“One way or another, I get what I wanted, don’t I?” Aaron said, his tone smug and mocking.
She stared at him, unblinking, trying to find the man she had told herself she loved. The man who had wooed her and convinced her to escape with him. He wasn’t there.
“What—what do you mean by that, Aaron?”
He looked past Hugh to her. “My dear, I would have married you, and engaged in all those pleasures you and I had just begun to explore.”
Heat flooded her cheeks at his crude revelation of their wicked activities. Hugh was a smart man, he had to have guessed what she’d done, but there was no need to flaunt it in his face.
And it generated a reaction. Hugh let out a grunt and lunged for Aaron. Lizzie clung to his arm with all her might, digging in her heels to keep him from pummeling Aaron to a pulp.
“But as you can see, Brighthollow will never allow it,” Aaron continued with a shrug.
“I will not,” Hugh said through clenched teeth.
Aaron tilted his head and held her stare. “So you remember that when you look at him. He took your future from you, not me.”
Lizzie recoiled. Aaron wasn’t trying to reason with her brother, or declare his devotion. He was just trying to hurt Hugh. Worse, he was trying to make her hate her brother. Not that she ever could or would.
“Don’t you dare act like a gentleman thwarted by my cruelty. You are only interested in my sister’s inheritance,” Hugh spat.
Those words landed in the room with a resounding thud. She stared at Aaron, waiting for him to deny the charge. Waiting for him to say anything that told her he truly cared for her. But he didn’t, and the truth of everything began to rot its way into her chest, throughout her body, into every bit of her. She found herself curling inward, trying to make herself smaller, trying to escape what now felt so obvious.
“It is a very nice inheritance,” Aaron said at last. “But I won’t need it now.”
“A-Aaron,” Lizzie whispered and wished her tone weren’t so broken, so vulnerable.
“What do you mean you won’t need it?” Hugh asked, his voice shaking, this time with more than just anger. He sounded…afraid.
“My driver, the woman who owns this home, my friends…everyone knows that we snuck away under your very nose.” Aaron sneered at Hugh. “And that we have been alone for several nights.”
“But—” Lizzie began as nausea rose up inside of her, threatening to deposit onto the cheap carpet what little she’d eaten that day.
“Hush now, Lizzie, your brother and I are negotiating,” Aaron said, never looking at her, never seeing how the sharpness and dismissiveness of his actions and words cut to her very spirit. Not looking because it was becoming evident he didn’t care. “You don’t want all this to be unleashed into Society, do you? This thing that will ruin all her chances at a future?”
Hugh released Lizzie’s hand. He did not move forward, he didn’t move at all. He just held the stare of a man she’d thought was her future and said, “I will kill you.”
Aaron seemed unmoved by the threat. He just smiled. “Do it, go ahead. If you do, it will only make this scandal all the larger and drag down your entire legacy…along with her.”
Lizzie lifted her hands to cover her mouth. God, Aaron was right. If what she’d done came out, if her ruin was public knowledge, it would affect Hugh’s future as well. Her beloved brother, who had spent years carefully building his reputation, would lose it all because she had been such a little fool.
“What do you want?” Hugh asked, his voice choked.
“For you to do what any loving brother would do in this situation. You will pay me handsomely to cover up your sister’s foolish, youthful mistake.”
Lizzie staggered forward, her hands shaking even as she tried to manage the trembling. Her body tingling with all the consequences and lies and fears that now burst in her one after the other. This man, Aaron Walters, had done that to her. Callously. Because she was such a fool, such an easy target.
“How could you?” she whispered. “How?”
Aaron looked her up and down, his face devoid of any emotion he’d ever created to manipulate her. He shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand. You’ve always had everything you ever wanted.”
“Get out,” Hugh said, his hand shaking as he pointed toward the door behind them.
Aaron grinned at her brother. “I’ll go to your solicitor’s in London in…shall we say two days? I will assume my very generous payment will be waiting for me there. Good evening, Your Grace,” he said as he strode past them. At the door, he paused and turned back. “Oh, and Lizzie?”
She had been staring at the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She lifted her gaze toward this man she didn’t know. This man who had played her like her favorite pianoforte. “Yes?”
“It’s been a pleasure,” he said, and walked out, laughing the whole way.
The moment he’d gone and shut the door behind himself, Lizzie tipped forward, dropping to her knees on the floor beside the bed. She buried her head in her hands and began to weep, even though she hated herself for it. She didn’t deserve to cry after what she’d done, but she couldn’t stop. She’d thought there was a future for her out there. A happy life with the man who had just crushed her.
And all the while it had been nothing but a cruel illusion.
Hugh rushed to her, dropping down beside her and gathering her into his arms. She felt him rocking her and it brought her back to so many nights he had held her when she was a little girl, troubled by nightmares. But did she truly deserve that after what she’d brought down on their family? On their name?
“I’m sorry,” she finally hiccupped against his shirt. “I shouldn’t have thought he could truly love me. I was such a fool!”
Hugh slid a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face toward his. She saw all his kindness and gentleness and love for her, just as it had always been. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t judge. He just looked sad on her behalf as he sighed, “No. Sweetest Lizzie, if you believed he cared for you and he took advantage, it is he who is the fool, not you.” He cleared his throat. “But I do wonder why you thought you could not tell me about him.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “He encouraged me to sneak out. Said he’d tried to talk to you and that you were uncertain based on his lack of title.”
“You thought I would be so cruel as to separate you from someone you truly loved, even if I believed he had your best interests at heart?” he asked gently.
She worried her lip at the question. “You are…protective. I know you wish for me to be safe. To be settled well. Oh, and now I’ve ruined everything,” she said, putting her head back into her hands and returning to the sobs. “And after you’ve taken care of me for so long.”
He wrapped his arms more tightly around her and smoothed a hand over her hair. “You’ve ruined nothing. I adore you, and being your older brother and your guardian has been one of the greatest joys of my life. Even if I have made a muck of it, it seems.”
His kind words permeated the pain and slowly her sobs subsided. She rested her head on his chest and let out her breath in a long sigh. “You haven’t made a muck of it. I thought he loved me. But he didn’t. So what will happen now?”