Wolfsgate (40 page)

“Yes.” William smirked. “If you don’t give me that money, I shall make it known that Justine had a lover before she was a properly married woman.”

The air in the room changed direction and stalled into a split second of deafening, suffocating silence in that cold hall.

William glanced at his stepsister, that familiar sneer on his lips. “Ah, you didn’t tell your husband about
him
, did you?”

“William, please,” Justine breathed.

“Tell me what?” Brandon asked his pale eyes trained on William, his body still.

“About her
other
romantic plaything,” William said. “Here all alone at Wolfsgate, it seems the poor girl was quite bored after Andrew left. She needed a playmate, a distraction, since I no longer allowed her to go to any parties after I caught her with Andrew. Once I had arranged things with Wallace, though, the slag found a way to spoil those plans. She bed the stable boy. Martin—that’s his name, isn’t it?”

William’s iron gaze pierced Justine for a moment then slid back to Brandon. “Well, I couldn’t very well marry her to Wallace after that, could I? And he had been so looking forward to plucking her blossom. He most certainly would have demanded a refund for used goods. Imagine his disappointment, his wrath upon their wedding night. No, I simply could not take that chance.”

“William…” Justine’s voice was barely above a whisper.

William’s eyes glimmered at Justine. “I see she made sure Martin is here with her again, under your roof, under your nose, in your stable. She certainly spent a lot of time with him in that stable, did you not, Justine?” His gaze returned to a stone-faced Brandon. “Riding lessons,” he said, drawing out the words, relishing them. “So much opportunity for practice. She must be very good at riding by now, eh cousin? Surely you’ve noticed the remarkable difference?”

“Get out of my house and off my property,” Brandon muttered, his voice low.

“William…William…” Justine murmured, her eyes brimming with water.

“Shh,” William flicked his fingers at her and shook his head. She dropped her hands to her sides and straightened her shoulders. The two of them stood inches apart, their eyes locked in a silent battle of triumph and submission.

“Out of my house now!” Brandon roared. Justine flinched, her fingers digging into her skirts.

William raised his chin at his cousin. “You have until the party to let me know. Ten thousand pounds.” He snapped up his hat, flung open the door, and strode out.

Justine stared after him, her eyes opaque, drained. She reminded Brandon of a cornered and wounded animal with nothing left to lose. He took a step towards her.

She shot out the open door.

Brandon fell back against the wall and struggled to regain control of his breathing.

Justine and Martin?

Impossible. No.

And yet…

It made a horrible kind of sense. No wonder she wouldn’t confess it. But to make him hire the boy? To keep him on? His stomach churned. How could she? How could he have misjudged her so? He pulled his hands through his hair. A gust of icy wind rushed over him. The door gaped open, a testament to the brutal truths that had just erupted within the house. She had run away rather than face him. Face her lies.

He had to hear it from her.

He took off through the open door slamming it behind him. Once outside Brandon easily followed Justine’s tracks in the snow leading him towards the woods on the western edge of Wolfsgate.

She was doubled over heaving, a mass of retch over the white snow before her. He approached her, reaching out a hand, touching her back.

“No!” She jumped from the contact. “Don’t.” She pulled away, a wild look twisting in her eyes.

“Justine…”

“You must hate me now,” she whispered.

“No, I don’t hate you.”

“I disgust you.”

“I want to understand. I am trying to understand. You must have been very lonely, very desperate to…” He couldn’t say it.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does,” he said. “You matter to me.”

“I am an utter disappointment to you.”

“No, no…”

A pained expression passed over her face. “You’ll feel differently when this settles in your head.” Her voice was low, controlled.

“I already do feel differently, Justine.” She glanced up at him and frowned. “I do,” he said.

A sob escaped her throat, her palms flew to her temple. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“You were lonely, Martin was a friend, a companion,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Dear God, I beg of you, Brandon. Stop.”

“He cannot work here any longer. I cannot have that. How could you have kept him on?”

Her hand covered her eyes for a moment, then came away. She took in air. “He had no work, the family needed…it was only that, please believe me. I’ve never betrayed our marriage, Brandon. Never.” Tears streamed down her face, she turned away from him and wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand.

He sighed. “I believe you. Please stop crying. Come, let’s go.”

She glanced up at him and shook her head as she gulped in more air.

“Justine—”

“I cannot.”

“You will!”

“There’s no help for it.” A tiny wail escaped her lips filling the air between them, rising through the ice-laden trees.

He stared at her. “Just like Annie. Stuck in the rocks, the floodwaters dragging you under.”

“Brandon—”

“Once again, I am too late.”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I can’t pull you out, can’t get air into you.”

Justine choked back a sob. “I should have been the one that died that night!”

“Don’t you dare. Annie chose to go to the creek. She decided all on her own. But my father and I left you here unprotected. Richard and William always treated you badly, and you had no one to turn to.”

“Dear Lord, please stop.” Her hands covered her face.

Brandon ground his boots into the snow. “Was it an ongoing affair?” he asked, his voice just above a whisper.

“No,” Justine said, her eyes remaining on the frozen ground, her arms wrapped around her middle. “Just the once.” She became unnaturally still once more, her eyes round. Brandon’s breath stung in his throat at the sight. Was she remembering what it was like with Martin?

“How did William find out?”

She only shook her head and looked away again. A painful memory for her, too embarrassing to discuss. He must have caught them in the act, seen them together. Martin and Justine kissing, the two of them writhing on the… The muscles jumped under his skin, and his flesh seemed to burn from the inside out.

All this time Brandon had indulged himself in feelings of paranoia and jealousy, thinking the worst possible things about Justine with Andrew or with Charles. He had wanted to punish her, wanted to wipe that memory of her first time from her body with his own. Yet it had been the unassuming stable boy to whom she had first given herself. Indeed, it was plain they shared some sort of bond. His hands pressed into his temple where the pounding in his veins threatened to split his head in two.

Another thought pierced his soul, and the blood drained from his face.

“Did you love him? Do you still?”

She shook her head. “We had only been good friends.” She cleared her throat. “It was a terrible mistake, and it never should have happened.”

“Did you do it to stop the engagement with Wallace?” He had to ask. William had planted that rotten seed in his brain and now he had to ask, had to know if she had purposefully decided to take Martin…

“No.”

“William made you break off with Andrew. You must have been desolate. It’s obvious Martin cares for you very much.” He rubbed over his mouth with his hand.

Images of Martin’s hands caressing her secret places, his lips discovering her soft skin, Justine clutching his thick, muscular body close to her own, the boy whispering passionate words over her as he thrust inside her for the very first time, the two of them in the throes of their shared pleasure—all of it pummeled his heart, robbed his lungs of air, twisted his gut.

Had they been together in her bed where he had lain with her? In the stables where they had just been together? Wherever it happened it must have been fraught with intense, desperate emotion. It had been obvious to him from the first that Martin was infatuated with Justine, but it was more than that, wasn’t it? The boy was completely in love with her.

Brandon’s mouth swirled in acid and his blackened heart hammered all the way up his throat. Her body was still, her large dark eyes glued to his. She waited for his judgement like a repentant criminal on trial.

“Whatever has happened here, my family bears responsibility. We failed you, Justine.”

She shook her head. “Brandon, since your return, you have saved me from myself. Being with you made me feel alive again. Safe. I didn’t think I’d ever feel that. But with you—” He held his hand up between them in an attempt to stop her words from singeing him further. A lethal elixir of venom and nausea swirled in the back of his throat..

Tears spilled down her face once more. “I know everything will be different between us from now on.” Her voice was fragile. “In your eyes I will be forever used, sullied, repulsive.” She wiped the tears from her face. “I have been living in a fantasy thinking this could remain a secret. From the first time you and I laid together, I knew it, I feared it. Of course, you must have realized. Of course, you became suspicious. Soon you will come to despise me as well, and that is the one thing I could never bear.”

“I could never despise you, Justine,” Brandon said. “For God’s sake, we both have our scars. Do mine make you despise me or care for me any less? Do you despise me for playing my hand with Amanda? Of course you don’t, because you are too generous. I hurt you, did I not? And yes, this hurts too, but dammit, it doesn’t matter now.” He raised his eyes to the tops of the snow covered trees wavering in the icy air. “It shouldn’t.”

“It does!” she choked out. “Because that is all you will see in me from now on. I will always be tarnished for you, and you will always feel the bitterness of this deception.”

“No, Justine, you’re wrong.

“I am not wrong in this.” Her voice was even, controlled.

His eyes flared. “You are, dammit. I love you,” the words rushed out of his mouth, and his heart skidded in his chest.

Justine’s face paled. “No, don’t say that. Don’t say that now. You do not love me. You only feel responsible for me like when we were children, but we’re not children any longer, Brandon. No longer simply cousins. I am so sorry you were deceived over and over again, so very sorry. I do not want to be the reason for strife between you and William. He will always hold something over our heads, and you do not deserve this. It is best if you free yourself from me. You must. Yes, you must go and be happy.”

“Go? Go where, goddammit? I’ve been happy with you, Justine. I thought you were too. William and Richard may have convinced you all these years that you are nothing, unworthy of love, but I am telling you, you are, and I love you.” He leaned in closer to her. “You are starved for it, Lady Graven, starved, just as much as I am.”

Justine stilled. They stared at each other for an unholy second, their breaths cold vapors filling the space between them. Christ, the very idea of separating from her unhinged him.

The thick, dense snow cracked, snapping under Brandon’s boots. “This strife between me and my cousin goes back years and for a number of reasons, none of them having to do with you. He resents you and enjoys tormenting you, but that has no bearing on us.” He raised his chin. “You are staying with me, and I with you.” The tone of his voice had deepened.

Justine only raised her eyes past the drifts of snow on the ground, past the green trees now plastered in thick white, and overhead to where grey slabs of cloud dragged across the sky. She swallowed. “Stay with you…as your cousin.”

“As my wife.”

“No, you cannot possibly want that now. You don’t know what you are saying, you’re upset.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel, Justine.”

“I could live quietly somewhere else.”

“Never. Don’t you dare abandon me. I’m utterly stranded without you,” he whispered in a seething tone. “I need you. And you need me, too. Now more than ever. We will keep our past in the past, and we shall both recover from it.”

“I have no right to the beautiful privilege of that sort of life with you. It could never be that way again between us. It’s broken now. I’ve broken it.” She sighed heavily. “Be honest with yourself, Brandon. It will be easier, cleaner if we put an end to this now.” She leveled her gaze at him. “Do you remember what you said to me your first night back at Wolfsgate? We are both ‘the tossed off, the rejected.’”

“Yes?”

“That is truly what I am, Brandon, what I’ve always been. But not you. You must lead your new life out in the world, a life full of prospects, and leave me to—”

“You listen to me, Justine Traherne. When you found me, I was broken, unable to function or take care of myself. I was dirty and sickly, behaving like an animal. Yet you took me in your arms, you washed me and fed me, cleaned my sick for God’s sake, put up with every vile, nasty thing that came out of my mouth.”