Beauty and the Earl Read online

Violet sighed. If Ava wanted her advice, than perhaps she had a final chance to do something for Liam, after all.

  “I think you and your brother have danced around your estrangement long enough. You have hurt each other, just as all families do. But sending spies and refusing to talk to each other isn’t going to fix this. I think you should go to Bath, march up to his door and confront him. End this once and for all, it has torn apart too many lives as it is.”

  Ava nodded slowly. “Perhaps you are correct that it is time to face this issue head on. But do you think he will allow that? Might he be packing up and leaving Bath this very moment?”

  “I don’t know, but it seems foolish to remain here in London, locked in uncertainty and pain, just because he might be leaving Bath.” Violet shrugged. “If he has, then follow him to the next place. You know where his properties are, go there.”

  Ava tilted her head. “You are a breath of fresh air, Violet Milford.”

  Violet felt heat flood her cheeks. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “My brother and I are, I’m afraid, not exactly direct, at least when it comes to each other. Having you sweep in with your perfect self-assuredness and frank advice…well, I can see how it likely meant as much to him as it has to me.” Ava shifted. “In fact, could I convince you to perhaps join my husband and I if we made the trip to Bath in the next day or two?”

  Violet’s heart lurched until she swore she could feel it beating in her suddenly thick throat. “Return to Bath?”

  “I realize you just came from there, but the trip isn’t hard and I would like to have your counsel,” Ava said.

  Violet sidestepped away, shaking her head. “I couldn’t. As I said, I have a great deal to do since I intend to leave London. Too many things to arrange to think of—”

  “Do you mean your home?” Ava asked, moving on Violet even as she continued to try to escape. “I admit, my husband has done a little checking up on you. I realize you own a modest home here in the city. If you are leaving permanently, as your demeanor seems to indicate, you must want to sell the place to obtain extra funds.”

  Violet’s lips parted. “Y-Yes. But that is complicated by the fact that my friend lives in the home with me and I-I do not currently know of her circumstances. She didn’t return to London with me.”

  “We would buy the place from you,” Ava said without hesitation. “For twice its current value. And I will personally assure you that we would allow your friend to continue to live there if she decides to do so. We won’t even charge her rent if she hasn’t been paying you up until this point.”

  Violet hesitated. That was a great deal of money. Money that would give her and Peter additional comfort. And yet the terms of the bargain were very hard. Return to Bath? Probably see Liam again? Feel his disdain and see his disgust?

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “We will manage the house as I have described,” Ava offered. “And I will give you…a thousand pounds for your travel with us.” When Violet continued to shake her head, Ava said, “Three thousand pounds? Five?”

  Violet spun away.

  “Please!” she cried out, her shoulders shaking as she supported herself on the wall.

  Ava stopped calling out sums of money and after a moment’s silence, she said, “I-I can’t believe I didn’t fully realize it before. How could I have been so blind? You are in love with my brother, aren’t you, Violet?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Violet rested her head on the cool, smooth surface of the wall, trying to catch her breath, trying to stop her head from spinning wildly. It was a losing battle, for her emotions were too out of control now to hope to rein them in even the slightest.

  Ava spoke again when she did not. “I don’t judge you,” she said softly.

  Turning, Violet stared at the duchess in her fine clothing with her perfect hair. “How could you not? A woman like me with a man like your brother?”

  “Who is a woman like you?” Ava asked. “A woman who has made the best of what I imagine are bad circumstances? A woman who holds her head high and does what she must, and yet maintains enough kindness in her heart to give me hope when I was hopeless?”

  Violet moved to the nearest chair and sank into it because she feared her legs would no longer support her. “I meant a whore, my lady.”

  To her surprise, Ava didn’t flinch at the vulgar term. In fact, she smiled. “I have known ‘ladies’ who have done far worse than anything you have. ‘Ladies’ I wouldn’t fraternize with for the world because their indecency goes to their rotten cores, even as they present perfection to the world.”

  “How do you know mine doesn’t do the same?” Violet asked softly.

  Ava tilted her head. “Because I know. I just know. I will ask you, am I right, do you love my brother?”

  Violet shivered, despite the comfortable temperature of the room. Once she said those words out loud, there would be no escaping them ever again. Speaking them made them real.

  And yet she refused to deny them.

  “Yes,” she whispered, breaking eye contact with Ava to stare at her lap. “I am in love with Liam. With all of my heart, with all that I am.”

  She gasped as she said it, reaching for air as everything around her seemed to fade. This was the last step, speaking those words. Now she couldn’t go back. She would have to live with what she felt, what she had sacrificed, for the rest of her days.

  Ava leaned forward and held out a handkerchief. Violet took it, and only then did she realize tears were streaming down her cheeks. She swiped at them with a shake of her head.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Ava’s lips parted. “Why should you be sorry? I, of all people, understand what it is like to love someone the world believes you should never have.”

  Violet stared at her. “I suppose you do.”

  Ava smiled. “You see, I am far more infamous than you could ever be. I fell in love with my family’s greatest enemy. And it tore everything in my world apart. But I will tell you it was worth it.”

  “Yes,” Violet murmured. “You and the duke seem very happy together.”

  “We are,” Ava said with a faraway look of contentment on her face. “But you change the subject. I want you to know that I view you as a friend, nothing more.”

  “A-a friend, Your Grace?” Violet repeated, utterly shocked.

  “You and I are friends, Violet Milford, whether you want to accept it or not. We are friends because I like you, I respect you…and more importantly, because we have something in common that will bond us for life. We both love my brother.”

  Violet stared at her. There was no manipulation on Ava’s face. She seemed to be utterly truthful in her words, her desire to connect with Violet as more than a woman of rank and a woman who could help her.

  “Thank you for that,” Violet said softly. “I would never turn down a friendship.”

  “Good.” Ava tilted her head. “Then may I ask you again to come with us to Bath. As a friend, both to me and to my brother? You may leave directly from there to wherever you would like to go, and my husband and I will take care of any business you may have in London. I swear to you, it will be done.”

  Violet swallowed. There seemed to be no way to refuse this woman. More to the point, in some deep part of herself, she didn’t want to refuse. This final act to help Liam would be her last act of love for him. If she knew he had repaired his relationship with Ava, she could leave him and begin her new life with some happiness.

  Even if there would always be something missing.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I’ll go with you.”

  Ava clapped her hands together, but Violet held up a hand. “But I can’t see him, Ava.”

  The duchess’s face fell slightly. “No?”

  “It will be too painful,” Violet whispered, her voice catching. “It is too much to ask.”

  “Then I won’t,” Ava said, reaching out across the space between them to take her
hand. “Now why don’t you go back to your home and rest? Prepare whatever you must. I’ll send word to you tomorrow morning about when we will depart. I hope within a day or two.”

  Violet squeezed Ava’s hand and stood. “Very good. I’ll look for your message.”

  She turned toward the door, but before she could leave, Ava stepped toward her and suddenly she was being embraced by the duchess. She froze for a moment, torn apart by uncertainty and numb from the pain of the past few days.

  But then, slowly, she returned the embrace, clinging to the woman who was now the last line she had to Liam. When she stepped back, she fought for breath.

  “Thank you,” Ava whispered.

  Violet nodded and fled the house. It was only when she was in the safety of her carriage that she laid across the seat and allowed herself to weep in a way she hadn’t been able for the past few days.

  “Your sister has arrived in Bath,” Malcolm said without preamble as he entered Liam’s office.

  Liam jolted at the news, but refused to cease his work. He kept his eyes on the ledger before him and carefully placed an x in one of the columns which required marking before he said, “It has been nearly three days since Violet left. I’m surprised it took Ava this long. I assume she will knock on my door before the afternoon is over.”

  “Violet is with her,” Malcolm said, and Liam saw the slight shift in his friend’s expression, the careful gaze that said Liam’s reaction was being cautiously gauged.

  He saw this, and yet it was a reaction he couldn’t control. He froze in his place, hand hovering over the ink container. All the emotion he had been trying to suppress for days rushed over him. Anger, betrayal, heartache crushed him from all sides. But one feeling was strongest.

  Joy.

  Deep within him, the idea that Violet was so close, that she had returned to Bath, to him, filled him with a joy so powerful that it stole his breath even though he knew he was a fool for feeling this way.

  He pushed all the reactions away and set his quill down deliberately before he spoke again.

  “Why?” he asked.

  Malcolm shrugged, still standing in the doorway. “My spies do not go so far, Windbury.”

  Liam arched a brow. “No? Not even Olivia Cranfield?”

  Malcolm’s jaw tensed and the reaction verified any guesses Liam had harbored over the last few nights.

  “Yes, I had speculated you’ve been seeing her, sneaking out at night to meet with her.”

  Malcolm fully entered the room now and slowly took a place at the desk across from Liam. He folded his arms.

  “Do you judge that as a betrayal?” he asked softly.

  Liam pondered the question. In truth, he had been so wrapped up in his tangled emotions regarding Violet that he had hardly considered any reaction to Malcolm and Olivia’s continuing passion for one another. Now his feelings on that subject became quite clear, especially when he considered the desperation that flickered faintly in Mal’s eyes.

  “I told you myself to go to her, to hear her,” Liam said and watched relief soften Mal’s features in an instant. “I believe my misery has extended to everyone else in my life, especially you, for far too long, my friend. If you care for her, if you love her as you told me you did…then love her. Be with her. You have my blessing if you require it.”

  Mal smiled. “I don’t, actually, but I appreciate it nonetheless, as well as your graciousness regarding the situation.”

  “I suppose I’m making up for lost time in the grace department,” Liam said with a humorless chuckle. “Olivia must have explanations that soothe you, for you were so very angry with her just a few days ago for her part in Violet’s deception.”

  Mal nodded. “I was. But I also understand the sacrifices one makes for a friend one loves like a sibling.”

  The two men met gazes and Liam nodded, taking his friend’s meaning completely. “You probably understand that better than most, I would wager.”

  “But what about you?” Mal pressed.

  Liam tilted his head in surprise. “Me?”

  “There is still much for me to worry about,” Mal said. “I assume you have guessed that Ava has also brought Rothcastle with her to Bath.”

  Liam tensed. “Yes, I assumed so. He cannot let her out of his sight, you know.”

  Mal arched a brow. “Or they are so in love that they are inseparable and your sister desires his support for fear you will refuse her when she comes here.”

  Liam stared down at the ledger, though he did not see it. “Yes,” he whispered. “I suppose that is also possible.”

  Mal drew back. “The fact you would allow for the chance speaks volumes.”

  Liam cleared his throat. “I know she loves him.”

  The words tasted bitter, no matter how true they were.

  Mal looked ready to respond, but before he could Liam’s butler stepped into the doorway and cleared his throat softly to indicate his presence.

  “Yes, Pruett?” Liam asked.

  “Your sister has arrived, my lord.” Though the servant spoke calmly, his eyes reflected the tension that simple statement created in the room.

  Liam sighed. “That is earlier than I expected, but I’ve never known Ava to waste time. Is she alone?”

  “No,” the butler said.

  Liam’s breath caught as thoughts of Violet immediately leapt to his mind. The idea that she could be in his parlor at this very moment, so beautiful, so kind, so—

  “The duchess has her husband with her,” Pruett said.

  His heart sank and Liam felt his shoulders roll forward with disappointment. It was funny, for so many years, his first thoughts would have been of the intrusion of Rothcastle, the hatred that had driven Liam almost his entire life.

  Now they were of Violet and how desperately he wished to see her.

  He cleared his throat, as the servant remained, waiting for him to formulate some kind of response to the news of his guests.

  “Put Rothcastle in the parlor. You may serve him tea, I suppose, since that is the polite response to a duke in one’s home,” he said, waving a hand as if Christian’s presence here was unimportant. “And bring my sister to me.”

  If the butler was surprised at this unorthodox handling of guests, he made no indication. He bowed and left the room without another word.

  Once he was gone, Mal pushed to his feet. “Would you like me to stay?”

  Liam shook his head. “No. I’ve hidden from this long enough. And you should go to Olivia, shouldn’t you?”

  Mal grinned, and the love and hope in his eyes made Liam’s heart ache all the more. He was happy for his friend, but how jealous he was of his certainty in his feelings, his future.

  “Try not to murder anyone,” his friend said as he exited the room.

  Liam smiled, though he knew, probably as well as Mal did, that not that long ago that might have been a possibility in this situation. But he had changed.

  Violet had changed him.

  In the hall, he heard the muffled voices of Mal and his sister as they exchanged a polite greeting. He stiffened, rising as he waited for her to enter the room. It took what seemed like an eternity, until the seconds on the clock all but rung in his ears like a gong.

  And then she came into view, passing through his door and coming to a halt as she stared at him. He couldn’t help but stare back, for she was changed from the last time he saw her.

  His sister had always been pretty, but now she was stunning. Her dark brown locks were swept up in a delicate fashion that framed her oval face and accentuated her clear, porcelain skin. Her blue-gray eyes were bright and there was no doubt they were also filled with happiness.

  It was that emotion, written all over her appearance, the way she held herself, the way she moved…that was what made her even more beautiful than she had ever been.

  And he could not begrudge her that, no matter the source of the change.

  “Ava,” he said softly.

  “Liam,” she wh
ispered in return.

  Then she all but ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing so tightly that she almost dragged the air from his lungs. He felt her tremble, her breath broken with emotion before she pulled away. She searched his face, her fingers coming up to brush the line of the scar down his cheek before she pulled it back and stepped away.

  “I-I’m sorry,” she said with a shake of her head.

  He smiled and to his surprise, the expression was very real. Having his sister in the room with him was far sweeter than he’d ever thought it would be.

  “It’s all right,” he reassured her as he came around the desk and motioned to the chairs before his fire. “It’s been a long time. Why don’t you sit? Clearly, we have a great deal to discuss.”

  She nodded and slowly sank into a chair beside the fire. When she did so, he saw her shift, slight discomfort on her face.

  “Are you well?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Of course. But the more important question is how are you?”

  His lips pursed at her dismissal of his inquiry, but then that was Ava. She had always been too worried about others, often at the expense of herself. That drive to repair broken people had led her to Rothcastle. A bargain made to save Liam. One that had changed them all irrevocably and altered the course of all their futures.

  He winced at the memory of finding his sister with that man after she had been kidnapped, compromised and utterly ruined. He had never been closer to homicide than in that moment, never been closer to utter destruction.

  He shoved the thoughts away and forced himself to speak.

  “I am as well as can be expected when I have only recently discovered how far you would go to uncover any facts about me.” Somehow he kept his voice even, calm and his eyes on her face.

  The color drained from her cheeks and her hand clenched into a fist on the arm of the chair.

  “You mean, I suppose, my sending Violet here,” she said.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. I mean your sending Violet here,” he repeated, accentuating every word. “So tell me, Ava, why did you send a beautiful spy into my midst to seduce and betray me? And why did you have to choose Violet Milford?”