In the span of moments, the world had gone insane.
And at the center of the madness was his father.
Ophelia dragged off, the explosiveness of her and her family’s fight, left only a stark, empty silence in its wake. Damning.
Connor glanced to the trio of noblemen assembled—two of whom he’d long respected, one he’d wager was bound for hell for his vices.
“Get out,” he ordered Lord Whitehaven.
“Close the door,” the Earl of Mar called over to his friend after Lord Whitehaven scurried off. “I’ll not have servants talking,” he grimaced, “any more than they will be.”
Connor jerked. “My God, that is what you now worry over? Gossiping servants?” Who was this man? He no longer recognized him. But mayhap, this was who he’d always been. One who’d wanted to erase the filth of the streets from Connor and transform him into something pure and good—something he would never, could never, be. “You did this.”
“I did nothing,” his father said tiredly, fetching himself a brandy. “I merely opened your eyes to what the young woman is.”
It is important that one sees and hears with one’s own eyes what is . . . all around us.
His breath whistled through his teeth. His father’s earlier words had been a warning, and he’d been too blind to see.
While the earl poured himself a drink, Connor stared on incredulously. A drink. This man who’d adopted him now sought to sip fine French spirits when he’d consigned Ophelia to—
His mind came to a screeching, jarring halt; even in silence, he could not bring himself to complete the thought.
“What is that?”
His father froze, midpour. He looked over his shoulder quizzically.
“What is the young woman?”
The earl slammed his bottle down, and his drink alongside it. “My God, Connor,” he shouted, “her father slaughtered your parents. Raped your mother.”
“I know what he did,” he cried, slamming his fist on the earl’s desk. “I know,” he whispered. “I witnessed it. I heard their pleas. I saw their throats cut. All of it.” The color bled from his father’s cheeks. “Mac Diggory was the man who did that.” Not Ophelia.
“Don’t you do that, Connor,” his father ordered. “I saw your reaction when you learned the truth about her father.”
He sucked in a shuddering breath. Until the day he died, he’d recall the shame bleeding from her eyes as she was held to blame for crimes her father had committed. In his silence, he’d failed her. Shock didn’t excuse it. Nothing could ever pardon it.
At last his godfather, Lord Middlethorne, stepped forward. “It brings me no pleasure to see the young woman hanged, Connor,” he said in even tones one might use when discussing the weather. “If I might?” he ventured, lifting a finger. “I did see a possible solution to Miss Killoran’s dilemma.”
This was the man who’d attempted to rape her. The man who still haunted her. Connor clenched his hands into fists to keep from snapping his neck. “Say what it is you’d say,” he said brusquely. How was it possible to know so little of a person? His father. His godfather. Men he’d respected. Men he’d trusted.
“I understand your father explained my . . . circumstances. Bethany . . . and I . . . are in dire financial straits. Together, a union would at last join our families.” Middlethorne reached into his jacket and withdrew a small stack of papers bound with ribbon. “If you enter into marriage with Bethany, I will, of course, see that the charges against Miss Killoran are dropped. An arrangement has already been drafted; it merely awaits your signatures.”
My God. The air left Connor on a whoosh.
“Is that what this was?” he whispered, his mind slowly making sense of it. “An attempt to drive me from Ophelia? For what?” He spun to face the cocksure viscount. “So I might marry your daughter?” How easily they’d dispensed with Ophelia. They’d proven all her hatred and suspicion of the nobility well founded and deserved, and how he hated himself for his naïveté in failing to see the ugliness around him.
Viscount Middlethorne stared back, silent. Calm. Unmoved. Unaffected. The same person, more monster than man, who’d pinned Ophelia to an alleyway and scrabbled with her skirts as she’d pleaded.
A burning hatred scorched through Connor’s veins like a vicious cancer, threatening to consume and destroy.
I’m going to be sick.
He swung back to face his father. “You have no qualms with him forcing me to whore myself to save an innocent young woman’s life?”
His father flinched. “It is . . . not as bad as all that.”
Connor stalked to the door.
“Connor,” his father cried. “Do not leave. We are not through speaking on this.”
Ignoring that order, he continued forward.
The viscount held up the formal documents. “I trust you’ll see—”
Not breaking stride, Connor grabbed him by the throat and drove him against the wall. Those traitorous pages fluttered to the floor at their feet. The viscount’s eyes bulged, terror spilling from their depths.
Said moi mouth was a whore’s mouth that he couldn’t kiss, that he ’ad other uses for it.
The same primitive fight that had led him to kill and survive on the streets roared to life, and he reveled in the other man’s weakness.
“Connor,” his father shouted, “release him.”
The viscount gasped and panted, clawing at Connor’s hands. Tightening his grip, he choked him all the harder. “How does it feel?” he whispered. He brought back his left arm and planted his fist in the viscount’s nose. The satisfying crack of bone shattering was followed by the spray of blood that coated Connor’s fingers.
“Connor!” his father entreated, grabbing at his arm.
Connor punched the viscount again and again, until he was a limp mass in his hands. He released him.
Lord Middlethorne slid to the floor, sucking great, heaving gasps of air, scrabbling with his neck.
His body was a divide separating Connor from his father. “He is a monster,” Connor said in emotionless tones. “He . . . attacked her as a child.” How many other young girls had been so assaulted? How many more who’d been violated in every way by him?
“It is not possible,” his father bit out. “He could not. He would not.”
“Wouldn’t he?” he thundered, and the earl recoiled. Connor swiped the contract from the floor. “He expects me, your son, to whore himself to save Ophelia, the woman I love.” He ripped those pages and tossed them at his father. “You are too blind to see.” He shook his head in disgust. “All these years I’ve admired you for being a champion of those unfortunate boys and girls like myself. I raised you in my mind as a hero. But you’re not.” His chest squeezed. “You passed judgment on Ophelia for no other reason than because of her birthright while you’d defend”—he spat on the viscount’s prone but still unfortunately breathing body—“this man.” With a sound of disgust, he stepped over the viscount and started for the door.
He yanked the panel open, and Bethany came spilling in. Her skin ashen, she pressed her palms against her mouth. “Connor, please wait. Don’t—”
“Where are you going, Connor?” his father pleaded behind him.
He paused, his fingertips on the door. “I am going to fight for Miss Killoran’s freedom. And God help you all if I can’t win it.”
With that, Connor left.