Page 34 of Bargaining with the Devil

He smoothed hair off that was stuck to her cheek. ’Twas damp; the tears had broken free.

“Teddy took me for rides. Took me dancing at gatherings. Whispered invitations and promises until I had so many stars in my eyes that I was blinded to everything else. Although I never quite fit in. They were aristocrats or gentry, all of them. I was—am—a bookseller’s daughter.”

He’d not wanted to interrupt her till now but finally spoke. “And I’m thinking a better person than them for it.”

“Yes. I do believe so, at least in some ways. But I was less confident of that then. Another trait that made me an easy mark for Teddy. I thought that’s what I wanted from life, what would make me happiest. High society and beautiful gowns and social whirls. He promised me marriage, and on our way to Gloucestershire we stopped by a dressmaker’s, and he bought me several gowns, with money I later realized wasn’t his to spend. Not with what he owed—Compton.” Her voice broke again. “I’d never had any gowns so elaborate. So grown up. I fancied myself fully a woman on my way to my married happily-ever-after.”

She sounded like she had splinters in her throat when she continued. “He didn’t wait till we were in Gloucestershire for—the rest. He said why should we wait given we were stopped at a coaching inn. After all, we were to be married soon. Not that I can put the blame solely on him for that. I . . . wanted that too.”

Oh, she could most definitely put the blame solely on Garnewood. Should. It sickened him, thinking of how Garnewood had managed it. ’Twouldn’t have worked on the woman in his arms now, the one who kept the world at an arm’s length. It had worked easily on a lonely, naïve girl. And his gut clenched, thinking of that girl. That version of Lucy that he’d never met.

Himself, he’d gone to bed with a good share of women over the years, some widowed and some unmarried, but he’d never risked a lass’s virtue, not in the meaningful sense. Not in a while anyway. ’Twas a thing he refused to do. And he’d never once promised a woman the moon, because ’twasn’t a thing in his power to give her, the moon, and he wouldn’t pretend ’twas.

“I made all the choices that set it all in motion. Every last one. I chose to go with Teddy, starry-eyed and believing in true love.” Her voice was bitter. “That delusion didn’t last beyond the first few nights in Gloucestershire. I learned quickly that’s all it had ever been about for him, my—virginity. A . . . conquest for him. Had I not been untouched, he likely wouldn’t have bothered.”

These days, Garnewood was already a broken man, but if he weren’t . . . He might just have met with a knife in a midnight alley, else. Himself, he’d only made a kill like that once before with no directive but his own. He’d thought at the time it was the first and last of its kind. But ’twouldn’t have been if Garnewood hadn’t already managed to get himself in trouble.

Would it help her to know what had become of Garnewood? ’Twas in the notes, when Lymington’s connection to Compton’s affairs had reopened the files. Or would it cause her more pain? Loyalty had a way of sticking sometimes, even when you’d been done wrong by a person.

“Garnewood had an accident a year past.” He’d leave it at that depending on how she responded.

“Did he . . . die? I . . . If he did . . . Good.” The final word was sharp, short. So was the next. “How?”

“Curricle accident, a reckless race with some young bucks on a road in Kent. He survived it but without the use of his legs. Everything below the waist, ’tis paralyzed.”

“Fitting.” Her voice was bitter as acid. “He can no longer whisk anyone off into a dance. Or sweep starry-eyed young women into a moonlit garden for kisses. Or . . .” Her shoulders moved convulsively. “Convince them to follow him off into the countryside with the lure of a fairy tale ending.”

Or take their virtue, leaving them feeling shamed and something worse than worthless. Leaving them feeling like they’d no recourse but destruction. Self-destruction.

Lucy was still living with that.

Unlike Mairéad. His sister wasn’t living with it any longer.

Lucy twisted a little in his arms. Not freeing herself, just getting more comfortable. “I’m not sorry for him. But I’ve also never been able to hate Teddy, not entirely. Is that a weakness, do you think?”

“’Tis much easier to hate,” he said softly. “At least to my way of thinking. Not hating someone who’s done so much wrong . . . Well, seems to me ’tis the more difficult path to walk for ’tis harder to live with that conflict in your heart.” It meant still searching for the humanity in the person, whatever pieces might be there. “’Tis never weak, choosing the harder path.”

“Do you hate anyone?”

She’d brought her arm atop his; he turned his a bit, sliding his fingers through hers while thinking on how he wanted to answer her.

A few different people in his life might justly have earned his hatred. The man who fathered him could top that list, possibly, but he’d never felt worth that much thought. ’Twas his mam’s right to hate the man—but she didn’t, or not so she’d ever said it to him. Whatever else came of it, Ciarán a mhic, he gave me you, she’d told him once when he was small.

Lorcán, sure, but there’d barely been time to grow hatred of Lorcán to replace their childhood friendship. And now . . . ’Twas done, that.

“No one living,” he told Lucy. “But aye, I suppose there’s one man dead I hate.” If it could still be called hatred, what emotion remained after a man’s heart stopped beating.

She drew breath like she meant to ask something else, but nothing followed.

“What?” he prompted. She’d gone soft in his arms, not tense anymore. She’d let him in, just a bit. Mayhap she’d let him in a little more.

But she wasn’t thinking about herself. “Are you the reason that man is dead? The one you hate?”

She’d just shared one of her lingering wounds. He could do the same without giving up much, and ’twas still more than he’d ever admitted aloud. “Aye.”

Her voice was a whisper again. “Did he deserve it?”

“Aye.”