Chapter 21
S ilas could hardly hear over the pounding of his heart as he strode back into the dining room after Arabella left. She’d left him and it was perfectly clear that it wasn’t just for the night or for show. She was ending this and he hadn’t felt such a pain in a very long time.
“I’m sorry she felt she had to leave,” Charlie said as Silas entered the room.
Silas shook his head. “No, that was the purpose, wasn’t it?” He threw himself back in the chair. He couldn’t muster enough energy to speak angrily anymore, so his tone was flat, instead. “To drive her away. To take her from me so that you two could dance me all the more on your string.”
“Take her away?” Reginald repeated with wide eyes. “Do you know what you sound like?”
“Like a man who loves a woman,” Silas shouted.
For a moment that statement hung between them, stunning all three of them equally. He hadn’t allowed himself to recognize until now when it was being threatened. When he’d had to watch her walk away and felt like she’d ripped his heart out and put it in the carriage with her.
“You’re in love with her,” Charlie repeated softly. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never felt such a thing before.
But it’s there and I won’t apologize for it.
Arabella is sunlight streaming into a room where you’ve only ever had the curtains drawn.
She is laughter in the midst of sorrow. She is bright and glorious and when I’m with her, I feel…
happy. She makes me happy.” He shifted. “The very idea of walking away from that, of not asking her to stay in my life forever, is a pain I cannot describe. And it’s one I won’t bear, not even to have you two in my life. ”
“You sound like you’re talking about marrying her,” Reginald said, his hands gripped on the tabletop.
Silas swallowed. “Yes. If she would have me, I would marry her.”
He had no idea if that was possible, of course.
He knew that what they shared was real. He knew she cared for him, perhaps even loved him, though he wasn’t certain of that larger feeling.
But she might not agree to linking her life with his.
She might push him even further away to protect herself… to protect him.
“If everything you wished for came true,” Charlie said carefully. “If you asked her to wed and she agreed, how do you picture that working? What would you have me say when it was brought up in clubs or at parties?”
He shook his head. “I expect you to tell anyone who bothers you about me to fuck off. And if you cannot do that, then roll your eyes and laugh and say something about bastard blood. That’s what everyone thinks of me anyway, isn’t it?
You don’t have to claim ownership for anything I do. You can just be bemused by it.”
“I am bemused by it,” Charlie said with a sigh. “And perhaps a little envious that you have always gone your own way, never been constrained by all that goes along with being a son of the Marquess of Pentaghast.”
“Oh, trust me, I was more than constrained by that man’s name and expectations,” Silas said. “But it isn’t his name anymore, is it? They aren’t his expectations. You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be, or at least you don’t have to live the life he required.”
Charlie and Reg looked at each other and it was as if they had never considered that.
For a brief moment, Silas wondered about their childhoods with their father.
They’d both been grown when he met them, Charlie fifteen years his senior, Reg twelve.
But what had Pentaghast done when they were boys to put them so firmly in line that they feared to stray even into their forties and he was dead in the grave for more than half a decade?
Silas leaned forward. “I wouldn’t ask you to invite us to your fancy parties, I want nothing to do with that.
But why couldn’t you invite me and the person I hold dearest to Christmas?
Or to the country estate for a week after the Season so we can all play croquette and watch the children swim in the lake?
Jesus, you’re offering me family but acting like it’s a business connection. ”
There was a long, charged silence and then Charlie cleared his throat. “Perhaps it’s all we knew. Perhaps we could all learn something from you on the matter of following your heart.”
“I’d be happy to teach you. But not if it means losing my chance with her.”
There was a long silence and then Charlie leaned his hands on the table.
“I wouldn’t take away your happiness. That seems more like our father’s way of running things than my own.
And perhaps you’re right, the change in this family must come from us moving more toward you and away from him than the opposite direction. I’m sorry, Silas.”
“You’re saying you would accept me?” Silas asked. “And her, if I’m so lucky as to win her?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “I would accept you. And I doubt anyone could do anything but accept her. I think she would demand it and somehow make it the other person’s own idea.”
“She would at that,” Silas said with a chuckle.
He suddenly felt so…light. So free. He could stay here in London and still be who he was. He could start to create a family with the siblings who had once been taught to push him aside. And he would have Arabella. Or at least try his damnedest to win her.
But if Charlie seemed resigned to this arrangement, Reginald now squirmed. There was something troubled to his face and Silas sighed. “You’re going to cause me trouble, aren’t you?”
Reginald shook his head. “No. I’ve only ever wanted to protect Charlie. If he agrees to this new arrangement, I would do nothing but what he wishes. What you need. The problem is more that…that…”
“What?” Silas’s voice was sharper now. He couldn’t help it as his brother’s guilty expression created a fear in him that he couldn’t quite define. “What is it?”
“I was contacted by a man a few days ago,” Reginald said. “His name is Albert Comerford.”
It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under Silas’s feet and now he was falling. His ears rung and his hands shook as he managed to choke out, “Arabella’s father? You talked to her father about her?”
* * *
A rabella had never trudged in her life, but when she stepped out of her carriage and onto her drive, she almost felt as though she couldn’t fully lift her feet.
She’d done the right thing, of course. Setting Silas free, pushing him back toward his family, that was the best course. Now she could focus on forgetting her feelings for the man and he could focus on building the relationship he always should have had with his siblings.
But it didn’t feel like the right thing. It felt awful.
“Good evening, Miss Comerford,” Barnaby said as she stepped up to the door.
“Good evening, Barnaby. Is Julia at home, then?”
“No, she went out with Miss Reynolds again. She told me she wouldn’t be home until late.”
There was relief in that fact. She didn’t want her sister to read the pain she couldn’t hide for much longer. She forced a smile. “Well, then do you think you might have something light sent to my room to eat? And then you are relieved of duties. I’ll be in for the night.”
If her butler thought it strange that she’d left for a supper engagement but returned early and in need of food, he didn’t express it. He merely agreed to the request and left her to her own devices.
She took the opportunity to go into her parlor.
The fires weren’t lit in the small room, not that she’d expected them to be.
She’d been out, after all. Not likely expected back until late, if at all.
But the dark suited her and she moved to the sideboard only by the moonlight streaming through the front window.
She was pouring herself a drink when she heard a sound from the back corner of the room.
“I wondered how long I’d have to wait.”
She froze, for she knew that voice well, even if she hadn’t heard it for six years. She swallowed hard, set down her glass and turned toward him slowly. He was nothing but a shadow in the dark, the shape of a demon come to collect her.
“Father,” she said, and was proud her voice didn’t shake. “I didn’t expect you. How rude of my servants not to give you light and refreshment.”
“Don’t be stupid, you know they aren’t aware that I’m here.”
She inclined her head. “Of course not. If they were they wouldn’t have let you in.”
That was her standing order, after all. To keep away the man who regularly threatened her. She was even happier Julia wasn’t here. At least the threat was only directed at Arabella for now.
“As if you have the right to lock me out.” Her father moved closer and the moonlight hit his face.
For a moment, she was ripped back in time to when she was a very little girl with no way to fight him.
No way to stop him from hurting her with his words or the back of his hand. When she’d been terrified of him.
She still was, but now she could remind herself that she had power. Or at least she wasn’t a child who was entirely weak.
“What do you want?” she asked. “Have you come along to speak your threats in person? I’ve received them, you needn’t bother.”
“You’ve ruined my life,” he growled.
She shook her head. “Yes, so you’ve repeated ad nauseum. But I’ve been a courtesan for six years, Evelina joined me four years ago, Julia two. Why in the world would you break into my house now ? I couldn’t have freshly damaged you, I’ve done nothing different.”
“I’ve been working toward a marriage,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “The middle daughter of the second son of Viscount Trafford.”
She stepped back. “Christ, Father, she cannot be more than two years older than I am. That’s disgusting.”