She started to protest that Aubrey had not sent her, but that wasn’t quite true. Certainly he hadn’t objected when she declared her intent to seek out Lord Sin.
Vanessa placed an imploring hand on the nobleman’s sleeve. “My lord, have you no mercy? No compassion at all?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Your brother is not deserving of compassion. He destroyed something precious of mine. And I intend to destroy him in turn.”
The declaration was cold, ruthless, implacable.
He glanced dismissively down at the slender hand that detained him. “My carriage awaits, Lady Wyndham. It is not my practice to keep my horses standing.”
Deliberately he stepped back. Then he turned away, leaving Vanessa to stare after his retreating back in dismay and despair.
Vanessa fiercely fought back tears as she entered the London town house that had been in her family for four generations. She had seldom cried during the unsavory period of her life when she was wed to a notorious libertine, or in the two difficult years following Sir Roger Wyndham’s death-and she would not cry now.
A hollowness in her heart, she climbed the stairs to the drawing room. Her brother had opened the London house for the Season, even though he could ill afford it.
Aubrey was waiting for her in the drawing room, anxiously pacing the carpet. For a moment Vanessa watched him, wondering how the loving boy she remembered from childhood had turned out so wild. But she knew the answer. The favorite and only son, he had been raised in unchecked license by parents who coddled and indulged him. The lack of discipline would doubtless prove his ruin.
“Well?” Aubrey asked the instant he spied her. “Did you see him?”
Aubrey was tall like herself and possessed similar coloring. His tawny, light brown hair was almost a shade of amber, while his dark eyes were luminous and could sparkle with laughter. Just now they held only anxiety.
“I contrived a meeting with Lord Sinclair, yes,” Vanessa replied, coming into the room. “He refused to speak to me once he discovered my connection to you.”
“Then I am lost,” Aubrey said hoarsely.
She wanted to dispute him. She wanted to console him, to wrap her arms around her brother and make his troubles vanish. But he was right. Indeed, they were all lost. She sat down heavily on the blue brocade settee.
Aubrey flung himself into the wing chair beside her and buried his face in his hands. After a long moment, he asked quietly, “He refused even to negotiate?”
“We didn’t reach the point of discussing negotiations. He wanted nothing to do with me.”
“Damn and blast him…”
Not for the first time, Vanessa felt a surge of anger at her brother’s childish effort to shift the blame. “You can hardly expect Lord Sinclair to return the estates you gambled away so recklessly, simply because a stranger asked it of him.”
“He means to ruin me.”
“Can you blame him? His sister suffered a debilitating injury… at your hands, I might add. She may never walk again. Or have you so conveniently forgotten that small particular?”
“I haven’t forgotten!” Aubrey’s hands clenched in his hair. “Don’t you think I regret every moment of my foolish conduct?”
“What could possibly have possessed you to be so cruel to a young girl?”
“I don’t know.” When he raised his head, his dark eyes held grief and remorse. “It started merely as a lark, a wager. A means to earn a substantial sum from my gaming friends. With my pockets to let, I needed the funds. And perhaps we were a trifle…”
“Were what?”
“Bored.”
“Hunting in the country didn’t provide you enough pleasure? Cockfights and boxing matches weren’t sufficient entertainment?” Vanessa’s tone held a hard edge of ridicule. “So you had
to ruin a young girl’s life. Destroy her reputation and make her a bedridden cripple.”
Aubrey’s grimace displayed agony. “I never intended it to go that far, you must believe me.”
“Then what did you intend?”
He took a deep breath. “I told you, to win a wager, simply that. When we met Miss Sinclair at an assembly… I suppose we’d all had too much claret before arriving. At first the discussion centered on how to get her away from her dragon of a chaperon, but somehow the goal turned more serious. I ended up wagering I could make her fall in love with me. Wooing her proved… far easier than I expected.” He hung his head. “Olivia had led such a sheltered life, she was eager for… affection.”