“The only thing that surprises me is your friendship with Felicity Montgomery. I had thought her to be a lady of more discerning tastes.” Lucien knew her claim of friendship to the countess to be true, at least. He clearly recalled Lady Rachel as being in close attendance to the bride the previous week, along with two of Lady Felicity’s other close lady friends.

  “I am obviously wasting your time as well as my own.” Rachel Shaw stood in preparation for leaving, her expression one of quiet dignity.

  Leading Lucien to speculate as to whether or not there was more to Lady Rachel than had previously met the eye.

  That perhaps she was telling him the truth…?

  “Thank you for listening to me, at least, Lord Brooketon.” She curtseyed. “I trust I may rely upon your discretion in regard to the things I have told you today?”

  He nodded tersely. “You have my word on it.”

  Lucien watched her as she walked toward the door. What exactly had she told him? That her husband was a sodomite and had an affair with another man before and after their marriage. She had recently—unknowingly—had an affair with that same gentleman. That this gentleman now had in his possession letters she had written to him, which could ruin her if this man made them public.

  And she flinched when I made a sudden move in her direction she had not been expecting.

  “Which one of those gentlemen is responsible for beating you, your husband or your lover?”

  Rachel froze, spine rigid, shoulders tensed, unable but also too afraid to turn and face Lord Brooketon. Knowing she was too shaken by his question to be able to hide her shame from him if he should see her face.

  He had not believed her when she told him James had a male lover before and after their marriage. There was no reason to suppose the viscount would believe her now if she admitted her husband was the one guilty of consistent and regular physical brutality during the early years of their marriage.

  She squeezed her eyes shut to stem the tears burning her eyes. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Oh, I believe you do.” The viscount’s voice sounded much closer now.

  So close Rachel was sure she could feel the heat of his breath on her nape, and the warmth of his body through her own layers of clothing.

  There was no way for her to prevent the trembling that resulted from knowing of that close proximity. Nowhere for her to hide how much it disturbed her.

  “I saw your reaction a short time ago,” the viscount said softly. “The way you flinched when you thought I was about to touch you. As if you feared I intended some form of physical chastisement. Even now you are trembling from my standing so close to you.”

  “You are imagining things.” Rachel remained turned away from him.

  “No,” Lucien stated with certainty, more convinced than ever that either Shaw or her lover had raised his hand or taken his fists to this woman. An act so unforgiveable under any circumstances, in Lucien’s opinion, he believed the only suitable punishment for the man guilty of such a crime was to have hands or fists taken to him. “Which one was it?” he pressed grimly.

  “I really have no idea what you are talking— Take your hand off me!” She had turned quickly as he touched her arm, body tense, a snarl twisting her features, eyes glittering darkly, and her hands raised into claws.

  A reaction so raw in emotion, Lucien no longer had a single doubt that this woman had been beaten in the past, and not only once, but many times.

  Chapter 3

  “I am still waiting for an answer, Rachel.”

  Rachel felt so tired, so exhausted by the continuous worry of this past week, that having Brooketon address her by her first name, and in a gentle voice she had not heard from him before now, caused the scalding tears to fall unchecked down the coolness of her cheeks.

  “Please, no,” she choked as he would have reached out and taken her in his arms. “As you have realized, I do not like to be touched.” Most especially today, after all this talk of James. “I am usually more adept at hiding it,” she admitted ruefully.

  Brooketon turned abruptly to stride over to where a full decanter and several glasses sat on the sideboard. He poured the amber liquid into one of them before returning to her side. “Drink this, and then we will talk further.”

  It was all Rachel could do to lift her head high enough to be able to look at him. To speak again was impossible.

  Her reaction just now had been purely instinctive as she rounded on her possible attacker in a way she had never been strong enough to do against James.

  The first time he had beaten her, she had been too shocked, and in too much pain, to be able to fight back. The second night, she was still too bruised from the first to put up much resistance, quietly sobbing as he thrust into her dryness again and again until he reached his peak. He withdrew immediately afterward to return to his own bedchamber.

  Rachel had gone home to her parents the following day, unable to bear the thought of suffering that pain and humiliation a third time. She had sobbed hysterically as she told her parents what had happened on her wedding night, and the following night too.

  They had sent her back to her husband.

  Oh, not before they had listened to her, tutted over the bruises she showed them, but afterward they had said James was her husband, and the law said she was now his property. They could not interfere with a husband’s treatment of his wife. Besides, who would ever believe that such a respected man as Lord James Shaw would treat his young wife so cruelly? Rachel could see that her parents had not believed it either, had put her hysterics down to the trauma of a newlywed, her bruises to a too passionate husband.

  Her mother had given her laudanum for the pain, a salve for the bruises, lotion she might apply before going to bed to help ease the act of lovemaking. Before putting her back in the carriage and returning her to her husband.

  Her relationship with her parents had never been close again.

  Rachel had learned a painful truth that day. If her parents could not help her, then no one could, and the only thing left for her to do was to bear her marriage as best she could.

  She had never told anyone else of the horror of her marriage, not her two younger sisters or her three closest friends. Had felt too ashamed, too humiliated, ever to want any of them to know of James’s treatment of her.

  So she had used the laudanum to dull the pain and the salves to cover her bruises, claiming an illness when those bruises were too visible for her to go out in public. She had diligently applied the lotion too, and bought more when she ran out, so that she only suffered bruises on the outside and not the inside.

  On the day, a full two years later, when she knew she had conceived William, she had wept with joy when James assured that if the child were a boy, he would never visit her bedchamber again.

  In the years that followed, as far as Society, her family, and friends was concerned, Lady Rachel Shaw was a beautiful and vivacious woman, and a credit to her husband. Inwardly, Rachel was no more than a hollow shell, her love for William all that sustained her. Until James’s death a year ago had freed her from her hellish marriage.

  She had grown inwardly stronger during that year. So much so that she now realized she had become overconfident in her belief no one would ever be allowed to hurt her again.

  Until she found her own and her son’s future threatened by those innocently written letters.

  Lucien Brooke, Viscount Brooketon, had further stripped her of her social façade with a single question.

  “Which one of those gentlemen is responsible for beating you, your husband or your lover?”

  “Please drink some of the brandy,” Lucien encouraged gently, hoping none of the anger churning inside him was visible in his demeanor as she finally took the glass from him and then tentatively sipped the amber liquid.

  Suspecting abuse and having that suspicion confirmed were two distinctly different things, he now realized. And he was also convinced Rachel had been telling him the truth earlier. How could he doubt it when she had turned on him minutes ago like a wounded and cornered animal, the fear clearly evident in her fiercely unguarded gaze?

  Making Lucien self-disgustedly aware, belatedly, that Rachel had displayed none of that public flirt and tease since her arrival here today. Instead, she had been quietly dignified as she told him of her dilemma, and remained so even in the face of his obvious contempt. She had become emotional only when she thought he had been about to touch her. Those emotions had boiled over into tears after he had questioned who was responsible for beating her.

  Leading Lucien to several conclusions.

  Rachel Shaw was not that flirtatious tease she chose to present in Society.

  Every word she had told him today was the truth. Shaw’s sexual preference. His long-time affair with another man. The same man who had deliberately courted her in recent months and now intended to hurt his dead lover’s widow in any way he could.

  She was undeserving of either Lucien’s contempt or his callous dismissal.

  He had allowed his years of disgust for his mother’s behavior to color his opinion of Rachel. Had judged her unheard and found her wanting.

  When he did not know her.

  He doubted from the little he had observed since becoming aware of Rachel’s ill treatment, that anyone truly knew her.

  Perhaps not even Rachel herself?

  Because Lucien had no doubt, between that veneer she presented to Society and the almost feral creature who had turned on him seconds ago, she was a woman of deep passions. A woman who, with a man patient enough to break through all her barriers, could be persuaded into being a sensuous and adventurous lover.

  “It was your husband,” Lucien stated, knowing she could not have responded so strongly as she had from one incident of mistreatment. That she had to have suffered for years rather than weeks or months.

  She looked up at him quickly and then away again. “I do not… I… Do you now believe what I have told you?”

  How could he not? “Yes, I believe you.”

  “It was my husband,” she acknowledged with a pained wince.

  Lucien took the empty glass from her and placed it down on the low table in front of the sofa, her hands now shaking so badly, she looked in danger of dropping it.

  “I apologize.” She sighed. “Since my husband’s death, I have obviously become complacent. Have allowed my emotions to get the better of me.”

  Leading Lucien to question how many lovers she had taken since escaping the clutches of her brutish husband.

  “None,” Rachel answered the question she was sure the viscount had not intended to ask out loud but had done so anyway. “As you have observed, I do not like to be touched.”

  “By me or any man?”

  “Any man.”

  “I have seen you dancing at balls.”

  “Only those dances which require the touching of hands, and always with my gloves between them and me. This other man was not my lover,” she added as Brooketon frowned. “At least, not in the way you mean.” She turned away from that piercing blue gaze to cross the room and stare sightlessly out the window into the manicured garden.

  She already felt too raw, too exposed to this particular gentleman to allow Brooketon to see any more of her emotions.

  “It began as a silly flirtation at a ball.” She sighed. “I do not even remember which one. We danced together several times that evening. He called upon me at Shaw House the following day, along with several other gentlemen I had also danced with the previous evening. All innocent enough.”

  “And yet not.”

  “No,” Rachel acknowledged shakily. “We met again that evening at a musical soiree. I believed by accident. And every evening after that for a week. When I retired to the country for the summer, the letters began to arrive. I should have ignored them. Should have ignored him.”

  “You were flattered by his attentions, believed them to be genuine.”

  “Yes.” She trembled at the thought of her stupidity. “He seemed so different from James. Gentle, caring, and his letters were full of praise and admiration. I do not recall what made me answer one of them. Perhaps a question asked, I really do not remember.” She gave a weary shake of her head. “After that, we exchanged letters two, sometimes three times a week, with the agreement we would burn them after reading them.”

  “A promise he failed to keep.”

  “Yes.” Rachel’s hands were so tightly clasped at her sides, her nails were in danger of piercing the delicate leather of her gloves. She turned to face Brooketon, chin held high, her gaze unwavering as it met his. She needed him to see the truth in her face when she made the next statement. “We were not, nor have we ever been, lovers.”

  Lucien had no difficulty believing her. Or admiring her. Many women would have been reduced to hysteria when presented with this added cruelty from another man she had allowed herself to trust. Rachel was shaken but not broken, an indication of the steel in her character.

  He nodded. “Being your husband’s lover, this other man knew of his ill-treatment of you. Knew how to flirt with you without being intrusive. How to appeal, in his letters to you, to your need to feel loved and cherished.”

  “Yes.” She offered no defense for being so naive as those tears once again fell silently down her pallid cheeks.

  “He threatens to make these letters public, in the full knowledge you would never refute them by besmirching the name or reputation of your son’s father?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucien could feel a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw, and it took every effort of will on his part not to reach out again and take her in his arms and comfort her. Something he knew she would reject at this moment. “I want his name.”

  She turned away. “I have changed my mind in regard to involving you—”

  “As I have changed mine in regard to helping you.”

  “No,” she said firmly. “I realize now it will not do. I…I am sorry for having bothered you, but…no. I—I will…manage some other way.”

  “This man threatened you a week ago, and yet you have waited until now to seek my help. This leads me to believe I was already a last resort?”

  She flinched at his bluntness. “Perhaps. But—”

  “Will it help if I apologize for ever doubting you?” Lucien cut in evenly. “I should have seen sooner that the lady you are in Society is not the woman who visited me today.”

  She raised her chin in challenge. “Then who am I?”

  His expression softened. “A friend of a friend, and a lady in need of my assistance.”

  “Assistance you have already refused.”

  “And now I have changed my mind. I want his name, Rachel,” he added determinedly.

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “What do you intend doing with it if I give it to you?”

  Lucien was an amateur boxer as well as an amateur sleuth, and his fists currently itched to connect with the flesh of the bastard who had brought this beautiful woman so low when she had already suffered so much. “I will speak to him, on your behalf, of course.” In between landing several painful blows. “Ask for the return of your letters.” Again, in between causing as much physical pain as possible to this man who was now causing Rachel emotional distress.

  “And if he refuses to give them to you?”

  “Oh, I have no doubt he will refuse,” Lucien bit out. “In fact, I am counting on it.”

  Rachel gave the viscount a searching glance, seeing past those breathtaking good looks and the elegance of his appearance to the strong and determined man beneath.

  The same man who had helped Fliss and now stated he was willing to aid her.

  But not before he had first stripped Rachel’s emotions down to the bare bone, exposing her completely. Ripping away the defenses it had taken her years to build. Defenses which might have enabled her, in time, to let another man into her life and which had allowed her to indulge in a written flirtation.

  Lucien reined back the inner fury he felt toward the man who had deliberately gained Rachel’s trust and then as deliberately betrayed it. She would only retreat more if Lucien were to reveal such a depth of emotion on her behalf. “Rachel, I do not believe this man will stop his torment until he has destroyed you.”

  She gave a shiver of revulsion. “I have to go—”

  “Will you be attending the Walkers’ ball this evening?”

  “In the circumstances, I had not intended to do so, no.” She was obviously puzzled by this sudden change of subject.

  “But you had accepted their invitation before this situation occurred?”

  “Yes…”

  “I too received an invitation but chose to ignore it. I have now decided I will attend after all. As your escort.”

  “What?” Rachel gasped. “No,” she refused in a calmer voice.

  Even if she did not feel calm. Her reputation would be in tatters if her letters were exposed to Society. It might not be ruined if she, as a respectable widow, openly attended a ball on the arm of the handsome and eligible Viscount Brooketon, but the gossip would be rife.

  She gave a shake of her head. “What possible purpose would that serve?”

  He shrugged broad shoulders. “You are refusing to tell me the name of your—this other gentleman. Therefore, the only course of action open to me is to publicly demonstrate to this man that you have friends ready and willing to help you. Powerful friends.”

  Brooketon was indeed powerful. As much so as James in his own way. Admittedly, Brooketon did not work within the government, but he was powerful in the House nonetheless. As were his close friends, the Duke of Blackmoor, the Marquis of Oxbridge, and Lord Alexander Whitney. Fliss’s new husband, the Earl of Winterbourne, although Scottish by birth, also wielded great power, both in Scotland and England.

  “This man also has powerful friends.” Very powerful friends, and as Rachel did not have the letters he had sent to her to use in her defense, he would surely be able to make the frequency and tenor of her own correspondence to him seem those of a needy and infatuated woman.