Chapter Fourteen
“No one,” Alice lied.
“That’s not true, is it? Because when you have suffered as I and many others have, you know when someone else has endured pain.
You were terrified in the Black Dog, as you should have been, but your scream was fear, and nothing like the control you usually exhibit when people get close to you.
You put distance between yourself and others with an aloof facade. ”
“Stop—”
“Who hurt you?”
“You don’t know me well enough to know those things,” Alice said quickly. Her heart was thudding hard inside her chest, and her palms felt clammy beneath her gloves.
Alice wanted to look away from those all-seeing green eyes, but couldn’t. What did he see when he looked at her?
“Let me go,” she said, and the word came out more of a whimper than with her usual strength.
“It helps to talk to others.”
“Did you…do you talk to others about your suffering?” She wasn’t sure why she’d asked that, but suddenly Alice needed to know that someone had been there for this man, as she’d been there for Charles.
He nodded.
“Lords Hamilton and Corbyn?” He nodded again.
“I’m so sorry,” Alice whispered, remembering her brother’s pain.
“Who hurt you, Lady Alice?”
The world narrowed to the intensity of his gaze and the pulse pounding in her throat. She wanted to deny him and retreat behind the armor she had worn for years.
“I wish to return home,” Alice whispered as she battled the need to say the words she had spoken to no one. I won’t betray Charles that way.
One of his hands moved to cup her cheek, and she dug her toes into the soles of her boots to stop from flinching, but something gave her away.
“Who?”
“Why do you care? This—us—is about finding Jackson and nothing more. Let me go.” She held her breath, waiting for the warm gloved hand to release her, but instead he looked into her eyes, moving closer, so they were mere inches apart.
The lane pressed in on her then. The shadows, the stench, and the memory of Charles’s hands trembling with rage as he struck her. She had never told anyone what happened, but of course Ezra and Maggie knew some as they’d been close.
Her dear, sweet brother had turned into a deranged man in his last few months, and he’d turned his anger on her.
“It will destroy you if you don’t find a way to let it out.” The words were a low rasp. “Trust me, I know this.”
“I have nothing to let out,” Alice said with a great deal more strength than what she was feeling. Looking up at him, she saw understanding in his eyes, and he confirmed why he did what he did.
All the exercise, and the fighting. The horse races she’d heard he participated in. It was his way of coping with the hell he’d endured. Alice’s heart broke again for the child who’d had his innocence stripped away.
He cupped her face with two large palms and looked into her eyes like he could read everything she wasn’t telling him.
“H-he didn’t mean to, but in the end he was not right in the head.” The words came out before Alice could stop them.
“Your brother?”
Alice didn’t cry. She’d made herself shut everything that hurt her out of her head… especially what her brother had done in his fits of rage, but right then the tears came.
“Alice.” Her name came out as a plea. He released her, but only for a second, and then he was pulling her gently into his arms. Strong arms that held her pressed into his hard body.
The faint smoke of the tavern fire clung to his coat, and for a moment, she allowed it. Allowed him to comfort her, because it felt so good.
The damp stones beneath her boots, the cold night air, the mutter of voices nearby, all faded until there was only the steady rhythm of his hand at her back, and the whispered, “I’m sorry,” breathed into her hair. “So sorry.”
“H-he wasn’t right in his head.”
“Shh, now.” She felt a hand cup her neck as the other ran up and down her back. “I’m sorry.”
“My brother was a good man,” she said into his necktie. She breathed in fresh linen and the spicy scent of his cologne. “He wasn’t in his right mind after he returned to me.”
He didn’t add anything to that, just held her, and Alice let him. In that moment she wanted his strength.
Since her brother’s death, no one had done this. No one had just held her and said it would be all right. Her aunt had of course supported her, but no one had really known the hell she’d endured. He held her as if she was fragile and would break.
It was that thought that had her stiffening and easing back. Alice clenched her eyes shut briefly, and when she opened them, shame flooded her body. She was not weak. She would not break in this filthy alley in the arms of a man she barely knew.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He was still close.
“That.” Alice waved her hand at him.
She wasn’t used to having to explain herself to people, just as she wasn’t used to falling apart as she just had before someone, especially not him.
What were you thinking, Alice?
Ezra had seen the bruise on her face toward the end of her brother’s life, and it had been then that he’d said she was not to be alone with Charles anymore. She’d argued, of course, as she’d been the mistress and he the footman, and yet he’d stood firm, and somewhere inside her she’d known relief.
Alice had hated herself for the fear she’d felt being close to her brother when she knew it was not his fault he had turned into the man he had become. One minute he was her sweet Charles, and the next a man so angry he wanted to hurt the only person who had loved him unconditionally.
She’d hated him sometimes, and the guilt had sat heavy on her.
“That, my lady?”
Lord Stafford was looking at her with the expectation she would answer his question. What Alice wanted to do was run fast in the direction Ezra had taken.
“Weakness,” she said when nothing else came to her.
“You think that weeping and letting another comfort you is weakness, Lady Alice?” The words were spoken gently as one would if soothing a child.
I am not a child.
“Don’t you, Lord Stafford?”
Alice knew the words had hit their mark as the gentle look in his eyes changed, and he was once again the cool, expressionless marquess.
“Would you ever let anyone help you through what you’ve endured? Or is what you do your way of running from your demons?”
“And what exactly is it that I do?” His voice was cool now. All that warmth and comfort she’d felt moments ago was gone as if it had never been. Alice told herself that was for the best.
“Whatever you can,” she said quietly, steadying her breath. “As fast as you can.” She didn’t look away.
They stared at each other for long heartbeats until he said, “It is late. Come, I will escort you to your carriage.”
She’d comforted him tonight when Huckle had told him what he’d heard about the incidents with those women.
About the man’s laugh. Alice had felt the change in him.
Felt him tense, and the hand on his thigh clench.
It had been instinctive to reach over and place her fingers on top of his.
Now he’d comforted her, and suddenly it was as if those moments had not happened. They were distant strangers once more.
The clip clop of hooves was followed by the approach of Ezra with her carriage. Lord Stafford opened the door, and before she could step inside, large hands lifted her and she was tossed onto a seat. Alice struggled to right herself, but when she did, it was to see him braced in the doorway.
“Do not go anywhere that could be termed dangerous without me.”
She wasn’t frightened of many people…if any, but right then she knew he would be a formidable foe should she cross him.
“You—” before Alice could finish that sentence, the door was slammed, rocking the carriage on its chassis.
Before she reached the window, she could hear the hum of him speaking to Ezra.
Looking through the glass, she watched Ezra nod, and then before her eyes, Lord Stafford started running down the street away from the carriage.
Ezra started the horses moving, and they followed. Alice pressed her face to the window but did not catch another glimpse of Lord Jameson Stafford.
She sank back against the squabs as the carriage jolted forward. Her palms were damp, her breath ragged, and still her skin tingled where his hands had held her. It was unbearable, this sense of being seen when for so long no one had.
She pressed her fists into her skirts, willing herself to calm. She must lock it all away again—the tears, the trembling, the dangerous craving for comfort. What was she thinking, collapsing against him like some foolish girl?
They rolled toward her townhouse as Alice closed her eyes and saw Charles’s face. Her brother could smile one moment and be filled with rage the next. He had not meant to hurt her, but he had not been himself. Her heart still bore the scars of his cruelty even if no one could see them.
Lord Stafford had seen them. He had glimpsed her vulnerability, and Alice swore he would not do so again. In a weak moment she’d spoken out against the only man who had ever loved her. Shame washed over her.
Alice straightened, forcing her breathing into an even rhythm. She would not think of Lord Stafford’s arms around her, nor the gentleness he showed her. Instead, she would remember the slam of the carriage door, and the cold authority in his command. That was who he was.
And yet she knew she would never forget his words. “It will destroy you if you don’t find a way to let it out.” He had spoken the truth, and Alice often wondered if she would ever be as she was before Charles had shown her the hell he’d endured.
“I’m sorry,” Alice whispered into the darkness. “Sorry that I couldn’t save you.” She wept then. Hot silent tears for her brother. “But you will be avenged.”