Chapter 27
Amillion thoughts swarmed relentlessly through Evelina’s head. Curled in the arm of one of Victoria’s couches, she silenced them and reached for her cup of tea. “Did the constables ask you about the men who attacked you?” she asked.
“No,” Harriet replied softly. “No one has come to me but Benedict. When he returned from the meeting with your husband, he told me the men were not aiming to harm him. They had come for me.”
For the second time that day, Ellie felt shock root her to where she’d sat. Her hands began to tremble—why had Dorian not told her that? Her heart soured at all the deceptions and omissions. Did Dorian think she was too weak to understand what was happening?
She swallowed. “Harriet. Do you know if my father truly left me a dowry? Did… did Aunt and Uncle know and deliberately withhold it from me?”
Harriet furrowed her brows at the sudden question.
Then, she shook her head. “I do not know, but I do know that mother and father did go to the bank the night after you were taken from us and the day after you’d married Beaumont.
They’ve been having arguments all week with mama cursing your husband’s name to around the world and back. ”
That was answer enough. The bitter feeling that lurched up her throat made her want to cry and purge her stomach’s contents. Why did no one love her for who she was, and only for what she had?
“When I was a child, I wondered every day why I could not live the life I wanted,” Ellie began to murmur. “Why I had to be at lessons every hour of the day, why my only refuge was with you on the odd Saturday or at balls.
“Now I know,” she finished, ducking her face in melancholy. “I was nothing but a means to an end.”
“No, you’re not,” Victoria shook her head profusely. “Not to us. Please do not say such silly things again, Ellie.”
Setting the tea aside, Ellie wrapped her arms around her middle. “I just cannot stomach the continued lies after lies. It is starting to feel as though my whole life has been a lie.”
The sun was setting, and amber rays turned the wooden coffee table into striations of burnt sienna. A footman knocked on the door, and Victoria turned to him. “Come in.”
He obeyed, then went to bow before Ellie, before extending a silver platter to her. “A letter came for you, Your Grace.”
Curious, Ellie took the letter and unfolded it while Victoria made a cup. “Who is it from?”
“I haven’t the faintest.”
Dearest Evelina
This humble servant of yours would like to let you know that your darling husband is not the righteous man you think he is. Upon my honor, I will tell you that the only reason your husband, Dorian Beaumont, married you, is to steal the large inheritance your late father left for you.
You may have no knowledge of this, but his merchant business was unlike any other that London has ever known.
His business, subsidized by many of the ton, brought about many a delight to the patrons.
He did not die a pauper as you were always told.
Far from it. He managed to leave you a tidy inheritance of five hundred and fifty thousand pounds.
Your husband, just like your aunt and uncle, knew of this, but I doubt he has mentioned it. He knows many other things too. He knows you are looking for your precious Ash.
Has he told you that the cottage in St. John's Wood used to be Ash’s home until he forcefully ejected the boy from the place and took it for himself? I’d wager you he did not, did he?
You are probably asking yourself if any of this is true.
I can give you all the proof you desire, but you will have to come to me.
I cannot come to you. You can find me at this location; The Dewy TeaHouse in Covent Garden.
A few friends and I will be there until midnight.
I hope I will see you there… unless you are not interested in knowing about the boy he killed.
X.
What had she just read?
Dimly, she realized her hands were shaking, and Victoria leaned in, her expression concerned. “Ellie, are you all right?”
“No—” she shoved the letter to Victoria, “—read this, please.”
She stood and began to pace, biting her lips while wondering if she could trust this person.
“Oh, good lord,” Victoria dropped the letter. “Ellie, what are you going to do about this? Do you believe this person?”
Pausing, she shook her head. “I—I do not know. But it seems that this person knows more about my life and relationship with Dorian than I do.”
“What do you mean?” Harriet asked.
Exhausted, Ellie took her seat and told them everything that had happened since the day in the church, minutes before she was to wed Carrington, and how Dorian had secreted her away.
She told them about hiding in St John’s Wood, right under the nose of her relatives, before they were married at St James. She told them about the omissions in Dorian’s story, the rift with Benedict and Carrington, and how he had ended up in the slums to survive.
“I do not know the full extent of what he had to do to regain his fortune, but I know the club was the keystone of it,” she said. “His main objective is to find his uncle, who betrayed him, and bring him to justice.”
“And how were you going to help him do that?” Harriet asked.
She sighed and leaned forward, “I was supposed to be his companion to balls and functions, and suchlike. He wanted to have the perception of propriety and be more ducal, I suppose.”
“There were many balls where the people involved had clues that would lead him to his uncle,” Ellie admitted. “But we soon narrowed it down to only Lord Carrington, who might have the key. We got distracted though, the grand plans we had to unearth the secret meandered left and right.”
Harriet shuffled closer. “Why?”
She took in a deep breath. “Because I started to fall in love with him.”
Her confession clearly stunned both of her friends. Rubbing the back of her neck, Ellie continued, “I know, it is sacrilegious to fall in love with a man you have only married as part of an arrangement… but I did anyway.”
Reaching for the letter, Harriet looked over it. “Don’t… don’t you think it is more sensible to ask Dorian about all this, than go to this… this blackguard?”
“I would ask,” Ellie said, her mind made up. “But I doubt I would get anywhere with him. Victoria, does Benedict have a pistol? If he does, I need to borrow it. And a carriage, if you don’t mind.”
Dousing the lamp near the bed, Dorian shucked the robe and went to close the window. Now that he finally had a few moments alone, away from the goings-on in his life, to gather himself, Ellie’s confession came back to him and hit him with the force of a tide.
It felt fantastical knowing that she loved him, and if he were true to himself, along the way, he’d fallen in love with her as well.
“Funny how things work out this way,” he sighed. “On the very verge of where I might lose her.”
As he pulled the blanket down, a knock came on his door. Rolling his neck, Dorian went to the door and opened it. “Yes?”
The footman bowed. “I apologize for the late disturbance, Your Grace, but a note came addressed to you. The bearer said it was urgent.”
Plucking the card up, Dorian opened it. The one line written in blood red ink made his blood run cold. “Your wife has been taken from you.”
Even as despair swamped him, agonizing fear reared its head. Who was behind this? Benedict—no. Her relatives? They wouldn’t dare. The answer blared in his face, Sterling.
“Ready my carriage,” Dorian ordered the footman, while lurching to get redressed. With his trousers, shirt, and boots on, he forwent a waistcoat and jacket, instead making for his coat. He paused to get one of his pistols and slid a knife into the sheath of his boot.
Dropping spare bullets into his pockets, he sprinted from the room and ran through the dark night to the carriage waiting for him.
“The Dewy Teahouse!” Dorian bellowed to the carriage driver. “Covent Garden. Now.”
If Sterling dares to harm even a single hair on her head, I will tear him from limb to limb.
Every minute that passed by as the carriage sped through the almost barren streets of London at midnight felt torturous to Dorian. How had he gotten her away from the safety of Victoria’s house? Had he ambushed her? Lured her out somehow?
As he arrived at Covent Garden, the tea shop looked closed, but Dorian knew it was not. Even to an untrained eye, the hulking shadows of guards in the nooks showed it heavily armed. Dorian primed his pistol before he jumped out of the carriage and walked to the steps.
He hurried past the men in the shadows, who made no attempts to stop him, then leaped up the steps. A footman opened the door at the top, and he barged in, then took the steps up to the room above.
This was where the Serpents had meetings at times; he kicked the door in to the round room, his pistol up and cocked.
“You do not want to do that, Beaumont,” Sterling warned, as he reposed in his seat. His pistol was on the table, inches away from where Evelina sat.
To his left was Nathan, and to his right was Drake; behind them were a veritable army of bodyguards. Dorian did not have to do the calculations; he would never get out of here alive if he did start shooting.
Ignoring Sterling, he faced Evelina; her face was marked with tears.
“Evelina—”
“He told me everything, Dorian,” she whispered hollowly. “He told me about my father, about the inheritance, about how my aunt and uncle hid it from me,” she choked. “He even told me about the house in St John's Wood being owned by Ash… a-and about the boy you killed.”
“You don’t understand,” he tried desperately, his gaze flitting to Sterling and then back to her.
“Wh-when I was in his gang, I told him I wanted out. He told me the only way I can leave his operation is if I fought my way out. I agreed. I trounced the boy, but Carrington said it was death or nothing.”
There, her voice hitched, “Was it… was it Ash?”
He lowered the pistol and went to her. “No, Evelina. It was not Ash.”
“Are you sure, Beaumont?” Sterling taunted him. “Do you even know who you are?”
His anger flared. “Yes, I damn well know who I am, and Ash was dead long before I bought the house!”
She gasped. “And you—you pretended to have someone look for him, knowing he was dead? H—how could you be so- so- evil.”
“Evelina, you don’t know the whole truth—"
Her palm met his face with a stinging slap so hard that he saw stars. “I know enough,” she spat before stalking out of the room. “Stay away from me!”
Rolling his neck to Sterling, he worked his jaw, then lifted the barrel to the man, “You’ll pay for that.”
“Don’t do it, Beaumont,” Drake warned him. “This is not a battle you want to fight.”
“No,” he kept the man in his sight, “it’s a battle I want to end. One I should have ended a long time ago.”
“If you kill him, it will be incumbent on us to make sure you see the noose,” Nathan said. “Do not do it, Beaumont. You can get your revenge another way.”
His finger trembled on the trigger, he could see that irritating smirk wiped off on a cold, dead body. He ground his jaw and taking aim, let a bullet fly. The bullet slammed into the wall inches away from Sterling’s face.
Lowering the weapon, Dorian muttered, “That is not a threat, that is a promise.”
“Let's see if you keep to it,” Carrington taunted him.
On the way back to his home, Dorian knew Evelina would not be there. Why would she? What sensible woman would walk back into a house of lies, knowing there was no truth to be left for her there?
She was gone, because in his effort to protect her from all the harmful elements surrounding her, he’d lost her to his dishonesty, his omissions, and his pedantry.
The pain he’d seen in Evelina’s eyes after she’d delivered that well-deserved slap… The one emotion he did not want to ever see in her eyes had been heavy in them—disgust.
Why didn’t I trust her?
If only he had not fallen back on his old ways of doing everything by himself, if only he had taken the risk and told her the truth about everything from the start, they would not be in this position.
She would have understood, she would have worked with him. Instead, he’d held everything inside, kept everything to his chest, and never showed his hand.
At the sinking loss of her leaving, he realized he hadn’t been protecting her—he’d been protecting himself. Scarred with so much betrayal, pain, and loss, he’d been afraid of opening his heart completely, to give anyone the chance to hurt him worse than he’d experienced before.
Now she was gone, and he damn well deserved it.