Love With a Scandalous Lord (26 page)

H
er heart was shattering. Lydia actually thought she could feel the fissures widening as the pain intensified until it was almost unbearable.

His words, his touch, his kiss—all the skills of a master seducer. He excelled at pleasuring women, pleasuring them for compensation. What sort of compensation did they offer him? She supposed she should consider herself fortunate that he’d shared his talents with her—and not taken payment for the privilege.

She opened her trunk, trudged to the wardrobe, and yanked down a gown. She tried to wad it up, to mash it into a tiny ball, her fists bunching it, and striking it—

“Lydia?”

She dropped it into the trunk, fell to her knees, and began folding it, stuffing it, flattening it—

“Lydia!”

She wanted it so tiny that she’d never see it again.

Hands grabbed her shoulders and twisted her around.

“Lydia, what’s wrong?”

“He doesn’t love me.” She searched Lauren’s concerned face. “Oh, Lauren, I wasn’t special. Everything was a lie. Everything.”

A heart-wrenching sob broke free as the tears welled in her eyes and rolled onto her cheeks.

Lauren wrapped her arms around Lydia and pressed her close. “Whatever are you talking about? The servants brought me an urgent message from the Duke stating that I was to see to you immediately. And here you are, dressed and packing. Whatever is going on?”

He’d sent a missive? How thoughtful. He probably feared she’d take her life as Annie had, and he’d have that on his conscience. But she’d kill Rhys before she’d kill herself.

Yet even her fury with him could not lessen the agony of his betrayal. Unable to control the flow of hot tears, she nodded with her cheek pressed against Lauren’s delicate shoulder. “I went to see Rhys. They beat him, and I wanted to help—”

“Who beat him?”

She shook her head. “I just want to go home now.”

Lauren began to rock her. “Oh, Lydia, what has happened?”

Her shoulders trembled as she released the force of her grief, her despair. She thought her ribs might cave in on her, might squash her lungs. If she ceased to breathe, she would not care. If her heart stopped beating, she would welcome the end of her agony.

She wanted to take a bath. She felt dirty. Ashamed. She’d given herself to him in love, and yet for him every touch had been a practiced execution. He’d used his mouth, tongue, and hands to help her forget her first ball.

Who would help her forget this night of despicable revelations?

“Here now, come sit in the chair and tell me what happened.”

Lydia felt as though the very air was crushing her. Her feet dragged across the floor as Lauren guided her to the chair. She dropped into it with all the decorum of a cow. She no longer wanted to be a lady.

She wrapped her arms around herself and began to rock. Through her tears, the room was little more than a blur of colors. She heard a drawer open and close. Then she felt the soft linen patted against her cheek.

“Let’s dry your tears and you can tell me everything,” Lauren said.

Closing her fingers around the cloth, Lydia took the handkerchief from her cousin. “I just want to go home.”

“Did Harrington do something untoward? Lydia, did he hurt you?”

“More than I thought humanly possible. I’ve never in my life known such pain.”

“Shall I wake Papa? Does he need to take the Duke to task?”

Shaking her head, she reached out and clutched Lauren’s hand. “We mustn’t tell anyone. Ever,” she rasped.

Trying to gain control of her heartache, she wiped the tears from her eyes and swallowed hard. “He told me that he’d done things best left in the dark. He said I’d hate him if I knew…” She let her voice trail off. She didn’t want to give life to the words, to say them aloud.

“Do you hate him?” Lauren asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just know that I hurt so badly. I thought I knew him.” She wiped away the fresh tears. “He sold himself.”

“You mean his skills?”

Lydia nodded.

“Like at the docks, unloading ships and such?”

Lydia felt the pain of betrayal and more tears surface because she was going to have to say it aloud. She shook her head. “He sold himself to women.”

Confusion washed over Lauren’s face. “What did they pay him to do? Rearrange their furniture?”

Lydia groaned. She didn’t think Lauren was being deliberately obtuse, she just thought it was impossible to comprehend exactly what Rhys had done. “They paid him so that he would pleasure them.”

Her eyes widening, Lauren dropped onto the edge of the bed. “You’re not serious?”

Pressing a hand to her mouth to contain the wail she wanted so desperately to release, Lydia nodded again.

“Is he the Gentleman Seducer?”

“The what?”

“Rumors have been adrift for some time that there was a gentleman in London who entertained married ladies. I know one young lady who married a man she couldn’t stand simply so she’d have an excuse to be accepted by the Gentleman Seducer. He’s supposed to be extremely skilled. Do you think he could be Rhys?”

Dear God! She’d once overheard Johnny talking with some friends about the colorful names prostitutes had. Was Rhys no exception? “I think I’m going to be ill.”

“Shall I have some tea brought up? The English believe it’s a cure-all for everything.”

Nothing would cure this, but still Lydia nodded, every movement more difficult to make than the one
that came before it.

“Wait here.”

Wait here?
As though she had the will to do anything else.

Lauren hurried out of the room, closing the door behind her. With a shuddering sigh, Lydia dropped her head back. She didn’t want to think about Rhys with all those other women. She didn’t want to think of them paying him. Paying him, for God’s sake. She honestly didn’t know who was more revolting: the women or Rhys.

She pulled the handkerchief through her fingers, over and over. She felt as though she didn’t know Rhys at all. How could she have been so naïve, so stupid as to believe he cared for her?

She lifted the handkerchief to wipe away more tears, and her gaze fell on the solitary initial. R. His.

He’d given her this handkerchief the day her family had left. She’d held on to it, hadn’t washed it, but had simply tucked it away. She brought it to her nose now and smelled his lingering scent.

The lemony fragrance awakened so many memories. All the times he’d given in to temptation. All the times he’d warned her away. He’d warned her away far more often than he’d given in.

Lauren returned to the room. “Here you are. Your tea. Just the way you like it.”

She set it down on the spindly-legged table beside Lydia.

Lydia shifted her gaze from the handkerchief, to the steam rising above the cup, back to the linen. “Did you know how I prepared my tea before Rhys told you?” she asked.

“I knew you liked lemon and sugar and cream. But not the exact amounts. No one notices that sort of thing.”

“Rhys did.” She rose from the chair, walked to the window, and gazed out.

“Lydia, you mustn’t despair. You can publicly denounce him. Your Season can be saved.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever go out in public again.”

Having handed his card to the butler, Rhys waited within Whithaven’s foyer. He turned at the sound of approaching footsteps, halfway expecting to see Whithaven himself. Instead the butler was merely returning.

“His Lordship is not at home,” he announced.

Rhys looked past the man to the hallway from which the servant had emerged. “Is that so?”

“Indeed, Your Grace. Perhaps you’ll find him in residence another day.”

“I doubt it.” Rhys started walking toward the hallway, ignoring the stammering of the servant insisting that the Earl was not at home. While he doubted he had any influence, he did still possess rank.

Rhys flung open a door, and the Earl popped up from behind his desk, as tall and lanky as ever.

“You know, Whithaven, you’re easy enough to spot in a crowd, but to think a mere hooded mask would hide your unusual height and thin bearing to the point I would not recognize you was foolhardy, man.”

“My lord, I tried to stop him—” the butler began.

Whithaven held up his hand. “It’s quite all right. Please, close the door.”

Rhys ambled farther into the room.

“You’ve got your nerve, showing up here,”
Whithaven said.

Rhys gave him a withering look. “And you have your nerve beating me without explaining what I’d done to deserve such treatment.”

“You know damned well what you’ve done. My wife has been beside herself since you showed up at our ball.”

“I was invited.”

“Apparently, sir, you had a life in the shadows before you inherited your titles.” He angled his pointed chin and looked down his nose haughtily. Not many men could literally look down their noses at Rhys. Whithaven could. “The Gentleman Seducer, indeed.”

It was all Rhys could do not to flinch. He’d loathed the way Camilla had referred to him, cheapened him…

“How exactly, may I ask, did you determine who I was?”

“You may ask. I will not answer.”

Rhys impaled the man with his eyes.

Whithaven averted his gaze. “I suspected something was amiss with my wife. Unknown to her, I’ve been following her around London.”

“Did your wife tell you of our time together?”

Whithaven looked as though he might be ill. “Get out of my house.”

“Until I am brought before the House of Lords on some sort of charges, I still outrank you, sir, and I will know what you know.”

Whithaven straightened. “Very well. Rumors are beginning to surface that Lady Sachse ran the house in which your
liaisons
were carried out. Terribly unseemly of her.”

“Ah, rumors are beastly things. Yes, she initially provided for me as I’m sure you do
your mistress
”—Whithaven’s eyes bulged at that—“but she’s frightfully frugal and was somewhat tight with my allowance. What is a gentleman to do?”

“Not offer his services for hire like a commoner. Where was your pride, man?”

“You cannot lose what you never possessed, but I am not here to discuss my transgressions, but rather your idiocy. Your wife loves you.”

“She has a strange way of showing it.”

“I ask you again, did she tell you what transpired when she visited with me?”

“Good God, no, and I don’t want to know.”

“Nothing happened.”

“Ha!
That
I do not believe. She would not be walking around here with reddened eyes were that the case.”

“I’ll admit she scrambled onto my bed, but only so she could lie in comfort while she wept. You were with your mistress. She came to me wanting nothing more than someone to hold her. Once she began to cry, that is all I offered.”

He sneered. “You’re saying you didn’t fornicate?”

“I’m saying she was not unfaithful, merely unhappy. You would be wise to get rid of your mistress. Focus your energies and time on pleasing your wife. As for the gentlemen who joined you in accosting me last night, I can rather guess who they might have been. You may reassure them that their secrets, particularly about their
shortcomings
, are safe with me. But if they wish to discuss the matter more fully, I’ll be available this afternoon.”

Whithaven was moving his mouth as though he wished to say something but couldn’t quite wrap his
mind around what he wanted to say. Rhys turned on his heel and began to walk from the room.

“Did you actually bed any of our wives as it’s rumored?”

Rhys halted and looked over his shoulder. The one thing he’d never done was compromise the truth. It was tempting to do so now, but if he did, what would he have left? Nothing. “Unfortunately, there is always a seed of truth in any rumor, but I swear to you, sir, your wife was not one of them.”

Walking out of the room, he wished he’d be able to say the same thing to every gentleman who might be curious enough to pay him a visit today. He was almost to the front door when he heard the patter of slippers across the marble floor. He glanced toward the stairs, and there she was—the lovely Countess.

Her eyes widened in horror as she cautiously approached. “Your Grace, what in the world happened to you?”

Although his jaw protested, he gave her a wry grin. “A man does not do this to another if he does not love his wife. He wouldn’t have cared that you’d come to see me.”

“Geoffrey did this to you?”

“I have since explained to him that you did nothing except cry in my arms.”

She reached up to touch his bruised cheek, then dropped her hand to her side. “He found your handkerchief in a drawer. I shouldn’t have kept it. I’m frightfully sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Countess. I would ask, however, that you do what you can to protect Miss Westland. She is innocent in all this.”

Rhys heard the soft clearing of a throat. Lady
Whithaven snapped her gaze toward the hallway from which Rhys had just emerged. He had no reason to look. If he never set eyes on Whithaven again, it would be too soon.

She looked back at Rhys, tears in her eyes. “Rest easy. I shall see to Miss Westland. In Annie’s memory.”

“Thank you.” He continued on, out the door, and toward his carriage.

When he arrived home, he alerted Rawlings to the fact that he would no doubt have a few visitors that afternoon. He would be home to all of them, one at a time. Then he called William into his office and penned a missive for the lad to deliver.

“Do you remember where we lived just before we moved to Harrington?” he asked as he folded and sealed the letter.

“The one that kept us warm, where all the ladies came?”

“That’s the one.”

“Aye, my lord, I remember.”

He didn’t see any point in correcting William on his proper form of address; after all, he probably wouldn’t be a duke for much longer—not if those who had seats in the House of Lords had their way. “Think you can find it again?”

William looked offended that Rhys had asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Good.” He held out the missive. “I want you to deliver this to Lord Sachse. If he is not at home, I want you to find out where he is and deliver it to him there. It’s imperative I see him today.”