Pride and Papercuts (The Austens #5) - Staci Hart Page 0,93
with admiration. “It’s genius, really. She’s been using her network to poach the Bennets’ business, their employees. Word is, she managed to clean out their offices in little more than a week.”
My blood stilled. Cooled to ice. “I take it you were a part of this?”
Even her shrug was elegant. “Who am I to refuse Catherine de Bourgh’s request for help? She trusts me. Like minds and all, I suppose. Why do you look angry? I thought you hated the Bennets?”
“Have I ever said as much?”
She frowned. “Well, no, but Georgie—”
“Then you shouldn’t have assumed. And that’s beyond the very simple possession of honor and integrity you lack.”
“Not fair. Catherine started it.”
“But you sit here, sneering and applauding yourself for ruining that family’s livelihood. And for what?”
“You like her!” Caroline blurted, her cheeks pink with anger and embarrassment. “How could you like that insubordinate, mannerless Bennet? You can’t pretend you don’t know how I feel about you, Liam—I always have. And Catherine agrees—we’re a good match. Much better than that tacky Bennet.”
“Does Catherine agree?” The edge to my voice was sharp enough to draw blood. I stood, furious and disgusted. “It seems the two of you have it all worked out. Should I go ahead and buy you a ring? Have you already decided when we’ll get married? Want me to help you destroy the Bennets? It doesn’t look like I’ve been left much choice in the matter.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Liam.”
“This, coming from you. I think it’s time you’re moved to Brandt’s team where you’d be more useful.”
Her jaw popped open. “You can’t be serious.”
“As serious as I am when I say that if you meddle with the Bennets in any way, I’ll make sure you have to leave the state to get another job.”
She blinked. “You don’t mean that.”
“Think what you want,” I said as I rounded my desk on a path to the door. “But don’t test me, Caroline.”
I left her sputtering in my office in favor of stalking toward my aunt’s office with hell on my heels and my mind on fire.
Laney had known it was Catherine all along, and I didn’t do anything about it.
The truth of my life, of my circumstance, came to focus—I’d been looking through the wrong end of the telescope, entrenched so deeply in the dogma of our family and business that I’d misappropriated my values. My heart.
The things I’d once believed as gospel were inconsequential when weighed next to my integrity. Catherine had flung what was right out the door in favor of petty destruction, abusing her power to raze a family and business. Her reasoning didn’t matter—it was base and undeniably wrong.
And I refused to be connected to anything so vile.
Catherine lied to me. She put Laney and the Bennets in danger for no reason beyond spite. Georgie’s heart, the things she wanted, what I wanted, had been banned by the woman who should have supported us whether she wished it or not. But what Catherine didn’t realize—what I hadn’t realized until right then—was that she needed us.
We didn’t need her. Not if this was how she loved.
Catherine looked up from her desk, smiling at me when I entered. “Liam, darling, you’re home. What … what’s the matter?”
“For weeks, I’ve defended you,” I said with barely tethered fury, stopping in front of her desk. “I’ve used your name, your wishes, to put a stop to the happiness of others out of loyalty, deference, respect. But that ends now.”
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“You’ve been sabotaging the Bennets.”
I shouldn’t have expected her to be ashamed, but I did.
She was not.
Her chin rose, eyes narrowing, the lines of her face hard. “Because they deserve to suffer the way Evelyn has. Evelyn was punished, and the Bennets got away with everything.”
“That’s not for you to decide. What did you say to Laney Bennet when she came here last week?”
Her chin lifted another tick. “I wanted her to admit she’d set her designs on you and to promise me she wouldn’t follow through.”
My heart jerked in my chest. “And what did she say?”
“She was insolent and impertinent. When I asked if you were seeing each other, she didn’t deny it, not until I pressed. And when I asked her to promise me she never would, she refused.”
A glittering streak of emotion shot through me—I instantly recognized it as hope.
Laney had refused to promise Catherine she’d stay away. Surely if there were no chance, Laney would have conveyed her disdain and cheerfully agreed to walk