Page 53 of Loving a Beast of a Marquess
This entire endeavor was ridiculous. Soon he would find out precisely how ridiculous, and all would be well.
Yet despite that assurance—one he kept telling himself despite every instinct telling him he was wrong—he paused outside his mother’s door and listened to the faint voices from within.
“You’re not listening,” he heard Percy say, the words muddy and indistinct.
“It is more I do not understand what you’re saying,” his mother said.
Zachary pressed his ear against the door and closed his eyes, sending every sense into the bedroom as though that might bring the scene to life before him.
“You understand what I’m saying perfectly well.”
“Why choose now to bring it up?”
“You asked me why I continue to forgive Zachary when he treats me as he has done, and I gave you my answer. I allowed my love for you, my hatred of the man you called a husband to—” He broke away, his voice choking. “But the fire was not supposed to burn Zachary. He wasn’t supposed to risk himself for his father. How should I know that he would try to save a man who had been so very cruel to him for such a long time?”
“What did you think my son would do?” his mother asked, each word hard and bitter. “Did you think he would leave his father to die in what appeared to be a freak accident?”
“I did not expect him to risk his own life in exchange for his father’s,” Percy snapped. “And you—I did not expect you to take his side, Lavinia. I did this to save you from that brute. You know you never loved him.”
“Perhaps I did not, but did you really suppose murder was the only option left available to you?”
“It was an act of mercy,” Percy said, his voice so low Zachary almost didn’t hear it. “I was freeing you from a marriage of misery, from the cruelty that arises from an unchecked temper. As for Zachary—I love him as a brother. And I hope to love him as a son.”
Rage erupted in Zachary’s chest. He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists against the memory of the flickering flames, the searing heat, the panic that tasted like ash in his mouth.
Percy had been responsible for that pain, and all that came after.
“You cannot be serious,” his mother said breathlessly. “Do not approach me with this now.”
“I want to marry you, Lavinia. This—this sneaking around is all very well for children, but we are not children. I have given you five years in which to grieve your husband and Zachary’s disappearance, but you never loved one and the other is to be happy, and deservedly so. There is nothing left to wait for.”
“Don’t touch me.” His mother’s voice was faint. “Don’t you dare touch me after everything you have told me tonight.”
“I thought you would understand.”
Unable to hold back anymore, Zachary twisted the handle and burst into the room, only to be confronted with a bare-chested Percy and his mother in a nightgown. They stood in the middle of the floor facing each other, his mother’s hands flying over her mouth as she saw him.
He stood still for a moment, the blood pounding in his head. All his life he had believed two things. Firstly, that his mother was at least loyal to his father even if she did not love him—and that, at least, was abundantly obvious to him as a young man. Secondly, that his best friend was his friend on his merit alone.
Evidently, neither of these two things were true.
Percy had started the fire that had taken his father’s life. Percy was the reason for the scars that even now laced his body and caused him pain. While he was grieving, while the world turned its back on him, Percy had been cavorting with his mother, and his mother hadallowedit. She had said nothing but let Percy into her bed.
“Zachary,” she said faintly, sinking onto the very end of the bed. “I had never wanted you to find out like this.”
“Why,” he asked, hating the savage note in his voice even as he said the words. “Had you anticipated telling me you were having an affair with a man fifteen years your junior in some other way?”
She glanced at Percy. “When you were settled and happy, I would have confessed,” she said after a moment.
“And what did you know of his scheming?” Zachary demanded. “Did you know he was the one who condemned me to live as an outcast?”
Evangeline appeared at the doorway, wearing nothing but her nightgown and a shawl. Seeing her sent another flare of irritation through him, but she met his gaze squarely.
“I heard voices,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“Why not ask the man who proposed to you?” Zachary said, his voice low and dangerous. “Or perhaps you might ask my mother, with whom he has been having an affair for these past four years. Perhaps longer. I am not privy to all the details.”
Percy was pale, but he didn’t back down under Zachary’s gaze. “You may not approve—”
