Page 54 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“Of course, I do not approve!” Zachary clenched his fists at his side, and Evangeline came to his side. She took one of his hands in both of hers. “But that is not the main cause of my anger.” He removed his hands from Evangeline’s and glanced at her. “You may want to leave,” he said, his voice softening at the sight of her, wide-eyed and tight-lipped. “I do not anticipate this being a sight for ladies.”
“I will not leave,” she said.
He turned back to Percy. “So be it.”
To his credit, Percy didn’t flinch as Zachary approached. He merely squared his feet and stood his ground. “I have been your friend for a long time,” he said. “You will not call me out.”
Zachary’s first blow caught Percy across the jaw, and the other man stumbled back. “Allow me to put your mind at ease. I have no intention of calling you out.”
“You would fight me here and now like this with ladies present?”
Zachary glanced back at Evangeline, who watched with a pale face but otherwise total composure. “I advised them to leave.” His training with John Jackson, the famous boxer, had left him in an excellent position to push his advantage, and he did so with a flurry of blows that left Percy buckling under the weight of them. Percy’s ear glowed red where Zachary had made contact.
“Help!” his mother called. “Please, someone help!”
The rest of the household would likely be awake by now, but Zachary knew little of what went on outside his tunneled vision. All he knew was that Percy, the man who now cowered before him, had destroyed his life.
Someone caught his arm, and he wrenched it free. Percy needed to pay for what he had done.
“I never meant to hurt you,” Percy said as pounding footsteps entered the room. “I wanted to harm your father but never you. You were—are my friend, and I will never forgive myself for what I’ve done.”
Somewhere along the way, Zachary had broken Percy’s nose. Blood dripped down off his chin as footmen grabbed his arms and hauled him back. Two pairs of hands grabbed Zachary, too, forcing the two men from one another.
“It appears we are equal in one respect, then,” Zachary panted, making little effort to fight the footmen holding him back. They were not the ones at fault here. “I will also never forgive you.”
“Lavinia,” Percy pleaded as he was led from the room. “Please.”
“I hope I never see you again,” she said, her voice low and throaty. “I can hardly believe I wasted so many years of my life on a man who—” Her throat closed, and she looked away, tears streaming down her face. Evangeline crouched beside her, taking her hand and squeezing it. “You are not alone,” she said. “We were all deceived in him.”
They were all deceived. Zachary shrugged off his restrainers, and they stepped back, giving him room. He was famed for his temper, after all, but he didn’t feel as though he wanted to give way to anger.
Instead, a familiar feeling—one which he usually suppressed—flooded through him, buckling his knees.
Evangeline left his mother’s side and wrapped her arms around him as he fell to his knees. Pain from hitting the floor splintering through his body.
He hadtrustedPercy. And his mother…
“Wait,” Evangeline murmured, brushing his hair back, so she could better see his face. “Do not blame her.”
“When she betrayed me for the arms of a man who killed my father?”
“She did not know.” Evangeline’s voice was soothing, and Zachary became aware that the room had emptied around them. It was just he and Evangeline kneeling on the floor, his mother on the bed, and the hiccupping sounds of her sobs sounding between them.
“How could she not know when he behaved in such a way that—” He could not finish his sentence. Percy was fifteen years his mother’s junior. She was a handsome woman still, admittedly, but he had not expected Percy to throw himself at her in such a way.
And she had accepted his advances.
“I did not know what he was,” his mother sobbed. “There can be no excuse, Zachary, I know that but your father was not a kind man, and Percy offered me kindness. For years, when you were gone, and I was enduring life on my own, he offered me kindness and a steadfast affection I could not shake. How could I deny him?”
“Love provokes us into the most unreasonable of actions,” Evangeline said. “You must know that now if you love me.”
“Loving you is not unreasonable,” he said, his voice rasping. He looked down into her eyes, noting the way they swam with tears even as she looked back at him steadily. His Evangeline, despite all odds.
He loved her. It was a tide, an eruption of feeling he could not contain within his chest. To love was to be reckless, to offer one’s heart with no assurance it would be cared for in return. Loving Evangeline was natural indeed, but he had done more than merely loved her from afar; he had given her every opportunity to hurt him and trusted that she would not.
Could he condemn his mother for doing the same?
“She is your mother,” Evangeline whispered. “You may be angry, but she is your mother.”
