a more painful phrase in the English-speaking world? Iain didn’t think so. He’d been hurt, his heart smashed open, bleeding, upon hearing those words. Now, hours later, he still bled, the severed vessels opening every time he heard that hated sentiment repeated in his turbulent thoughts. Even closing his eyes, he heard her, and saw her, too—the way she had stood up to him, back straight, regal chin tilted at the perfect angle to relay feminine hauteur. She had not been playing coy when she had told him that. She had been speaking the truth, a truth born deep in her soul. And hours later, the bleeding continued, and the pain of that reality shattered whatever illusion and pitiful hope he had been desperately clinging to.
Most horrible, for him, was the realization that he had not even known he’d been clinging to anything, much less hope. But comprehension had dawned the minute Georgiana had challenged him about regrets. It had been then that he realized he harboured the sentimental emotion.
For the first time in his life he had not run from the knowledge, from the feeling that made its presence known. He’d accepted it, and by the time he had arrived at the Sumners’ musicale, he had actually claimed it, welcomed it. But with that revelation, so foreign to him, and yes, terrifying to admit, had come the heartache of knowing that Elizabeth had washed her hands of him.
She didn’t want him. And he had never stopped wanting her.
“Miserable existence,” he muttered as he lifted the bottle to his mouth and drank heartily of the Scotch. He deserved no less, he knew. But somewhere inside him he had always believed that Elizabeth York understood him. Knew deep down the extent of his flaws and the defects of his personality. He had always thought that she accepted that about him, and had forgiven him his trespasses all those years ago, like the angel he not only thought her to be, but knew her to be.
But his angel had teeth—and claws—that had effectively eviscerated him tonight. By God, what had he been about, doing what he had? Demanding such things? He knew better than to let the years of hunger for her get the best of him. And they had.
He’d been in a murderous, incredulous rage when he’d first glimpsed Elizabeth standing beside the earl. A living, breathing darkness had blanketed him, and while he wished he could feign ignorance as to its cause, he knew better. The carpet had been torn from beneath his feet, and landing flat on the ground had winded him. A sort of red mist had gathered and clouded his sight: rage stemming from the shattered hope that one day he might find his way back to her.
It had always been a comfort to him—a perverse comfort, because he was a capricious man who took pleasure in such selfish thoughts as the one he had long clung to. In his mind, there was still time, still a chance that she might one day be his. Elizabeth did not go out in Society. She did not accept men’s arms and stroll about salons with them. In essence, there was no other man in her life. No golden male to rival Iain’s black soul. And the knowledge had always comforted him.
Selfishly, he wanted her to stay free of courtships and such. It gave him hope. And tonight, when he had been feeling strangely melancholy and … alone, he had needed Elizabeth. Needed for them to find their way to one another again. And that … Well, that had been all dashed to the farthest regions of hell.
Seeing her with Sheldon—the smile, that was not forced nor feigned—had ignited in Iain something unholy. Some damned monster that gnashed and snarled and struck out with huge, clawed hands.
She had been happy, and he had been more than unhappy to see her that way. Misery, the old saying went, loves company. Iain had believed that Elizabeth and he shared the same misery, the same unrequited longing. A love denied, but that would not die despite the cloying darkness that threatened its light.
But tonight had made clear that she did not share his misery. He’d been confronted with the fact that he was a fool. That he had taken the one thing in the world that had ever meant anything to him and tossed it away like a child’s toy, only to be outraged when another had come by to pluck it from the sand.
Iain had toyed with Elizabeth, cast her aside and left her to find her own way in the world. Sheldon, that bastard, had been the one to find her, to pick her up and marvel at the treasure she presented.
Love unrequited. Love denied—and spurned. Iain felt the stab of pain where his heart should be. Pressing his eyes shut, he sought to banish the sensation from his awareness.
If he were any sort of gentleman, hell, any sort of decent human being, he’d slink away with his tail between his legs and never look back. But he wasn’t decent. He had the pride of a marquis and a bloody Highlander. Everything inside him screamed to take what he thought rightfully belonged to him, honourable or no.
It’s only fair, you bastard, a taunting voice inside him jeered. You’re getting a taste of your own medicine.
And it was a damn bitter pill to swallow. One best diluted with a good single-malt Scotch.
“God save us, you’re foxed!”
Iain held up the crystal decanter as he studied Black entering his carriage. He didn’t have the patience for the earl, not tonight. Friends or no, he couldn’t stomach the earl’s happiness, which seemed to radiate from his every pore. “Good and drunk,” he replied in a slurred voice. “Thought I’d give that fat, pompous Larabie a bit of an edge tonight. Lord knows he’ll need one.”
“You cannot meet him like this. I doubt you can even walk.”
“I can, too,” he drawled, before taking another sip. Black snatched the decanter, spilling some of the amber liquid over Iain’s greatcoat, which was open, revealing his kilt and sporran. Black’s dark brows rose in question, and Iain gave a foul hand gesture that should have made him feel better, but only made him realize he was verging on pathetic.
Christ, he hoped he’d die tonight and save himself the mortification of living another day to lock eyes with Elizabeth York, the haughty spinster of Sussex. The angel of your very sinful dreams …
The Sussex Angel, she had been called then, the year of her come-out. She had been, too. From the first moment he’d laid eyes on her, he’d wanted her. Part of him wished to bask in her goodness, her innocence. The other part had wanted to corrupt her, to drag her from the light and immerse her in sin.
She was still a damned angel, even approaching thirty. How could she still possess those beautiful, artless grey eyes and that pure, pale flesh? She was fair and perfect. He was black and corrupted. And damn him, every thought in his head kept coming back to her tonight, and the realization that he had finally allowed himself to admit to something that she spurned. That she no longer desired. That would not fucking die!
“What the devil are you doing here, besides irritating me?” he demanded in a churlish tone. “Thought you’d be ensconced in your chambers, enjoying the virtue of your marriage bed with your lovely wife.”
“Don’t,” Black growled, “mock what I have with my wife. You will never understand the sanctity to be found in bed with a woman who is the other half of your soul.”
He wanted another drink, and to tell the pompous Black to go to hell, but he sneered instead. “No, in fact, I will not. I don’t have a soul, ergo there is no other half wandering about, waiting for me to get into bed. No arms waiting to hold me when I arrive home.”
“And whose fault is that?” his friend demanded.
“I’m done with this conversation. Why are you here, and not Sussex?”
Folding his arms across his chest, Black watched him through the dim shadows of the carriage’s interior. “Sussex sent a missive around. It was terse and to the point. He stated he couldn’t make it, and requested that I come to be your second.”
With Lucy Ashton. That’s where His Grace was tonight. Trying to get a hand up the beauty’s skirt. Thrown over for a woman and a toss, Iain thought, and grunted in amusement. Although he couldn’t reasonably think such a thing. Sussex wanted the lovely Lucy Ashton with a blind, consuming need. It left a bad taste in Iain’s mouth, knowing the determined duke would one day have her, and he himself