Page 36 of What a Scot Wants
“There is too much left unfinished between us,” he said. He propped one brow up. “Too much I know about the sainted Lady Imogen. You’re mine, Gennie, even if you do not wish to be so, and I am the only husband you will have.”
The color drained from her cheeks, and once again she felt ill.
“I’mnotyours. Everything between us is finished.” Frustration swept over her. “There was nousto begin with! Only you and your sick, twisted games. You manipulated Belinda and me; she was my friend, and you used her, ruined her. Ruined me. We both trusted you.”
Her heart pounding, she could barely breathe, much less speak.
“Belinda was a mistake, you know that,” he said.
She clenched her jaw. “Shedied.”
“In childbirth.”
In the space of several thudding heartbeats, the horrifying images she’d kept bricked up and shut away in her mind all those years broke free.
The small room above the Golden Antler. The furnishings, the wrought-iron bedstead painted white, the smoke from cigars and pipes seeped into the papered walls. Even the pattern of the paper, a repeated pattern of Danish windmills and haystacks.
She’d banged loudly on the door, having followed her pregnant governess in secret, and demanded entry. Relieved to see Belinda propped up in bed, she had confronted Silas.
“She sought me out, Gennie. To apologize for what she’d done, and then felt unwell. She’s only resting. Drink; she’ll wake soon.”
Imogen remembered sipping the sherry to calm her own frazzled nerves, thinking it tasted strange, and then smaller details had hit her. Like the fact that Belinda wasn’t moving. That Silas was sweating. That the walls were spinning. That she suddenly felt unwell, too.
He’d knelt before her, took her hands in his own. Kissed them.
“Your father put his trust in me, Gennie. You trust his judgment, don’t you? Please, just let me explain what happened. I know you care for her, but she seduced me. I was in my cups and unaware of what she planned. I swear to you. I love you. I love only you.”
She remembered thinking that maybe her fiancé might be telling her the truth. That perhaps it was truly a misunderstanding after all. Why else would Belinda have come to see him in this place? Imogen hadwantedto believe him, more fool her.
And then the distortion of the room had started, the tipping of her head as her limbs went soft and slack. She’d had sherry before, but it had never affected her that way.
“Sleep now,” she’d heard Silas say, followed by a loud noise and then nothing.
Later on, she would learn that Mr. McClintock had kicked in the door. Apparently, her raised voice as she’d demanded entry had alerted a club member, who’d taken his concern to the proprietor. McClintock had asked her what had happened after having Silas dragged from the room, but even now she could barely recall details. Belinda had been drugged, too. McClintock had told her that it’d been laudanum.
If McClintock hadn’t arrived when he did or if that club member had ignored her shouting…Imogen did not know what else Silas might have done. Though Imogen had no idea how much time had passed in that room before her rescue, McClintock had haltingly informed her of the state in which she’d been found…her clothing in disarray, Silas on top of her. It made her sick to think he’d violated her while she’d been unconscious, but that hadn’t been the worst of it. Belinda had gone into labor, but neither she nor her child survived. She’d been unconscious too long. Imogen’s heart had died, too, that day, along with her faith in all men.
Silas had disappeared that very night.
And now, he’d returned to claim whatever rights he believed were his. Thatshewas his. Oh God, he was truly mad.
“Go away,” she said. “I’ll scream.”
“You won’t.” Impatience shuttered his expression, wiping out his sly grin. “What would your dear father think if he knew the truth?” He cocked his head. “Of his precious soiled dove of a daughter, about to marry a duke. Goodness, what would thedukesay if he knew about his intended’s lack of virtue?”
Imogen felt frozen with anger and frustration as Silas flicked an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. An image rose up into her mind of Ronan crunching his brawny fist right into the center of Silas’s face. It would be satisfying to see, but it wouldn’t be enough to silence him. He would see her ruined before everyone.
“Why?”
“Because I was cheated,” he said, smiling. “Of a bride, a fortune, of what I deserved.”
Imogen’s vision trembled and pulsed with battling emotions. Fear and fury and utter powerlessness. He threatened to expose her, hang out her deepest, darkest secret like dirty bed linens from a window. She didn’t worry for herself, but Haven would suffer, too. And her parents…the scandal would destroy them.
“What do you want from me?” Imogen asked.
“Is it not yet obvious? You. Reject the duke and marry me.”
She balked, bile filling her mouth. “I’d rather fling myself off a bridge.”
