Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Silas!”
Beatrice clutched the blanket to her naked breasts, but it was useless. Her brother could tell what had happened from her tousled hair, her bare shoulders, and the half-clothed man scrambling to pull his shirt over his head.
“It - it’s not what you think,” Beatrice said breathlessly as Silas stared silently between the two of them.
Beatrice momentarily worried that the sight of his only sister naked with his best friend had caused him to have a stroke and lose his mind as he looked between them, unable to form words.
Giovanni wouldn’t look at her as he determinedly pulled his boots on.
Beatrice knew he was only trying to cover her shame and his own, but it suddenly felt like she was completely alone to account for their behavior.
She looked at her brother helplessly, thinking she had never seen him so still and quiet, not since he had knocked their father down the stairs and killed him.
He had stood over their father’s body with this same solemnity, as unmoving as a statue.
Even though Beatrice was looking into his eyes, she felt like perhaps he wasn’t even completely there.
“I love him,” Beatrice whispered, helplessly shrugging her shoulders. She was aware of how pitiful it sounded in the cold room.
“Oh, Miss Klane!” Georgia exclaimed, suddenly bursting into tears as if the weight of sadness she felt for her shamed mistress was too much. The sound of her sobs seemed to pull Silas out of his trance, and he glared daggers at the catatonic maid.
“Get out!” He commanded in a tone that made both Beatrice and Giovanni flinch. The sniffling Georgia fled, wailing her way down the corridor as they heard other footsteps approaching.
“Silas, what’s going on? Georgia’s in such a state—oh!”
Anna rushed into the room, already dressed for the day. Beatrice thought she saw an initial flicker of triumph in Anna’s eyes as she took in the sight before her, the barely dressed couple in Beatrice’s bed. Then it was gone, and a look of shock replaced it.
“Oh, Beatrice,” Anna whispered, rapidly closing the door behind her. “What were you?—?”
“Oh, I think it is abominably obvious what has gone on here,” Silas interrupted his wife with a cruel sneer, clenching his fists. Despite knowing it would do no good, Beatrice felt rage building inside her, blinding her sensible mind.
“You don’t know anything, Silas,” Beatrice snapped. “What are you doing in my room?”
“Clearly, what I do not know about this situation could fill a whole room,” Silas barked mirthlessly. “And you are in no position to demand privacy, not when you abuse it so heinously.”
“You have no right to speak to me that way!” Beatrice shouted, feeling tears prickling behind her eyes. She had seen Silas be cold and dismissive with others, but she had never been on the receiving end of it. It was truly agonizing.
“I have no right?” Silas’s eyes blazed with fury and he took a step towards the bed, but Anna quickly held him steady.
“I was coming to talk to you first thing to discuss your impending nuptials and, instead, I find—” his eyes darted towards Giovanni and swallowed hard as if fighting back the urge to vomit, “—this,” he finished in disgust. “I just caught you in bed with a man and you presume to speak to me of your rights?”
“Silas, this is not Beatrice’s fault.” It was the first time Giovanni had spoken, and Silas’s neck twisted towards him like he had been slapped.
“Do not speak her name to me,” he hissed in a low, deadly tone. “Do not say a word to me, Amante, I mean it.”
The use of Giovanni’s last name in this familiar setting was bewildering and brought home to Beatrice just how angry Silas really was. Giovanni flinched as if Silas had hit him, and she knew that the words had cut him deeply. This was everything Giovanni had feared.
“Silas, please listen,” Giovanni tried to speak but Silas looked at him with such venom he was silenced.
“You shall never speak to me again,” Silas said flatly. Beatrice could see how tightly Anna held onto her husband’s arm, as if she feared he would lunge at Giovanni. Beatrice could feel her own despair welling up and couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth.
“Oh, so now you must hate him?” Beatrice scoffed tearfully. “Because I love him, because I have chosen him, he is now no longer worthy of being Giovanni?”
“You chose the viscount!” Silas yelled at her, eyes blazing. “You chose him. Do not speak to me of love—like a child.”
“But it is love, Silas,” Giovanni said firmly, stepping forward with his hands raised as if Silas was a wild dog. “I love her—I always have. I love Beatrice.”
Beatrice saw the moment Silas snapped. The muscle in his jaw ticked, his eyes narrowed, his clenched fists flexed, and then he pounced.
“I told you not to speak her name!”
He lunged at Giovanni, grabbing him by the open scruff of his shirt and pushing him against the post of the bed with force enough to shake the whole frame.
“Silas!” Beatrice squealed, hurrying to evict herself from the warm bed covers, only to stumble, naked, into Anna’s waiting arms.
“Cover yourself, dearest,” Anna exclaimed, thrusting Beatrice’s nightdress at her. Beatrice pulled it on rapidly, listening to the growling, ugly exchange between her brother and her lover.
“I have let you whore your way around Europe, I have held my tongue and waited for you to grow up,” Silas was hissing, “I told myself it matters not if a young man sows his oats, but this? My sister?”
“That is not what this is, Silas. You know I would never harm Bea?—”
Beatrice’s head emerged from her nightdress at the same moment Silas’s fist made contact with Giovanni’s cheek.
“No!” Beatrice squeaked, nearly stumbling over the edge of her housecoat in her eagerness to pull her brother off Giovanni, but Anna held her back, gripping her around the waist.
“You mustn’t,” Anna whispered urgently. “You cannot! —not yet.”
Beatrice didn’t have time to ponder the cryptic nature of Anna’s words. Giovanni was turning back towards Silas, spitting blood on her carpet and looking him steadily in the eye.
“I mean what I say,” Giovanni said hoarsely. “I swear it.”
“Your oath means nothing to me,” Silas spat. “You are a traitor and a cad, and I demand that you leave my house immediately.”
“No, Silas.” Beatrice struggled against Anna’s grip, but she held her tight across the waist. Giovanni looked at her softly for a moment, blood in the corner of his mouth, and then his eyes hardened as he looked at Silas.
“I have no intention of leaving my wife behind,” he said.
“What?” Anna gasped. Silas looked wildly between Beatrice and Giovanni, his dark eyes dangerous.
“You have married her?” Silas placed a hand on Giovanni’s throat and Beatrice felt she was suffocating from fear. “You have called witnesses? You have seen a priest? You have exchanged vows?”
Giovanni’s face reddened slightly from the pressure of Silas’s hand, but Beatrice was relieved that he could still speak.
“We are wed in all but paper,” Giovanni croaked, his eyes darting to Beatrice again. “We have exchanged promises, we are in love, we have…lain together?—”
“You cad,” Silas growled, cutting off Giovanni’s words with a squeeze of his hand around his throat.
“It’s true!” Beatrice cried, despite Anna’s hands digging into her arms to hold her in place. Silas’s eyes barely flickered towards her, he was so focused on Giovanni. “We have exchanged promises?—”
“And you think that amounts to a marriage?” Silas barked. “He has duped you, sister, with honeyed words—no doubt to steal your virtue. No court in England would call this a marriage.”
“He did not steal it, I gave it!” Beatrice retorted, and Silas winced but would still not look at her.
“Because you thought it amounted to something it was not!” Silas shouted, looking daggers at Giovanni. “You told her that if she laid with you, she was married? It is the cruelest lie I have ever heard.”
“No, we intend to marry,” Giovanni gasped, his eyes watering under the pressure at his throat.
“We do, Silas!” Beatrice added.
“He has sullied you,” Silas yelled, finally looking at Beatrice with wild rage in his eyes. “I do not care what lies he fed you to persuade you into bed before vows had been spoken.”
She realized then how much she and Giovanni had been playing with fire.
They’d been playing with it since their first kiss.
They’d crossed a line then and never been able to cross back, only disappearing deeper and deeper into the forest of desire.
She’d been so focused on her commitment to Giovanni, she’d not thought clearly about how others would see it.
“It - it just happened, Silas,” Beatrice whispered. “If I marry him, then it will all be?—”
“All be what?” Silas shouted. “Do you think I’d let my sister marry the man who ruined her?
Never.” He looked at Giovanni with unbridled disgust. “You will leave this house, leave my sight, and we shall never hear from you or speak of this again, and you—” Silas turned to face Beatrice, his eyes dark with pain and emotion, “—shall marry Milton and be safe and happy.”
Beatrice couldn’t speak. She was stunned into sudden silence by the despair she saw in her brother’s eyes.
She wanted to say something that would persuade him that this was what she wanted, that she had chosen Giovanni, but she couldn’t form words.
His disappointment and sadness were crushing her like a deadly wound.
“She won’t,” Giovanni spoke up, struggling against Silas’s grasp and suddenly managing to push himself free. He coughed and breathed heavily before speaking. “She won’t marry Milton. She is mine. We belong to one another.”
“Yours?” Silas rounded on Giovanni, his fists clenched. “She is my sister!”
“And she’s going to be my wife!” Giovanni shouted back. “I will not leave her side.”
“You will,” Silas growled. “I will make you.”
Silas grabbed Giovanni by the collar of his shirt and put him in a headlock.