Page 81 of A Relentless Rake

With a grimace, he snatched up his soiled shirt and tossed it into the fireplace. The linen caught fire and flared brightly before dying away, leaving the room in the same quiet shadows as before.

He asked into the fire, “Are you regretting tonight?”

“No.”Never.She’d been weak and succumbed to her desire for him, despite how risky it was for her reputation. And her heart. But she certainly didn’t regret it.

“Good. Neither am I.” He reached for the bottle of whiskey sitting on the mantel. “But you’re upset. So what’s wrong?” When she hesitated to answer, he reminded her gently, “No more secrets, remember?”

Not quite.There was still one huge secret that lingered between them. She rushed out the question on an unsteady breath before she could turn coward— “Who was she?”

He absently swished the whiskey to judge how much was left. “Who was who?”

“The woman who hurt you so badly by hiding her true self.”

The bottle stopped just before it reached his lips. For a long moment, he didn’t move. Then he admitted quietly, “That’s not what I expected you to ask.”

Confusion panged inside her chest. After all, that secret was what had driven everything between them for the last few days. “What did you expect?”

“If I planned on proposing.” The bottle continued to his mouth, and he helped himself to a healthy swallow.

“No,” she whispered, unable to find her voice. “That isn’t what I want to know.”

Because she already knew the answer.He wouldn’t.That was the God’s truth. If she wasn’t good enough in society’s eyes for the youngest son of a viscount, then she’d never be good enough to marry an earl. They both knew it. Making love changed that not at all.

“Someone hurt you, and deeply.” Her words came softly, barely louder than a breath, but she couldn’t stop them. “You practically said so when you asked me how many people I’d hurt by hiding my past. You would only have thought to ask that if you had been hurt that way yourself.” She pressed on, ignoring the swift stab of jealousy. “Who was the woman who broke your heart?”

“No woman has ever hurt me in that way.” He forced a grin that didn’t ease the tension radiating from him or loosen his tight hold around the bottle’s neck. “I’m a blackguard, remember? We blackguards don’t have hearts.”

She carefully kept her expression from registering the unwitting sting of that comment. “But surely, someone must have—”

“His Lordship, Rupert Alexander Redmond Sinclair, the RightHonorable”—the word emerged as a derogatory sneer—“Earl of St James, Viscount Haddon, Baron Stiles…” Then he lifted the bottle in a mocking toast. “My father.”

She gaped at him, stunned.

“The old earl wasn’t at all what he appeared to be.” He took a drink and set the bottle aside. “To the world, he portrayed a proper and pious façade. But underneath, he was Satan himself.”

“What do you mean?”

He turned sideways to her and fussed with his jacket to finish dressing. The move was intentional, she knew, because now she couldn’t clearly see his face and any emotions that might have strayed beyond his control. “Gambling, drinking, prostitutes…”

“All peers do that.”

“Do most peers tie prostitutes to the bed so they can’t escape, then alternate between reading the Bible to them and beating them with a riding crop in an attempt to drive out their sins?” She felt the blood drain from her face, but he continued, not yet bringing himself to glance her way. “And if they didn’t repent, if he was convinced that they couldn’t be cured of their evil, he raped them. A punishment he believed fitting for their sins.”

Olivia couldn’t speak past the knot in her throat, too shocked to make a sound.

“Those were the prostitutes he liked.” Alec held up the jacket and shook it, as if he could shake off his father’s deeds as easily as he brushed off the evening’s lint. “Others he simply abused, doing such things to them…” His voice faded off. When he finally continued, he kept his gaze riveted on the jacket. “There were children, too—girls so young that they hadn’t yet started their courses, starving boys from the streets desperate enough to do anything.”

She pressed her hand to her belly. She was going to be sick!

“And in his own home, he’d forced himself on the maids. He got at least one of them with child before she could flee.” Finally, he shot her a glance over his shoulder. “You met my half brother at the ball when he spilled punch on you.”

“Captain Reed,” she guessed in a whisper. The two men looked alike, but she never would have thought…Good God.

“And he did all that while sitting in the church box every Sunday, donating to the poorhouse, and preaching morality and responsibility at every turn. He was an expert at pretense and hiding the evils he committed. I swore that I wouldneverbe like him.” He slipped on the jacket and yanked the sleeves into place at his wrists. “Yet some of that expertise rubbed off on me anyway.”

Icy fingers curled up her spine. “What do you mean?”

“When he died, I had to continue to hide what he’d done or risk that the title would be taken away, our fortune and family reputation with it. That the Sinclair ladies would be ostracized from society, Beth never able to marry…” His voice lowered to a harsh mutter. “The bastard continues to threaten us even now, even from beyond the grave.”