Tempting the Marquess (24 page)

This was why she hadn’t wanted to fall in love. She’d known it would end in disappointment, but oh, how it hurt to be right. She had let herself get swept up in the excitement of being in love, forgetting the basic law of gravity. She had spent the past month transported to the heights of happiness, and now she had to face the painful fall back to reality. A reality where the man she loved didn’t love her. Might never love her.

And she was supposed to marry him on the morrow.

She wasn’t sure she could bear it.

She shot to her feet and began to pace. Panic flooded through her, making her frantic. “I have to go away. If he sees me, he’ll know something is wrong. I can’t talk to him. He’ll find some way to convince me to go through with it. I know he will.” She knew she was babbling hysterically, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “You don’t know what it’s like. I have no defense against him.” She raised her hands to her face and began to weep.

She felt Charles’s hands on her shoulders, guiding her back to the bench. She sank down wearily, exhausted by the violent outburst of emotion.

“Come, Livvy, you need to calm down or you’ll make yourself sick.”

She drew in a shuddering breath, fighting for composure.

Charles squeezed her shoulder. “There’s a girl. Now, what’s this talk of going away?”

“I can’t stay here. I know it’s wrong and selfish, but I can’t bear to face everyone. Especially not Edward. He won’t understand.”

Charles eyed her warily. “Tell me you’re not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“I can’t marry him. Not like this. Not while he doesn’t trust me not to betray him. Without trust, there can’t be love. You know I love him. I love him with my whole heart, but his heart is still too broken to love me back. Learning the truth about Laura might help heal his heart, or it might not, but I can’t marry him until I know if he’ll ever be able to love me back. You have to tell him, Charles.”

He took his hand from her shoulder, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Livvy, but I’m not going to break off your engagement for you.”

“Doesn’t it matter that I wouldn’t be engaged if you had kept up your half of the bargain and told Jason the truth?”

“And so I would have if I hadn’t been interrupted by a mad dash to Bow Street.”

“So this is my fault?” she demanded angrily.

“I prefer to think of it as a misunderstanding, but if you insist on pointing fingers, then yes, you are as much to blame as anyone for the current state of affairs.”

That wasn’t fair. Jason had lied to her. He’d said—She paused, thinking back to the morning he’d told her they were to be married. He hadn’t asked her, she realized, but she supposed he could be forgiven that presumption given the circumstances. But he’d told her his feelings had changed because of Laura, hadn’t he? She grasped at the fragments of conversation lingering in her memory.

No, she realized with dawning horror, he hadn’t said anything about Laura. All he’d said was that the previous night had changed things. She had assumed he was referring to learning the truth about Laura because that was what she’d wanted to hear. When she’d voiced her concerns about his claim that women were incapable of fidelity, he hadn’t said he’d changed his mind. All he had said were four words that might have referred to any number of happenings, but which she suspected were intentionally vague.

Last night changed things.

Four meaningless words.

No, not meaningless. She’d given them meaning—the one she wanted to hear. She hadn’t pressed the matter because his words suited her. Charles was right. She had no one to blame but herself.

Charles sighed. “Look, Livvy, regardless of who, if anyone, is at blame, this talk of leaving is nonsense, and you know it. Besides, where would you go?”

The answer came to her in a flash. She needed to be in the library at Haile Castle. Everything there followed a perfect, rational, logical order, which she had created. She was in control there . . . and it was where she’d first started loving Jason. It didn’t matter that it was far away. It was the perfect place to hide, lick her wounds, and try to make sense of her confused emotions. And Jason would never think to look for her there.

“I’m going to Haile Castle.” She began marching toward the house, her chin raised high in the air, defying Charles to tell her she couldn’t do it.

He didn’t disappoint. “To Scotland? Are you mad? How do you think you’re going to get there, my girl?”

“I have some money saved up. I can ride as far as Chelmsford, and from there I shall take the stage to Edinburgh. I expect I can hire a post chaise for the remainder of the trip.”

“Good God, you’re serious, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “I know running away is the coward’s way out, and I understand if you despise me for it, but I need to go someplace where I can think. I hardly know my own mind anymore.”

“All right. You win, Livvy. If you need to go so badly, I’ll take you.”

“You will?”

He sighed. “I will. Jason will likely kill me for taking you, but he would also kill me if I let you try to get to Scotland on your own. Go get your things while I see to the horses. Be quick about it, mind you, lest I come to my senses and change my mind.”

“I mean she’s missing.” The older man raked a hand through his already disheveled hair.

Olivia’s hair. Jason had made a close study of Lord and Lady Weston, trying to puzzle out which parent she had inherited her features from. Her hair and her sense of humor had come from her father. Her blue eyes and quick wit were clearly a gift from her mother. That cute, pert nose seemed to be uniquely her own. And as for her mouth, well, it didn’t matter who had given it to her, as it was his now.

“Sheldon,” Lord Weston barked, “do you follow? I said
she’s missing
! She told her mother that she was going for a walk with Sir Charles, but that was this morning. I’m afraid my wife closeted herself to work on her book and lost all track of time. Henry and I were out for the better portion of the day, but we returned in plenty of time to dine with your brother-in-law. That was when we realized both he and Livvy had vanished.”

“They never returned from their walk?” James asked. James Sheffield, the Earl of Dunston, was married to Livvy’s sister Isabella. Jason had enjoyed his stay with them very much, though he had quickly learned that just because the door to a room was ajar, it didn’t mean it was safe to enter. He had taken to rather lengthy throat clearings before venturing anywhere in the house.

“Genni is sure she saw Livvy come inside at some point,” Henry said. “But Sir Charles wasn’t with her.”

Genni
. Which one was Genni? He couldn’t keep track of all of Olivia’s siblings. He needed to keep a bloody family tree in his pocket.

“I’ve been out to look for them,” Henry added. “They’re nowhere to be found.”

James cleared his throat. “Did you, ah, check the folly?”

His lovely wife jumped to her feet. Jason could see why Livvy’s sister was thought a Great Beauty, to use Olivia’s words, for she was a true English rose. But in his opinion, Isabella didn’t hold a candle to her sister. Classic prettiness was no match against his wood nymph’s enchanting spell.

“Livvy is
not
in the folly with Sir Charles!” Isabella exclaimed. “She loves Lord Sheldon. I
know
she does!”

Warmth spread through Jason’s chest at her words. Olivia had said she loved him, but hearing it confirmed was something else entirely. But what would loving him have to do with visiting a folly?

“Some people use the folly for talking, my love,” James murmured to his wife, who proceeded to turn bright red.

Jason coughed and feigned interest in the ornate plasterwork ceiling.

Lord Weston shook his head. “James, my boy, that is not something I want to hear.”

“I’m going to remember that next time I get you in the ring at Jackson’s,” Henry said, grinning. Then his smile faded. “I checked the folly, in any case.”

“Well, they can’t have gone too far on foot,” Jason reasoned.

Henry glanced sideways at his father.

Jason felt his stomach turn over. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Lord Weston tugged at his cravat. “If they are together, and we don’t know they are, they could have covered some distance. Sir Charles’s curricle is missing from the stables.”

Jason’s belly clenched with fear. “You don’t think they went for a drive and—” He swallowed hard. “—and met with an accident?”

He noticed all of the occupants of the room were looking at him with a mixture of bemusement and pity.

“No,” Lord Weston said slowly. “I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Why would Livvy run away right before her wedding day?” Isabella wondered aloud.

“I nearly did,” her husband pointed out, but Jason heard his words as if from a great distance.

Why would Livvy run away?

Livvy. Run. Away.

Olivia had run away.

Oh, God, it was happening all over again.

The realization struck him like a blow to the gut.

“Something must have sent her into a panic,” Isabella declared, “but I can’t imagine what. She must know how much you love her.”

Was he supposed to respond to that? Apparently, since he suddenly had four sets of curious eyes trained on him.

“Er, I, well—” he prevaricated.

Isabella’s eyes narrowed as she fixed him with a steely glare. She folded her hands over her chest. It was, Jason thought, the first time he had seen a resemblance between the sisters.

“You
have
told her that you love her?”

Jason flinched under her scrutiny. “No, not exactly.”

“But you do love her, don’t you?” Henry asked, his tone implying that Jason’s answer had better be in the affirmative.

“I care for her very much—”

“That’s not what he asked you,” Isabella snarled.

“Izzie—” her husband began.

“Don’t you dare tell me that this isn’t any of my affair, James Sheffield,” she shouted. “This is my little sister we’re talking about. We wouldn’t be together if it hadn’t been for her.”

James raised his hands in surrender.

Jason didn’t blame him. For all that she looked like an angel, Isabella in a temper was clearly a force to be reckoned with.

“I do have to ask,” Lord Weston said coolly, “why you are marrying my daughter if you don’t love her.”

Because I slept with her.

Because I want to sleep with her again.

Probably not the best response, seeing there were three, possibly four, people in the room who looked capable of killing him at the moment.

“As I said, I care for Olivia. We get on well together, and my son adores her. I never intended to marry again before I met her. . . .”

And I can’t imagine life without her.

A vast future stretched before him, cold and gray without Livvy’s sunshine to brighten it.

Christ.

He needed her in his life.

He
needed
her.

This was not supposed to have happened. When had he crossed the line between wanting and needing? Probably around the same time he had passed from caring to loving.

He loved her.

He loved Olivia Jane Weston.

He loved that part of her that was Olivia, his little adventuress and wicked temptress.

He loved the part of her that was Jane, the magical wood nymph who organized libraries for pleasure and whose bedtime stories put Scheherazade to shame.

He even loved the Weston part of her, even though they all seemed bent on his destruction, because
she
loved them.

He loved Olivia Jane Weston, every last bit of her.

He
would
choose now to figure it out, Jason thought bitterly. Now that she’d left him. It was his curse.

“Look, none of this matters right now,” Isabella said. “Livvy isn’t thinking straight. She’ll be ruined.” She looked at all of the men in turn, including Jason. “You must catch up to them and bring her back.”

“Izzie, my love, we don’t know where they’ve gone,” James said gently.

Isabella thought a moment. “I can’t believe Livvy would go off without telling
someone
where she was headed.”

“Your mother asked all of the children, and Henry and I questioned the servants. No one knew a thing,” Lord Weston told her.

“Then she must have left a note somewhere or, if she did leave, there must be a list somewhere of the things she would need to pack. . . . You know how Livvy insists on being organized. You
did
check her room for some sort of clue, didn’t you?”

Lord Weston and Henry shuffled their feet.

Jason was just happy Isabella’s anger seemed to have shifted off him, at least temporarily.

There was a knock at the door, and a footman in Weston livery entered the room.

He bowed. “My lord, I—”

Isabella darted forward and snatched the piece of paper he was holding out of his hand. “Thank you, Drake.”

Jason’s breath caught as she scanned the missive.

“What does it say?” James queried, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her.

Jason felt the sharp sting of envy at their closeness.

“That she’s sorry and she doesn’t want us to worry. She’s gone to Scotland with Sir Charles. Oops, I probably wasn’t supposed to tell Lord Sheldon where she was headed.” Her tone left little doubt her error had been intentional.

“Scotland,” Jason echoed dully.

She was headed for Gretna Green.

With Charles.

He began to prowl around the room.

“Lord Sheldon loves her,” Isabella said to the other men, as if Jason weren’t in the room. “He’s just too much of a pigheaded man to realize it.”

“If that’s true, I have a feeling her elopement with his brother-in-law will help him see the light,” Henry responded dryly.

“Well,” Isabella began, “she’s not eloping—”

“Damn right, she’s not!” Jason swore, uncaring that there was a lady present.

He was going to catch up to them, beat Charles to a bloody pulp, and wring Olivia’s neck.

How dare she make him need her and then turn her back on him?

She was no different than Laura.

No different than his mother.

How many times would his heart have to be broken before he finally learned his lesson? No, he wasn’t going to focus on the hurt. He would transform whatever pain he felt into fuel for his anger.

“I’m going after them,” he said determinedly.

“I’m coming with you,” Henry said. “She might be your fiancée, but she was my sister first.”

Jason didn’t particularly want company, but he’d learned to pick his battles. Jason was a match for Henry in height, but the man was built like bloody Jackson, only bigger. A well-placed blow from him could probably kill a man, and Jason had no desire to die. Not yet. He at least wanted to live long enough to beat the pulp out of his brother-in-law.

And as for Miss Olivia Jane Weston . . . Well, marriage to him would have to be punishment enough. He wouldn’t let her go. He wasn’t sure whether he loved her or hated her, but whatever sort of fool it made him, he didn’t think he could live without her.