One week later
London, England
One week.
It had been seven days since Daniel’s scandal at White’s had landed on the front of every scandal sheet. A veritable lifetime where a rake such as he was concerned. Since then, there hadn’t been a hint of a whisper of impropriety or wickedness. Not so much as a naughty actress, scandalous soiree, not even an irate husband. In all, he should be thrilled with the triumph. He was waiting on a fortune about to fall into his lap, which would set him free of the financial strains created with his own careless hand.
There was still the matter of marrying Alice off, which might pose a bit trickier given the dearth of honorable gents in the whole of England and, more, the absolute absence of invitations to polite ton events. But ultimately, Alice would be gone as well as Daphne, and he would be alone, just as he wished his life to be. Or as he’d wished it to be. Now it was all so bloody jumbled. For, seated on the dais on the corner of his ballroom, he’d never been more miserable. Picking up the decanter at his side, he raised the bottle to his lips and froze.
…You drink too much, Daniel… You use it as a greater crutch than the cane I use for walking…
Daphne had been right. His drinking was a crutch. He slowly lowered the bottle to his side. He’d spent years attempting to numb himself, with whores, and wagers and liquor, because a part deep inside of him had been broken. She’d seen that truth and called him out for it. But she’d also seen good in him. Even as he hadn’t seen it in himself.
And she is gone.
He stared blankly forward. Then, what reasons had she to stay? What had he to offer her? Certainly not the love she deserved. He would ultimately destroy it and, in the process, her, and that he could not bear. For with her courage and conviction and strength, she was unlike all others. His throat worked and he damned the fates for having made a liar of him in his assurances all those long ago days.
“Daniel.” That unexpected greeting brought his head up. His sister stood at the entrance of the ballroom. He hopped up. “Alice,” he called, his voice echoing around the empty, cavernous space.
She sailed over and stopped before him. She ran her gaze over his wrinkled cravat and jacket. “Tsk, tsk, Daniel. It is bad form to drink alone,” she scolded as she hitched herself onto the dais. He didn’t bother to correct her likely supposition. Instead, he reclaimed his vacated seat. Alice picked up the decanter and took a long swallow.
Daniel swiped a hand over his face. By hell, if she could take a drink like that she’d had some experience. She was going to turn him grey. “A lady shouldn’t…” And the hypocrisy of offering any lessons on propriety or decorum promptly silenced him. He claimed the bottle from her and set it out of her reach.
His sister stole a sharp sideways looks at him. The lady was deserving of her resentment. The moment she’d entered the world and his mother had slipped out of it, Daniel had retreated, rejecting the small babe, Daphne, and all he’d once been. And because of who he was and, more importantly, who he could not be, Daphne had been forced out of Alice’s life. Regret filled him. …I am still that man…
Alice dragged her knees to her chest. She looped her arms around them. “Father hated you,” she said softly, unexpectedly.
His entire body jerked, as with those three words Alice ripped bandages off a wound he’d believed long healed. …you’ve allowed him in here…
“But do you know what, Daniel?” she asked.
“What?” he forced himself to reply, the single syllable utterance emerging ragged. Daphne and Alice together had shattered the armor he’d worn all these years. They’d left him exposed and battling more emotions and sentiments than he had in the whole course of his life.
“He hated me, too.” He whipped his head sideways, but Alice’s attention remained fixed on the opposite wall as she rubbed her chin back and forth over her skirts. “He hated the servants. He hated guests who came to call. All I knew was his hate.”
The late earl had not always been that way and, with that, an ever-growing shame continued to grip him. For Daniel had mourned the loss of a life he’d lost, but this empty, dark world of hate and sadness Alice painted was all she’d ever known. “He was once happy,” he forced himself to say. Until Daniel’s grip had slackened and his efforts to fight a current proved futile, and their family was the same, no more.
And yet, there would have never been Alice if there hadn’t been the grief-stricken parents determined to bring another child into the world. This quirky, spirited, and romantic girl who dreamed of love and desired a barrister over a duke. Now he couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.
“Yes, the servants would tell me as much,” Alice said, ceasing her distracted movements. “He wanted me underfoot even less than you,” she said, flashing him a wry smile. Only, there was so much heartache contained within that pained attempt at humor that the bandage ripped once more. He’d failed Daphne and he’d failed Alice. In his bid to safeguard himself, he’d only brought hurt to the people who should have had his protection. Nor had his own hurt been healed by the debauched path he’d traveled. It had only left him… empty.
“You’d be wrong on that score,” he said, throwing an arm around her shoulders and giving her a slight, awkward hug. He could not undo a lifetime of neglect, but he would show her the affection he’d long withheld.
“No, you would be,” she said with a maturity far greater than her seventeen years. “I was the child, the unwanted girl child, who reminded him every day with my presence that his beloved wife was lost giving me life.”
She spoke those words as one who’d heard them uttered too many times. His gut clenched reflexively. “Our mother wanted you desperately,” he said quietly. In those days when the late countess had learned she was expecting, Daniel had still been a child. “For almost eight months while she was carrying you, she smiled,” he said softly, looking out. “When she hadn’t smiled in the whole year before that.” For with Alistair’s passing, the light had gone out in the countess, only to be briefly reignited.
“They wished for a boy,” Alice said bluntly. Her mouth twisted in a macabre rendition of a smile. “Father spent a good deal of time telling me as much.”
“No child would have been good enough for him,” Daniel answered with an automaticity of truth that came from a place deep inside. He accepted that truth at last and, in it, found a peace. Their father had been shattered and there would have never been any putting him back together into so much as a semblance of the man he’d once been. Those issues, however, had been the late earl’s. They were not a result of anything Daniel had done or could have done. It had only taken the whole of his adult life to acknowledge that. “The day Alistair died…” How odd, a sibling who’d never even known her eldest brother. A sheen misted his vision and he blinked it back. By God, what had become of him?
And yet, there was no shame or annoyance in this resurgence of emotions.
When Alice lifted questioning eyes to him, he forced himself to continue. “The day he died, Father’s very reason for being died as well. No person could have ever eased that hurt.” Only now, seventeen years of his brother being gone, Daniel at last realized that truth. Accepted it, and a great weight was lifted. Freeing and healing. He’d spent years being the useless, worthless man his father accused him of being, ultimately fulfilling that prophecy laid out for him. He’d allowed it to define the person he’d become. Until Daphne.
His sister stared on expectantly.
“Given my,” his neck heated, “deplorable…” Good God, it was bloody torture humbling oneself in this way and talking about ones feelings. “…treatment of you these years,” he settled for, when she winged up an eyebrow. “You’re deserving of any resentment you hold for me.” His gaze drifted across the ballroom. “But I am sorry,” he said softly, futile words that proved useless when there could be no undoing them.
“We both allowed him control here, Daniel,” his sister replied, touching her forehead. “And as long as he does, neither of us will know happiness.” She paused. “Your sending Miss Smith away is testament of that.”
Sent her away. His throat worked. “I didn’t—” He fell silent. Daphne had ultimately left. She’d gone to protect his eight thousand pounds and Alice’s reputation, and for herself. She’d gone to have a life with purpose.
Goddamn you, Daphne. How dare you reenter my life, and make me feel, and want to be a different man. And then leave.
A viselike pressure squeezed at his lungs and he drew in a ragged breath. She’d breathed life back into him and it was bloody agonizing.
“Go to her, Daniel.” Did that urging belong to his sister or did it exist in his own mind?
Footsteps sounded in the hall and they both glanced to the entrance of the room. The Marquess of St. Albans filled the doorway. “I told Tanner I’d show myself here,” the other man called. He came forward and bowed to Alice. “Lady Alice.”
“Lord St. Albans,” she returned. “I’ll allow you both your visit.” She gave Daniel a lingering look, as though she wished to say more, but then hopped down from the dais and skipped out with the exuberance of her youth.
His friend claimed the spot just vacated by her. “So you’ve managed to not burn down Brook’s. I’d call that a successful week,” St. Albans drawled with high-sarcasm.
“Not yet,” he said with forced humor, handing over the decanter he’d yanked from Alice’s fingers.
The marquess accepted it, his earlier mirth gone. “You look terrible,” he said.
As it was an observation, Daniel opted to say nothing. When Daphne had packed her meager belongings, boarded his carriage, and rode several streets onward to another residence, he’d known he would miss her. He’d never anticipated…this…great, gaping hole inside where his heart had been. A hole that had left him empty in ways he’d never been. He rubbed his hand over the ache in his chest. To no avail. The agony persisted; vicious, sharp and unyielding.
In the end, she’d gone. All that remained was a stark reminder of how cold his existence had been the thirteen years without her. For three fleeting weeks, he’d smiled and laughed and lived. And with her gone, despair and pain sucked at him, holding him trapped in his misery. Another wave of despair slammed into him.
St. Albans set aside the untouched bottle. “Your sister sent ’round a letter, urging me to pay you a visit.”
Daniel’s neck heated. The traitor.
“I understand Miss Smith has taken employment elsewhere,” St. Albans said quietly.
His shoulders went rigid. “Yes well, my wicked household is really no place for a lady,” he said, his gaze unfocused. Particularly a lady of strength and integrity like her. In the past, he’d exercised little discretion and no uttered word was spared from sharing. God, what a bastard he’d been.
Taking care to leave out the most intimate details, he proceeded to fill St. Albans in on his uncle’s discontent with Daphne as a companion, neatly and intricately sidestepping Tennyson’s treachery against Daphne all those years earlier…and again, these eleven years later.
“Ah, so the lady had no choice but to seek employment elsewhere.” St. Albans said when he’d concluded his telling. The other man spoke with the ease of one who’d worked through a particularly challenging riddle. He kicked his feet out in front of him. “It is an uncertain world for a woman without a husband. Few options.”
“I offered her marriage.” The admission slipped out and Daniel silently cursed, wanting to call it back. He’d let more people in these past weeks than he ever had before. Still, sharing that piece, Daphne’s rejection, with St. Albans was entirely too personal.
The marquess stared back, flummoxed. “What?”
Skin hot, Daniel briefly eyed the bottle. “She needn’t have left.” Of all the times to abandon spirits. He’d picked the bloody worst time to develop a sense of morality. “I offered her marriage and she…declined.” Not once. But twice.
What reason had she to say yes? That taunting voice whispered around his mind. She wanted love, deserved it, and you did not give it to her.
St. Albans again puzzled his brow. “So, instead of sacking the lady, you offered her marriage. And she said no. You should be elated.” Yes, he should be. “You are absolved of any obligation for—”
“It wasn’t about obligation,” he thundered, jumping to his feet. The abrupt movement sent the decanter toppling over. St. Albans shot a hand out and righted it. An absolute stillness fell over the room.
The marquess edged away from the spilled liquor. “What was it then, Montfort?”
It is about her. And me. And us together. Unable to meet the other man’s assessing eyes, he set his snifter down and wandered over to the hearth. Laying his palms upon the smooth marble, he stared down at the cool, metal grate. “She chose to leave.” And every day he woke up with her not in his home, the ache in his chest deepened. His heart spasmed.
“Did you give her a reason to stay?” the other man asked quietly.
He scoffed, shaking his head. “What do I have to offer her?”
“Do you love her?” the other man asked bluntly. Those words held Daniel motionless, as they invariably did. Just as they had when Daphne had breathed them into his ear, after he’d brought her to climax.
He turned slowly back to face his friend. “I don’t love anyone.” He forced that long held truth out past tight lips.
The marquess inclined his head. “Then you should be grateful she declined, because now you are free.”
Free. Squeezing his eyes shut, St. Albans’ words crashed into him, made a mockery of the past thirteen empty years he’d lived. For there was nothing freeing in Daphne being gone from his life. It was raw. Agonizing. And gutted worse than any blade taken to his person. He struggled to draw in a breath through the pain knifing away at his insides but the agony persisted. The heartache, spread to every corner of his being so all he knew was a desolate misery. So this was love.
Love? He had rejected feeling anything for anyone. And yet…
I cannot live without her.
Oh, God.
I love her. Daniel shot his hands out, catching himself against the fireplace. He loved her courage and her strength and her convictions. He loved her delight in simple things. He’d always loved her. First as the girl who’d been a steadfast friend at his side through life’s greatest joy and miseries, and now as a woman who’d braved all life had thrown at her.
“Yes,” St. Albans put in gently, as he came to his feet. “Invariably, that emotion has such an effect on a man.” A grin twitched at the other man’s lips. “Especially a rake now trodding a different path.”
Daniel struggled to reconcile a lifetime of wickedness with everything he now hungered for. Nay, not everything. Rather, a family. He wished to be a family with Daphne. And Alice. Though long past the point of being a brother worthy of her, he wanted to be a family with her now. “I’ve spent too many years being a rake to ever change.” His voice emerged hoarse to his own ears.
The marquess slapped him on the back. “If that were true, you’d not be in an empty ballroom, thinking about a woman who rejected your suit,” he reminded him. “The man you once were wouldn’t give a jot about his uncle’s orders and would be busy at his clubs drinking himself into a stupor.” He snorted. “And you certainly wouldn’t destroy a good bottle of brandy.”
His world too unsteady to manage the customary grin that wry response should have elicited, Daniel frantically lifted his gaze to the other man. His pulse hammered loudly in his ears, deafening. “Now what?” he whispered. Now more than ever, he needed a friend. Even a friend he’d previously wronged.
St. Albans widened his smile. “Why, you go win the lady’s heart.”
Win the lady’s heart. He braced for the panic those words should bring…panic that did not come. He’d been a rake, a rogue, a scoundrel, wholly undeserving of her, but he wanted to be deserving of her now. He wanted to be the man she saw, when he himself hadn’t. He had so little to offer her, not the treasures she deserved—His heart thumped slowly. By God, that organ coming back to life hurt like the bloody devil. Daniel touched a hand to his chest. His fingers collided with the hard coin inside his jacket pocket.
Now, to convince Daphne to abandon the treasure she’d been searching for her whole life and risk it all on a rake.