“What the hell was this?”
He stared down at the bruises on his knuckles, squeezing them, hoping for a distraction. He was not proud of hitting Matthew, but he had needed the pain that Matthew had thoroughly inflicted upon him. They had been just hitting out and tumbling together, each wanting to make the other suffer with the agony they felt over Freddie. It had been a wild fight, with more anger and flailing than real science.
Percy’s face, his knuckles and other parts of his body ached, and the bruises were already vivid in colors of purple, brown and yellow. His lip was still throbbing, and he knew that he had given nearly as good as Matthew had, in the furious thrashing, they had both dealt out. He had not fought like that since he’d been a scrubby schoolboy, he tried to grin ruefully, but it hurt too much and increased the throbbing from his mouth. Matthew had been right, he had behaved dishonorably, disgracefully, he had put himself beyond the pale. He would never be able to hold his head up in society and meet the eyes of glaring disapprobation on him. His heart ached like it had never ached before. He was trying to get his thoughts together as his mind screamed at him that he had really messed up.
I am leaving England.
That thing that had been drawing tight inside his chest crack. Could this be what Sebastian meant? “You’ll know when it happens.”
Is this the love he spoke of this desperate ache to not have her gone, to have her here by my side always?
Percy rubbed his chest. Sweet mercy. How could he have been such a total bloody fool!
I am leaving.
How could he have been so stupid as to say that he felt nothing more than lust for Freddie. Now she despised him, and he blamed himself for his conviction that because she wanted him, he could accept what she offered and enjoy it. And their time together had been so wonderful, so perfect that he had not wanted to ever let her go. He had wanted to keep her forever, locked in his bedroom and never let her out and make love to her until exhaustion overtook him. Only when they woke, entwined to make love to her again until she gasped his name and promised she loved him and only him. In his sodden brain, he had refused to accept what she had said to him and had only concentrated on slaking his lust. No matter that his parents had been respectably married, he was an utter bastard.
And she would run to that pup Lord Thomas, the man she really loved. How could she prefer that lad who was still wet behind his ears over him? Now that hurt his vanity, surely, he was better than that? He wanted Freddie to be happy and how could she be with such a reprobate and rake as himself?
But how could he let her go?
His heart felt torn apart and would never be whole again with Freddie gone from his life. She had been so sweet, so luscious and she had given herself to him so sweetly and he had stolen away her innocence with casual disregard. Percy scrubbed a hand over his face. No, that was not true, he had loved her as he had loved no other woman before. He still loved her and had been such a crass idiot to believe he could give her up and let her make a respectable society marriage, when she had buried so deep inside him that now his heart was cleaved so deeply that he knew he would not recover.
The remnants of his last night’s drunkenness had confused his thoughts and now was beginning to come to some semblance of sobriety. Freddie had said something to him last night, when he had been in his cups, but the words swam through his misery. What had she said? Percy knew it was important.
Then the words she had said, the words he had tried to ignore came back to him and the pain shafted through him like he was stabbing himself with a knife.
“I followed you to that pleasure house because I wanted to disrupt your plans. I could not bear the idea of you taking a lover…kissing any other person and making love to them…because I like you very much. You are the person who is in my heart. No one else.”
His heart jolted. Percy tried to convince himself that he had not heard those words, but they rang true as a bell in his mind, repeating over, and over again. She had never loved Lord Thomas, it had all been a ruse. Freddie had been trying to get him to realise that he loved her and that she loved him and that she would never settle for another.
How could he have been such a cretin, not to realise that all those kissing lessons she had tried to entice him into, were because she knew her own mind and that she had fallen for a libertine like him. She had tried to wake him to the fact that he was as much in love with her as she was with him. She had given herself to him because she wanted him and only him and then he had smashed her sweet devotion with his harsh words. He finally knew what he must do, he must tell her the truth, the truth that he could not live without her. The truth that he would never be happy if she did not become his wife and share his life for better or worse until death did them part.
He heard the front door open and close and the murmuring of voices, and the sounds of luggage being carried through. He ran downstairs only to see the door shut. “Open it,” he said to his butler, hurrying forward.
Percy dashed through the front door as a carriage was pulling out into the traffic, and without hesitation he started to chase that carriage.