Chapter 12
“You killed your husband…” Darius repeated slowly. “Accidentally?”
“No.” Bea raised her chin. “Not unless you count my hitting him over the head with the fireplace poker as being accidental.”
Darius dropped heavily into the chair beside the window, for once in his adult life not sure how to proceed. Bea had killed Hanwell? “Because he had beaten you with his riding crop?”
She snorted. “I was used to being beaten.”
“Then—” He broke off as a knock sounded on the door of the bedchamber, dark brows rising as Quinlan burst into the room without being invited to do so, accompanied by a white-faced Kilby and Bea’s equally pale-faced maid. “What is the meaning of this?” Darius demanded as he rose to his feet.
Quinlan was far from his unflappable self, his face flushed, eyes slightly feverish, chest quickly rising and falling, as if he had been running. “You have it all wrong, Your Grace,” the valet told him with that same breathlessness. “Lady Hanwell did not— She is not— We will still all need to go to the Continent, as you planned, but not because Lady Hanwell is guilty of betraying her country or the Crown. She is— She— Jeremy…” he prompted, forgetting all formality in his agitation.
The butler stepped forward. “Lady Hanwell did not—”
“You will say nothing further, Kilby. Or you either, Jane,” Bea instructed firmly. “And what is this nonsense about us going to the Continent?” she demanded of Darius.
His mouth thinned. “I will not allow you to hang, Bea.”
Her brows rose. “You will not allow it?”
“No.” Darius could feel the nerve pulsing in his cheek.
She eyed him quizzically. “I believe that is the penalty for murder.”
“My lady—”
“You will remain silent, Jane.” Bea gave her maid a warning glance.
“No, my lady, we will not.” Kilby stepped into the center of the bedchamber. “I will no longer allow you to carry a burden that should have been mine.” He turned to Darius. “Jane is my younger sister, Your Grace.”
“Kilby, no!” Bea choked.
“I am sorry, my lady, but I must,” the young man insisted before once again turning to Darius. “Lord Hanwell raped my sister, and when he learned she was with child, he demanded she and I both be put out of the house, as he had done with several other female servants whom he had previously forced himself upon. No one would have been willing to work here at all if not for her ladyship.” A nerve pulsed in the butler’s jaw. “When Lady Hanwell voiced her protest at our fate, she received a terrible beating. When he had finished beating her ladyship, Lord Hanwell turned on my sister. I believe it was his intention to kill her and the babe. Lady Hanwell hit his lordship with the poker to prevent that from happening.”
“Self-defense,” Darius murmured with some relief.
“Defense of me, yes, Your Grace,” Jane put in softly.
“Who else knows this?” Darius could not help but recall Quinlan’s comment that there seemed to be a “conspiracy of silence regarding Lady Hanwell’s private life” in this household.
Not only in regard to Bea’s private life, if all this was to be believed. And Darius did believe. It explained so much. Why Bea’s household staff were so protective of and loyal to her. Why she had admitted herself as being guilty, albeit of the wrong crime.
“Only the people in this room know for certain, Your Grace,” Kilby answered him. “Although I am sure the other servants are aware of the circumstances of his lordship’s death. They did not like him either. As I said, we all remained here only out of loyalty to her ladyship.”
“How did you explain Hanwell’s injuries to the doctor?” Darius frowned as Bea, realizing the situation had progressed beyond her control, now walked over to the window, the stiffness of her back telling of her tension. “I am presuming a doctor or the magistrate were called to look at Hanwell after his death?”
“I pushed him over the top of the stair rail so that he fell into the hallway below.” Once again, it was Kilby who answered. “His head injury was in keeping with such a fall.”
Darius nodded. “They suspected nothing? No foul play?”
“No.”
“The babe?”
Kilby’s expression softened slightly. “My young niece is well and living with our mother in the village, thank you for asking, Your Grace.”
Knowing Bea’s soft heart as he did, Darius had a feeling her charitable acts and visits to the families in the village involved the care and financial upkeep of more than one of Hanwell’s illegitimate children. Hanwell’s actions toward Jane revealed he had never felt any such responsibility himself.
Bea had done it for him, despite the fact Hanwell’s bastards were a slap in the face for her own childless state.
“You may leave us now.” Darius’s gaze remained on the paleness of Bea’s profile as he dismissed the other three people in the room.
“Shall I continue to pack your things in preparation for leaving this morning, Your Grace?” Quinlan paused to inquire.
“No,” he answered softly, instantly noting the increased tension in Bea’s shoulders. He waited until they were alone before crossing the room to stand behind her. “Bea—”
“I killed him,” she stated unemotionally.
“And if he were alive today, then I would be the one to kill him.”
She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”
“Because he was an animal—worse than an animal, as I believe animals live by their own moral code. The bastard needed to be put down for what he did to you alone,” Darius stated harshly. “Bea…” Her tension was such he was afraid to touch her. “You did what needed to be done. He gave you no choice. If you had not stopped him, he would have killed Jane and her unborn babe.”
Bea began to tremble, and then to shake, hot tears stinging her eyes before they tumbled down her cheeks. “He was a brute, without conscience or heart. Jane was only sixteen when he—when he—” She broke off as her throat was closed by the choking sobs she could no longer contain.
She had no will or strength left to fight as Darius’s arms came about her. He pulled her in tightly against the warmth of his chest as she continued to sob.
One of his hands soothed down the length of her spine. “I was six years old when my uncle began to hit me with his fists and kick me while wearing his boots.” His arms tightened about Bea as she would have pulled back to look at him.
Even so, Darius could see her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You do not have to tell me these things.”
“I want to.” Darius realized that it was true. Only The Sinners knew of the violent childhood he had suffered, but now he wanted Bea to know too. For her to know him. All of him.
“My parents died when I was six, at which time my father’s younger brother became my guardian,” he continued evenly. “The beatings began within days of my moving into his house. Thankfully, I was sent to boarding school aged eight, and The Sinners became my family. The beatings during the holidays continued until I was fifteen, when I had grown big enough to defend myself. Instead of fists, my uncle then used words to hurt me, maliciously slandering my mother and my father. His guardianship ended on my twenty-first birthday. On that day, I beat him to within an inch of his life. Have you noticed how he walks with a cane?” He waited for her nod before continuing. “I crushed his leg under the heel of my boot, and it has never been the same since. Nor have I spoken to or acknowledged his existence since that day. My point is, Bea…” His voice strengthened, “I might as easily have killed him that day. Nor should I feel the least regret if I had. Cruel men like my uncle and Hanwell should not be allowed to live and cause misery to the lives of others.”
Bea’s tears were now for the small orphaned boy who should have received love and kindness from his uncle but instead had received only cruelty. It explained so much of Darius’s nature. The aloofness and arrogance which shielded him from ever being hurt again. His loyalty to the friends he considered his family.
“I do not regret Charles being dead either,” she admitted huskily. “Only that I am the one who killed him.”
“Because he gave you no choice in the matter,” Darius insisted. “If you would let me, I will talk to the Prince Regent on the matter. I am certain his opinion will be the same as my own, and he will issue you with a full pardon. He does not care for cruelty to women or small children either. There is also the testimony of all the servants in this house as to Hanwell’s treatment of you. The women he impregnated, whether willingly or otherwise. If you had not stopped Hanwell, then he would have killed both Jane and her babe. I have no doubt he would eventually have killed you too,” he bit out harshly.
A small chink of light began to enter the dark dread in which Bea had lived for so long. “Why would you defend me in this way?”
Darius’s arms tightened about her. “Because I love you.”
Bea ceased to breath. “You love me…”
“Madly. Deeply. Intensely,” Darius acknowledged self-derisively. “I have never said those words to another living soul, but I love you to the depths of me. So much so I cannot bear the thought of anything or anyone hurting you ever again.”
“Is this the reason you were taking me to The Continent?”
He nodded. “We would have been safe there. You would have been safe there.”
“It would have meant leaving the friends who are your family.”
“You are all that matters to me now.” He continued to hold her. “I am going to return to London on horseback later today and speak with the Duke of Stonewell, who I know will come with me when I appeal to the Prince Regent on your behalf. After which I intend to return here and court you in a manner befitting my fervent hope you will one day learn to love me as I love you. My wish you will then consent to become my duchess.”
The last of Bea’s darkness lifted from her heart in a burst of light, a happiness unlike anything she had ever known before.
Darius knew all of her there was to know, and he loved her still.
He wished to marry her.
To make her his duchess.
His arms tightened briefly as Bea attempted to pull away, before he relented and released her. “Or perhaps you consider me too unlovable?”
Bea hated seeing that expression of vulnerability on his face, the way he had withdrawn behind that mask of cold indifference, knowing that uncertainty was rooted in his uncle’s cruel treatment of him as a defenseless child. “Your uncle was an idiot,” she scorned. “A man who should have protected you as a child and had no appreciation for the honorable and admirable man you would become.”
Darius looked at her searchingly. “Does this mean there is hope you might one day come to love me?”
Her heart swelled. “That day is already here,” she assured him as she raised a slightly shaking hand to touch his cheek. “I love you now, Darius. I believe I was already in love with you that first night when I came to your bedchamber. If I did not love you then, I certainly did by the time I left,” she acknowledged.
“You really love me?”
“I love you,” she confirmed, the tears in her eyes now ones of happiness. “Except…” Some of that happiness faded. “I cannot give you an heir. Perhaps we should just continue as we have been? A duke needs an heir—”
“This duke needs only you,” Darius assured her as he took her in his arms again. “I need only you. I love only you. My God, Bea, I love you so much, I cannot, will not, live without you for another day. Marry me.” He looked deeply into her eyes, his love for her shining in the depths of his. “Marry me, and I swear you shall never know another day of unhappiness for the rest of your life.”
There was only one answer Bea could give.
Only one word that need be said.
“Yes.”