Page 8

D enbigh’s outing with Alice had gone not only bad, but spectacularly so.

He sat at his private table in the Devil’s Den. Slouched in his seat with a thick cloud of smoke hanging just above his head, he looked on at the evening’s entertainments with unseeing eyes.

Judging by the swell of guests surrounding the stage and all the patrons eagerly shooting their hands up, crying out bids for the pretend demure beauty on the stage, the men were crazed with lust. Each fellow fought for the privilege of stealing some young woman’s virtue.

Theirs was a game of pretend, except this game of pretend hit entirely too close to home for Denbigh.

Absently, he toyed with the rim of his also untouched snifter.

He’d suspected the child was hers, based on looks alone.

After Alice and Laurel took their leave of him earlier in the day, he’d gotten himself to a rationale place.

He’d even convinced himself the child he’d taken for hers was in fact a girl who happened to live in the Devil’s Den; that Denbigh had indulged in a flight of fancy where he’d imagined a beautiful, inquisitive, and smiling daughter born to Alice.

But to have his first inkling confirmed with Alice’s words while they’d been alone at Hyde Park had wrecked him. Utterly, absolutely, and completely destroyed Denbigh.

Seeing her become another man’s wife would have always broken Denbigh, but he could have suffered in silence. Just as long as the man Alice wed consecrated himself to her love, laughter, and every happiness.

He stared emptily into the bottle of spirits he’d ordered but never drank from this night.

To know it was some black-hearted knave who’d stolen her virtue, her heart, and left her in ruin, and with a babe to care for?

Denbigh squeezed his eyes briefly shut. And now Alice and her daughter lived together in a den of iniquity, sin, and danger.

In fairness, how could Denbigh have remained levelheaded? With Alice’s detailed telling, every feral urge had risen up within him so that he’d wanted to toss his head back, roar, and pound his chest like a primal beast.

Denbigh stared from over the top of his snifter at the spectacle on the stage—a virgin auction.

A hard, bitter, empty, grin formed on his lips. How bloody fitting. Such salacity’s would have never earned anything but his disgust. But with his and Alice’s exchange still fresh and raw in his mind, the act at play repulsed him. Nausea churned in his belly.

What gentleman could be driven to desire at the idea of ruining a woman?

The stage production hit Denbigh in the face over and over, like a fresh wound scabbed over that continued to be picked and picked and picked, reminding him that Alice’s situation wasn’t a playact.

Hers hadn’t been a performance. What had happened to her had been real.

She deserved your calm-headedness , a voice in his head lashed. Alice should have been free to talk without any recrimination on your part.

His features spasmed, and Denbigh’s eyes slid shut.

He grimaced as he downed the rest of his glass, welcoming the fiery trail it burned along his throat.

It had been two days since he’d seen her, and only now had he gotten it into his head what to say to her.

From the head proprietors’ table, the Earl of Wakefield sat conversing with Lachlan Latimer and the Earl of Dynevor while the club’s action played out.

As if he felt Denbigh’s gaze, Wakefield briefly paused in whatever he’d been saying to his partners and looked Denbigh’s way.

Just as he’d looked at the other gentleman countless times since Denbigh arrived at a table, he wanted no part of, Denbigh waited for a signal that he would be able to meet Alice alone.

At long last, a slight nod of confirmation came from the Earl of Wakefield.

Purpose-driven and fueled at the prospect of starting over and trying again with Alice, Denbigh took another quick drink and set his glass down.

He waited only so long as to be sure Wakefield had his partners’ undivided attention and that there wasn’t a risk that it’d be found out that Wakefield was in cahoots with Denbigh.

Only then did Denbigh stand and excuse himself from the raucous play around him.

Not that anyone would notice a gentleman who happened to leave.

There was such a crush of bodies and patrons, and all attention was fixed on the dais at the center of the club.

Denbigh quickly made his way from the club and headed for the private suites he occupied.

At least the ones he occupied so long as Alice lived in this place.

And he’d only remain here until she left with him, and if she didn’t?

Then this would be his permanent residence forever. His own earldom be damned.

He’d been retiring for the night for a ton function, at least that was what he’d said, and what he’d worked out with Wakefield, who had allowed Alice to return to painting the canvas in his suite.

As he approached his door and proceeded to fetch a key from his front jacket pocket, he knew he didn’t need it.

He knew she’d be there. And he felt not the first stab of guilt at all about the ways in which he’d lied to her.

It was for her own good and wouldn’t matter when she discovered the truth, which she would when this was said and done.

It wouldn’t stay secret forever that he’d come here to restore her to her rightful place with the Mastersons.

Still, prepared as he was to see her at work before that enormous canvas, the sight of her always caught him like he’d spied a shooting star.

Fleeting and fast and so faint. A person didn’t know if it had been real or a spark of his imagination.

When he entered, she was not at her painting as he’d expected.

Rather, she sat at the edge of the bed where he’d lain his head these past two nights.

She stared vacantly at the rendering, so very colorful and vivid and real.

Her head angled slightly as her gaze moved and found him at the door.

There was no surprise there. It was as if her expression said, ‘Of course, you’re here. I knew you’d be here.’

Suddenly uncertain and at a loss, he stood there beating his left hand against his side before he realized what he did. He caught himself from that distracting staccato tap and cleared his throat.

“I’m sorry. I know I’d indicated to the proprietors I would not be staying the night,” he said. “There was a change of plans, and so I’m here,” he finished lamely.

“And so, you are here,” she repeated on a soft murmur.

Alice stood. “I should leave. You’re here for your chambers.”

“Please stay,” he called as she rushed over to gather up her supplies.

Alice stopped in her place.

Denbigh pulled a face.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing behind him.

Alice nodded, giving him permission to close the panel so they were allowed their privacy.

“I would be lying if I didn’t say I was hoping to find you here, Alice.”

No, that wasn’t at all true.

“That the reason I’ve come to my rooms was the hope that you would be here, as you’d anticipated I’d be gone for the night.”

He found some comfort in giving her that truth at least.

“Alice,” he murmured, drifting closer. “I owe you yet another apology. I was an unmitigated ass. I was stodgy and boorish and judgmental, and that was never my intention—”

“And you’re forgiven, Laurence,” she said with a gentle smile.

Stopped mid-soliloquy, Denbigh blinked with rapid succession.

“Laurence, you’re a paragon,” she said with a wry smile.

“Given everything, I shared last evening, I’d have been surprised if you’d responded with an effortless nonchalance.

I mean, it was not as though I was telling you how I’d been celebrating my birthdays these past years or what I’d had for breakfast. You just found out that I have a child.

You’d never before heard that information. How else were you to respond?”

All the sweet relief her forgiveness brought vanished with her next words.

“I’m the one who should be apologetic, Laurence.

” Alice resumed twisting that blade of guilt, all the deeper.

“As I said last evening, I shouldn’t have struck you.

” Her eyes grew stricken. “Regardless of what was said, I had no right to put my hands upon you. I regret that and always will, Laurence.”

Yes, this was to be his hell for his deceit against her.

The Lord had punished him with her undeserved penitence.

This was to be his hell, and here is where he deserved to be, for it mattered not that he was here on Exmoor’s behalf and supported his best friend.

She was a friend to him too, and he’d come here under duplicitous means.

Desperate to climb out of this hell, he swiftly switched topics.

“Please don’t let me stop you from painting. I came here because I hated the way it ended between us yesterday, Alice. And I’d ask that you allow me to remain.”

He couldn’t make out what she was thinking.

Then, as if she had given it serious thought, she nodded.

“May I stay?” he asked.

“You want to watch me paint?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye. “That would be a first.”

Taking her playful tone and resurrection of their time together in the past as an invitation, he sauntered over.

“Whoa, that isn’t at all true. I enjoyed watching you paint when we were younger.”

Alice snorted. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Denbigh flinched. For a moment, he believed she knew the truth. She knew, and she was just torturing him slowly and viciously for his lies.

“I did love watching you paint,” he murmured. “I enjoyed it more than I should have. Certainly, more than your brother would have allowed or welcomed.” He issued that later reminder for himself.

Feeling Alice’s eyes on him, he looked over.