The carriage pulled into the lane of traffic, and Ginny closed her eyes against the accusation Brock leveled on her. The breath squeezed from Ginny’s lungs. A feverish hot so fierce, scorched her skin. She was surprised her clothes did not combust from standing too near a sun that would singe her into a pile of ashes.
“Is Irene mine?”
She’d dreaded this question Irene’s entire life. The sting of tears burned. With every ounce of stamina she possessed, Ginny faced him. Fury rose off him in waves. She’d never been frightened of him before, but—
“You’ve no need to worry, Lady Maudsley. I shan’t murder you in a carriage on the way to the theater. It’s much too messy.”
His words unleashed the banked fires of her own temper. There was self-preservation, and then there was survival of the fittest. She fell in the latter of the two categories. She blasted him with a furious glance of her own. “You have no right—”
“Oh, but I do.” Spoken softly, each word was etched of glacial chips. The fog of danger filling the confined space made it difficult for her to breathe. The conveyance crawled. “You’ve kept my daughter from me. Nine years. Nine years you’ve lied to me.”
A red haze squeezed from Ginny’s attempts of remaining calm. His heavy breathing registered, and she lifted her gaze. The air was fraught with his surprise, his anger, his frustration, but his had nothing on hers. Thegallto equate his deserting her to this. She leaned in, putting her nose to his. “Youdesertedme,in case you’ve forgotten.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
“I begged you to let me come with you.Begged.” Tears constricted her airflow. “The minute I snuck into the house, my father caught me. Called me names so vile I can’t stomach to repeat.”
“I wrote to you,” he shouted. “I explained.”
The finger that poked him curled into a fist. “Wrote to me? You think my parents gave me a single note from you?” She laughed, a maniacal sound even to her. “Your reputation preceded you, in case you don’t remember.” Her fist pounded his chest. “They paid Maudsley to take me off their hands, far beyond my dowry. I was a ruined woman.” The memories flooded her, sucked her down into the whirlpool of horror she’d spent the last year trying to survive. The nightmares, the attacks of anxiety, the reentering of society. It was a wonder Brock and Kimpton hadn’t located her in that asylum in their search for Harlowe.
“He tried to kill me! My parents heard how horrible he was. Everyone had. There were rumors he’d murdered his first wife.” Each word, each accusation rose in pitch and hysterics. “They knew.” Her voice broke, her tears, hot and thick, fell down her face, ruining the bodice of her new bronze gown. “They knew. They knew. How could they? How could you? How could you not have come back for me?” She ended on a whisper, sliding to the floor. “I loved you.”
“Irene?Isshe mine?” The glacial chips warmed to something flowing.
He lifted her from the floor and set her on the bench across from him. She fell back against the squabs. “I-I don’t know. How could I?” She shrugged, leveling her own accusation. “I held them off for ten days. It was a fight. I came away with two or three bruises from my father. Even if I had known, Irene’s life would never have been safe if Maudsley believed she belonged to another.”
She looked out the window then back to him, unable to disguise the agony of those horrific days in her voice. She dared him to pity the triumph over her survival, Irene’s survival. It would hurt, but she’d endured worse. Much worse.
She didn’t have to look to feel Brock’s piercing stare on her, but she looked anyway. The streetlamps flickered against his tightened jaw. “That’s true enough,” he said roughly.
Her tears pooled and spilled over, but she didn’t turn away or blink. “I could never have lived with myself if something had happened to her. You can’t know how I wish—” She tried cloaking her spiraling emotion with a calm she didn’t feel. Would never feel. ’Twas a farce not fit for stage.
Brock’s eyes snapped to her, his teeth clenched so hard they would likely shatter. He stared at her for the longest time.
She dropped her gaze to the hands twisting tightly in her lap, watching the tears stain the satin of her gloves. “I am sorry,” she said, anguish ripping her heart from her chest. “Perhaps I should have said something, but in the end what does it matter? I don’t know the truth. I can only wish it true, can’t I?” She lifted her gaze, bracing herself for his hatred. It was what she’d been expecting all along anyway. It mattered not. “She ismine. And Maudsley is dead.”
Another minute went by, his jaw slowly relaxed, and she read—hoped she read—acceptance in his eyes. He took her right wrist and yanked her across the space into his lap. He brushed the tears from her cheeks, setting his forehead to hers. “You’re right, of course. She’s yours.”
A small chortle escaped her, releasing the tension, though she couldn’t imagine how. “I think you should show me how you taught Celia how to break someone’s hold on your wrist.”
Booming laughter rumbled up his chest. Brock took Ginny’s face in his hands and kissed her. Thoroughly, possessively, soundly as the shatter of something thin and delicate cut through the thickness of his hide, the hardness of his head. The shards shredded the lining of his stomach into a bloodied massacre. It took a moment to realize the sound was his heart—no, his body—breaking into a million irreparable fragments.
It was amazing how his arrogance could truly have managed to fuck up his life. Ginny was right. Maudsley had almost killed the woman Brock loved and would have disposed of Irene in as nefarious a manner as one’s mind could summon. Violence against women and children were considered of far less import than stealing a man’s horse or wife. Maudsley had been an unworthy brute.
A sliver of darkness reached toward him. Beckoned him to follow, reminding him of the day he’d learned Maudsley had taken a wife during the darkest moment of Brock’s life—in his search for his sister. A wife that should have been Brock’s. The sliver widened, and he felt the jerk on his cravat, pulling him in. They—Ginny and the girls—deserved better than him. But could he give her up? Irene? Cecilia?No.
Ginny’s laughter was his life’s breath. The darkness receded immediately upon his silent admission. He pressed his lips to her forehead, caressing her neck and arm, amazed that after all these years, he was finally allowed the liberty.
“You want to tell me why you wouldn’t let my mother cancel the theater outing with Griston?” Her breath whispered against him, igniting his senses.
He breathed in her rose-scented skin and tightened his hold on her. “I feel better having him in my sights. In fact, I sent a note over to Kimpton asking them to join us.”
The carriage pulled to a stop on Catherine Street. “We’re here.” Brock forced himself to release her as the carriage shook with the removal of the steps. She put her hands to her hair. “It looks fine,” he told her. The door opened, and Brock alighted then assisted Ginny to the walk.
He turned to his driver, speaking softly, “Punkle, be at the ready. I don’t anticipate staying for the entire production.” He wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to stomach Griston’s flowering attentions on Ginny.
“Ginny!” Lady Kimpton hurried over and hugged her.
