The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(72)

Her fingers were warm against his.

“I tried to use the letter of credit first. But the banker—a man named Soames—realized it was a forgery.”

She inhaled.

“But he didn’t turn me in. You see, he was ambitious. He realized that it would be more useful to have his own personal forger than a worthless Englishman subject to martial law in the midst of an occupation. So instead, he used me.”

“He blackmailed you?” But Free’s voice was uncertain, and her fingers, gentle against his, suggested that she knew that wasn’t the case.

Edward let out a long breath. “The first man he wanted me to betray? Blackmail wouldn’t have worked. I didn’t lose my fingers in an accident, sweetheart. I lost them slowly, over the course of two weeks. The fingers weren’t even the worst part. He only started on those after he’d near-drowned me a half-dozen times.”

Her hand twitched against his.

“Pain rewrites everything. You don’t just do things to make pain stop. You believe them. Even as you’re sitting, forging a false letter purporting to establish that a man is part of an armed resistance in occupied territory. Even while you’re perpetrating the fraud, you can convince yourself that it is the truth. I can still remember some of the events I invented for Soames as if they really happened. As if I had been standing there. I forged mortgages and letters of credit on the one hand, and faked resistance on the other. The county was occupied, and Soames intended to profit from it as long as he could. I was just his tool.”

The sun had set. He couldn’t see the expression on her face, didn’t know what she was thinking.

“There was only that one small part of me that understood something was wrong.” He gulped in a breath. “And so when I could—when peace came in March, and Soames lost the threat of martial law and summary execution to expand his empire—I escaped. It took me months to regain my reason, such as it was.”

There were still some memories he had of those months that he doubted, and he’d never know if they were real or not.

“I had thought I was so brave before the war started, refusing to bow under my father’s persuasion. But I no longer had the strength of any convictions. It had all been lies, a fantasy I told myself so I’d believe myself superior. I wasn’t. I begged like any man when threatened with a dire fate. A little pain, and I lied, no matter who was hurt. That was the point when I vowed that I’d not flinch from the worst that I was. I have to know who I am, what I am—or I’ll let the next fellow who comes along make me into far worse.”

She laid a soothing hand against his shoulder. “Now you’re not alone in that any longer. I know who you are, too—all of it, the good and the bad. And I won’t let you be anyone but yourself.”

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know who he was. She didn’t know that it was his own brother who was making idle plans to hold her—and far, far worse.

No matter what, that would never happen to her—not while he had breath in his body. He’d seen to that today, no matter what else he had done.

“No,” he said gravely. “I’m not a good man. But you had it right: I’m your scoundrel.”

“Shh,” she said.

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

She turned to him, coming up on her elbow. “You’re not to blame,” she said. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve gone through. You aren’t awful. The world has been awful to you.”

“Those things are not mutually exclusive, love.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I started my career as a reporter by falsifying a report that I was infected with syphilis. I’ve presented my share of false references in my time. You may not be good by the standards of the rest of the world. But you’re perfect for me, and I won’t let anyone hurt you again.”

Oh, he wished that were true.

He looked over at her, at the fierce expression on her face. Her hair spilled around her shoulders in little curls, tickling his arm. And he felt a sense of unimaginable wonder. He’d thought to keep her safe, and yet here she was, insisting that she would protect him. He couldn’t wrap his mind around what this could mean.

He didn’t realize he was shaking until she set her hands on his shoulders. He didn’t know how cold he felt until she curled up against him, her body so warm.

God. He didn’t know what he was going to do when she left him.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “when I asked you to marry me, I thought I loved you.”

She stilled in his arms, turning to him.

“I’ve thought I loved you ever since the evening you told me you weren’t trying to empty the Thames with a thimble, that you were watering a garden instead. I felt like you changed my entire world from futility to hope over the course of one conversation.”

“Edward.” She turned to him, placing her hand on his shoulder.

“You can’t know what it’s like to have no hope,” he said. “To believe that the best you can manage is survival. I wanted you so much.” His fingers slid over her bare shoulder, down her hip. “I wanted you so much I thought it was love. I stopped being able to envision a world without you in it to light the way.”

“You keep speaking in the past tense.”