Page 55 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
“Being my mother does not excuse her from deceiving me almost as much as Percy did.” For the first time, Zachary looked across at his mother, and the way she hunched on the bed.
A thousand memories replayed behind his eyes. The way she had attempted to protect her from his father’s rage, the way she had sung songs to him in the nursery, the way she had encouraged him to read and opened his mind.
The way she had stood beside him when he had returned from the Continent though it would have been easier for her to distance herself from him and his reputation.
Both she and Percy had stood by him. Protected him from first his father’s rage—one he had inherited—and society’s flaying condemnation.
“You may never forgive me,” she said, raising her head from her hands. Her fingers trembled. “I understand you feel betrayed, but I hope you know that I love you. I have always loved you, my Zachary, since you came from the womb. Whether you choose to forgive me now or not, that remains the truth.”
Pity stirred in his breast. He might have lost his best friend, but she had lost her lover. The man she had, presumably, relied on.
Perhaps he could not forgive her—not yet, anyway—but he did not hate her. He could not.
He rose, and her tear-stained gaze followed him. Evangeline’s hand tucked in his as Lady Pevton and Lady Emily pushed open the door and entered the room.
“What is going on here?” Lady Pevton demanded. “First, I hear Lord Riffy has been cast from the house, and now, I see this!” She looked at Evangeline as though she had been vindicated in something.
Evangeline squeezed his hand and advanced to her aunt and sister. “Come now,” she said. “There has been a misunderstanding, and Lord Riffy deceived us all, but he is gone, and we are free of him.”
Free of him. Zachary did not feel free of Percy; rather, his absence left a hole in his heart.
“We should all return to bed,” she continued, giving him a significant glance, “and in the morning, everything will look a little brighter. Come, Aunt. Emily. Back to bed.”
She is your mother.
The room emptied, the door shut, and there was just he and his mother, alone, facing everything left unsaid between them.
“Zachary, I—”
“I know,” he said heavily. “He convinced us both he loved us.”
“I believe he did.” Her hands clasped each other tightly. “I believe he loved us both in his own way. Whatever he did, Zachary, I believe he thought he was doing it for us.”
“Perhaps he did.” Zachary looked at his mother one more time before he, too, turned to the door. “Sleep. We can discuss this more in the morning.”
She said nothing as he left the room.
ChapterTwenty-One
Evangeline did not return to her room. She pretended to when she was overseeing Emily and her aunt, but once they were settled, she returned to Zachary’s bedchamber.
As expected, she found him still awake and sitting on the edge of the bed, still in the shirt he had thrown on to investigate. There was a smear of blood down the front, but he didn’t appear to have noticed.
“Evangeline,” he said, his voice thick as she closed the door behind him.
“Zachary.”
Then he burrowed his head in his hands, and she crawled across the bed, so she was sitting behind him, legs on either side and her arms around his chest. He shifted, so he clasped her hands under his, and they stayed like that a long time.
Eventually, he raised his head. “You shouldn’t have come back here,” he said, his voice hoarse in the darkness. “Someone might discover you here.”
“I came to offer you comfort.”
“You are all goodness. You—” He turned around and caught her face in his hands, kissing her with desperation mixed with tenderness. “But you should not be here.”
“Then tell me to leave,” she whispered against his mouth. “Tell me to leave, and I shall go. Give me the word, and I shall leave you alone.”
“You know that’s not what I want.”
