Page 4 of Vanquished By A Viscount
Gray jerked back. “You led me on for…carnal reasons?” he demanded, his voice tight and hoarse. “So that you could bed me?”
It killed Charlie to say it, but he nodded and whispered, “Yes. It was all a bit of fun. We’ve run our course now and…and now I’m tired of you.”
“Tired of me?”
Charlie had to turn away from the intensity of hurt on his beloved’s face.
“Do you want more from me?” Gray asked, surging back to him, arms outstretched. “Am I inadequate in some way? Are there…are there other things you want me to do? I can learn how to do them, I swear. I can do whatever you want me to do, no matter how debasing.”
“It’s not that,” Charlie said, avoiding him and putting the bed between them. “I’m just done with you is all. Please go now.”
For a few, painful seconds, Gray reached desperately for him, eyes glassy with tears. Then those tears burst, but with a rush of anger that Charlie didn’t expect.
“How could you?” Gray gasped. His expression turned to a snarl. “Howdareyou? I gave everything to you. I risked everything for you. I love you, Charlie.”
“Please go,” Charlie repeated in a whisper, unable to look at him.
“After all this time, this is how you end things?”
“I really cannot have you here another moment,” Charlie said.
“How can you be so cruel, so heartless?” Gray hissed, snatching up his clothing and dressing quickly. “I thought you were wonderful, but I was wrong. You are a heartless cad and a creature of stone.”
“Yes, I am,” Charlie said, keeping his back to Gray.
“I will never forgive you for this,” Gray continued to rage at him. “You could have at least talked to me about things before casting me out, like some cheap whore you thought to entertain for a night and rid yourself of in the morning.”
“If that is how you wish to style yourself,” Charlie said.
The silence that followed those words was worse than anything Gray had said. It lasted far too long before only the sound of Gray dressing followed.
Charlie finally turned around as Gray marched to the door. Their eyes met, and Gray spat, “I will never forgive you for this.”
He left, slamming the door behind him.
Charlie listened as Grayson crossed his front room, then slammed the second door leading to the hallway.
Once his beloved was well and truly gone, he sank to his bed and buried his face in his hands. He’d been rash, hasty. Gray had reacted like an immature boy experiencing his first disappointment, which, of course, he was. Charlie was merely a green boy fumbling his way through forbidden love as well. They were too young for the attachment they’d formed, too immature to conduct themselves as men should.
Charlie told himself all those things to excuse what he’d just done, but he feared he’d just made the worst mistake of his life.
One
HAWTHORNE HOUSE – JULY, 1840
It was uncanny how Charlie could be of two entirely different minds about the same occurrence simultaneously. On the one hand, as the carriage he’d taken from London into Kent sped down the drive of Hawthorne House toward the imposing, Jacobean mansion, his heart and his hopes lifted at the thought of seeing his beloved sister again. It would be the first time he’d seen Barbara since her wedding to Lord Robert Hawthorne, Earl of Felcourt, at Christmas the previous year.
On the other hand, his arrival and stay at Hawthorne House as part of the grand house party Barbara was throwing meant that, after seven long years, Charlie would reside under the same roof as Gray once more, if only for a month.
Charlie sighed and slumped against the carriage window as he gazed out at the impressive house and the gardens that were visible from the drive. Hawthorne House was lovely and its grounds extensive and well-kept, but he hardly saw any of it as the carriage hurried on to what he was certain could be his doom. He wouldn’t have come at all if Barbara hadn’t beggedand pleaded with him to assist her in her first grand event since becoming the Countess of Felcourt.
Barbara hadn’t said anything about Grayson being at home at Hawthorne House, but Charlie knew from a few subtle inquiries via The Brotherhood that Gray was in England, for a change, and that he had plans to spend his summer in his family home. As much as he dreaded the prospect of seeing his former lover turned bitterest enemy again, he could not deny the thrill of excitement that tickled both his heart and his body.
He and Gray had been forced to endure each other at Christmas, of course. It would have been impossible for Charlie not to play a key role in the marriage festivities, since he and Barbara were each other’s only family, without encountering Gray. Lord Felcourt, on the other hand, had an immense and sprawling family. There always seemed to be more Hawthornes about than anyone could accurately number. While the majority of them were in their late childhood and early adult years, Charlie knew good and well that Gray was a grown man with an adult’s interests and activities.
All the same, he and Gray had successfully spent the minimal amount of time required in each other’s presence, and had spoken hardly ten words to each other through the entire week of wedding festivities.
Charlie very much doubted they would be able to repeat that luck at a house party set to last an entire month. He would inevitably be asked to say more than simply, “Does the bride not look beautiful?” and “Pass the salt” during the next thirty-one days.
