Page 14

S eated at his cluttered desk, strewn about with wrinkled paper and ink stains splattered everywhere, Denbigh began his morning as he usually did.

With a new letter.

In the first five days of being thrown out of the Devil’s Den and separated from Alice, and being told by Dynevor’s men the lady never wished to see him again, he’d sat in this very spot and deliberated over each word and each letter he’d written to Alice.

He pored over the pages. He labored over each sentence he put to paper. He’d read and re-read pages upon pages and then wrinkled them all, determining they were insufficient, only to start all over and send something close to a missive he did not hate.

Each one came back unopened.

Not only that, as salt in the wounds, Dynevor sent one of his hard-faced, merciless guards with a note from Alice.

Each time, Denbigh’s heart leapt with the hope born of an optimism he didn’t know where it came from.

He’d had a miserable father. A difficult childhood.

And a legacy of ugliness connected with the title he now carried.

Even with that, somewhere inside, he’d believed and been so certain one of her letters would be a note with a concession to meet. To just hear him out.

All he needed was time with her. Even as he knew that wasn’t even a sure thing and probably wouldn’t be enough. But at least he’d see her one more time.

At least, at least, at least—

Denbigh’s bloodshot gaze fell to the neatly assembled stack of letters.

There were five of them, lovingly stacked and tied with the same turquoise ribbon he’d caught that day she vowed her love.

He’d hidden it in his pocket, the lone piece of her that he could keep.

Now, there were her letters. Each one saying the same thing, and with the same words.

Five words. Seven if one included his form of address. Please, do not contact me . He opened her notes. She never opened his. And he would continue doing so until he drew his last breath.

Denbigh stared blankly and emptily at today’s first letter.

“Alice, please hear me out.”

“Alice, I am undeserving of your grace—”

“Alice, I implore you, I beg of you, please, please—”

Nothing! Nothing he said mattered because she wouldn’t even open his letters.

It didn’t matter what he had to say. The only thing that mattered was what he had done.

And what he had done was betray her. It didn’t matter that his intentions had been good.

It didn’t matter. He’d had her best intentions, and then her daughter’s.

But what mattered was that it had been Denbigh who’d decided what was best for her.

He could’ve been forthright with her. He could have explained that he’d initially come because Exmoor had begged him to do so.

He could’ve then gone on to explain that along the way, it had changed.

That in seeing how happy she was, and her reasons for staying, he understood and respected and supported it.

But then explained she held his entire heart in her hands, and that was the only reason he would take her from this place, if she’d let him.

Oh, it would rip him apart to leave her at a place where he knew she wasn’t safe—not truly.

Where there was sinning happening and evil blackguards residing and playing with fortunes and drink, danger lurked and could and dangerously might one day find her.

But in his loyalty to Exmoor, he’d destroyed any hope for true happiness and any potential future with Alice. He’d warned him off Alice. Denbigh had complied.

Time and time again, he’d chosen Exmoor because the man had been his friend the longest and like a brother to him. But Alice? Alice was the person Denbigh loved above all others.

Defeated, Denbigh sagged in his chair. Blindly, he reached for the bottle that was always within reach.

The stopper had already been removed and spit to the floor days earlier.

He sloshed the remaining contents around the crystal bottle.

Without looking, he took a long swig, finishing the rest of his brandy.

There came a brief rap at the door.

“Get the hell out!” he shouted, surely at his servant. He didn’t want to be bothered. There was no one he wanted to see. There was no one he wanted to see unless it was—

His eyes slid shut and, desperate for a reprieve from the vicious pain gnawing at his insides, Denbigh tipped the bottle back in search of whatever drops remained clinging to the sides and bottom of the decanter.

The door opened and inside stepped, not his butler or footman or anyone other than…

“Exmoor,” Denbigh mumbled, slowly lowering the bottle to his side. He let it hang uselessly, dangling from his fingertips over the sides of his chair.

Exmoor, who had prided himself on being the perfect son, father, brother, and gentleman, caught a glance of Denbigh and balked.

Shock brought Exmoor’s dark eyebrows climbing high. He didn’t even attempt to feign or conceal his disbelief at discovering Denbigh so.

The other man found his voice. “My God, man. Since when have you begun breaking your fast with brandy?” Then, not allowing a response, Exmoor tightened his mouth. “Look at you, Denbigh. You’re a bloody sight!”

Denbigh had caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he’d passed through the halls on his way to his office.

He knew precisely what he looked like and just how the other man saw him.

His blond hair was tangled and in need of a good comb.

His cheeks sported a beard. His eyes were red from exhaustion and drink.

But Denbigh didn’t give a shite what he looked like. Propriety, rules, decency, and decorum all be damned.

Narrowing his eyes into thin, angry slits, he lifted his empty bottle and mockingly toasted Exmoor. “Exmoor, old chap! How very good to see my dearest of friends.”

Exmoor’s jaw moved. His slightly too sharp features indicated he’d heard the jeering quality to Denbigh’s greeting and sensed his anger and resentment.

But with the familiarity afforded him as a brother in everything but blood, the marquess strode across the room and slapped a gloved palm down hard on Denbigh’s desk, sending letters and papers jumping under the force of that movement.

“I have sent letter after letter, and not one of them have you answered,” Exmoor clipped out the way Denbigh’s father had right before he delivered a smack to one of his sons.

“You have been inside that den of sin, and I am looking for some word, some information about my sister, and you cannot be bothered to respond to a single note? Instead, you,” Exmoor scraped a derisive glance up and down Denbigh’s disheveled person.

“ What ? Get yourself lost in drink and God knows what else when you were supposed to be—”

“When I was supposed to be doing what?” Denbigh cried, climbing to his feet. “When I was supposed to be spying on her? When I was supposed to be serving in the role of de facto brother because her real one failed her so spectacularly?”

All the blood drained from Exmoor’s cheeks. Denbigh had landed the unkindest cut. And he didn’t feel bloody bad about it one bit.

“Did you know she had a child?” Denbigh asked, his voice a whisper, because even as rage battered at him and hysteria threatened to drive him to madness, Alice was still and would always be his foremost worry, concern, and thought.

Somehow, Exmoor’s skin had even more color to shed, leaving him a sickly, white pallor.

“Did you know?” Denbigh stormed around the desk as he asked the question, gripping his best friend by his lapels, dragging him up on the balls of his feet, and lifting him so they were at eye level. “ Did you —?”

“Of course I did,” Exmoor whispered, his eyes ravaged with pain and not their earlier anger. “You know there is no reasoning with Alice—even more so after she tragically lost her sweetheart.”

She’d obviously told Exmoor some lie about a good, honorable , sweetheart who’d gone missing.

It hadn’t occurred to bloody Exmoor to find out everything he could about Alice’s lover?

“You sent me to do what you were unable to do,” Denbigh said flatly. “I went there and did your bidding. I did a favor for you. And because of it, I have lost everything .” He released the marquess quickly. So fast, Exmoor stumbled and struggled to right himself.

Staggering, Exmoor looked at him in abject confusion. “I don’t…What are you—?”

“I love her,” Denbigh bellowed that confession after a lifetime of lies between them.

“I have loved your sister since she was but seventeen, Exmoor. She was too young. She was your sister. And I never acknowledged it, even to myself, because I knew it was forbidden and she was off limits.” A sharp, empty bark of laughter exploded from his chest. He slashed a palm angrily between them.

“And in doing that, in putting our friendship first, and not my love for her, it cost me her, and very likely it would’ve led to a different fate and future for her. ”

All the fight and the last vestige of energy he’d found since being apart from Alice left him with the expediency and swiftness.

Exmoor reeled back on his heels. “ What ?”

The same way one’s soul departed one’s dying body so too did the life leave Denbigh.

His legs went limp, and he sank onto the edge of his desk to keep from sinking onto the floor.

Except, in so doing, he came to rest right beside that turquoise ribbon and stack of notes he lovingly caressed and smelled and then saved forever.

Agony sluiced through Denbigh like a rapier being expertly placed by a master tactician. He swiped a tired hand across his face. “I put our friendship before everything else, including Alice, and now that has cost me any chance of a future with her.”

Denbigh distantly registered the other man taking up a makeshift seat beside him on the desk. “I… had no idea.” Exmoor sounded like he had taken a shot to the solar plexus. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Denbigh let loose a cynical chuckle. “Oh, please. The one time I did broach the subject you made it clear you didn’t approve?” He scoffed. “I was a bloody lad at university and you held my brief actions against me.”

Guilty color filled his friend’s cheeks.

Exmoor hesitated and then shook his head. “I would have come around, Denbigh. I would have, eventually realized you’d behaved only respectably with my sister and would be loyal to her and—”

“Yes, Exmoor. Since we’re playing out pretend experiences that happened, I would’ve gone into the Devil’s Den and freely admitted that you’d sent me there to your sister, and avoided all of this.

” He flashed his best friend a cold, strange smile “My, how much easier it is when we invent the perfect way we handled or would’ve handled situations. ”

Exmoor winced.

And yet the fact remained that only one of them was to blame—and the person to blame was Denbigh.

He was the one who’d agreed to do so at Exmoor’s behalf.

He could’ve gone and been straightforward with Alice.

But he hadn’t. And that was something that would cost him.

No, it had cost him his heart, the very air he breathed.

“I take it,” Exmoor haltingly ventured, “Alice gathered the reason for your being there?”

Denbigh nodded once.

“And I take it she responded with her usual spirit and passion.”

Actually, she hadn’t. She’d been reserved. She’d been stricken. She’d been cut open and hurt and betrayed, and he’d been the one responsible this time. Not some notorious, shameless rakehell. Him. Denbigh .

“You attempted to tell her, and she was less than receptive?” It turned out Exmoor did know his sister.

Denbigh released a strained laugh. Half crying into his palms, he scrubbed them over his face and shook his head.

“I have tried everything. I’ve written letters.

I’ve even visited the Devil’s Den and,” He gestured to a fading bruise at the corner of his eye.

“attempted to get inside to see her,” he said and flashed a wry grin. “ Unsuccessfully .”

Exmoor winced.

The other man felt guilty about Denbigh sporting a black eye? The sting left by the once respectable Malric Mauley, the Marquess of Thornwick—now one of Dynevor’s goons—may as well have been the brush of a gnat compared to the vicious agony of Alice’s rejection.

“She is stubborn, Denbigh,” Exmoor said. “In time—”

A sound of frustration left Denbigh. “It is not that simple. I deceived her, and Alice was—” Viciously betrayed before. He caught himself. She’d made that confession to Denbigh. He’d keep her confidence.

The marquess narrowed his gaze. “Alice was ‘ what ’?”

“She was hurt,” he said instead. “And she needs to be able to trus…” His words trailed off.

Alice needs…

“Denbigh? Exmoor prodded.

Denbigh, however, remained lost in a realization.

How often and how much had Alice been told what she needed ?

By her family. By her brother. By Denbigh.

Hell, even Dynevor was making choices for her.

But Alice hadn’t ever really had a choice.

The Devil’s Den was as close as she came to it.

Telling her what she needed was a sin. Lady Alice was a strong, spirited, intelligent woman, who didn’t need men making false promises or secretly manipulating her and her life, which is precisely what he’d done.

He had wronged her. Words, the ones he was writing over and over again in letters, were futile.

Alice didn’t need to be told anything…

He stilled. “My God,” he whispered. “Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” He exhaled that query on a fading breath.

“What?” Exmoor urgently prodded.

Yes, he didn’t need to tell Alice anything. She had made her decision, and that included her decision about him. If she didn’t want to see him or take his letters, he owed it to her to respect that decision. What he would do was show her the ways in which he was sorry.

Perhaps she could forgive him. That would be the best and all that he could hope for.