If You Desire - Cole Kresley (книга регистрации .TXT) 📗

Weren't women supposed to be fastidious, organized creatures? More unfortunate for him, much of Jane's disarray came in the form of her fascinating undergarments. There were garters he hadn't seen in her room in London, and even stockings with designs in them.

"Wait, Jane." He caught her elbow just as she reached the hallway. "Tell me why you doona like it here."

"I'm used to being around family and friends, everyone talking and laughing, and you take me away from all that to stay in thisdepressing —there, I've said it—manor. And even then I could tolerate it, if you were fit company."

"What is so bad about this place?" he asked, glancing around with an incredulous expression. "You never liked coming here in the past, either. Why?"

"Why?I would have to leave my house—where there was whistling, and my uncles chasing their giggling wives, and happy children running about like wild creatures—to come here, where the curtains were drawn, and it was as dark and silent as a tomb."

"I was just as uneasy at your home."

"Why on earth?"

He doubted he could ever convince her that her family's behavior might make outsiders uncomfortable, much less someone as solitary as Hugh. But her locking the door on him rankled on so many levels, and he was just irritated enough to say, "Your aunts ran about with their skirts hiked up, fishing, smoking, passing a bottle of wine between them. And sometimes when your unclescaught your aunts and swooped them upstairs, they weren't as quiet as they could have been with what they were doing."

"And how would you even know that, from the collective fifteen minutes you spent with them over five years?" When he said nothing, she asked, "Do you deny assiduously avoiding everyone but my father?"

He couldn't deny it—he'd never wanted Jane to see how awkward he was around groups of people. "You ken I've usually preferred my own company."

"At least my family was kind to you. Unlike your brothers' treatment of me."

"My brothers were no' unkind to you."

"Are you jesting? One entire summer, Ethan crept about like a frightful ghost in his lair with the entire side of his face bandaged from some mysterious injury—which you would never talk about. And if anyone happened to glance at his face, he'd roar with fury and run them off."

Ethan had been a harrowing sight that summer. And every summer after. "And Court?"

She gave him an incredulous look. "My God, I think he's the angriest man I've ever encountered, always simmering. You never knew when he was going to go off. Being around him was like sidling around a bear trap. And it wasn't a secret that he wasted no love on me."

No, Court had never liked Jane. Hugh supposed Court had resented the girl who tagged along with them everywhere and was frustrated that Hugh didn't mind at all. That last summer, Court had despised her teasing treatment of his brother, never considering that Hugh woke every morning impatient to return for it, day after day.

But Hugh hadn't known Jane felt as strongly about Court, and about Ethan, as well. "I dinna realize it was so bad."

"You never seemed to notice these things because you were so used to them." She adjusted a vase on a shining end table, as if she couldn't stand its perfect placement. Seeming to calm herself, she said, "Hugh, rehashing all this will help nothing. When I ask you questions, you don't have to answer them, and you can be as dismissive as you please. That's your prerogative. My prerogative is that I don't have to be around you when it's avoidable."

"The subjects you brought up are difficult ones."

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for more.

"If I answer one question, you'll ask a dozen more about my answer, no matter if I doona want to talk about it. You're no' happy until everything's laid bare."

"I do apologize for wanting to know more about a man I used to be friends with, who disappeared for years without a word, who has now returned to be my husband in an odd marriage of convenience."

"Damn it, I told your father to tell you good-bye."

She glared at that. "Don't you think I deserved it from you? It's becoming clear to me that wedidn't have the friendship I'd imagined. I must have been like a gnat in your ear, a silly little girl who followed you around when you only wanted to hunt or fish with your brothers."

"Wewere friends—"

"A friend would have told me good-bye when he knew he was leaving and had no intention of returning for years."

Couldshe have thought of him? Could she havemissed him? "Are you angry about that?"

"I'm puzzled. I would have told you good-bye."

"I dinna believe you would even think of me much after I'd gone. I dinna think you would care overmuch one way or the other."

She didn't deny it or confirm it, just continued, "But now you've come back and we're in this confusing situation, and I'm trying to reason it all out, but I don't have enough information. Papa told me this might take months. Are we to be like this the entire time, with you cutting me off or getting angry when I ask questions?"

"I doona want to be that way. I just…I just doona know how to handle this as well as I should."

"What do you mean by 'this'?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jane, sometimes you throw me. And I'm unused to being married—even if it's only temporary."

"Very well, Hugh. Let's start with an easy question." When she raised her eyebrows, he nodded grimly. "Why would my father ever find occasion to associate with someone as deranged and violent as Grey?"

That's an easy question?"Grey was no' always like this. He came from a wealthy and well-respected family. He had strong connections."

"And he was your good friend?"

"Aye."

"Did you try to help him with his affliction?"

Hugh chose every word carefully, knowing he owed her more of the truth, but unable to divulge his own dealings without revealing everyone's. "I attempted to reason with him, bully him, bargain with him. Nothing worked."

After that, Hugh and Ethan had decided to take matters into their own hands to wean him from opium. They'd captured Grey and carted him back to one of Ethan's estates.

Grey had been furious, frothing at the mouth, spouting insults. Either he had always been a sick bastard—and opium, like liquor, magnified his faults—or his entire personality had been altered.

He'd vowed that if Hugh couldn't "muster the ballocks to finally go fuck Jane Weyland as she so clearly needs," then he'd make short work of her. Hugh barely remembered lunging for Grey's throat and raining blows on his face. Ethan had scarcely been able to haul Hugh off. Afterward, all three of them had seemed shocked by Hugh's utter loss of control.

But after two weeks in a basement, Grey had emerged, seemingly cured. For a year, Hugh had believed he'd maintained an even keel. Ethan, however, suspected Grey only waited for a chance to strike out, and he'd been right.

"I thought for a while that he'd gotten better. But the last time I saw him, his pupils were like pinpricks even in the night…."

Seeing Hugh's disappointment, Grey had self-consciously smoothed his soiled jacket and given him a half grin, and with it a glimpse of his old self. His accent had been clipped and proper, even as he looked away and said softly, "I didn't want to be like this, you know."

"Then why?" Hugh had asked.

"Not quite the way I'd planned things, as it were," he'd continued lightly, but when Hugh said nothing, Grey finally cast Hugh a look that was raw, unguarded. "I woke up one morning, and I was nothing but that number." He averted his face again as if embarrassed. "Good-bye, Scot." Then he'd walked away….

Hugh shook off the memory. "He was lost for good."

"Do you miss your friendship with him?"

After a long hesitation, Hugh nodded. He did, even as he now burned for Grey to die—and even as Hugh knew his brother was out in the world, seeking to kill him.