He's No Prince Charming (Ever After) (4 page)

Shattered porcelain clinked together as Weller scrambled to his feet. He gazed tentatively about him to avoid any new hazard. Caroline, his sister, thought Marcus mad to keep such a clumsy man as a valet. Marcus thought it was a miracle the man stayed.

“I’ve told you on several occasions to simply look about you before taking a step. It would save me a fortune in china.”

“I did look. Just not down.”

Despite his pain, Marcus grinned ruefully. “Ah. The fatal flaw of your plan.”

Weller paused in his trek across the room, his head cocked in thought. “Up also gives me trouble.”

Marcus gave the man a hard look, knowing he would regret asking, “Up?”

“Oh, yes. You would not believe how often tree limbs seem to pop into my path.”

Marcus cradled his head in his palms, elbows on knees. “Why do I bother to keep you around?”

Weller poured him a generous helping of brandy. “You don’t, my lord. I believe you fired me again last night.”

“Then what are you still doing here?”

Weller handed him the glass with a small smile. “You wouldn’t be able to function if I left, sir.”

Marcus cautiously tossed back his drink, watching Weller as he moved towards the bath.

“Were the dreams bad last night, my lord?”

He sobered at the man’s inquiry. He never talked about his dreams. Ever. “Yes.”

The clipped reply left no room for further discussion. Marcus sank beneath the steaming heat of the tub before the man could press the subject. The dreams that haunted his nights and the shadows that followed him during the day were no one’s damned business other than his own.

Heat permeated his muscles, loosening his stiff joints and old scars that had tightened during the night. He felt far older than his thirty-one years. He was tired. Tired of his life, of the burdens he never seemed able to purge. Tired of the constant battle for his sanity. Tired… so very tired.

He slipped his head beneath the surface. He let the soothing lap of water brush against his scarred face before resurfacing. A bar of lightly colored soap appeared before his dripping eyes. He accepted it with a cloth from Weller to suds the bar, but waited in silence for the valet’s retreating steps before he began to wash. He did his best to hide the mangled state of his body from his staff, but he had long ago accepted that it was unavoidable at times in such a large household.

He found his mind drifting back to Miss Green. He wondered how someone so fair had become involved in such an underhanded profession. He wondered if perhaps she’d had a reason or if it was merely greed. If he were a gambling man, he would bank on greed. No one simply helped others without expecting something in return. The idea was blatantly ridiculous.

His thoughts were cut short by Weller’s return with a warmed towel. Marcus dunked under the surface once more, then stepped from the comforting confines of the tub. He followed the clumsy man, drying himself as he went. Weller approached the armoire to choose his clothing, managing to only bump into an imported Chippendale table before he reached it.

“Are you still determined to carry out your plan, my lord? I’m sure it is not the wisest course to attempt to abduct a bride.”

Marcus glared at the man’s back. Weller had not ceased this prattle for the last day or so, despite the fact that he should know how fruitless the effort was. His course was set and he would not waver. “It was damned hard to get even Anne to agree to marry me. I was foolish to believe she might have actually developed feelings for me.”

“You were not! Most of those fancy bits play a game in order to reel in the biggest prize. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

Marcus fought a smile as he wrapped a towel around his naked form. His valet was loyal to him, another trait Marcus admired and believed lacking in his other employees. Most of them tread with fear, afraid to anger the Beast. It was isolating and stung, another reminder of his father’s legacy.

At Marcus’s silence, Weller continued. “What if you’re caught in the act? Is kidnapping a bride really worth it?”

He’d spent his entire life protecting his sister from their father. He wouldn’t stop now. The man had been dead a year yet he still haunted them.

Marcus blinked against the dark thoughts, banishing his emotions with them. He had failed again to protect his sister, played a fool by his fiancée. He wished he could have known what would happen when Mr. Hessler’s clerk had called on the Newport home with the marriage contract. He wished he’d known what his father was going to do before he’d done it.

But there was nothing he could change now. He had to adapt and move on, but he wouldn’t face the
ton
again, searching for yet another wife. The whispers. The averted eyes. The fainting women. No, he now had a guaranteed method of obtaining, and keeping, a wife. Thanks to Miss Green.

For his shave, he sat gingerly in a chair much too small for him, making the same mental note he did every morning: use the chair for the night’s kindling.

Weller’s brush stroked cool cream across his face. He then advanced with the freshly sharpened razor, pointed directly at his throat. With visions of scalded servants and shattered china, Marcus snatched it from the man before his neck was slit. He made quick work of his thick whiskers, grimacing at the bumpy slide of the blade over scars thick and white with age. The less time spent in front of a mirror the better. At the last slide of his blade, Weller suddenly paused, a wide but wary smile on his face. “I forgot to mention, my lord, that your sister is here.”

“Pardon?”

“Lady Caroline is here. Has been since early this morning. Such a beautiful and charming young woman. And her hair—its color and length…quite remarkable.”

His heart immediately jumped, catching his throat and beating erratically with a mixture of fear and anger.
No, not now. Not today.

“Throw her out.”

Y
ou cannot be serious. She’s your sister!”

“And she knows she isn’t welcome here.”

“My lord, I would never question your reasons—”

“Then don’t.”

“—but you’re endangering the rest of your life for her safety. I don’t understand. You two must work together to resolve this problem.”

Marcus moved to his sideboard, reaching for another glass of brandy. It was the one thing that managed to get him through the day. The irony that both father and son overindulged was not lost on Marcus, but for him, brandy deadened the nightmares that his father’s whiskey had created.

“Seeing her reminds me of things best left forgotten,” he whispered.

He swallowed the glassful in the wake of his confession. He held the now empty crystal up to a ray of light making its way through his curtains. Tiny droplets of the golden liquid slid down the side, gathering in a pool at the bottom. Smuggled brandy was the best, meant to be savored and sipped slowly. What a waste.

He picked up the decanter and tossed more into his glass, trying his best to ignore Weller’s presence. He couldn’t face Caro right now. He’d been able to keep the terms of their father’s will hidden from her for the moment, but only as a result of the distance he maintained between them. A distance he intended to maintain until his dying breath. It was selfish of him, he knew, but he was ashamed of how he could react in her presence.

“Just tell her to write me a letter.”

Weller remained where he stood, his mouth set in a grim line. “What would happen if you saw her, sir?”

Marcus put down his glass to accept the starched shirt Weller held out to him. “Nothing you’d care to witness again.”

The man winced with sympathy before moving over to the dressing table near the armoire. His valet was always the one who smoothed things over when
that
happened. He’d come to depend on the man, something Marcus was not exactly thrilled about. He turned back to the board in order to pour himself another drink. He was quickly working his way into his familiar haze, cultivating the emotional numbness he needed each day to maintain his role in society.

He winced as the sound of cracking glass reached his ear. He spared only a glance over his shoulder to confirm what had been broken now. His hand mirror, one he never touched, had been brushed to the floor by Weller’s awkward maneuvers near his dressing table. The glass lay shattered near its silver frame. Sighing, he resumed his morning ablutions.

Weller appeared before him, holding a pair of new cuff links, glancing sheepishly back at the shards on the floor. “Sometimes it helps to face the past, my lord. Leaves more room for the future that way.”

Marcus only shook his head. “No. The past is best left buried.”

His thoughts started to wander in a direction he had no wish to go. Hastily, he reached for the tumbler to banish them. In his hurry, Marcus missed the way his valet paused in the process of putting the metal links in his shirt and stared at the threshold to the hall, where a figure stood quietly.

“What would you say to your sister if you could, my lord?”

He blinked, the drink starting to slow his wits. “Whatever do you mean?”

Weller held out a maroon waistcoat. Marcus eased it over his wide shoulders.

“If you could say anything to her without suffering the effects of your…condition, what would it be?”

“I already tell her what I wish through letters. She is better off staying in town with her friends, the St. Leons.” He was indebted to that family. Caroline had met the youngest sibling, Althea, at finishing school. They’d become fast friends and, as a result, the family often took Caroline home with them for holidays and summers. She fortunately had been absent for most of their father’s brutal rampages, something for which he would be eternally grateful, especially after that one particular incident that changed her.

“I doubt she’d want to hear my voice nagging her every day.”

“The problem though, dear brother, is that I never had the opportunity to decide that for myself.”

Marcus spun around. A feminine version of himself stood by the entry. Caroline, now two and twenty, had indeed grown up in his self-imposed absence. She was dressed in mint green muslin, her pale green eyes intensified by the color. Long white gloves and a dangling handbag completed her. The same white-blond hair that crowned his head was swept up in an elegant half style on hers, its incredible length spilling over her shoulder, reminding him of the Rapunzel fairy tale. She was taller than the average woman, but thankfully not as tall as most Bradleys. She was a vision of all that was prim, proper, and pure in the eyes of the most elite society. Her dress and grace were impeccable. Her slender frame appeared to glide towards him as his heart kicked into recklessly unsteady beats.

The very sight of her perfection reminded him of how desperately he wanted to protect her from another man such as their father. From what he had experienced the night that had left him scarred so long ago. He had desperately tried to keep her away from their father on that fateful night. And now…now he had failed again to keep her from marrying the creature his father had chosen for her. How could he face her when all he did was fail her?

His hands fumbled for his decanter like the clumsy Weller, his eyes never breaking her gaze. Caroline’s face turned militant when she noticed the direction of his reach. “How can you spend your days drowning yourself with drink? Is that why we are on the edge of ruin?”

Her startling tirade stayed his hands. The caged memories threatening to consume him paused to catch a breath like beasts startled into frozen fear. His little sister had become a spitfire as well as a woman during his neglect. It was unsettling.

“What are you implying, dearest sister?”

“Implying? I’m asking you outright. Did you or did you not beggar the estate with your vices?”

“The only vice I have is drink.” How he hated to admit that to her. “And I have no notion as to what you are referring.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Marcus could no longer delay another drink. The haze he’d been so carefully creating was swiftly evaporating. He grabbed the decanter, moved away from his sister, and turned his back to her. “Ask Weller here. He’ll tell you I only love the bottle.”

The clumsy man, nonchalantly picking the mirror shards from the floor while eavesdropping with rapt attention, chimed in at the prompt. “’Tis true, my lady.”

His sister sniffed in continued disbelief. She brought her reticule up to her line of sight, close to her nose, digging around inside, searching furiously. The search produced a clip of newspaper, which she brandished about in the air. “Then why are the gossips saying you’ve ruined us with your beastly habits?”

Despite the tremors starting to claim his limbs, Marcus shrugged. “Because I’m the Beast, I suspect.”

He blinked as his sister stomped her foot. Golden curls bounced along her hips with her jerking movement. Paper crinkled in her gloved hand as she clenched her fist. A strong woman lay behind her ladylike façade and Marcus found himself glad of it. The
ton
had not wiped her spirit away. He disliked not seeing a trace of the girl she used to be. The one with dirt always on one side of her face. The one with curls sticking out at every angle, eyes glittering with mischief in the rare moments of freedom. She’d once been the light in his darkness, but now her mere presence cast him into shadow.

“Why must you be so difficult?” Her eyes narrowed to pinpoints when he took a healthy swallow. “And stop that!”

How he wanted to, he thought dimly.

The liquor was taking too long to bring back his haze. He would not be able to fight the past without it. He was shaking violently, his limbs almost unable to support him. He could feel the perspiration on his brow, the inside of his skin unbearably hot. His temper would swiftly follow and then it would only be a matter of moments before the paralysis seized him. Hell would quickly envelop him and he’d be trapped for hours in the horrors of his past.

Marcus retrieved his handkerchief from the table laid out with his dressing items. He patted his brow, trying to focus on Caroline’s pacing form.

Suddenly, tears filled her eyes. Their glassy emerald surface stared at him accusingly. “I know you don’t care about me anymore, Marcus, but I would have thought you’d at least secured a dowry with which to dispose of me. I won’t be able to marry now!”

He wanted to reassure her, tell her how much he loved her, but he couldn’t form the words. His tongue felt thick.

Weller interrupted the silence that fell as he dumped the broken mirror into the wastebasket. The chime of the shattered pieces hitting the sides and the bottom echoed through the room. A few missed the bucket, landing on the carpet. Weller frowned at the uncooperative pieces before clearing his throat. “Pardon me, my lord, but I suggest you look at the piece of paper Lady Caroline crinkled in her impatience.”

He blinked, his gaze drawn to the ball of parchment.

Caroline didn’t bother to hand it to him. She smoothed out the inked surface with her gloves. She paced furiously, fire painting her delicate face brilliant red as she recited aloud,
“‘This Author has stumbled upon the most delicious on-dit to storm London since Thursday. While standing at the punch bowl in Lady Shelton’s ballroom yestereve, considering the merits of a certain teal-colored dress worn by said Lady S, a conversation reached my ear. This Author would never participate in something so uncouth as eavesdropping, but when one shouts, others must be expected to hear. The rumor, my Dearest Reader, is that a certain Lord B, previously engaged to Miss Anne Newport, is in dire straits. Unless he can marry an heiress, his estate will
collapse! Dearest Reader, lock your doors and guard your daughters or they may fall prey to a Beast’s vicious claws!’”
She stopped to demand of him, “How do you explain this?”

“I can’t.”
Not without telling her of the engagement.

“I knew it! You’ve ruined us. When are the collectors coming? Perhaps I can fix this. I do have some connections, you know…”

Her ramblings continued until Marcus’s temper forced him to interrupt. “Caroline! I can’t explain because we are not ruined! It is not true.”

His sister paused in her steps, disbelief on her features. “Then why are they saying such vile things? I’ll never be able to marry until we can prove we are as well endowed as before.”

The liquor could not dim the rage that slid along his veins. He knew exactly how this rumor was circulating. And he knew exactly who to blame.

Damn Anne! It wasn’t enough to jilt him. She had to have revenge for being pushed into marriage with him. George, the clerk, must have told her everything about the codicil.

The thought of their father’s will thrust him over the precipice on which he’d been balancing. His joints locked where he stood, his muscles freezing, as his mind was pulled into the shadowy depths of his soul.

“Just how are we going to fix this, Marcus?”

When her brother didn’t answer, Caroline frowned. Halting mid-stride, she peered at her elder brother, who was standing suspiciously still, a vacant look in his eyes.

“Marcus?”

Concerned, she stepped closer. His tall form was motionless, all his muscles tensed. A finger of trepidation raced along her spine. Swallowing against her sudden fear, she inched closer until she was a hair’s breadth away. With a weird sense of disembodiment, Caroline watched her trembling hand connect with her brother’s burning skin. He didn’t move. She felt her lower lip start to quiver, as if she were five again, running from her father’s cane.

She nudged Marcus, studying him intently. His eyes hadn’t even acknowledged her as she’d come closer. She squeezed his arm harder. His body started to sway. Jumping back, Caro pressed a hand to her mouth to stop her terrified scream. In agonizing slowness, he rocked to and fro until his limbs suddenly gave out. He pitched to the floor, landing inches from the remains of the shattered glass spread about the carpet, and then began seizing. His entire body jerked with spasms. She couldn’t stop the scream that tore through her. Tears burned at the corner of her eyes. “Marcus! Weller, help him!”

She attempted to turn his writhing body away from the glass, her breath heaving. She fought to grab his wrists and hold him down, but he was uncontrollable, crashing against her, knocking the air from her lungs. She tasted salt along her lips, her mind dimly registering that she was profusely crying. “Stop this, Marcus!”

A moan tore from him. Caroline fell back, acknowledging her inability to assist him. Warm arms wrapped around her waist, hauling her from the ground and into a solid wall. Without thinking, Caroline locked her arms about the man supporting her.

She was dimly aware of being escorted out of the room, and of others going in. Weller guided Caroline down the hall and into the family’s private sitting room. He rang for tea. She wasn’t able to do anything but shake until she had a hot cup of tea in her hand. Ignoring the customary plate, she wrapped her hands about the smooth china surface, welcoming the heat as it warmed her icy fingers through her gloves.

A handkerchief appeared before her line of vision like a white flag waving surrender. She accepted the square of cloth, pulling herself together. She had to take charge, make sure her brother was taken care of and not left to roll about the floor. It was the least she could do after what he’d suffered for her growing up. She was about to issue orders to call for a doctor when the valet took a seat on the chaise opposite her. His fair eyes seemed to pierce into her soul, his face grim. Caro stared at the older gentleman, noting the graying of his dark hair and the lines of a hard life bracketing his eyes and mouth.

“You’ve never witnessed that before, my lady?”

His calm demeanor shocked her. “I most certainly have not! What’s wrong with him? Who is assisting him? Has a doctor been called?”