Chapter 24

Chapter Twenty-Four

L ouisa had often been at the receiving end of people’s malice. The moment she got injured and became scarred as a consequence, she had a first-hand experience of just how malicious people could be.

Members of the ton who had hated her and thought her a snub had relished the opportunity to sneer at her under the guise of sympathizing with her, so much so that she was almost consumed by the thought that she might have become worthless, since her only asset—which, in their opinion, was her beauty—had been taken away from her, reducing her chances of making a good match.

She thanked the good Lord that she had her family’s support in those moments. Her mother had wrapped her in her arms while she wept, on those nights when their barbs had hit vulnerable places in her heart. Her family had helped her heal and come back stronger, allowing her to ignore people while consoling herself with the thought that they just needed her as a scapegoat to take out the pain and hatred that was eating them from the inside out.

That much was true because she had come to realize that most members of the ton carried terrible wounds that were invisible to the eye. They hid them behind heavily powdered faces and fans, and most of them had taken up malicious gossip as some kind of entertainment to fill the gaping holes in their souls. Of course, it did not justify their cruelty, but it helped her not to take their barbs to heart.

The thought that she also had her family to welcome her after such exhausting encounters helped her stand strong in the face of their malice.

When she agreed to marry Percival, she understood that the marriage would be one of convenience, but she had at least hoped deep in her heart to gain a new family.

Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined that one day, she would be betrayed by a relation. She had heard tales of some ladies of the ton being kidnapped by bounders in retaliation for crimes—real or imaginary—that were committed against them by their victims’ spouses. But then even those crimes were hardly committed by close relatives and friends, so her confusion and denial were valid when she realized that her captor’s voice was familiar.

Too familiar for comfort.

No, it cannot be.

“I am afraid it is true, Your Grace,” the familiar voice replied as if reading her thoughts, his tone brimming with smug amusement. “Are you surprised?” he asked, walking to the window and slowly raising the shutter until sunlight spilled into the room, illuminating his features and confirming her suspicions.

His tall frame leaned carelessly against the wall beside the window, the sunlight glinting off his pale skin so he looked even paler. Those familiar grey eyes smiled back at her, glinting with dark amusement. But they were also shadowed and swollen, as if he had gone several nights without sleep, and she swore she could smell the alcohol on his breath even from where she was.

The Baron of Gillingham, why?

“But then I guess you should not be, especially considering what you have done.”

“Why?” Louisa choked out. “Why would you do this to me? What have I done to you?”

“You married my brother,” he said with eerie calm, coming to stand in front of her. He crouched down so that she was staring directly into his face. “You might have been spared from all this drama if only you stayed away from my brother,” he sighed, spreading his hands to encompass the room.

“But then it is always the innocent-looking ones. They always have a thing for playing with fire. The only problem is that no one informs them that they could get burned, or they are just stubborn, refusing to yield to good sense.”

Brother?

Percival and the Baron were brothers?

She had noticed the uncanny resemblance between the two men but had shoved the thought aside considering it wasn’t something worth mentioning.

“I assue from your surprise that your dear husband didn’t even think to tell you.” He spat.

“Lord Gillingham,” she said, shifting in her seat and licking her dry lips to moisten it. “If we are family, I don’t see why you would do this…”

“Family!” he scoffed, before bursting into maniacal laughter, the sound so disturbing that it caused her to squirm uncomfortably in her seat.

The longer she talked to him, the more evident it became that he was unhinged, and for some reason, he seemed to love those tiresome monologues that villains sprouted in the pages of some books she read.

Perhaps if she fed into his love for theatrics, she could get him to talk and buy herself some time while she came up with an idea to free herself, or at the very least keep him distracted until help came. Because somewhere in her heart, she knew that Percival was looking for her. Even now, she imagined he must be scouring the entire countryside in search of her.

She prayed that he would find her. She definitely did not want to die, not when she was only now enjoying her husband’s attention. There was also a chance that there was a little one in her belly, especially with how often Percival ravished her the previous days, she thought with a blush.

She peered up at her captor from beneath her lashes to see if he had noticed the flush on her cheeks, and she was relieved to note that he was still laughing.

Just as it had started, the maniacal laugh stopped, pulling her focus to the man before her.

“You really think we are family?” he asked, a mad glint in his eyes. “Do you treat your family the way Percy has treated me? Like some dirty secret to keep?”

“I do not think Percy would have treated you so poorly. If you had ever shown interest in perhaps visiting or…”

“You think they would have welcomed me with open arms?” he snorted, a bitter twist to his lips. “The spotless sons of the Colborne dynasty were more comfortable meeting me in the obscure corners of the city, treating me like a dirty secret to be hidden. They are the ones who were supposed to be hidden. I am the eldest. I would have inherited the dukedom if my whore of a mother had played her cards right. My father had the audacity not to claim me, to leave me to the mercy of the wretched, vindictive man who raised me as his son. I will never forget the pain I suffered at his hand.”

“Sometimes I think he might have discovered my mother’s perfidy and decided to take out his anger and frustration on the poor, defenseless product of such a filthy union. I tried to escape time and time again!”

He stomped his foot suddenly, causing Louisa to jump in her seat.

“Yet somehow, he always found me. This continued until one day, I brought it to an end,” he continued, a sinister, cold smile playing on his lips. “It was just a matter of getting a tincture from the local apothecary and putting a little in his brandy, and soon he was dead—made it look like he died of a heart attack, I did,” he said, proudly nodding his head.

“Mother might have known, but she never said anything to me. She was content to be free from his tyranny as well. She was a lusty woman, my mother, and the death of her husband seemed only to give her the opportunity to take as many lovers as she wanted. It wasn’t uncommon to stumble upon several gentlemen in our house at several stages of undress. It never occurred to me that my mother’s whorish nature was not only born of her recent freedom but also a trait… until the day Michael approached me with the truth about my birth.”

“I confronted her, and she finally confessed to foisting me on the Baron, who raised me as his son. I was so angry with her for denying me a life that could have been better than the hell I had to endure, but soon she left on some prolonged journey to Bath. We did not exchange letters until several months ago, when I heard that she died from a disease. I would say it was quite a fitting end for such a lying whore.” He shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. “If Michael had known he would have kept that secret to himself. He ruined my life!”

“He only wanted to make amends…”

“More or less he was feeling guilty for his father’s mistake and thought he could buy my forgiveness with a token of friendship yet rather than declare our relationship, he kept the secret hidden.”

“If you didn’t grow up with your brothers, how did you know to come in through those passageways?” Louisa asked, keeping her tone curious.

“That?” he drawled, feverish delight radiating from him in waves. “It was the Duke.” At her doubtful frown, he flashed her a droll smile. “Not your husband, little Duchess. He is far too guarded for that. I meant Michael. Poor, little Duke was lonely when his father cocked up his toes and died and his brother joined the army. He had no other family, since their mother died when they were children. Then, he remembered me. His father’s bastard son. He decided to befriend me, spilling all his problems to my most eager ear. Soon, he was sharing secrets as well, and that was when he told me about the passageways. The poor sod.”

“Eli, you could have still had it worse in the Duke’s household. For one, the fact that he did not acknowledge you was all the indication you needed to know that he was not truly a good man.”

“Yes, he might not have been a good man, but at least I would have been the heir to the dukedom. I wouldn’t have had to climb up the social ladder from the bottom, enduring the barbs and the sneers of the dukes and earls who governed it. I could have been high on Society’s food chain, where everyone deferred to my words. Instead, my words were useless. Nobody wanted to listen to my ideas because I am no Duke.”

“It has not been easy for the dukedom either. They have been in debt for so long, and the manor is in such a state of disrepair…”

“That was because of Michael’s vices. But I could care less about that old manor. Michael, and now Percy, had never realized the privilege they were born with—a place in Society where their ideas were listened to no matter how useless they were, simply because they were the sons of a duke. That is why fate was only fair by taking Michael early. Percival would have been dead as well, but somehow the brat had returned alive. Dratted inconvenience.”

“I don’t know who started the rumours that Percival was dead, but I was grateful for it.” Percival heard him laugh. “Michael went crazy trying to get information from the army, and in that desperation, I saw he was no longer fit for the title. He was so mad with grief that he often drank himself into oblivion, and I stood by, comforting him but biding my time. Somehow, the Duke had only birthed weak sons. But it didn’t matter. My title was just within my grasp, and it was almost too easy.”

“But he is family, surely you would not wish him dead,” Louisa said tentatively while her eyes searched the room for a means of escape.

“Have you not been listening to me, Duchess? I am quite capable of killing family. Hell, I killed my own father, and I am responsible for Michael’s death as well, I am afraid,” he intoned, his face splitting in the most sinister smile she had ever seen.