Read Online Secret Pleasures by Cheryl Howe - Free Book Online Page B

Melody, assure herself her small chest rose and fell with steady rhythm. Hold her and let her know she was not alone in the world . Tears choked Ivy’s throat . Grief for Diana descended like a summer downpour . Ivy had paid the landlord her missed rent and promised even more when she had word that Diana was safely with a reputable undertaker. She would make the funeral arrangements before she left for Cornwall.
    “Is the child better?” he asked, the concern clearly in his voice pulverizing Ivy’s last shred of control . It was all she could do not to throw herself in his arms and plead with him to hold her through a good cry .
    “Yes,” she heard the waver in her voice and quickly turned toward the steps . “I’m exhausted, Darien . If you’ll excuse — ”
    “Marcus said the child could not be his . I won’t bother you more on the subject if that’s your wish.”
    She turned to find him still standing in the middle of her black and white tiled entry hall, making no move for the door.
    “Thank you.”
    “Let me help you . I don’t want you to be alone.”
    She shook her head, unable to speak . All her bravado was slipping away . T he idea of her and Darien …t ogether … T hat dream had been tightly imprisoned in her heart for so long, the very notion of setting it free terrified her.
    “My motives are not completely selfless if that’s what’s troubling you. ” He pulled something out of his pocket and held it out to her . For a moment her blood went cold . She tightened her grip on the small velvet valise that matched her fitted mint-green jacket. The crinkle of paper echoed in her ears above her beating heart .
    Ivy took the folded letter with a quick glance at Darien’s unusually serious features . A single sentence was scrawled on the wrinkled piece of paper . Philip was murdered.
    “Dear God. ” For a moment, Ivy wished she had dropped her letter from Diana after all . “Where did this come from?”
    “I received it in the post a week after the invitation to the ball.”
    “Darien,” she shook her head, “I would not read too much into this . People are cruel. ” Though Ivy could not contemplate such a sick joke, whispered speculation had circulated about Philip’s tragic death for several years afterwards . She tried to catch Darien’s gaze to silently plead with him for once in his life to abdicate to reason.
    “It’s true . I know it is. ” Darien tore his desperate gaze from hers, turned slightly away, and ran his finger through his black, shoulder-length hair . He ground his jaw, making the hollows of his sunken cheeks more pronounced.
    Ivy slipped off the step and silently approached him . She stopped short of laying her hand on his tense shoulder that seemed to stiffen at her approach . She stood motionless . Close enough to see the flare of his nostrils with each deepened breath.
    “There were only rumors and your father’s word is almost impossible to contradict. ” How clearly she had learned that painful lesson . Though there was no evidence other than the sudden disappearance of her father’s gambling debts, she had been eternally branded an outcast with a few crude jokes over port and cigars by men who called themselves gentleman.
    “But I should have,” he abruptly turned to face her, stared down into her eyes. “I should have called him out if I had to. ”
    “Your father claimed the incident a hunting accident . He even admitted that he pulled the trigger.” She swallowed the bitter taste of defending Westhaven, but the alternative was too awful and would only hurt Darien more . And the idea that Darien’s father had far more threatening tactics than ruining one’s reputation to get what he wanted terrified her too much to contemplate.
    “I received the first note almost immediately after Philip’s death and assumed that it was an ugly prank. ” He shook his head . “That’s a lie . After I had begun to drink myself into oblivion on a daily basis, I