Hugh hesitated a moment before he said, “I will pay him a handsome sum.”
She flinched. Her brother might have the funds to do so—she knew he was well off and managed his estates as impeccably as he did anything else. But why should he suffer for what she’d done?
“Take it from my inheritance,” she suggested as she pushed from his arms and used the edge of the bed to get back to her feet.
“I shall do no such thing. I have more than enough money. Once he is paid, we will…move on. If you think you can do that.”
Her answer was no. She couldn’t move on. What she’d done, who she’d trusted…that would haunt her for the rest of her days. She knew that. She could never forget it. But she lifted her chin slightly, so that Hugh wouldn’t feel her regret.
“Yes,” she lied.
She turned away and quickly fixed her hair, her cheeks hot once more as she thought of what she’d done with Aaron. With what Hugh must have guessed she had done. It was all so humiliating.
“I will do my best, Hugh,” she said, forcing herself to look at him. “And I promise I will never do anything ever again that will force you into such a situation. I will look for respectability. I shall never seek out love. I promise.”
With that, she turned toward the door and moved outside. It was only Hugh’s horse waiting there, and she walked up to the beast and rested her head on his flank.
“I’ve ruined everything, Wren,” she whispered, and the horse whinnied as if he agreed.
She pulled away and stared up at the stars in the cold sky above. Once upon a time she’d wished on those stars, for frivolous things and silly things and deeper things like love. But now she had to put those wishes away. Now she had to be more careful. More aware. More cynical.
The world was a dangerous place and she could never fall prey to a rogue again. She could never, ever again let herself be so seduced by a false promise of love or adventure. It was staid responsibility for her for the rest of her days.
As empty as that sounded, it was what she deserved in the end.
Chapter 1
July 1815
Morgan Banfield smelled his surroundings before he could manage to find the gumption to look at them. Piss, shit, vomit, fear…it all permeated the air around him and his stomach turned at the pungent odor of decay. The sounds pierced his throbbing head next. Screaming in the distance. A constant scream, not intermittent. Banging closer up, but not so close as to make him feel endangered.
He had a feeling he knew exactly where he was, but he didn’t want to look. If he didn’t look, perhaps he could just ignore the truth. That was a fun way to live. He was good at it.
He opened one eye and looked around. Cold stone walls. A flat, straw stuffed mattress on the floor that was stained with God knew what. And, of course, the steel bars that blocked his or any other man’s escape from this hellhole.
Prison. Newgate, he guessed, based on the vague recollection of where he had been last night. Donville Masquerade, at first, looking for someplace to warm his cock. Once that had been dispatched with, he played cards. But he’d been sober there. At first.
Why had he started drinking?
It rushed back to him and he winced as he recalled who he’d seen at the game. A former friend he’d wronged. Gareth Covington. He’d been thrown off his game and he’d lost over and over. That was when he’d started drinking. Drank enough that he was asked to leave because he was causing a scene.
Morgan shook his head. He was very good at causing a scene. He’d moved on, he thought, to a different hell. One that wasn’t quite so discerning as Donville. That was where things got very blurry. More cards, he thought. More drink. Shouting, he thought. Had Covington followed him?
He must have. Morgan vaguely remembered that angry face in the crowd. Had it escalated? It must have. He worked his jaw gently and winced. He’d gotten punched, it seemed. He lifted a hand to tap his face and found his left eye was also sore when he grazed it.
When he drank and gambled, it was a bad combination. Had he continued to lose? Probably. He usually did in that state. And if he couldn’t pay…if that had led to a fight…well, depending on the man he’d swindled, that was a very good way to end up in gaol.
He flopped onto his back and dropped his arm over his eyes with a groan. “Shit.”
“Indeed. Shit. You’re certainly in it now,” came a voice from the other side of the bars. It was a voice Morgan knew well. He didn’t want to look at the man who owned it. And yet there was not really a choice.
He lowered his arm to find his half-brother, Robert Smithton, the Duke of Roseford, staring at him from outside the cell. He was dressed impeccably, just as he always was, not a hair on his head out of place. His expression was unreadable, though Morgan could tell he was irritated by the way his arms were folded tight across his chest.
“You look like shit, too,” Roseford added, and there was a hint of a smile that tilted one side of his lips.
Morgan slowly sat up and tried not to react to the searing pain that burned through his skull and into every joint in his body. God’s teeth, how much had he drunk?
“How did you know?” Morgan grunted. His mouth was so dry it was difficult to speak. “I didn’t even know I was here.”
That elicited a chuckle from Roseford. It was well known that Robert had lived a wild life, himself, for a very long time. Not recently, of course. Not since his marriage. “Do you actually need to guess?”
Morgan let out a long sigh. “Selina?” he asked.
Roseford inclined his head in the affirmative. Morgan slowly got up, hating the roil of his stomach as he steadied himself on the wall. Selina Oliver was another half-sibling shared by the two. They all had the same bastard of a father, along with God knew how many others. And while his relationship with Roseford was…strained and uncomfortable at times, his bond with Selina was much stronger. Perhaps because they were so much alike.
“I suppose she was there,” he admitted.
“Yes, at Donville Masquerade,” Roseford mused with a troubled expression. “Our sister is as wild as you are. Well, almost. But she isn’t my problem…yet. You are.”
Morgan pursed his lips and dropped his gaze to the floor. “No I’m not,” he grumbled, wishing there wasn’t so much revealing bitterness in his tone.
He had only come to know Roseford recently. They’d been kept apart as boys. Their father, the last duke, kept his by-blows far from his “real” son. Payments had come to keep everyone silent, rather than safe. Ten years ago, when his father died, Morgan had felt a genuine terror that those payments, which supported his education and his mother’s small comforts, would dry up.
And yet they hadn’t. Robert had continued to pay to support his father’s bastards. He’d even managed to get doors opened for them in ways the previous Roseford hadn’t tried. Morgan both appreciated his brother for making the effort…and resented him for wielding a power over him that Morgan couldn’t make equal.
“We’re only half-blood, Roseford,” he muttered. “I’m not your problem.”
“Yet here we are,” Roseford said.
As he said it, a guard approached. At first Morgan thought he might be there to escort his brother from the premises, but instead the giant oaf of a man pulled a ring of keys from a chain around his waist. After a few seconds of fumbling, he opened the cell door and swung it wide, motioning Morgan from the unpleasant accommodations.