Read Lady Vice for Free Online

away.
    “You cannot blame me for believing you chose a peer over a lowly—”
    “Stop,” Lavinia said firmly, “right there.”
    “Tell me what happened,” he urged, strained.
    Her gaze settled on the harsh angles of his cheeks. “After you left, Mother insisted a season would lift my spirits, not truly understanding the ton would treat the daughter of a brewer differently than she’d been treated in her own season. Imagine the types of invitations that came. Every gathering was full of gentlemen hungry for money. Gentlemen not expecting to be denied by a slip of a thing they considered far beneath their notice. I did as much as I could to be unappealing without dishonoring my mother and her family. I chose unflattering clothes. I affected shyness. I spoke only of my hope for your return.”
    “Vinia—”
    She shook her head no and continued. “Unlike the others, Vaile was solicitous and sympathetic. He asked me about you. Assured me you would return and my fondest hopes would come true.” She swallowed. “We’d spoken many times when he asked me to ‘take some air’ with him during a particularly crowded ball…”
    “He compromised you?” Max asked. She lifted her eyes to his. A terrible darkness lurked in their depths—anger and pity and something worse she could not define.
    “Vaile ripped my dress, making it look as if we had been intimate.” She placed her hand on her neckline, as if doing so could mend the rent made long ago in a dress she had burned. “He told me no one would believe me when I protested my innocence. He was right.”
    “Your parents?” he asked.
    “What recourse did a brewer have against a baron who was the nephew of a marquess?”
    “I…” The muscle in his cheek worked hard. “…I wish I had been there.”
    That was all he had to say? A sloppy heap of anger gathered like rotted autumn leaves in her gut. “That night wasn’t the first time I had misplaced my trust in a man.”
    Max tilted his head as if he had misheard. “Do you mean to say you misplaced your trust in me?”
    “Didn’t I?” She tried to pull away.
    “ No ,” he said harshly, “I regret leaving, but I left with the intention to build a name—a life—for us . I had no idea of what you suffered.” His grip fell to her forearms and tightened. “I wish I had been there. I am here now, and my duty to you is undiminished.”
    Again, duty . Blind adherence to society’s norms had cost her everything. She looked down at his fingers as if she were watching someone else. For the past year, she had shed duty and instead formed choices based on respect—both for herself and for those closest to her—the Furies.
    “Release me,” she said.
    He cursed under his breath then let her go.
    The boy in Max had vanished, there was only the man. She banished any remaining grief for their long-ago love. He should go back to his world of simple answers and perfection, and she should retreat to the protection of the things she understood—vice, hauteur, and disdain.
    “Go, Max. It is too late for me to accept your help, even if I wanted it.”
    “I will not leave,” he vowed.
    “The devil you won’t.” She stepped toward the bellpull. “I will call a footman.”
    Max blocked her path to the bellpull, breathing heavily. “Do it, then. Cast me out of Lady Sophia’s home like your father cast me out when he told me I’d never live up to his standards.”
    She froze as a shower of needles rained on her neck. She refused to acknowledge—much less feel—his pain.
    The servant’s stair creaked…Maggie alerting them both to her imminent return.
    “I will await you in the library.” His green eyes bore into hers, fierce and resolute. “I cannot mend the past, but I will remain here. I will remain here to honor what we once shared…even if nothing remains of the woman I loved.”
    He turned on his heel and headed for the stairs.
    His words stabbed, and she could not parry. He was right, of course. She