Page 21 of The Black Lion
“Why would you have married her, when you could so easily make her your whore?” Drew interjected, each word biting into Arabella like the strikes of a dagger. “That was what you said when I confronted you this morning. You wanted me to believe she had betrayed me, when you were the true traitor all along.”
Ignoring Drew, Will leaned forward as much as the ropes around his chest would allow. “Bella, he’s lying. I wanted to marry you because I love you. I—”
The back of Drew’s hand cracked across Will’s jaw, making his words break off on a startled cry. Then, stomping across the room, he took hold of the coverlet Arabella had just lain under and tore it from the bed. Her stomach spasmed with a sick feeling as the white bedsheet was revealed, stained right in the middle with the pale pink splotches showing anyone with eyes that she’d been a virgin before climbing into that bed.
“Care to explain that?” Drew taunted, raising an eyebrow at his brother. “Imagine my astonishment when I helped myself to my well-earned prize, only to learn she remained as untouched as I left her five years ago. You never counted on that when spewing your filth, did you? As I predicted, you’re a liar.”
Arabella pressed a hand over her mouth, her entire body shaking with the force of the emotions tearing through her. She felt like a bone held between two ravenous dogs, torn apart by an animosity she did not understand. The two men she’d known before had loved one another, had been brothers in blood and in their hearts. What had happened to change all that?
“Tell her!” Drew barked, pointing at Arabella while keeping his narrowed eyes on Will. “Tell her how it gratified you to paint her the Jezebel in order to stoke my rage. Tell her what you did to me that night at The Bull’s Head!”
Will’s jaw jutted stubbornly, and he remained silent as he glared at Drew. Arabella couldn’t help a startled cry when Drew’s fist went flying, crashing into his jaw.
“If you don’t start moving that bit of flesh in your mouth, I’ll cut it out!” he roared.
Already, Will’s face was swelling and darkening from red to purple in places. His lip had been split, which meant Drew had likely abused him sometime between last night and this morning. A nauseating sense of foreboding opened in her gut as she tried to rationalize the reasons for Drew’s malice. He had never been illogical or vindictive. If he was angry, Arabella had to believe there was a reason.
“Tell her,” Drew snapped, grasping Will by his hair and wrenching his head back so he was forced to meet Arabella’s gaze. “Tell her about how I invited you to have a drink with me to celebrate my good news. Do you remember how excited I was that I’d finally saved enough money to buy those shares in our uncle’s shipping company? It was what I needed to finally prove to Archibald that I was good enough to marry Bella, and you were the first person I wanted to tell. Look her in the eye and tell her how you got me drunk and guided me into that alley, where you knew the press-gang would be waiting. Goddamn it, you will tell her or I’ll kill you right here, right now!”
Arabella’s eyes stung with an onslaught of tears, her throat burning as she started at Will in disbelief. “You told me you never saw him that night … that you only found out Drew had been impressed after your father made a few inquiries.”
Will made a pitiful sound of protest as the grip on his hair was tightened, and Drew’s dagger appeared at his throat.
“You have five seconds to speak, or I’ll slit you open. One …”
“Sod you, Drew,” Will gurgled, never taking his eyes off Arabella.
“Two …”
“Will, please!” she exclaimed, a hot tear splashing her cheek.
“Three … four … five!”
Arabella’s cry of dismay was lost in the tangled sounds coming from the two men—Drew’s determined snarl as he pressed the knife tighter against Will’s throat, and Will’s exclamation as he flinched away from the blade.
“All right! I’ll tell her. For the love of Christ … you actually meant to do it!”
Drew lowered his arm, revealing an inch-long incision on the left side of Will’s throat. Blood welled in the gash, trickling down the pale column of Will’s throat. Arabella leaned against the bedpost, dizzy, overwhelmed and certain she might fall to the floor any moment.
“Don’t test me like that again,” Drew warned, wiping his blade clean on the leg of his breeches and sheathing it in his boot. “When I make a promise, I keep it. Now, talk.”
Will’s throat undulated with a forceful swallow as he looked back to Arabella, more blood leaking toward his collarbone.
“There’s a commodore who takes bribes to set press-gangs on men you might want to get rid of. It was Archibald who told me about him. He suggested it could be an expedient way to keep you from marrying Drew.”
“But,why?” she railed, her voice rising in volume and pitch as she pushed away from the bedpost to approach him on unsteady legs. “Why, Will?”
His chest heaved with heavy breath as his gaze darted from her to Drew and back again. Then, Arabella felt as if she looked into the eyes of a different person entirely. The sweet, considerate man she’d been willing to marry was gone, and in his place was a cold, calculated stranger—all hard angles and cold, dead eyes.
“You never knew what was good for you, Bella. Archibald knew it, and I did, too. Your life with Drew would have been far less than you deserved, andIwanted you. Ilovedyou. I had the means to see you catered to in luxury for the rest of your life, but you could never see that for all that you were obsessed with him!”
Arabella shook her head in disbelief, more of the accursed tears running down her face and neck in hot streams. She could hardly fathom what she was hearing—could not believe that two of the people she had loved most in the world had gone out of their way to harm someone else. And, Drew hadn’t been the only one hurt by their perfidy. She had been manipulated and made to think he was dead.
“You could not love me as much as you claim if you could conspire to hurt me this way,” she spat, her lip curling into a sneer. “Drew is yourbrother. I might be able to understand why Father would plot to be rid of him, but you? How could you?”
“Quite easily, I assure you,” Will snarled, narrowed eyes fixed on Drew. His brother returned his stare with a cool, unflinching one of his own, arms crossed over his chest. “It was never enough for you, was it? Father accepted you, doted on you, went out of his way to make sure his little black bastard wasn’t made to feel neglected! And what about me, hm? Do you think he twisted himself up in knots over his onlylegitimateson? No, it was always you—making him proud by learning a trade, going into business, buying the shares in that fucking line. But even that wasn’t enough for you, was it? You had to haveher,too, even when we both knew who the better man was. You knew I wanted her, and you snatched her right from under me!”
“A man cannot take steal something that was never yours to begin with,” Drew replied, no reaction to his brother’s words showing on his face.
