He should be celebrating his victory.
Instead, he was thinking of his defeat the night before. He was thinking of Georgiana, bared to him, cast in the golden glow of his fireplace, on the edge of his most prized possession – his most beloved location – in the wake of a pleasure that he had never known. He was thinking of the way she’d closed herself off, resisted his promises and his help even as she vied for his touch.
He was thinking of her rejection.
He’d never offered anyone what he’d offered her in that dark room. He’d never offered his protection. His funds. His support. Himself.
He turned, stalking to the far end of the foyer. Christ. He’d told her his secrets. He’d never told anyone about his childhood. About his obsession with cleanliness. About his past.
When she’d asked where he’d been when he was a child, he’d nearly told her. He’d nearly revealed everything… in the hopes that his honesty would unlock her own. Would help her to trust him. To tell him the truth about herself. About her past. About her mistakes.
About Chase.
But he didn’t. And thank God for that.
Because she didn’t want his truths. She didn’t want him.
I was thinking that I should tell you the truth
Her words from the prior evening rang through him as though she stood next to him. She should have told him the truth. He could have helped. But she hadn’t. She’d rejected his assistance.
Rejected him.
Instead, she wanted what he could do for her. The papers. The gossip. The restored reputation and the title that would come with it.
And even as he thought the words, he knew she was right. Because his truths changed nothing. Even now, even as he prepared to face the man who had controlled him for years, as he prepared to free himself, West remained unmarriageable.
Even now, as he wielded power and fortune and might, he would never be more than the boy born into nothing, raised in nothing.
He would never be enough to raise her out of scandal. He had nothing to give her. No title. No name. No past.
No future.
He was a means to her end.
So why not take what she offered? Her premarital arrangement? Why not lay her bare and make love to her in a dozen places in a score of ways? She did not wish him to play her savior, fine. She did not wish to share her truths, fine. But she offered herself. Her pleasure. Their mutual pleasure.
Why not take the pleasure and leave everything else?
Because he’d never been good at leaving things behind.
“It’s damn early,” Tremley said from the first-floor landing, drawing Duncan’s attention as he descended the stairs, his hair still damp from his morning ablutions. “I hope you’ve brought what I asked.”
“I haven’t,” West said, putting Georgiana out of his mind, not wanting her here, in this place, sullied by this man and his sin. “I’ve brought something infinitely better.”
“I’ll be happy to judge that.” Tremley paused at the bottom of the stairs, straightening his sleeves, and a memory flared.
West watched the careful play of fingers at the earl’s cuffs, and finally said, “Your father used to do that.”
Tremley stopped fidgeting.
West lifted his gaze. “Before anyone of import might see him, he would even his shirtsleeves.”
Tremley raised a brow. “You remember my father’s eccentricities?”
He remembered more than that. “I remember everything.”
One side of the earl’s mouth lifted. “I fairly quake in my boots.” He sighed. “Come, West. What have you? It is early, and I have not yet had breakfast.”
“You could invite me to eat.”
“I could,” the earl said. “But I think my family has fed you enough for a lifetime. Don’t you?”
West’s fists clenched, and he did his best to keep his anger at bay. This was his game. His win. He took a breath, rocked back on his heels. Affected the kind of boredom that came with power. That had always oozed from the Earl of Tremley. “Would you like to hear what I have learned?”
“I told you. I want Chase’s identity. If it has nothing to do with him, I don’t care to know it. Certainly not at this hour.” He turned to a footman at the far end of the hallway and snapped his fingers. “Tea. Now.”
The servant moved without hesitation, and West detested the way Tremley’s sharp orders were delivered and obeyed… in the same manner his father’s had been done. Without question. Out of fear of retaliation. Cruelty ran in the family, and young servants learned quickly to move fast enough to escape the notice of the Earls of Tremley.
He watched the young footman scurry away and turned to Tremley. “As a matter of fact, this does have something to do with Chase.”
Tremley waited for Duncan to speak. When he did not, the earl said, “Christ, West. I haven’t all day.”
“Your study would be a better place for it.”
For a moment, West thought he’d disagree. And, to be honest, he wanted to do it here, in near public, where the walls of this immense house, bought and paid for with treasonous funds, had ears. He wanted to reveal his knowledge – the contents of the supremely edifying file from Chase – in front of a half-dozen servants who wanted nothing more than the destruction of their unyielding, unpleasant master.
But revelation to the world was not the goal.
The goal was that of all discussions of information since the dawn of time. A trade. West’s secrets for Tremley’s. Freedom for them both. Revelation for neither.