Beauty and the Earl Read online

  “You love him,” Liam said softly.

  She nodded. “With everything that is worthy and good in me.”

  “Does his presence not remind you of the circumstances of his conception?” he asked, and she heard the hesitation in the way he asked the delicate question.

  She shook her head. “I cannot judge him by his father no more than I hope others judge me by my own. Peter has no control over that and knows nothing of the man who sired him.”

  “And so you became a mistress and used your earnings to take care of him,” Liam said.

  “Yes.” She sighed. “For years I have taken any penny I could scrape away and saved it, in the hopes that one day I could leave London and go to him, to live with him there by the sea. And now I’ve nearly saved enough that I could fulfill that dream. That is why I can’t be with you as your mistress, Liam. In the next few weeks, I will settle my business in London and I will finally go to my son.”

  He stared at her, and there was regret as well as relief in his eyes. “Violet,” he whispered, holding her hand tightly in his. “You are the most remarkable woman. Thank you for telling me this.”

  She nodded. “I wanted you to know. Although you are the first person I’ve ever confessed this secret to, outside of Olivia, of course.”

  He drew back. “Never a lover, never a friend?”

  “No.” She shivered. “It had to be someone I trusted. Someone who…who understood me.”

  His fingers came up to stroke her jawline. “And that is me.”

  She nodded, her love swelling inside of her even as she kept it to herself, letting it crash against the barrier that would always stand between them.

  He smiled. “I am happy that you came to Bath,” he said. “Although I’m surprised you didn’t spend your holiday with your son.”

  She tensed. She had never considered that hole that had been created in her story by the revelation of the truth. She never took a holiday, unless it was to visit Peter. And yet she had told Liam that she was here to kick up her heels and forget her troubles.

  “I—well, Olivia insisted,” she said weakly, hating the falsehoods that seemed to pile upon each other.

  Liam’s expression was beginning to change. He was thinking through her story.

  “You say you will soon leave London and be with your son,” he pressed. “What has given you that freedom?”

  She shifted and pulled her hands away. “A—a windfall,” she whispered, and that wasn’t exactly a lie. It was simply an ugly truth.

  “A windfall,” he repeated, stressing the word as if he were testing its veracity. “From a former lover?”

  “Why all the questions, Liam?” she asked as she stood a second time and moved away from him. “You are interrogating me about something very private and personal.”

  He stood as well. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to interrogate you, but you tell me that this desire to be with your child is why you cannot be with me, be my lover. I’m simply trying to understand why and how this moment has come now, just as we have met, have come together.”

  She hesitated, for she had no answer, or at least no answer she could share.

  He didn’t seem to expect one. “I have always dealt in reason and I’m sure there is something here I’m missing. Is there more to this decision?”

  “What do you mean?” she croaked.

  He pursed his lips in what seemed to be frustration over her avoidance.

  “I mean why is now the time that you must leave London? To go to your son?” His brow wrinkled further. “And if you are leaving London, why did you say we would meet again there if I returned?”

  Violet’s head had begun to spin. Her carefully laid deceits and manipulations were beginning to unravel and she had no idea how to maintain them. Liam was treading close to the truth, and she knew him well enough to believe his dogged interest would only increase, not fade, the more he considered her past, her stories, her future which she denied him.

  “Violet,” he said, his tone sharp in the face of her continued shocked silence. “What are you keeping from me?”

  She covered her face. How she longed to tell him everything, to explain what she had come here for, but how coming here had changed her so much. She wanted to tell him, but she had no idea how.

  “Liam,” she began, her voice shaking.

  But before she could say anything else, the door to the parlor opened and Malcolm strode through, his face dark and angry as he looked at her.

  Terror sliced through her at that look because it only meant one thing.

  “I overheard you in the hallway, asking the young woman what she was keeping from you,” Malcolm said, his voice vibrating with anger. “I believe I can answer that since she will not, or at least not with honesty, since that is not in her nature.”

  Liam turned on his friend, his cheeks dark with color and his eyes snapping with anger. “What do you mean?”

  Violet stepped forward, wishing this wasn’t happening. Wishing it were all a dream.

  Only it wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare and it was real as Malcolm said, “Your lovely paramour came here on the behest of Ava and Rothcastle. You have been sleeping with a spy.”

  What Liam would remember most about the moment later was two things. One was the horribly broken expression that all but collapsed Violet’s beautiful face. The second was that she never denied what Mal said. She only turned away with a sob that seemed to echo through him and stab him in the heart.

  “What are you talking about?” Liam asked his friend. At least it was his voice that asked the question, he didn’t recall using the mind power to do it.

  Mal looked at him, his expression softening with regret…pity. Liam had seem that look before. He hated it just as much now as he had then.

  “I’m sorry, Liam,” his friend said softly. “The report from London was very clear.”

  “Report?” Violet asked, looking first at him, then Mal, as pink flooded her cheeks. “You had someone looking into me?”

  Mal glared at her. “And for good fucking reason, don’t you think?” He pivoted toward Liam. “She was hired by your sister and Rothcastle a few weeks ago. They paid for the place she was letting in Bath before she was moved to your estate. In fact, they are still letting it for her—she never gave the place up at all.”

  Violet sucked in a breath that sounded painful, but before she could respond to Mal’s charge, Olivia entered the parlor, smiling broadly before she took in the tense, charged scene before her.

  “Violet?” she murmured, looking between the three of them. “What—”

  Mal spun on her, his face dark and angry. All the light Liam had seen in his friend since Olivia’s arrival, all the joy, was gone.

  Liam felt for him, understood the betrayal in Mal’s voice as he hissed, “Did you know? Did you know why she was here?”

  Olivia turned her gaze to Violet and for a moment the women held stares. Then Violet jerked out a single nod.

  And Liam’s world collapsed around him. Mal wasn’t mistaken. Violet couldn’t explain this away.

  Everything his friend said was true.

  He remained silent, but Mal didn’t. “Of course you knew. You two are so bonded together, you would probably stab me through the heart if she told you it would help. So you were the distraction not just the first time we met, but all along. How hard did you laugh, Olivia?”

  “Malcolm,” Olivia sobbed, reaching for him even as he jerked away and exited the room without a backward glance or another word. Olivia sank onto the settee, staring toward where his friend had sat.

  Violet, on the other hand, seemed to gather herself. “Liam,” she whispered. “Please let me explain.”

  She moved toward him, but he backed away a step. “Were you hired by my sister to come here? To spy? Have you been reporting back to her and that bastard she married?”

  She caught her breath, and he knew the answer before she said it out loud.

  “Yes,” she admi
tted, her voice cracking. “But Liam, I swear to you that everything I ever shared with you, everything I ever said…it was all true. I came here with one agenda, but the moment I met you, there was more to it than that.”

  He stared at her, her eyes brimmed with tears, her hands shaking. Her expressions of remorse, of emotion were very real…but then that was what she had been trained to be. To appear real when everything she did was a lie.

  And he had been taken in by it. And given her, and Rothcastle, everything they needed.

  “Please leave,” he said, his tone flat and emotionless even though inside he felt like someone had ripped his heart from his chest and crushed it.

  “Liam,” she gasped.

  “Just go,” he repeated, spinning away before he lost all control and said and did things he couldn’t take back.

  She was silent for so long that he looked back at her. She stood, staring at him, pain lining every part of her face. Pain and regret, heartbreak and sorrow. And he wanted to believe it all, even though he refused to allow himself to be so foolish.

  “Did I not make myself clear?” he asked, fighting to keep the break from his voice that would fully reveal his weakness to her.

  She shook her head. “No, my lord. You are very clear. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  She turned and moved toward the door. Only at the settee did she hesitate. Slowly, she caught Olivia’s elbow and drew her to her feet.

  As she wrapped an arm around her friend’s waist, Liam heard her whisper, “Come, Olivia. Come away.”

  The other woman seemed too much in shock to resist and together they left his parlor. Left him alone.

  He moved to the front window and looked out as a carriage was brought along for them. They climbed in and the vehicle pulled away, its horses prancing like there was some kind of joy left in the world.

  But as Liam drew the curtain and enshrouded himself in darkness, he knew the truth.

  There was no joy left. There would be no joy again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It was early evening when the lady’s maids arrived at the house back in Bath with all of Olivia and Violet’s things hastily packed. Once the footmen had unloaded the items into each woman’s room, Violet looked at Rachel.

  “How bad was it?” she asked softly.

  Her maid shrugged, but her tense face said more than her words would ever express.

  “Belle and I were watched every moment while we packed for you, miss,” she admitted.

  “By his lordship?” Violet asked, her heart aching as she tried not to think of Liam and failed, just as she had been failing since her departure from his home earlier in the day.

  “Oh no, miss,” Rachel said with a blush. “His lordship locked himself in his chamber after you left.”

  Violet squeezed her eyes shut. She had done that to him. His renewed isolation was her fault.

  “I could hear him crashing around and breaking things from across the hall,” Rachel continued, unaware of how deeply her words cut into Violet’s very soul. “Should I unpack for you, miss?”

  Violet covered her chest with both hands, willing herself to breathe, to remain stoic when all she wished to do was collapse.

  “No, Rachel. We will return to London in the morning, so there is no need to unpack anything.” She squeezed the maid’s hand. “I’m certain it has been a trying day. Why don’t you rest for a while? Have your supper. I’ll call for you later and we can make our arrangements.”

  Her maid bobbed out a nod and slipped to the door. But there, she stopped. “I-I’m sorry, miss.”

  Violet looked up at her. She knew what Rachel meant. “So am I.”

  The maid left the room quietly and Violet stared at the open door. Across the hall was Olivia’s chamber, and her friend had been locked in alone since their return to this house.

  It appeared Olivia hadn’t even let her own maid in, for her trunks were stacked beside the door.

  With a sigh, Violet moved across the way and knocked on her friend’s door. There was no answer.

  “Olivia, darling, it’s me. Let me in, won’t you?” she said though the barrier.

  There was a moment’s silence, then she heard Olivia come across the room and the key turned. Violet let herself in and watched as Olivia silently walked across the room to a chair beside the window. She sat there and stared outside, her face blank and nothing like the normally vivacious and bright expression she normally kept.

  Violet flinched in guilt. After all, this was her fault as well.

  “Olivia, have you been sitting there all this time?” she asked as she dragged a chair of her own to the same spot and sat across from her friend.

  Olivia nodded but didn’t make eye contact. “I have.”

  “It was an ugly scene,” Violet said softly, trying not to allow images from that awful morning to bombard her. She failed miserably. All she could see in her mind was Liam’s face, the betrayal he so keenly felt.

  “Very,” Olivia agreed, and one tear escaped to roll down her cheek.

  Violet gasped at the sight of it. She had not yet allowed herself tears, but seeing her friend’s made her denial all the harder. She just had to get through the next week or so and then she could cry all she liked.

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat and caught Olivia’s hand.

  “We knew it could happen,” she said, half hoping to reassure herself as much as she tried to reassure Olivia.

  Olivia looked at her evenly. “I never knew any of this would happen.”

  Violet looked out the window to the small garden below. She had no idea how to respond in the face of her friend’s despair, not when she was trying so hard to keep her own heartbreak and disappointment in check. But there was nothing to be done about it. She knew that. She had accepted it.

  Mostly.

  She pushed to her feet and smoothed her hands over her skirts.

  “Tomorrow we’ll go back to London,” she said. “I will collect my ill-gotten gains and then that will be all. I’m sure eventually we will forget this…we’ll forget.”

  Of course that wasn’t true, but she said it anyway. Perhaps one day she might believe it if she said it enough.

  Olivia glanced up at her. “I’m not going back to London.”

  Violet’s thoughts fled and she jerked her gaze toward Olivia. “I—what do you mean? Of course you’ll come back to London with me!”

  Olivia shook her head. “No.”

  Violet dropped down to her knees in front of her friend and caught both her hands. “Oh, Olivia, please don’t be angry. I’m so sorry I involved you in this, I didn’t mean to bring you grief. You are my best friend and my sister. Please don’t hate me, I couldn’t bear it if you hated me too.”

  Olivia touched her face. “Dearest, my reasons for not going to London have nothing to do with you. I’m not angry with you in the slightest.”

  Relief rushed through Violet, along with confusion. “Then…then why won’t you return with me?”

  “Because of my feelings for him,” her friend whispered, eyes welling with tears again, which she blinked away.

  Violet stood slowly. “For Malcolm.”

  Olivia nodded. “I am in love with him, Violet.”

  Violet felt no surprise at this admission. She had seen it happening in front of her, even if she wasn’t fully focused on anyone but herself. “Of course you are.”

  “And because I love him, I have no choice but to stay and try to fix this wedge between us.” Olivia sighed heavily. “Even if it takes a great deal of time, I must try.”

  Violet paced away, praying her friend wouldn’t see her wince. Olivia loved Malcolm and she was free to pursue that love for him. And if anyone could convince a man to forgive her, it was Olivia. It only put the finality of Violet’s own situation into stark focus.

  “If you love the man, you should fight for him,” she said without looking at Olivia.

  Her friend got to her feet. “And what about you?”<
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  “What about me?”

  “I think it is evident you care deeply for Liam. I wager you may love him too.” Olivia tried to meet her eyes, but Violet refused to do it.

  Just as she refused to confess her heart, even to her best friend. Knowing it in her mind was painful enough, allowing the words to be spoken…that could very well break her in two.

  “You are mistaken,” she said, pressing a hand to the cool glass and staring outside.

  “Am I?” Olivia’s tone was gentle.

  Slowly, Violet turned and looked at her friend. There was no doubt Olivia saw through her.

  “Even if I did harbor some kind of tender feelings for him, he despises me now. And with good reason.” Her voice broke and she sucked in a harsh breath.

  “Oh, Violet.” Olivia moved to comfort her, but Violet stepped away. She was like glass now. If someone touched her, she feared she would shatter and never be put together again.

  “It doesn’t matter. I did what I did in order to be with my son. And as soon as I can finish this dreadful business with the Rothcastles, I can go to him. It will be worth it. It has to be worth it.”

  Olivia nodded, but it was a jerky motion. Neither one of them was certain of that and they had both lost so much.

  “You go back tomorrow?”

  “As early as I can depart in the morning,” Violet said, shaking her head in the hopes she could clear thoughts of Liam away. “I’ve already sent a missive ahead to Lord and Lady Rothcastle. It will likely arrive just ahead of me, but at least they will anticipate my coming. And hopefully we can deal with our business swiftly, I have no desire to linger on it.”

  “And then you’ll move on?”

  There was doubt in Olivia’s voice. In truth, there was a great deal of doubt in Violet’s heart. But she couldn’t falter.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Olivia took her hand. “It will work out.”

  Violet flinched. “I hope so.”

  But even as she said it, it didn’t feel like it was true. And she wasn’t certain it ever would.