Beautiful Distraction (12 page)

Stevenson had kept talking, droning on and on, but Mal hadn’t heard him anymore. He’d just stared at the reports, the steps of the investigation, looking for something, anything that would prove this was all a misunderstanding. Or at least exonerate Olivia of any knowledge of her friend’s deeds.

Mal clenched his fists against the carriage seat.

“There is nothing that can make Olivia innocent of involvement,” he snapped at himself.

She and Violet lived together in London, he had found out. He already knew they were close, thick as thieves. And she had been meant as his distraction outside the baths in town. She’d told him so herself. At the time, he’d thought it charming, seductive.

Now he knew the game the women were playing, and everything he thought and felt was shattered.

The carriage came to a stop outside the estate and one of the footmen came around to open the door for him, but Malcolm didn’t move. He simply sat in the carriage, staring out the door and up at the house.

He didn’t want to go in. He didn’t want to destroy Liam with this news. More to the point, he didn’t want to see Olivia. Because once he did, this charade would be over and she would be gone forever, leaving him with only memories of what had turned out to be a most foolish love for her.

“Sir?” the footman said when he continued to remain in the vehicle.

Mal shook his head. Ah yes. His duty.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to say as he climbed from the carriage. “Woolgathering.”

The servant tilted his head. “Are you well? Can I…can I get something for you, sir?”

Mal looked at the house another moment, then back to the boy. “Yes,” he said and turned toward the driver. “Nichols,” he said, finding comfort in his role of estate manager, “do not put the horses or the carriage away, merely take them around to the side of the estate and wait. Miss Milford and Miss Cranfield will be leaving us today. And they will need a swift return to Bath.”

The driver blinked in surprise, but nodded. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Mal began to move toward the house, but the little footman was at his heels like a barking terrier. “Have the ladies begun packing? Where shall they go? I haven’t heard anything about this from his lordship, Mr. Graham.”

Mal stopped on the top step, his hand hovering above the front door handle. He shook his head.

“His lordship doesn’t know,” he said softly. Then he glared at the boy. “Just do as I say.”

He didn’t wait for further insubordination, but entered the house and slammed the door behind him. Simms rushed into the foyer from some unknown place and took Mal’s coat.

“Where is Lord Windbury?” Mal asked, hardly able to look at anything but the proof in his hands. He folded it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

“His lordship is in the dining room with Miss Milford,” Simms said.

“Thank you,” Mal replied, shooting the butler a quick glance. Liam would become a bear again when the truth came out and Violet was gone. How Simms would hate that, but he would have to endure it.

Just as they would
all
have to endure this betrayal.

Mal walked down the hall, each step making his anger all the more real, all the more focused. Violet had used Liam. She had pretended to care for him when all the while it was a lie. Violet had
known
about his friend’s pain and it had meant nothing to her except a blood payment from Liam’s worst enemy.

The damage she would do…Mal could hardly stand it.

He stopped outside the dining room door. It was slightly ajar and he could hear Liam talking inside.

“Violet,” Liam said, his tone sharp, “what are you keeping from me?”

She didn’t answer and Mal shook his head. The little bitch was probably trying to formulate a new lie.

“Liam,” she began, her voice shaking. He could hear her false tears, a fresh manipulation.

With a growl, he threw open the dining room door and strode through.

“I overheard you in the hallway, Liam, asking the young woman what she was keeping from you,” Malcolm said, trying hard to control the anger in his voice, though he’d failed. “I believe I can answer that since she will not, or at least not with honesty, since that is not in her nature.”

Liam scowled at Malcolm’s slur. “What do you mean?”

Violet stepped forward, her hands raised as if in surrender or pleading for her life. He ignored it.

“Your lovely paramour came here at the behest of Ava and Rothcastle.” Mal softened his tone as he looked at Liam, the friend he would break after he had been broken so many times. “
You
have been sleeping with a spy.”

Violet turned away with a sob that actually seemed real, despite the fact that Malcolm knew she was a liar.

“What are you talking about?” Liam asked. He sounded hollow.

“I’m sorry, Liam,” Mal said softly, hating that he had to do this to Liam. “The report from London was very clear.”

“Report?” Violet repeated and turned toward Liam. “You had someone looking into me?”

Mal glared at her, despising that she actually sounded offended at that fact.

“And for good fucking reason, don’t you think?” He pivoted toward Liam. “She was hired by your sister and her husband a few weeks ago.”

Violet sucked in a breath, but before she could respond to Mal’s charge with more lies, Olivia entered the parlor, smiling broadly. Malcolm forgot everything else except for her and her part in this. It was no longer a betrayal that harmed his best friend. It was a betrayal of him and the love he felt for Olivia.

Love she had never stated she returned and now he knew why.

“Violet?” she murmured, looking between the three of them as the mood in the room became clear to her. “What—”

Mal clenched his fists at his sides. So she turned to
Violet
first, her coconspirator.

“Did you know?” he hissed. “Did you know why she was here?”

Olivia jerked her gaze to Violet and for a moment the women held stares. Then Violet jerked out a single nod.

Mal’s stomach turned at this silent, anticlimactic verification of the truth he had already guessed.

“Of course you knew. You two are so bonded together you would probably stab me through the heart if she told you it would help.” He shook his head in disgust and tried to push the pain away with his rage. “So you were the distraction not just the first time we met, but all along. How hard did you laugh, Olivia?”

“Malcolm,” Olivia sobbed and, like Violet had, she sounded truly pained. They were both wonderful actresses.

She reached for him, but he couldn’t bear her touch in this moment. He jerked away and exited the room without a backward glance or another word. But as he rushed down the hall alone, his vision blurred by intense emotion and his broken heart throbbing, he wanted nothing more than to grab Olivia and make her take back all she’d done.

But that wasn’t possible. Nothing between them would ever be possible again.

Chapter Eleven

As Malcolm stormed from the room, his hatred of her stamped on every line of his handsome face, Olivia’s legs gave out from under her and she sank onto the settee.

This was the nightmare she had feared most in the past few days. The nightmare she could have avoided if she had only been honest with the man she loved. He might have been angry, but at least he would have known the truth from her own lips, not some investigator’s, who had likely twisted all she’d done in the worst possible light.

Although, at present, there didn’t seem to be a positive light. She shuddered, her stomach turning and her eyes filling with tears she blinked away. She didn’t deserve them.

She glanced toward Violet and Liam. They were arguing, but nothing they said made any sense to her. Their words had no meaning in the face of what she had just lost due to her own stupidity.

“Please leave,” Liam finally said, his words piercing Olivia’s fog.

“Liam,” Violet gasped and there was true pain in her voice.

“Just go,” he repeated.

Violet only stared at him for a moment.

“Did I not make myself clear?” he sneered.

She shook her head. “No, my lord. You are very clear. I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

Violet moved to the settee and caught Olivia’s elbow to draw her to her feet. As she wrapped an arm around Olivia’s waist, she whispered, “Come, Olivia. Come away.”

Olivia was too weak to resist; she simply let Violet take her into the foyer. Simms stood there with the front door open, his expression hard.

So they were to be put out. It was fair, Olivia supposed, but painful. She glanced at Violet and when she saw her friend’s lip quivering, she managed to straighten up and find some dignity as they linked arms and walked together out of the house, down the path and into the carriage.

Only when the door had been shut and locked behind them and the carriage began to move toward Bath did Violet slump down in her seat, shaking, even though she didn’t cry.

Olivia, on the other hand, merely leaned her head against the cold glass of the window and watched as the estate disappeared from view. She had lost everything. And the emptiness that accompanied that thought was almost too much to bear.

Olivia sat at her window, staring out into the gathering dark of the evening. In the hallway, she heard the bustling of servants and the banging of trunks and bags being brought in.

So Liam and Malcolm had sent Belle and Rachel home with Violet and Olivia’s things. She could imagine just how cruel a duty that had been for their loyal maids, but when Belle knocked at her door, Olivia ignored her until the girl stopped tapping and went away.

She wasn’t ready to face anyone just yet. Her mind was too full of other thoughts.

She had never expected much from her life. Her difficult childhood had taught her that nothing would be given to her easily. After she became a courtesan, a mistress, she had known she was only a commodity, another thing rich men collected because they were bored or thought they needed something pretty on their arm while they clawed their way up the ladder of society.

She had been passive through it all, never asking for more than she was given, never arguing when a relationship was ended and a settlement made for her troubles. A ruckus would only be unpleasant. So she didn’t fight.

Still, the circumstances with Malcolm had been so very different. Yes, she had come to him under false pretenses and, yes, she had lied about that, sometimes by mere omission and sometimes more directly. She understood perfectly why he would hate her and never wish to see her again.

Her habit told her to accept that fact. To let him go.

But now there was something different stirring inside of her. Something she had never felt before, something filled with power she had never felt before.

She loved this man. She knew that as surely as she knew she was alive and breathing. And for the first time in her life, she wasn’t willing to stay quiet, to accept the inevitable, to lie down and let life happen to her.

She wanted to fight for him, for
them
. And even more terrifying was that she believed, in some small, niggling part of her, she could win that fight. He loved her, didn’t he? He’d said he loved her, he’d shown her he loved her, so if she could overcome his anger, there was no reason why he wouldn’t forgive her.

“At the very least, I must try,” she whispered.

There was another tap on her door, and Olivia pursed her lips. She was going to ignore it, but then she heard Violet’s voice, tired and pained, in the hallway.

“Olivia, darling, it’s me. Let me in, won’t you?”

With a sigh, Olivia crossed to the door and allowed her friend entry before she returned to her perch at the window. Violet closed the door behind her and stared.

“Olivia, have you been sitting there all this time?” she asked as she dragged a chair over and sat across from her friend.

“I have,” Olivia replied, unable to say anything else, if only because she was so focused on her own thoughts. On the decision that was forming in her mind that had nothing to do with Violet.

“It was an ugly scene,” her friend said softly.

Olivia flinched and to her horror, a tear escaped to roll down her cheeks.

“Very,” she choked out.

Violet gasped and caught Olivia’s hand. Olivia saw her friend’s guilt, her pain, and it broke Olivia’s heart. This was as difficult for Violet as it was for her.

“We knew it could happen,” Violet whispered.

Olivia looked at her evenly. “I
never
knew any of this would happen.”

Certainly, falling in love hadn’t been on her list of potential outcomes when she accepted Violet’s offer to come to Bath.

Violet rose to her feet, all seriousness and business, as if that would make the pain go away for them both.

“Tomorrow we’ll go back to London,” she said. “I will collect my ill-gotten gains and then that will be all. I’m sure eventually we will forget this…we’ll forget.”

Olivia doubted that Violet believed her own words. Certainly, she didn’t look convinced. But she wouldn’t be able to stop Violet. She knew that perfectly well.