called out his beloved’s name, but she had already turned her back and was walking away from him, holding up the hem of her skirts as if to avoid stepping in something vile.
A dare? A joke? That’s all he’d been? She—and God only knew who else—had been encouraging him, yet secretly laughing at him? Is that how Society really saw him? As some sort of monkey they could watch dance? A performing bear they could prod with a stick, just to see how he’d react? Here, bastard, kiss me, touch what you’ll never have. And then go away. You’re not one of us.
His mother had warned him, warned all three of her sons. Beau had never believed the dire predictions that she ascribed to the ridiculous notions and actions of their father. The world had to have been better than she’d painted it. But she’d been right, and he and his father had been wrong.
At last Beau, his dreams, all of the assumptions and hopes of his young life shattering at his feet, came to his senses. He struggled violently to be free, to no avail, until he was carried out the way he had come in and been thrown down the marble steps to the flagway. He could hear as well as feel the crack of a bone in his left forearm as it made sharp contact with the edge of one of the steps even as all the air left his lungs in a painful whoosh.
Then the first snap of the whip hit him across his back, and he could do nothing more than curl himself into a ball and take each blow, trying to protect his face, his eyes, his injured arm.
“Insult my sister, will you? Take advantage of her innocence?” The viscount flourished the coach whip again and again, the braided leather with the hard, metal tip slicing Beau’s new morning coat straight on through to his skin, setting his back on fire. “Putting on airs above your station? That’s what coddling your type leads to, damn it. Society in shambles! The very breath you take is an abomination to all that is decent. I should have you bound and tossed in the Thames like the worthless dog you are!”
At last the assault with the whip ended, followed briefly by some well-placed kicks from the footmen, and Beau heard the slam of a door. He tentatively got to his feet, his body a mass of pain, his heart and soul in tatters, just like his fine coat. One of the footmen spat at him before they both shouted at him to go away, their coarse oaths drawing the attention of any passersby who hadn’t already stopped to stare at the spectacle.
Still crouching like a whipped dog as he supported his broken arm, Beau turned to look back at the mansion, only to have the door open slightly and the face of Lady Chelsea peek out at him, her eyes awash in tears.
“I’m so, so sorry, Mr. Blackthorn,” she said, sniffling, tears running down her cheeks. “Madelyn is vain and heartless, and Thomas is just an ass. They can neither of them help themselves, I suppose. I don’t think you a joke. I … I think you’re entirely worthy, if a little silly in your head. But perhaps you should go away now. Very far away.”
And then she closed the door, and Beau was left to stare down his own groom, who had been waiting with the new curricle that had also been purchased to impress Lady Madelyn. He’d planned to take her for a drive, once he’d spoken to her father, and perhaps steal another kiss—and more—as they rode out to Richmond Park.
“Thank you, no, and thank you so much for springing to my aid with all the loyalty of a potted plant,” Beau said stiffly, gritting his teeth against the nausea that threatened as the groom stepped forward to lend him support. “Return that damned thing to my stables. I’ll walk back to Grosvenor Square.”
And that’s just what Beau did. He walked all the long blocks to his father’s mansion. Staggered at times but always righted himself, kept his chin high, his spine straight, looking each passerby in the eye. Let them see, let them all see what they’d done to him while calling themselves gentlemen and ladies, thinking themselves somehow better than he, more civilized. Let them laugh now if they could. And let them remember, so that the next time they saw Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn or crossed his path, they’d know well enough to beware.
With each step, as those he encountered quickly crossed the street to avoid the torn and bloody sight of him, while none of them, acquaintance or supposed friend, raised a hand to help him, that same Oliver Le Beau Blackthorn left more of his youth behind him, until he was left with only one thought, one remaining truth.
His money, his looks, his charm, the friendships he’d believed he’d forged at school and here in London, the acceptance he’d thought he’d found? At the end of the day, they meant nothing.
He’d been a fool, he knew that now. Young and prideful and stupid. The laughingstock Lady Madelyn had called him.
The oldest son of the Marquess of Blackthorn, at two and twenty years of age, had at last seem himself as the world saw him. Not as a man, not as a friend, not as a mate. They saw him as he was. Illegitimate. Born on the wrong side of the blanket, son of a marquess and a common actress. An educated and well-heeled bastard, yes, but a bastard all the same.
He walked on, his heart hardening, his mind holding on to one thought, the only thought that kept him from giving in to his pain, pitching forward once more into the gutter.
He would do as the brat advised. He would go away. Far away.
But he would return.
Someday.
And when he did, by God, let any man dare to laugh at him again!
CHAPTER ONE
LADY CHELSEA MILLS- BECKMAN, always the epitome of grace and charm, launched the thick marble-backed book of sermons directly at the head of her brother, Thomas, as of the past two years the seventeenth Earl of Brean.
Her aim was woefully off, and the tome missed him completely, which did nothing to improve her mood.
His lordship bent down to retrieve the book, inspecting the spine for any hint of damage before closing it and setting it on his desk. He was a man in his early forties, too well fed, and with a pink complexion that always seemed to border on the shiny. He thought himself handsome and brilliant, but was neither. He more closely resembled, Chelsea believed, an expensively dressed pig.
“God’s words, Chelsea, delivered through the holy Reverend Francis Flotley himself. ‘A woman’s role is to obey, and her greatest gift her compliance with the superior wisdom of men. Let her gently be led in her inferior intellect, like the sheep in the field, or else otherwise lose her way and be branded morally bereft, a harlot in heart and soul, and worthy only of the staff.’”
The siblings had been closeted in the study in Portland Place for little more than a quarter-hour on this fine late April morning, and yet this was already the fourth time her brother had quoted from the book of sermons. Which, clearly, had been at least one time too many, as it had prompted the aforementioned action of her ladyship wrenching the book from his hand and sending it winging at him.
“Herd us poor, silly, brainless women, lead us gently by the hand as long as we obey, and beat us with the staff if we refuse to behave like sheep. That’s what that means. What a pitiful mouthful of claptrap,” Chelsea countered, attempting to control her breathing in her agitation. “You’re a parrot, Thomas, mouthing words you’ve learned but haven’t taken the time to understand. And did you ever notice, brother mine, that all of this nonsense is always penned by men? Is that what’s next for me? You’re going to beat me? As I recall the thing, you were once rather proficient with the whip, and not averse to employing it on someone who could not defend himself.”
The
