Page 77

Azriel rubbed his chin, and shrugged. “My father was an obscene sort of person, as evidenced by the fact that he married a woman young enough to be his granddaughter. But no, I don’t think he knew that I watched.”

“When did you start? Watching, I mean?”

“That first night you were at Linmere.” There was not a hint of shame or inhibition in his tone, just clear and brutal honesty. “I’d been creeping around the house all my life. Some parents believe that children should be seen and not heard. My father didn’t even believe in seeing me.” He laughed bitterly. “Do you know what he would say to me, when I was growing up? That he did not believe I was his child, because of my eyes. ‘Where in the world did those blue eyes come from?’ He’d say, as though my mother ever would have been able to take a lover. I believe if he’d managed tohave any other living offspring, perhaps he would have thrown me out. But keeping his precious empire in the family, well, that meant more to him than anything else. Even if that meant passing it on to a suspected bastard like me.”

“But you are not a bastard.”

“No, I am not.” He regarded me with a sigh. “But I did torture myself all those years, watching you. Wanting you. Coveting my father’s wife. May as well have set the Bible on fire, for all the things I thought and did while I watched you in bed. Bathing. Dressing.”

“Standing over me while I slept?”

A shadow passed over his face, lust and desire deepening the colour of his eyes. “I am almost ashamed to admit how many times I considered violating you like that. While you were completely vulnerable to me. Such beauty, so soft and warm.”

“That is shameful.” I swallowed hard under his intense gaze, a shot of heat rising in my chest. “How can you abuse yourself over a helpless woman, and admit it so casually? It is positively wicked.”

“I never claimed that it was not.” His mouth twisted into a filthy smirk. “You are determined, are you not, to find the good in me? To find the reasoning, the one sliver of my soul that you can fix. You will not find it, Evie. You will find blood and darkness, and nothing more.”

“That is all you can offer me then? The devil himself, cloaked in sin?”

“Oh no, beloved.” He reached across the carriage and took my hand in his. “For even the devil can give you his heart, no matter how ravaged and tattered it may be.”

The carriage turned at that moment, and the road beneath us changed, from cobbled stones to rough grit and dirt. We had turned down the country lane that led to my family home - to Halstead House.

“Almost there,” Azriel said, releasing my hand to lean back and cast a glance out the window. “A pretty enough sort of place to grow up.”

“I suppose so.” I clutched my gloved hands in my lap as we drew nearer and nearer. “I had a childhood much like yours, in a way. My father was not particularly interested in children.”

“If we are blessed with a child, that baby’s feet will not touch the floor for the first two years of its life.”

My gaze whipped around to Azriel, and I frowned. “That is rather more heartfelt than I expected from you.”

His blue eyes blazed into mine. “I am not having a child only to pass them off to some stranger to raise. My child will bemychild, and they will know their parents. I may not be good, but I will never allow for there to be any doubt that I love my child. The world is a harsh enough place without that looming over them.”

I was taken aback by this confession, this warmth coming from the icy man across from me. But I had no time to dwell on that, as the carriage turned through the gates of my father’s house, and we pulled into the drive. My nausea came sweeping back, and I held tight to the side of the carriage as my head began to swim.

I half-expected to be turned away, to have a mob with pitchforks waiting on us, chasing us all the way back to London. But the house was quiet, the only sound the crunch of the stable boy’s hurried footsteps as he secured the horses.

“Ready to face the enemy?” Azriel asked me with a wicked grin, before climbing out of the carriage, doffing his hat to my father’s valet, Arthur, who waited by the door.

“Good day my good fellow, I have brought the baron’s very own daughter home for a visit.”

Arthur frowned, bowing his head. “Lord Brimworth has been expecting you, sir.”

“Wonderful!” Azriel extended his hand, helping me down from the carriage. “Our telegram arrived then.”

“The baron’s sister-in-law informed us of your… impending arrival.” Arthur did not smile as he said the words and his eyes landed on me. “Madam. It is good to see you again.”

“And you, Arthur.” I pulled my haughty mask into place, not willing to let anyone in this house see my discomfort, my shame. I would not give any of them the satisfaction. “You look well.”

“Thank you, madam.” He bowed his head again. “Your father is awaiting you in the drawing room.”

“Then let us not delay, and make him wait any longer.” Azriel tucked my hand under his arm. “Lead the way, Mrs Caine, so that I may pay your father my respects.”

It was as though I was stepping into another world, walking into that house. The marble floors that had once been brilliant and gleaming were now dull and worn. The tapestries that hung on the wall were dusty, their colours drab. The house smelled faintly of mildew, and the windows had not been washed for some time, their grimy surfaces blurring the countryside that lay beyond.

The house had indeed fallen into disrepair, mirroring the state of the body of the man who lived within it. What exactly my father had been doing with the money that Acton had been sending him was a mystery. The supposed up-keep of the precious ancestral home was certainly not where the money had been going.

But I pushed all that aside. This house was no longer my concern, not really. Instead I walked the well worn path to the drawing room, with its heavy velvet drapes and thick air that I could practically taste as I breathed.