Seven Wicked Nights (Turner #1.5)

What if he didn’t hate her? If he didn’t, then last night…


But she was not the only one thinking along those lines. “Don’t tell me you’re interested,” Lady Cosgrove spat. “Everyone knows what you think of Lady Elaine and her mother. We’ve all heard it before.”

Westfeld’s eyes darkened. He turned to face his cousin. “No. Nobody knows. But as you’re bored with mathematics, perhaps I should tell you that story instead.”

The entire room went silent. Elaine didn’t dare breathe, for fear that her dress would shift and the sound would interrupt him. Her heart had seemed to stop in her chest.

“You see,” Westfeld said, “ten years ago, I met a lady. She was very pretty and quite fearless. She spoke her mind, and she laughed with abandon. I fell in love with her over the course of about an evening.”

It had to turn into a joke.

But he didn’t look like he was joking. “I was nineteen at the time, and therefore foolish. And so, to my mind, there were two important things I had to do. First, I had to make her notice me in the way I noticed her. I wanted her to look for me every time she walked into a room. I wanted her to miss me when I wasn’t there. I wanted her to be aware at every second of where I stood.” He paused. “Also,” he said, “being a young man, and thus having no thoughts to speak of, it seemed of utmost importance that nobody know I had fallen in love. If they knew, I would be embarrassed. And that would have heralded the end of the world.”

It wasn’t a joke. Elaine felt the palms of her hands grow cold.

“Somehow,” he continued, raising his head and looking directly into her eyes, “what started with those simple requirements—make her notice me, but guarantee that nobody understood how I felt—turned into the cruelest thing I have ever done to another human. I started to poke fun at her laugh. At first, it was one of those things I said to explain why I was staring at her—‘Good heavens, have you all noticed how Lady Elaine laughs?’ And then, as everyone eagerly took part, I found myself helpless to stop it.”

It wasn’t an excuse. It wasn’t an apology. It just was, and she didn’t know how to take this much truth.

He stopped and shook his head. His lips thinned. “No. I wasn’t helpless. I could have stopped at any time. I was merely too weak to do so. I wish I could say I just kept my mouth shut, but I didn’t. I was the worst of the lot. I made up half the cruel names. I would go up to her, speak to her face, just for the thrill of talking with her—and as soon as someone looked my way, I’d slip in an insult, so nobody would think I cared.”

Elaine’s entire world had been upended. Right had become wrong, and had turned back to right again.

“She never did look at me. But I could tell that she knew when I was present, because over the course of that year—over the course of that horrible year, when I hurt her time and time again, she gradually lost her fearlessness. It was near the end of the Season when I realized how completely I had succeeded in my aims. She came into a room. She looked around—just as I had wanted, when I’d first fallen in love with her. Her eyes passed over me. And yet she knew I was there because she turned and left. She was aware of me, every second of every day. I was the man who tormented her, and for her, knowing my whereabouts had become a matter of self-preservation.”

Did it make it better or worse that he’d understood what he had done to her? She couldn’t decide.

“So I did what any young, senseless idiot would do. I ran away. A retreat to the country wasn’t enough; I couldn’t bear to stay in England. I had to outrun the person you all believed me to be. I spent a summer in Greece, but every woman I saw brought me back to Lady Elaine. Finally, while passing through Switzerland, I talked to a man who had attempted the ascent on Mont Blanc. He told me that he’d nearly died in the process. To my mind, that seemed like the best thing I could do with myself.”

Westfeld gave the entire room a tight smile. “And so that was why I started mountaineering: because I was too cowardly to come home, apologize, and try to make things right.”

Right. She didn’t know where right lay any longer. But what he’d said was irrevocable. This gossip would race through polite society. She’d wanted him vulnerable, unable to hurt her…and here he was.

“And so here I am,” he echoed, as if he’d heard her thoughts. “Older, wiser, and I hope a good deal braver. Lady Elaine, you have my sincerest apologies for what I did to you. I don’t hope for your forgiveness, but I am in your debt. Deeply. Should you ever need anything—anything—you have only to ask, and it is yours.”