Page 84 of What a Scot Wants
“I am appalled,” her father said, lowering himself to the edge of a sofa as if his legs had lost the strength to hold him.
“I know you cared for him, Papa,” Imogen said, certain he was about to tell her she had to be mistaken. But he snapped his head up.
“Forhim? He dared to harm you, and I will never forgive him. Or myself, Imogen. To have let this happen, not even suspecting anything was amiss or what kind of man we’d welcomed into our home with our precious daughter…what kind of father am I?”
“It isn’t your fault.” She’d grown accustomed to saying the same thing to others at Haven, and the words came instinctively to her now. “He deceived us all.”
He nodded, a hand coming up to pass over his forehead, blocking her view of his face. His shoulders shook, and Imogen went to sit beside him. He embraced her as her mother had, murmuring apologies. The cushion beside her dipped, and Imogen’s mother joined their embrace. Telling them the truth hadn’t been half so difficult as she’d always thought it would be, and now that it was done she felt like a fool for believing that they would blame her, that they would turn their backs on her.
There was a gap of silence, and Imogen knew she could no longer avoid Ronan. She stood, the tremors threading back into her arms and legs, and met his eyes. They nearly knocked her back with their ferocity.
“Ye did no’ tell me any of that. Why?”
“Because I didn’t want you to know the truth. I didn’t want to face it.”
He came toward her, but she shook her head. He held back. “What truth?”
“That I’m ruined. That he took something from me that I can’t ever get back.”
Not her virginity, but something more. Something integral to her very soul.
“A piece of me is missing, Ronan, and that gaping wound… It will be with me forever. It will stand between me and any man I ever come to care for. And now, with these rumors, everyone else will see it, too.”
“Imogen, I dunnae care what other people think.”
“But you care what I think?”
“Of course I do,” he said, coming forward again. Imogen slipped to the side, out of his reach. One touch and she would crumble entirely. She’d been such a fool to think any of this was possible. That any happy-ever-after could be hers…that the stain of her sins would fade with time.
Even if she did let Ronan go through with it, the gossip would follow him, too. Follow his family, his sisters, and their children. He deserved better than she could give him. She had to be the strong one here. Release him from whatever misplaced sense of honor was driving him where she was concerned. He wasn’t her knight, not when protecting her would only tarnish him.
Imogen drew a breath and motioned him near the door, out of immediate hearing of her parents, though she felt their keen stares. “Then listen to what I think. To what Iknow. I can’t be your wife. I can’t be any man’s wife, not with Silas’s touch hanging there between us. I don’t want that, and neither do you.”
“Dunnae tell me what I want,” Ronan replied, his voice grinding out each word. They ricocheted through her body, setting off a vibration that made her dizzy. “I told ye, ye’re mine.”
He didn’t understand, and yet how could he? Ronan likely thought this would all blow over in time. That she’d be fixed, so long as he kept her safe. But Imogen knew better. What Silas had done would haunt her forever,soilher forever, and poison everything around her. Hehadruined her…for anyone else.
“No, Ronan, don’t you see? I’m not yours. I never was.” She loosed a shattered exhale. “The best thing you can do is get as far away from me as possible before the scandal touches you, too. It’s already overtaken most of Town. You deserve more, so much more than…me.”
With a raw, gut-wrenching cry, Imogen bolted from the room.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A full day and several bracing rounds in the boxing ring at Gentleman Jackson’s later, and Ronan still hadn’t calmed. He was full of rage and fury, picturing Calder’s face with every jab, every drill, and every punch, and he’d already gone through two of the salon’s best fighters. Ronan had guessed that Imogen hadn’t been telling him everything, and even though he’d suspected the man of something devious, hearing the unvarnished, painful truth had been like nails driven into his flesh.
That filthy bastard haddruggedher.Touchedher without her consent.
God, he wanted to kill the man. Tear him apart with his bare hands.
After Imogen had left the room, he’d almost raced to Calder’s residence, but somewhere deep down, a tiny rational part of him knew that he would not have left the bastard alive. And so he’d gone to the only place he could find a measure of release, and then he’d returned again the following day at the crack of dawn.
A strike to his opponent’s temple had the third man he’d fought falling flat on his back, knocked out cold. Ronan was still shaking with anger, but after the past evening’s rounds and this morning’s bouts, most of his murderous savagery had receded. At least enough for him to keep a civil tongue in his head and for him to take his coach back to his residence, bathe, have Vickers tend to the minor cuts on his face, andthenmake his way to Calder’s home. Thanks to Gentleman Jackson’s, Ronan was lucky he’d lasted a day.
Once outside the man’s Piccadilly residence, Ronan held himself tightly in check. He would put Calder in the bloody ground for what he’d done to Imogen, but he would do so in the most irreproachable way possible. One that was beyond question.
Ronan flexed his fingers as the man came to the door as before and greeted him wearing a smug countenance.
“Lord Dunrannoch. Back again to accuse me of something else wicked? Where is your Bow Street dog this time?”
