A harsh hiss escaped him and a burning lump formed in his throat. If his Maryann knew the heaviness of the guilt he had carried so long, she would fling herself into his arms and cry. She would try to give him even more comfort than she was doing now.
“The black Dahlia is the cruelest,” he said, starting the letter. “He offered hope then silently watched as they shred my soul.”
Her eyes widened and the gloved hand over her chest curled, gripping the material of her dress.
“The stag with the lily in its mouth was the most brutal, for it was that one who taught me that fear and pain lie in a touch. A soothing caress on my forehead transforms to a savage squeeze of the jaw. The duality of tenderness and savagery will be impossible to erase from my heart, for I never dreamed they could belong to one.”
The tone of the letter was dark, laced with anguish, and suddenly his Maryann seemed to realize just how they had hurt her. A cry of denial slipped from her.
“Nicolas,” she said tremulously, her long lashes damp with tears. “If what you are saying is what I believe…Crispin…my brother would never use anyone so cruelly or treat anyone so shabbily. I know it with my entire heart.”
He drew her closer to him and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I am beginning to believe it is not him, either.”
They stayed silent for a few minutes.
“Tell me the rest of it, please.”
“Blond hair and blue eyes with a scar splitting his lower lip. He laughed through my screams, ’tis a sound I shall remember on my way to hell, for I am no longer worthy of heaven. It was a sound that demeaned and ridiculed…it was a sound that found humor in my torment.”
She gripped his forearm. “Blond hair and blue eyes with a scar. Oh God. That perfectly describes Viscount Weychell.”
“Yes.”
Her chest lifted harshly with her ragged breaths. “He…years ago, at my debut, I danced with him. How charming and good-natured he had seemed.”
“He escaped my schemes, but perhaps working on a cotton plantation in Virginia is a fit punishment. The Wolf and the black Dahlia remain.”
She visibly started.
“Maryann—”
“You have borne this sorrow for years. I can bear the memory and knowing of it with you tonight.”
Her strength filled him with a rush of fierce pride.
“The dragon wings spread wide, a rose of coronet upon its head…how merciless this dragon was, tempting me with chances of escape only to catch me again when I tasted freedom. The wolf…he was all of them, cruel, brutal, unholy, and savage, yet he was more, for in him once I found love.”
Maryann faltered into piercing stillness. “Someone she loved…someone she loved was there?”
The wolf…their best friend.
“My tears are like endless rainfall. How can I live with everything they stole from me? What is done is done. I have no hope, no virtue, and no will to live. May my soul find mercy and grace with thy heavenly father,” Nicolas said, repeating the last of the letter.
Maryann dropped his hand as if she had been burned.
Ah, my sweet Maryann, do not cry.
Tears coursed down her cheeks, and in her eyes he spied a raw pain that echoed deep inside him. And words he had never spoken came spilling from him. “Arianna was my friend…a girl I loved with all the passion of youth,” he murmured.
Nicolas realized he was trusting Maryann with every part of him, even the past which haunted him. Would she also see him guilty, as how he had seen himself? “I was eighteen to her sixteen and our stations were different. Though I had such affections for Arianna, I did not offer for her. The day she kissed me and professed her love, I told her I could not accept it.”
The daughter of servants and a future marquess.
“You were young,” Maryann said, swiping her cheeks. “And scared. That is understandable.”
“I told her I needed time to speak with my father. He had plans for me to marry a friend’s daughter, and I knew my duty. Arianna was hurt, and she left for London the very next day to pursue her dream of being on the stage. She would not sit around and wait for me to decide if she was worth more than duty.”
A soft rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and the air chilled. Rain felt imminent, but neither moved.