Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(59)

Shaw threw her a mildly taunting grin. “No, he re-marries.”

“I should have known,” Livia said. “Men always manage to arrange things for their own benefit.”

He tsked in mock reproof. “You’re too young to be so disillusioned.”

“What about you?”

“I was born disillusioned.”

“No, you weren’t,” she said decisively. “Something made you that way. And you should tell me what it was.”

Subtle amusement flickered in his eyes. “Why should I do that?”

“It’s only fair, after I told you about Amberley and my scandal.”

“It would take the rest of the night to tell you about my scandals, my lady.”

“You owe it to me,” she said. “Surely you are too much of a gentleman to renege on a debt to a lady.”

“Oh, I’m quite the gentleman,” Shaw said sardonically. Reaching into his breast pocket, he withdrew the small silver flask. He tucked her deeper into the crook of his arm and brought his hands together to uncap the flask. Livia gasped a little as she was lightly squeezed amid taut bands of muscle. When the task was accomplished, Shaw’s arms relaxed, and he brought the flask to his lips. The smell of expensive liquor drifted to Livia’s nostrils, and she watched him warily.

Shaw let out a measured sigh, welcoming the calming effect of the bourbon. “Very well, Princess Olivia…how do you like your scandal…au tartare, or well done?”

“Something in-between, perhaps?”

Shaw smiled and took another pull on the flask. For a long minute they sat together in silence, with Livia piled on his lap in a heap of skirts and stays and confined female flesh. She saw the careful consideration in his eyes as he weighed how much to tell her, which words would most efficiently convey his meaning…and then his mouth quirked with moody resignation, and his shoulders tensed in the bare promise of a shrug. “Before I tell you anything, you have to understand the Shaws’ perception—no, conviction—that no one is quite good enough for them.”

“Which Shaws are you referring to?”

“Most of them—my parents in particular. I have three sisters and two brothers, and believe me, the ones who are married had the very devil of a time getting my father to approve of their prospective spouses. It was infinitely more important to my parents that their offspring should marry people of the right backgrounds, with the appropriate bloodlines and financial endowments, rather than marry someone whom we may have actually liked.”

“Or loved,” Livia said perceptively.

“Yes.” Shaw regarded the worn silver flask and drew his thumb across the warm, scuffed metal. Livia had to avert her gaze from the sight, astonished by the sudden intense wish that his hand was on her body instead. Fortunately Shaw seemed too lost in his thoughts to notice the way she had tensed in his lap. “I am…was…the second oldest son,” he said. “While my brother Frederick struggled beneath the weight of expectation, I became the black sheep of the family. When I reached a marriageable age, the woman I fell in love with was nowhere near the standards that the Shaws had established. Naturally that only made her more attractive.”

Livia listened carefully, her gaze on Shaw’s face as he smiled with self-derision. “I warned her what to expect,” he continued. “I told her they would likely disown me, they would be cruel, they would never approve of someone they had not chosen themselves. But she said that her love for me would never waver. We would always be together. I knew that I would be disinherited, and it didn’t matter. I had found someone who loved me, and for the first time in my life I would have the chance to prove to myself and everyone else that I didn’t need the Shaw fortune. Unfortunately, when I took her to meet my father, the relationship was immediately exposed for the sham that it was.”

“She crumbled beneath your father’s disapproval,” Livia guessed.

Shaw laughed darkly, recapping the flask and replacing it in his coat pocket. “ ‘Crumbled’ is not the word I would use. They struck a deal, the two of them. My father offered her money to simply forget my proposal and go away, and she responded with a counteroffer. The two of them bargained like a pair of bookies in a listmaker’s office, while I stood by and listened, slack-jawed. When they reached an acceptable sum, my beloved left the house without once looking back. Apparently the prospect of marrying a disinherited Shaw wasn’t nearly as attractive as a nice big payoff. For a while I couldn’t decide whom I hated more—her or my father. Not long after, my brother Frederick died unexpectedly, and I became the heir apparent. My father made his disappointment in me clear from then until the day he died.”

Livia was careful not to reveal her sympathy, fearing that he would misread it. A dozen platitudes occurred to her, about how Shaw would certainly find a woman worthy of his love someday, and perhaps his father had only wanted the best for him…but in the stark honesty of the moment, she couldn’t say anything so banal. Instead she sat in silence with him, eventually glancing into his face to find that instead of looking bitter or disillusioned, he was staring at her with a quizzical smile.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I was just reflecting on how fortunate I am. Even though I only had Amberley for a short time, at least I know that once I was truly loved.”