“Hmm,” he murmured noncommittally, forcing his gaze not to stray to his bedchamber door again. Marcus continued to drone on, but he couldn’t focus on a word he was uttering. Colin could think only of Ela in his chamber, on his bed. He’d envisioned her there several times but not under this circumstance—hiding from her stepson. Bloody hell. He was no lad anymore who had to skulk about in the shadows with girls from the village so that none of his teachers caught him. He was much too old for this.
Suddenly, he realized Marcus wasn’t talking anymore.
He fixed his gaze on his friend, who had gone unnaturally still. “Marcus?” he prompted. “You were saying?”
He was saying nothing at all. He simply stared at something just over Colin’s shoulder. Colin turned his head and followed Marcus’s gaze, attempting to see what had snared his attention.
And he saw it. Ela’s cloak draped over the back of the sofa just to the right of his shoulder. Bloody, bloody hell.
Marcus stabbed a single finger in its direction and asked in an eerily calm voice, “What is my stepmother’s cloak doing here?”
He opened his mouth, prepared to deny that it belonged to Ela. Any number of excuses—both plausible and implausible—flitted across his mind. Very well, the majority of them were implausible. Nevertheless, they were something. Anything other than the truth.
Instead the words that fell from his mouth were the last thing he expected. “I set it there when I assisted her from it.”
Marcus’s blue gaze snapped back to him. “And what was she doing in your private rooms?”
Still more honesty spewed forth. “She came to see me.” He paused and prodded within himself to see if he was really about to admit this to his lifelong friend. “She was here because she was angry with me. For buying her a puppy.”
Marcus’s hand tightened dangerously around his glass, the knuckles whitening. “And why did you do that?”
“Because she and I are . . .” Here he paused, searching for the most sensitive word. He arrived at “. . . involved.”
Tactful or not, Marcus understood his meaning. He understood it all too well. As only a man who had been involved with many women in the course of his philandering life would understand.
Their voices were muffled even with her ear pressed to the wall, but there was no mistaking the loud crash followed by several thuds. She jerked and stared at the door.
Que en los cielos?
A bellow of rage left no doubt as to what was happening in the other room. Without wasting another moment, she wrenched the door open and stepped into the fray.
Marcus and Colin were locked in struggle, twisting and knocking into furniture. Glass littered the rug, the remnants of a decanter. The ripe smell of Scotch reached her nose. A side table had been overturned, glasses scattered on the rug beside it.
“Marcus!” she shouted as she spied him standing over Colin. His arm was cocked back, ready to deliver another blow to Colin’s face.
Colin stared up at him, passive and accepting of the abuse.
At her shout, Marcus’s head whipped in her direction. His eyes flared and then narrowed at the evidence of her here, standing before them. Clearly it was all the proof he needed.
Marcus moved in a blur then, bringing his fist down.
Colin took the punch, willingly, his head snapping back from the blow, and she feared he was going to let her stepson beat him senseless if she didn’t do something to stop him.
She lurched across the distance, wedging between them, using her hands and elbows to separate them. “Marcus, no, no, stop!”
He sneered down at her. “What’s wrong? Afraid I’ll mar his pretty face?”
“What? No—Yes!” She shook her head. “Marcus, you’re overreacting. This is Colin! He’s your friend!”
He stood back, breathing heavily, looking back and forth between the two of them. “He was my friend! Before he shagged my stepmother.”
She shook her head at him. “No,” she whispered, swallowing miserably. This was everything she feared coming true.
“Just tell me this. How long has this been going on?” His stare flipped from Graciela to Colin in hot accusation. “Was this happening when my father was still alive?”
Horror punched her in the chest. “What? No!” Did he really think such a thing of her? Of Colin? Her husband may have never been faithful to her, but she had never strayed from her vows.
“No,” Colin seconded, his voice a low growl. He gingerly tapped at his swollen lip as he spoke. It was cut down the middle, an angry tear of red. She had to fight the urge to go to him and press a handkerchief to the wound. “And you damn well know it.”
“Do I?” Marcus glared at them both with such contempt that she felt it, as palpable as a cold vapor. “I’m not certain I know anything about either one of you anymore, because I never would have thought my best friend and stepmother capable of this.”
“And what is it that we’ve done that is so abhorrent?” Colin challenged. “We’re both adults entitled to our happiness, are we not? Before this moment you would have claimed to want that for the both of us. We aren’t harming anyone.”
She nodded, feeling all at once emboldened. Her mind deliberately shied away from the fact that he was equating his happiness to being with her. She was sure he did not mean it in any permanent fashion. Still, that would be for later consideration. Something she could turn over in her mind and examine another time. “You told me to have an adventure,” she reminded.
Marcus stared at her, his eyes wide with incredulity. “Indeed! I thought you would learn to play the viola. Or take the girls on a trip to the Lake District.”
“She’s more than that,” Colin retorted. “You’ve spent your entire life seeing her as one thing that fits into a certain box. There is more to her.” He heaved a breath. Several heartbeats passed before he added, “I see that.”
“I don’t need you to lecture me on how I should view my stepmother.” Marcus returned his stare to her. “As I said, I meant find a hobby,” he clarified, his tone no less scathing. “Not fuck my best friend.”
Colin snarled and moved as though to lunge for Marcus, but she stayed him with a look.
“Tread carefully,” Colin warned. “Any other man I’d strike down for—”
“I’m not any other man, though, am I? I was your friend? And that makes you one bloody bastard.”
“It only just happened the one time,” she defended.
Marcus scoffed. “I’m expected to believe you.”
She squared her shoulders, understanding the ugliness of his implication—even if he was the last person she expected to hurl such an insult at her. He’d always been her stalwart supporter. From the day she stepped onto this oversized island, she knew its inhabitants didn’t embrace her. It was years before her own stepdaughter looked at her without a sour expression. Marcus had always been the bright light, accepting and friendly, amid a sea of smirks and leers.
“It’s the truth,” she insisted.
Silence stretched as he stared at her. “Maybe everyone was right about you.”
Colin moved so quickly then that she practically missed it. Suddenly he was on Marcus and they were on the floor. Gone was the reticent, apologetic Colin willing to take whatever punishment Marcus heaped upon him.
Colin straddled her stepson and pounded his face again and again.
She grabbed his arm, catching it midblow. “Colin, don’t, please!”
He looked over at her, his eyes fierce with a savage spark. For her. The sight rattled her.
Then she glimpsed her stepson beneath Colin and she felt awful. This shouldn’t have happened but it had. Because of her. Because she had been so weak as to give in to temptation.
“Stop it!” Somehow her final shout penetrated.
Colin pulled back. Marcus scrambled out from under his best friend and yanked his rumpled jacket into some semblance of order. “I’ll see myself out.”
“Marcus, please.” She
reached for his arm. “Let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to discuss. You two enjoy yourselves. Don’t let me stop you. In fact, forget about me.”
He turned on his heels and slammed out of the room.
“Marcus!” she called.
He didn’t reappear.
She spun around and her gaze shot to Colin. Blood still trickled slowly from his lip and his cheek bore an angry red stain. “Ela . . .” he started to say, but she shook her head. His words died off.
“There’s nothing more to say. Exactly what I feared would happen has happened. Marcus hates us both now. And my family—” She stopped abruptly, her voice choking. She didn’t know yet what this had done to her family. That was still to be seen. Hopefully, her reckless actions had not damaged things irreparably.
Eyes burning, she snatched her cloak from the floor where it had fallen—even though she would rather cast it into the fire than look at it right now.
“Ela,” he said evenly, “there is nothing to hide anymore. No reason we should even attempt to. No reason why we should not continue—”
“There is every reason. It’s not right. Marcus doesn’t approve. How can I face him or my family?” She pressed her fingers to the center of her forehead and rubbed. “What will the girls think?”
“Are you so very ashamed, then?”
“It is so very easy for you, a man, to ask that. You needn’t feel guilt or shame. What have you to lose? A reputation? Your fortune? A family?” She snorted. “I think not.”
Too late she realized her words had stung him. He was not lacking family by design and she had just callously flung at him that he was alone, the only relation left to him an indifferent grandmother who never deigned to see him.
She blinked slowly, painfully. This day had seen its fair share of hurt. She’d best leave before she carved the blade any deeper.
“I do have something to lose.”
She moved toward the door, ready to quit this evening and hopefully put it all behind her, when his voice stopped her. “I have you to lose.”
Her back still to him, she flinched. Damn him for saying the one thing he could say to make her feel necessary. It had been a long time, if ever, since she felt that with a man.
“Ela?” There was heavy request in the sound of her name.
She couldn’t do this. Not now.
Right now Marcus was somewhere thinking the worst of her. Perhaps he was even telling Enid. And all because she’d been selfish enough to surrender to her desire for a man she had no right to.
“Good night, Colin.”
Chapter 16
Four days later Graciela sat ensconced in a well-padded chair in the conservatory, Mary Rebecca beside her, sipping tea. She balanced a small plate of mostly uneaten sandwiches on her lap and smiled at their girls playing croquet on the expanse of indoor lawn. A somewhat tricky task with potted trees and other plants and shrubbery to maneuver around. As cold as it was outdoors, the day was bright and the sunlight that beamed through the glass warmed the large room considerably.
“Come, eat, and tell me what you have been doing with yourself. Your cook makes the most delicious fare.” Mary Rebecca motioned to her neglected plate. “I really must steal her away from you.”
It was easy in moments like this, with Mary Rebecca teasing and their girls laughing and the sun shining through the glass, to forget that so many things were amiss in her life. Things like the fact that Marcus had disappeared. Well, perhaps disappeared was too dramatic a word.
He’d closed up his town house and left the morning after discovering her with Colin. When she inquired to his man of affairs as to his location, she was informed simply that he went to visit one of his properties in the north. He owned countless properties, the farthest being in the Black Isle. Her late husband’s mother had a fondness for dolphins and her husband had purchased her an old remote castle along the shoreline where she could observe them from her solarium.
She couldn’t imagine Marcus retreating there this time of year. The weather would be treacherously cold, but given his current mood, she couldn’t hazard to guess where he was or what he was thinking. She hoped only that he would surface eventually. He did have sisters whom he loved and who loved him in turn. He wouldn’t neglect them forever. She prayed that when he was ready to see them again, he would have forgiveness in his heart for her. She sighed. For Colin, too.
She refused to accept that she had come between the two men’s lifelong friendship. They would patch things up. That’s what friends did. And when they did, she would be only a proper duchess, keeping proper distance from Colin. He would become Lord Strickland to her once again.
As though the thought of Colin invoked him, Mary Rebecca asked, “Have you seen any more of that delicious Lord Strickland? Received any more gifts? I feel as though I haven’t seen you in an age. You much catch me up.”
Heat crawled like ants over Graciela’s cheeks. She stammered for a reply, regretting taking Mary Rebecca into her confidences now that everything had fallen apart so miserably.
She’d been overwhelmed and bewildered and fit to burst with all that had transpired. Mary Rebecca had seemed a likely candidate for such confidences—the only candidate. Who else could she talk to about her peccadillos, after all, than the very person to drag her to a pleasure club? Except this recent matter with Marcus discovering them, she preferred not to discuss.
And yet now here she sat with a burning face and twisting stomach. Mary Rebecca giggled and swatted at Graciela’s hand. “You needn’t look so embarrassed, you wicked creature. To think I begged you to join me at Sodom for years. One visit there and now you’re a veritable seductress.”
A seductress? Hardly. Their tryst had been wild but unintentional. There was nothing of her behavior that had been calculated enough to be termed seductive.
“No, I have not seen him. In fact, I’m thinking this little holiday is over.” She injected a cheerful note to her voice, hoping to project that she wasn’t troubled over anything. “I’m returning to the country with the girls.”
Not a complete falsehood. She had stayed longer than she’d intended, and she wanted to put London, the site of all her transgressions, behind her. She needed to remove herself from Colin’s sphere. He would soon forget about those mad moments of passion they shared. He’d pick out his debutante, marry her and start filling his nursery with progeny enough to delight his grandmother and satisfy the ghosts of his line.
“So soon? You haven’t been here very long and the girls only just arrived.” Mary Rebecca tsked. “I’m certain they don’t want to leave.”
Graciela shrugged lightly. She couldn’t think about that. There were bigger things at stake than the girls’ disappointment.
Mary Rebecca arched one well-shaped eyebrow. “I suspect you leaving has nothing to do with missing the country air. You’re running away.”
“Running away?” She snorted and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “From what?”
“From who would be a more accurate question and we both know the answer to that.” She sighed and leaned forward to cover Graciela’s hand with her own. “You’re a woman with needs, Ela. Your husband passed away a decade ago. It’s acceptable, you know. You can claim pleasure for yourself. Just because he died does not mean that you did, too.”
Was it acceptable if the man she chose was so unacceptable?
“I’m not running away,” she denied hotly, not bothering to admit that her rash behavior had given her more pleasure than she had experienced in all the years she’d been married to Autenberry. Mary Rebecca would only insist she repeat such behavior and seize more pleasure, and that simply couldn’t happen.
Mary Rebecca inclined her head as she took a bite from her iced biscuit. She chewed for a moment, her head cocked thoughtfully as she studied Graciela. “I can understand why you might be a little unsettled at all of this. This is all new for you. Change is frightening for the best of us. Taking a lover, conducti
ng an illicit affair. And I am certain Strickland is an excellent lover—I have heard things. Talk, you know.”
An unaccountable stab of jealousy pierced her in the chest. Of course he had lovers in the past. And he likely would in the future. In addition to whomever he married. Forsythia’s sweet young face appeared in her mind. That knife of jealousy twisted deeper.
She had no cause to feel possessive. He was entitled to such things in life and she had no claim on him. She told herself this repeatedly as she sat there. Unfortunately, it did little to alleviate her ugly feelings.
Mary Rebecca continued. “This was quite possibly beyond your scope of experience.” Mary Rebecca’s gaze turned knowing. “There’s no cause to run away. You will soon grow accustomed to it. He was simply your first. If you’re that perturbed by Strickland’s close relationship with Autenberry, then move on to someone else. You have several admirers that I can think of as I sit here. What of Lord Higgins?”
At the swift shake of Graciela’s head, she shrugged. “Higgins is rather long in the tooth. Very well, then someone else. A younger man since you seemed so fond of those.” She winked impishly and Graciela rolled her eyes. She hadn’t chosen this affair with Colin. It had simply . . . happened.
“The point, my dear,” Mary Rebecca added, “is that a few more lovers and you will be quite versed in the language of these things.”
A few more lovers?
Her stomach took another dive and this time bile rose up in her throat. She didn’t judge Mary Rebecca for her active love life, but it simply wasn’t for Graciela. She couldn’t contemplate jumping into bed with another man. Especially after Colin and what they shared.