Nothing Denied (18 page)

Beatrice was silent for a moment, then she slowly slid her face away from the cup of his hand at her chin.

“So this is about Laurel,” she whispered.

When she looked down at her plate with a frown, Gareth saw that his answer troubled her. She didn’t want to be compared to another woman. To have her future dictated by someone else’s past.

“You and I have already talked about that,” he said softly, hoping to reassure her. “I cannot erase what happened between me and my first wife—trust if I could that I would. But I have not and I wil not place Laurel’s memory into the bond that we share. My desire to hear your history, to understand your motivations has nothing to do with her and everything to do with
you
.”

Her gaze came back to him, fil ed with surprise and a little hope. That vulnerability she tried to hide touched him far deeper than he had ever thought it would, for it was clear she didn’t believe anyone could want her, care for her anymore.

“I
want
to know you, Beatrice,” he said softly. “What happened to you to make you so cold? What forced you to turn away from everyone?”

She straightened her shoulders. Pushing the chair back, she paced away from the table to the window where she looked out over Gareth’s estate. She was silent for a long time, but he didn’t interrupt her. He didn’t demand more. Not yet.

Final y, she sucked in a shuddering breath and began to speak. “I talked to you a little about my father.”

Relief fil ed Gareth. Final y, he would get what he desired. “Yes. You once said you were his princess.”

She nodded and the faintest hint of a smile touched her face. “He was very close to Miranda, my eldest sister, and he seemed endlessly proud of Penelope, my second eldest. Even my younger sister, Winifred, was his ‘baby.’ But despite there being so many of us girls, I stil shared something special with him. He doted on me, giving me whatever I desired, from toys to clothing…even a pony one year. And I loved him with al my heart. He promised me he would always take care of me, but—”

“But?” Gareth asked softly when she broke off. The hardness entered her eyes. “It was a lie. When he died, it was revealed that he had nothing, less than nothing. Al the while he had pretended to be careful and frugal, in truth he had been gambling away our fortune without thought for what it would do to our family. My sister Miranda took up the slack, trying to keep our family from col apse, and perhaps I wasn’t always kind to her. But once he was gone, nothing was the same.”

“Because you no longer had money?”

She shook her head. “No. Wel , yes, of course a lack of funds terrified me. My mother was hysterical and I had the pleasure of bearing witness to her endless gloomy tirades about how we would die on the streets or have to sel our bodies to save ourselves.”

Gareth flinched. Beatrice would have been very young at the time, he could wel imagine how difficult that must have been for her to hear and imagine.

“But it was more than that,” she continued. “You said your grandmother was the only one who loved you after the death of your parents.”

Gareth nodded silently.

“Wel , my father was the only one who real y loved me. And when he was gone, I felt so…” Her breath rasped harshly. “
Alone
.”

Gareth frowned. “But you weren’t alone. Why didn’t you bond closer to your sisters? Your mother? It seems you pushed them aside.”

She turned her back to him. “There were times when I wanted to be close to them. I saw how much my sisters cared for each other and I longed for it, but it was so difficult for me to try.”

“Why?” he pressed gently.

“Why?” he pressed gently.

“Losing my father hurt me deeply…” She folded her arms. “I began to fear losing anyone else, with an intensity that bordered on sickness. So I isolated myself, hoping I would never again feel such a void in my life.”

He nodded. “It was an understandable reaction. At least for a little while.”

She shrugged one slender shoulder delicately. “After a while, though, I…forgot how to behave differently. And there were so many things in my life that were out of my control that I felt like I stil needed to protect myself.”

“Out of your control?” he pressed.

She nodded, worrying her hands together. “My mother, for one. You have seen her, you’ve heard what people say about her. She is…”

Gareth watched as she struggled for a word to describe Dorthea Albright. He was surprised to recognize that Beatrice was trying to
protect
the mother she despised, despite al the ways Dorthea had sabotaged her over the years.

“She is high strung and difficult,” Beatrice final y said with a blush. “Because of her own past, she reaches constantly for higher social ground, but nothing is good enough for her. And when my elder sisters married an earl and a duke respectively, that only encouraged her madness. She fed me constant tirades about how I was better than everyone, how I deserved as much as my sisters had married. In the beginning, I believed her.

”

“But not anymore?” Gareth whispered, longing to comfort her, but realizing it was not the course of action to take. Her confession was a difficult one, if he touched her she would construe it as pity and shut him out.

She looked at him briefly. “I don’t know. So much has changed. In the beginning, my looks and my ties to important families in my two brothers-in-law gave me some advantage in Society. There were suitors. There were even men I–I liked.”

Gareth stiffened, unexpected and irrational jealousy fil ing him at the idea that she had been attracted to men who courted her. “Why did you not marry one of them?”

“My mother kept railing on me to reach for better. At the time, it seemed she was correct, I had so many choices. And in truth, I feared the kind of closeness that a marriage would bring. In the end, I pushed any man I liked away and watched each marry other girls, one by one.”

She stiffened and he could see how much that had hurt her and fil ed her with regrets.

“The ones I didn’t like, I came to resent just as much for their false words and lack of polish. As the Seasons went on, there were fewer and fewer who turned their eyes toward me. Soon people were talking, avoiding me because of my behavior, because of my mother.”

“It must have been difficult for you,” he said softly. She nodded. “But I fought the pain and instead my bitterness increased, spreading to every part of me until anything deeper or kinder was kil ed, poisoned and smothered. And I became…a
shrew
is what they cal me, isn’t it? A bitch.”

She faced him and her cheeks were aflame with embarrassment that she had revealed so much. Her chin was lifted high, though, a chal enge for him to mock her or try to knock her down now that he had the ammunition to do so.

Instead, he reached out and final y did what he had longed to do since she began speaking. He took her hand. She gasped and watched as he lifted it and pressed a soft, sensual kiss to her knuckles before he drew her forward a few steps. Not quite in his arms, but close enough that he could feel her warmth and smel her perfume.

“I don’t see a shrew, Beatrice,” he murmured. “I only see
you
.
My
Beatrice. And I hope…” He hesitated. “I hope my future bride.”

Her lips parted and she drew back just a fraction to look up at him in awe and surprise. “You are asking me—”

His nod cut her off. “Yes. I think we’ve passed al the tests we came here to perform, don’t you? We agreed that if we were compatible, we would wed. Do you stil want that?”

Beatrice swal owed hard enough that he saw her delicate throat work with the action. Her pale skin was even lighter as she looked up at him. He found himself holding his breath as he awaited her response. The moment she said yes, he was packing her into his carriage and hauling her to Gretna Green to make their union legal.

But before her bloodless lips could give her answer, t he door behind them opened. Gareth spun on the intruder with murder in his eyes and found it was the footman, Hodges, who had intruded upon his privacy and what was swiftly becoming the longest moment of his life.

He glared at the servant and was briefly surprised when the man returned the expression evenly before his face became impassive.

“What is it, Hodges?” he snapped out. “I’m a bit busy here.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but you have guests,” the servant said with a sniff.

“Guests?” Gareth barked. “I’m not expecting anyone. They can bloody wel wait.”

The footman arched a brow. “They have made it clear that they wil not wait, my lord. In fact, they have threatened to storm the house and search for you if you do not see to them immediately.”

That caught Gareth’s attention and he released Beatrice’s hand to turn ful y toward the door. “What the bloody hel ? Who are they?”

“The Earl and Countess of Rothschild, my lord,” the servant said benignly.

Behind him, Beatrice made a loud sound of distress and took a long step forward. “M–my sister and her husband?”

“Indeed,” the footman said with a brief glance in her direction. “What shal I do?”

Gareth gave Beatrice a side glance. She looked utterly irritated and slightly terrified, but it seemed there was nothing to be done about it. If the Lord and Lady Rothschild were here, unannounced and threatening to search his home, there was no doubt they suspected Beatrice was in residence.

He shrugged. “Show the earl and his wife in,” Gareth said with a forced smile. “They shal no doubt provide the morning entertainment.”

The one thing that had always been said about Ethan Hamon, Earl of Rothschild, was that he dominated any room. And although Beatrice had never connected with her eldest sister’s husband, she had always respected his ability to make any other man in a chamber fade. When he entered the breakfast room, Gareth didn’t fade. Even as the earl stepped forward with a menacing glare, Gareth didn’t so much as blink, let alone step down. If anything, he seemed
bored
by it al and Beatrice just barely reigned in an urge to laugh at his audacity.

“Good God!” her sister, Miranda said as she released her husband’s arm and rushed forward. To Beatrice’s surprise, her sister enveloped her in the warmest, hardest hug she had ever felt. Miranda was trembling as she clung to her. Final y, her sister stepped back and her ashen-gray face was long and fil ed with censure.

“I am not sure if I should be thril ed to find you unharmed or furious to see that you have gone so far, Beatrice.”

Al the brief warmth and closeness Beatrice had felt in Miranda’s arms faded in an instant.

“Try both,” she said with a frown. “Then you won’t have to choose.”

Miranda let out her breath in a put-upon sigh and returned to her husband’s side. Together they glared at Beatrice and Gareth, a united front in their judgments and disappointments.

“I think you had best explain yourself, Highcroft,”

Ethan said as he held glares with Gareth.

“Why don’t you talk to me?” Beatrice snapped, drawing her brother-in-law’s attention to her. “Instead of him?
I’m
the one you came here to find.”

“But
he
is the one who dragged you here and utterly ruined you,” Miranda cried, her blue gaze bright with the fire of her upset. “How dare you, sir?”

Beatrice shook her head. “He brought me here at
my
request.”

She shot Gareth a side glance and found that he was simply watching her with a bemused smile on his face, as if this truly was an entertainment to him. But beneath that calm exterior she could see the tension in beneath that calm exterior she could see the tension in his shoulders, the readiness to defend her if it came to that.

But for now, he was al owing her to handle the situation as she saw fit. She smiled at him in response and the connection they shared practical y glowed. Miranda exchanged a worried look with her husband before she speared Beatrice with a glare. “What do you mean he brought you here at your request? What is going on, Beatrice?”

“I’m going to marry him,” she said softly.

At that, the chamber erupted in her sister and brother-in-law’s exclamations of dismay and refusal. Beatrice folded her arms and stepped closer to Gareth. She smiled when she felt his fingers brush the smal of her back in reassurance. She had spent so many years loathe to depend on anyone, and yet now she reveled in his support and quiet strength. Ethan interrupted that sweet moment by lunging forward and grasping Gareth’s col ar with both fists.

“I don’t think so, mate,” he growled. “Not when you might have kil ed your first wife.”

Beatrice let out a gasp of outrage and grabbed for one of Ethan’s arms, while Miranda grasped the other. Both women tugged, but the two men remained locked.

locked.

“How dare you!” Beatrice panted as she pul ed uselessly to force Ethan to release Gareth. “You know nothing about him or his past. Stop it! Release him at once.”

“Miranda,” Ethan said without looking at his wife. No, he kept his gaze locked firmly on Gareth even as he slowly released him. “Take your sister for a walk in the garden. You two have much to talk about and I want a moment with Lord Highcroft, here.”

“No,” Beatrice cried out, wedging herself between the men now that a space had been created. “I won’t al ow you to—”

“Beatrice,” Gareth said quietly but firmly from behind her.

Slowly, she turned and looked at him. He held her gaze and she could see the steel in his stare. The order about to come. And she saw in that moment that she would not refuse him. Even if she wanted to.

“Go with your sister.”

Her breath left her lungs in a long sigh. “But what if he—” she whispered.

He shook his head. “Beatrice.”

Biting her lip, Beatrice nodded and quietly turned toward Miranda. She glared at Ethan as she made for her sister and only paused for one look at Gareth her sister and only paused for one look at Gareth before she shut the door behind her and left the two men alone.

While she prayed it wouldn’t be the last time she saw Gareth.

Chapter Thirteen