria Richmond. And perhaps, if the brandy-soaked hope unfurling in his chest proved true, they might find a way to build something from the wreckage Sterling had left behind.
Or perhaps they would simply spend their lives as strangers sharing a name, forever haunted by what had brought them together.
