Because You're Mine (Capital Theatre #2)(99)

“You weren't yourself,” she replied, her earlier condemnation changing to pity.

“Oh, I was,” he assured her. “That was definitely me, cowardly raving bastard that I am.” He shook his head as Madeline instructed the footman to bring coffee and sandwiches. “Don't send for anything. I'll be gone within the hour.”

“You must stay, Lord Drake. For my husband's sake.”

There was a humorous twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I'm sure you don't want him to be deprived of the pleasure of beating me to a pulp.”

“You know him better than that,” she said quietly, sitting in an armchair while Mrs. Beecham and the butler lit the lamps and stirred the fire. “Do sit and talk to me, Lord Drake.”

He complied reluctantly, half-sitting, half-collapsing in a chair near the fire and resting his disheveled head in his hands. Eventually coffee was brought, and Lord Drake downed three cups of the bitter brew, seeming to gain a measure of lucidity. When it seemed that there was no apparent danger from him, the servants acceded to Madeline's murmured request and withdrew to the next room.

Lord Drake spoke before Madeline was able. “I'd been drinking for three days straight before the water-party,” he mumbled. “I was half-crazed with fear, knowing that some bastards I owed a fortune to had put a price on my head. I had devised some idiotic scheme to make it look as if I had drowned, hoping that would throw them off the trail for a while. After my ruse succeeded, I disguised myself in order to play at a gambling-hell on the east side. It was there that I heard the gossip about Logan. Everyone was talking about it, that he was Rochester's bastard son. I went insane. I've never felt such hatred as I did in that moment.”

“Toward Logan?” Madeline asked, bewildered.

The dark, disheveled head moved in a weary nod. “Yes…although most of it was directed at my father. Between the two of them, they've made me into a fraud. Logan was the first son, and I took his place. I was given the life he should have had…and it was always bloody obvious that he was the better man. Look at what he's made of himself. I've always compared myself to him and come off lacking, but at least I could comfort myself with the knowledge that I had the Drake blood flowing through my veins. Now it seems he has that too.”

“You are Lord Rochester's only legitimate heir,” Madeline said. “Nothing will change that.”

Lord Drake wrapped his fingers around the delicate china cup and clasped it until Madeline feared the porcelain might crack. “But it should be Logan, don't you see? Instead he got nothing. Worse than nothing. My God, you couldn't know how he lived, the punishment he took at Jennings's hands, the countless days he went cold and hungry. While I lived in the mansion nearby—”

“You couldn't have done anything to change that,” Madeline interrupted softly.

“My father could have—and knowing that is pure hell. I can't stand being his son. And I can't stand having Logan as my brother, when all I've done is take from him since the day I was born.” He stood up from his chair and set the china cup aside with hands that shook. “The only thing I can do for Logan in return is to make certain he never sets eyes on me again.”

“You're wrong.” Madeline remained in her chair, staring at him with a clear gaze that seemed to pin him in place. Her voice trembled with conviction. “At least have the courage to face Logan tomorrow. I think in his heart he believes that everyone he cares about will leave him eventually. If you have any brotherly feeling for Logan, you'll stay and find a way to help him come to terms with the past. He'll never be at peace unless you do. You're the only link that Logan has to Lord Rochester. I don't believe he'll ever come to love or even like Lord Rochester, but he must learn to accept that he is his father.”

“And you think I can do that for him?” Lord Drake inquired with a sardonic laugh that sounded startlingly like Logan's. “Good God, I can't even do it for myself.”

“Then you'll have to help each other,” Madeline replied stubbornly.

Lord Drake sat down again, chuckling unsteadily. “There's more to you than meets the eye, isn't there? You're a persistent little wench—but I suppose you would have to be, married to my brother.”

They shared a gaze of silent amusement until they became aware of a large, shadowy form in the doorway. Logan…his face contorted, his voice hoarse as he spoke to Madeline. “Get out of here.”

Madeline blinked in confusion. “I was merely talking to Lord Drake—”

“I told you to stay away from him. Is it too much to ask you to obey the simplest instructions?”

“Look here,” Lord Drake said, sounding weary and bitterly amused, “nothing illicit has occurred, Jimmy. Don't blame your wife for something that happened long before you met her.”

Logan ignored him and stared coldly at Madeline. “In the future, madam, you will not interfere in matters that are none of your business.”

Something inside her seemed to wither. For months she had deliberately left herself vulnerable to him, tried to earn his affection by giving him the best of herself…and it hadn't been enough. She was tired of trying and failing, repeatedly losing and gaining the same ground. She stood and replied without emotion. “Very well. I won't be a burden to you any longer. From now on you're welcome to your privacy—as much of it as you want.” She left the room without a glance.