Redemption Read Free Page B

I was.”
    “Turn
around,” Ben ordered, and threw a disgusted glare at the men beside
them who were ogling her as much as they were relishing the scene
they were witnessing.
    Lizzie
did not know if he was talking to her or the onlookers, but didn’t
bother to ask. Shaking her skirts out she slowly turned to face the
wall, horribly aware that her laces were undone and the majority of
her back was bared for the world to see.
    Ben
didn’t speak as he tightened the laces, and sighed with regret as
he watched her push ineffectually at her hair in a futile attempt
to tidy it. Unfortunately, she could do little about the long
tresses that now lay in tousled abandon about her shoulders. With
no way to find her pins in the darkness, she was forced to leave
the silken mass loose and, as a result she looked wild and wanton,
and thoroughly ravished. It was a sight he knew would remain with
him for a long time; and something he wanted to recreate as soon as
he could get her alone again. He had never seen anyone look so
seductively intriguing before but needed to force his thoughts onto
more mundane matters before his body began to twitch into life
again.
    “Elizabeth,” Ben murmured gently. He sought to find some way
of reassuring her that it would be all right, but didn’t want to
give Julian any opportunity to play to the audience.
    “I am
sorry,” she whispered. It was all she could think of to say. A sob
hovered on her lips but, before she could attempt to explain
herself, her step-brother began his tirade.
    “You are
nothing but a scoundrel, McArthur. You have ruined my sister. How
dare you take advantage of her, you blackguard?”
    Behind
his booming voice, the low hum of hushed whispers snaked into the
gloom. Lizzie ventured an apologetic glance toward Ben, but winced
at what she saw in his eyes. He looked as though he had never seen
her before in his life. Even in the darkness she could see the cold
fury on his face. It was so virulent that it made her want to step
back, well away from the coiled power that positively vibrated off
him. She wished the ground would open up and swallow her; that she
could be anywhere other than in a darkened folly in a secluded
corner of the garden. Her chest heaved as she fought to quell her
tears, but they began to trickle down her face anyway. For some
reason, Ben’s condemnation of her was far worse than Julian’s
scorn, mainly because she felt more for Ben than Julian. It felt as
though she had just lost something precious; only she didn’t quite
know what ‘it’ was because she had never expected to find it in the
first place.
    She
glanced at Julian. He was glaring at her with such vile hatred in
his eyes that she had to turn her back; on him; on all the curious
onlookers so she didn’t break down. There was no love lost between
her and her step-brother at the best of times, but she knew now
that their relationship was beyond repair. Nothing she said to him
would gain her any mercy from the querulous lambasting he would
unleash upon her the first chance he got. Given the outrage on his
face right now, she suspected he wouldn’t even wait until they were
back at Pendlebury to unleash his scorn.
    His next
words confirmed her worst suspicions were correct.
    “You
hussy,” Julian snarled at her. “How dare you behave like a common
whore and disgrace the family name?”
    She mentally winced at the callous delight hidden in his
words and dug deep for enough self-control to keep her face bland
and disinterested. The nods and smirks of the unsympathetic, almost
gleeful people around him fuelled Julian’s arrogance. In that
moment she had never hated her step-brother, or the assembled
guests more, mainly because she knew that if anybody knew what a
common whore behaved like it was Julian. His debauched lifestyle,
gambling and whoring, was legendary amongst the ton . She had no doubt that his
behaviour over the years had been a thousand times worse than hers
but because he was a man