Kitabı oku: «The Complete Regency Bestsellers And One Winters Collection», sayfa 16
“Beneath you? You’re being absurd, Chase. I know you, of all people, don’t believe that.”
“Everyone else will. And the Sir Winston Harveys of London will make sure no one forgets that you were once ‘just’ a governess.”
“I’m not ‘just’ a governess. I’m not ‘just’ anything.”
He pushed the banknotes toward her. “As of this moment, you’re not a governess at all.”
A tear formed in the corner of her eye. It clung to her eyelashes, wobbling there. She didn’t do him the mercy of dashing it away. She let it fall, and he watched it trail down her face.
Chase wanted to rip his own heart from his chest and hurl it into the fireplace. For all the good the thing did him, he might as well be rid of it.
She ignored the heap of banknotes. “I don’t believe for a moment that you meant anything you just said. I know you better than that. You’re a good man with a loving nature. But even if I can dismiss your words, that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt.”
“Take the money, Alexandra. The telescope, as well. I’ve no need of it.”
“I don’t want your money. As if it’s some even trade for your heart?”
“To be honest, I think you’re coming out better in the bargain.”
She shook her head. “Tomorrow, or the day after, or maybe next week, you’re going to wake up and realize what an idiot you were, and you’re going to want to make things right with me. I’m telling you now, it will be too late. This will be the last time I raise my hopes, Chase. The last time I dare to dream of a future with you, only to watch those dreams dashed.”
He looked her square in the eye and nodded. “Good.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
As it happened, it didn’t take even an hour for Chase to realize he’d been an idiot. There was no excising these girls from his life.
When the time came to set Daisy’s arm, Chase had to pin her down with his body so the doctor could do his work. She screamed with the pain and struggled to get away. He would have gladly broken his arm and both legs if it meant he could suffer the pain instead. It was the most wrenching thing he’d ever done, but he would not have allowed anyone else to do it in his place.
At last, it was over. Daisy fell asleep, exhausted from the struggle. Chase was equally spent. He showed the doctor to the door, peppering the man with so many questions, he turned and looked to Chase as if to say, Don’t you know anything?
No. When it came to this guardian business, he truly did not. But he was going to have to learn.
What came next? Supper, baths, stories? Some other loving ritual absent from his own youth, and therefore completely foreign to him? He didn’t suppose wine was on the list, unfortunately. Not yet, anyway.
He heard the sound of sniffling coming from the dining hall. He bent to peer under the table. “Rosamund?”
She turned away from him, swiping her nose with her sleeve in an effort to hide her tears.
Chase went down on his hands and knees to join her under the table.
Steady, he told himself. Don’t frighten her.
She needed assurance, and he had to provide it—even though he’d never felt less sure of himself in his life.
“Daisy’s fine,” he said. “She’s fine.”
“She was screaming. I heard it.”
“The physician had to set her arm back in place, but it’s done now. All splinted and bound. Now it only needs time to mend. In a few months she’ll be good as new.” He put a hand on her back. “It wasn’t your fault. Do you hear me? It was an accident. You aren’t to blame.”
“You can’t expect me to believe that. Of course it’s my fault. I told her to climb out the window. She wouldn’t have fallen if not for me.”
“Very well, then. Perhaps it is partly your fault. But it’s partly mine, too. I should have made you feel safer to stay.” Chase made himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space, bending his legs until his knees touched his chest. “I’m going to tell you a story.”
“One of those improving tales with morals? No, thank you.”
“It’s a sad story, actually. No happy ending.”
In clear, simple terms he told her about Anthony’s death. He left out the more scandalous details, naturally. But the gist of the story remained the same.
“I promised to take care of him,” he finished at length. “And I wasn’t there when he needed me.”
She didn’t reply, and he didn’t want her to feel she ought to. She was ten years old, and he was here to console her, not the reverse.
“When you and Daisy came into my care,” he went on, “I didn’t believe that I could be a good guardian. I’d failed my cousin already. What if I failed you, too? That’s why I planned to send you to school at the first opportunity. We’d all be better off that way, I told myself.”
She rearranged her legs within the cramped space. “Are you sure you weren’t right?”
“I’m not right very often, so the chances are against it.” He exhaled, releasing all the air in his lungs. “To be honest, Rosamund, I was terrified. It wasn’t only that I’d failed Anthony. I missed him, terribly. I was afraid of losing someone else. I didn’t want to care about you.”
She sniffed. “I didn’t want to care about you, either.”
“Much as I tried to avoid it, however, it seems I’ve come to love you and Daisy both. Very much. When you were missing, I was frantic. All I could think about was how empty the house would be with you gone. How empty my life would be.”
“I was thinking about how empty our stomachs were, and that I should have brought more sandwiches.” Her chin met her knee. “Or that we should never have left at all.”
He smiled a bit. “We are quite the pair. What are we going to do with ourselves?”
She shrugged.
“Here’s what I think. There’s no going back to change the past. If we allow our mistakes to consume us, we’re stuck in one place—and it’s not a good place to be. Believe me, I spent years there. I know. The only choice is to move forward. Try to do better. I may not be a perfect guardian. You may not be the perfect wards. But if we love each other and keep trying our best, perhaps we’ll manage.” He added, “Mind you, we’ll all need to make a greater attempt at acceptable behavior—in public, at any rate. But I’ll try if you will. What do you say?”
She was silent. He could sense her struggling. She didn’t want to admit she needed him, or anyone.
“Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
Instead, she leaned into his shoulder.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “That’s it, I hope you realize. No taking it back now.”
She lifted her head. “Where’s Miss Mountbatten gone? She took her things. Did you sack her because we ran away?”
“She was hired to teach you and Daisy for the summer, and the summer’s come to an end. That’s all. But you and Daisy are invited for tea at Lady Penny’s house every Thursday. You’ll see her there.”
Rosamund leveled a doubtful gaze at him. There were hours of interrogation in those eyes. The girl could break hardened spies.
“Very well, that’s not all. We had a falling-out.”
“Can’t you go apologize to her?”
“Not this time, I’m afraid.” Not yet.
It will be too late, she’d told him. It would be too early, as well. If he had any hope of ever regaining Alex’s trust—and her love—he had to prove he deserved it. Not only to her, but to himself.
“You must have done something truly horrid, then.”
He nodded. “That’s the sum of it, yes.”
“So that would mean . . . the only choice is to move forward and try to do better?” Her voice was smug.
“Don’t make me regret this guardian business already.”
She lowered her voice in imitation of his. “No taking it back now.”
He sighed, exasperated. “Are you going to keep throwing my words back at me?”
“That’s the sum of it, yes.”
“Then I promise to be a perfect young lady.”
“Brilliant.” She scrambled out from under the table. “I have some half-embroidered serviettes you can finish.”
Even Nicola’s biscuits weren’t enough to soothe a broken heart.
Which was why Alexandra was currently sitting in the breakfast room of Ashbury House, with an entire toffee cake on a plate before her, and one solitary fork.
She dejectedly poked holes in the cake and took the occasional lick of icing. Emma paced the floor nearby, making cooing noises at the fussy babe in her arms. Breeches, the feline terror, was having one of his good-natured days. He rubbed against her ankle, purring.
Alex was surrounded by her dearest friend, a baby, a cat, and a cake. “Really,” she declared, “who needs men at all?”
“It seems we’ll have a new one in the neighborhood any day. Someone’s finally let the house on the corner.”
“The one next to Penny’s?”
“Yes.” Emma stood and walked to the window. “Workmen have been coming and going all week. The rumors passed through the servants say he’s a gentleman of some sort, but no one knows anything else. Whoever he is, I’d wager the poor fellow has no idea what he’s in for. I hope he doesn’t mind goats in the back garden and otters in the rain barrel.”
“Well, right now I only have eyes for one gentleman, and that’s the young Marquess of Richmond.” Alex scooped the crying baby from Emma’s arms. “I’ll take a turn. Have some cake.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Emma said. “Ash and I would love it if you’d be Richmond’s godmother.”
Alex was stunned. “Really?”
Emma nodded.
“I’d love nothing more, but I was christened Catholic, and I don’t practice anything lately.”
“Khan will be godfather, and he’s Muslim. Considering that my father was a vicar and the worst sort of hypocrite, and that Ash is Ash, we aren’t ones to stand on ceremony.”
“Will the clergyman allow it?”
“The Ashbury estate provides his living. He’ll be persuaded.”
“Then I’d be honored.”
Transferring the baby to one arm, she used the other to hug Emma in joy. And then, as she clung tight, the embrace became one of despair. At last, the tears she’d been holding in began to flow.
“I’m sorry.” Alex sniffled as she pulled away from the hug. “You already have one crying soul to soothe. I don’t mean to be another.”
“Don’t be absurd. Cry all you like.” Emma took the baby back and settled in a chair, unbuttoning the front of her morning gown. “I only wish I could mend it by feeding you, or changing your clout.”
“I just feel so foolish. I let myself believe he loved me, and that we’d be together forever. One day later, it all fell apart.”
“Perhaps it can be pieced back together. You know he loves you.”
“That’s not the problem. He’s bollocks at letting anyone love him in return.”
As she watched Emma nurse her baby at her breast, a tiny fist squeezed at her heart. She’d never expected to marry, never truly dreamed of having children at all. But now a longing had been opened in her. Those hopes of children had hollowed out a bit of her heart and made a home there. Now the hopes had vanished, but the space remained, empty and aching. Right next to two empty niches labeled Daisy and Rosamund, and the small cavern she’d blasted out to make room for Chase.
They heard the ring of the doorbell.
“Khan will answer it,” Emma said. Then she added in a low voice, “Maybe it’s him.”
“It’s not him,” Alex said aloud.
Inside, of course, her thoughts were a riot. What if it was him? It could be him. Did she want it to be him? Maybe he’d beg her to come back. Maybe he’d have a diamond ring in his pocket, and he’d go down on one knee and ask her to marry him.
And then take her up on his unicorn and ride into the sunset, she supposed. Really, Alex.
Khan, the butler, appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace, there’s a woman at the door collecting subscriptions for a charity fund.”
Alex took up the fork and dug into her cake.
See? Her mind had betrayed her again. She simply didn’t trust herself any longer, not where Chase was concerned. She had to fight her way through the pain and emerge stronger on the other side. Otherwise her longing for him would chip away at her heart, bit by bit.
Until there was nothing left.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Three weeks later
“The left side needs to be higher,” Daisy said.
Chase put down his hammer and stepped back. Damn it, she was right. The shelf still didn’t look straight.
He fished out a key and opened the locked drawer where he kept his tools—at least a few things had to be kept safe from Rosamund—but instead of a measuring stick, his hand fell on something that crinkled beneath his fingertips. A small, flat package wrapped with ivory tissue and tied off with a lavender ribbon.
He’d forgotten the thing entirely.
Chase couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. It had been meant as a surprise gift for Alexandra, but it had ended up being a gift to himself. A gift he’d given himself weeks in advance, without even realizing it.
An excuse to go to her.
Finally.
“How long will you be?” Rosamund perched on the stepladder, holding one edge of the shelf in place. “My arms are growing tired.”
“Be glad your arms aren’t broken,” Daisy said smugly. “Lift up a bit. Your side is slipping.” The girl was enjoying her supervisory role a bit too much.
“You may let the shelf be,” Chase said. “I’m leaving directly.”
“Leaving for where?” Rosamund asked.
“To speak with Miss Mountbatten.”
“Finally.”
“Can we come along?” Daisy asked.
“Not this time, darling.”
Chase had to do this alone, and he had to do it today, before he talked himself out of it somehow. The gift wasn’t much. Nowhere near what she deserved. But he wanted Alex to have it, even if she refused to accept him.
With a bit of luck and a barge-load of apologies, was it too much to hope she might take both? Probably, but he had to try.
He bounded up to the entrance hall, where Barrow was just putting on his hat.
“We’ll have to postpone our appointment at the bank. I’m going after Alexandra.”
Barrow replaced his hat on the hook. “Finally.”
“She won’t want to see me.” Chase wrestled into his topcoat. “How can I convince her to hear me out? What do I say?”
“You’re the one with the silver tongue. I’m not certain what you want from me here.”
“You’re right. I don’t know why I’m asking advice from a man who proposed to his wife in a haberdashery.”
“At least my proposal was accepted.”
“That’s cold, Barrow.”
“But true.”
Chase yanked the lapels of his topcoat straight. Whatever powers of persuasion he’d amassed in his lifetime, this was the day to use them. “Christ, this is pointless. I treated her so shamefully. You have no idea.”
His brother shrugged. “So you made a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Very well, multiple mistakes.”
“Try dozens.”
“Never mind the number,” Barrow said. “If you love her—”
“What do you mean, ‘if’? You knew that before I did.”
“If you love her,” Barrow repeated with strained patience, “Alexandra just might forgive you. Think of how many of your flaws I overlook daily.”
“You don’t overlook my flaws. You like them. They make you feel superior, attached as you are to all those smug principles.”
“I’m attached to you, you idiot. You’re my best friend, and my brother by blood. No one who loves you expects you to be perfect. If by some miracle you managed it, we wouldn’t recognize you.”
Chase started to protest, but then he realized he didn’t really want to.
“All you need to promise her is yourself. That’s enough.” Barrow put his hand on Chase’s shoulder. “You’re enough.”
Over his adult life, Chase had built an unparalleled reputation for suave, spontaneous gestures of intimacy. Apparently, he’d fallen out of practice. The hug he gave his brother was the most awkward, embarrassing embrace he’d ever attempted in his life.
Barrow released him with a merciful thump on the back. “Now leave, so I can draw up some marriage contracts.”
“What about the embezzling? Don’t forget the embezzling.”
“Chase, stop stalling and go.”
For once, Chase took his brother’s suggestion. Without argument.
He headed to Lady Penelope Campion’s house first, but the housekeeper said she’d gone to Miss Teague’s. On to Miss Teague’s it was.
Miss Teague’s door was ajar, seemingly to clear out a haze of smoke from within. The house smelled of charred chocolate and cinnamon.
“Chase!” Penny waved him in. “Just in time for tea. Do sit down and have a biscuit.”
“He’s not getting biscuits,” Nicola said, incensed. She whipped the plate from the table, guarding it. “After what he did to Alex? Not even the burnt ones.”
“But he’s sorry now. He’s clearly here to make amends. The poor man looks wretched.”
Chase wasn’t certain how to feel about that. “I don’t have time for tea and biscuits, thank you. I’ve something for Alex. She’ll want to have it at once.”
“Leave it, then,” Nicola said. “We’ll give it to her.”
That was an entirely reasonable suggestion. One he didn’t have a ready excuse to work around. He decided to try the truth. “Please. I need to see her. Speak with her.”
“See, Nic?” Penny said. “He’s miserable.”
“I’m miserable,” Chase agreed. “So, so miserable. Also ashamed, regretful, desperate, ready to grovel on hands and knees.”
“Don’t forget ‘in love,’” Penny said, smiling.
Lord bless Lady Penelope Campion for her indefatigable faith in romance. She had the most open, generous nature imaginable. Chase recognized the quality, because she was the sort of woman he’d always kept at a distance. A heart so completely unguarded was more easily bruised than a ripe summer peach. Someday, he would sit her down and give her a word of caution about being too trusting with devilish gentlemen.
But not today.
Nicola finally answered his question. “Alexandra isn’t here.”
“When will she be back?”
“She won’t be. Not for some time,” Nicola said.
“She’s gone to—”
Lady Penelope’s reply was cut short. From throughout the house, what seemed like hundreds of clocks began to chime the hour. And naturally, the hour would be noon.
Within that minute of bonging and clanging, Chase imagined a hundred dire endings to Penny’s sentence.
She’s gone to the docks to catch a ship.
She’s gone to the Philippine Islands, to find her mother’s family.
She’s gone to grab the tail of her comet and soar away to a planet that deserves her.
She’s gone to someplace, anyplace where you aren’t, you contemptible bastard.
She’s gone to Malta.
It didn’t matter, he vowed. Wherever she’d gone, Chase would follow her, find her, pledge his love, and beg her to come home. Nothing would deter him. There was no journey too far. No obstacle too great.
“She’s gone to stay at Ashbury House,” Penny finished. “Across the square. Ash and Emma leave for the country tomorrow. They’re taking Alexandra with them.”
Ashbury House. Brilliant.
He would have rather gone to Malta.
Chase’s reception at Ashbury House was as he expected. And, quite honestly, no worse than he deserved.
The duke grabbed Chase by the lapels and slammed him against the wall.
“Listen, Ashbury. I know she’s furious with me, and for good reason. But I’m trying to make it right. Just—”
“I warned you,” the duke said in a fiendish whisper. “I told you what would happen if you hurt her.”
“Yes, I recall,” Chase choked out. “Something about my ballocks, a closet, and a demonic cat.”
“Oh, that’s only to start,” the duke growled low. “You clod of wayward marl.”
“I don’t have to stand for this.” Chase shrugged off Ashbury’s grip. “And I don’t need your permission to speak with Alexandra. You’re not her keeper.”
“I’m her friend. And you are not her anything.”
The words gutted him. Ashbury might be correct, but Chase had to see this through to the bitter end.
“That’s for Alex to decide.” Chase sidestepped him and lifted his voice. “Alexandr—ack.”
Ashbury tackled him from behind, wrestling him down to the carpet and clapping a hand over Chase’s mouth. “Shut up, you blackguard,” he snarled quietly. “Not another word. Or a set of shredded ballocks will be the least of your problems.”
Good Lord. Could there be anything worse than shredded ballocks? His stones retracted into his abdomen at the very mention. Chase could imagine only one sort of pain that could possibly eclipse that prospect.
Losing the love of his life.
Chase planted his boot on the floor, levered for the advantage, and flipped them both. He straddled Ashbury’s chest and stared down at his scarred face. “I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt on Alex’s account, but now I’m angry. I may not have a bloodthirsty cat, but I know a girl who can make a small bowel obstruction look like an accident, and I have a great deal of experience giving eulogies.”
“If you so much as—”
Chase planted his hand on Ashbury’s face. By pushing the duke’s head into the carpet pile, he lifted himself just enough to call out. “Alex!” he shouted. “I need to speak with y—”
A set of duke-ish, entitled teeth sank into the heel of his hand.
“Fuck.”
Chase jerked his hand away, and Ashbury made use of the momentary confusion to reverse the power once more. Scrabbling with knees and elbows, they rolled across the carpet no fewer than three times before colliding with a table.
Unhappily, Chase ended on the bottom of the tussle. Ashbury’s knee sank into his gut. “God Almighty, man,” Chase said. “What the devil’s wrong with you? Besides all the obvious things.”
“You veriest varlet.” Ashbury lowered his mangled face to within an inch of Chase’s nose. “This. Is. Nap. Time.”
Chase was nonplussed. “What?”
The duke rolled aside, resting on his elbow as he worked for breath. “My infant son is currently upstairs, sleeping for the first time in nineteen hours. The only thing keeping me from disemboweling you here in the entrance hall, you cream-faced rooting hog, is that you’d probably wake him with all your sniveling and sobbing for mercy.”
“Oh.”
Somewhere upstairs, a thin wail pierced the silence.
Ashbury closed his eyes. “I hate you.”
“Just let me speak to Alexandra.” Chase stood and straightened his coat.
“She’s not here.”
“You bastard. Why didn’t you say so? You could have spared us all of this nonsense.”
Ashbury struggled to a standing position. “I needed the exercise.”
Chase glared at him. “The papers had it right. You are a monster.”
Ashbury shrugged in admission.
“So if Alexandra’s not here, where’s she gone?”
“She went out to the shops.” A woman who was presumably the Duchess of Ashbury stood at the top of the stairs, bouncing a baby in her arms.
“Don’t tell him,” Ashbury complained. “He doesn’t deserve to know.”
She shrugged. “He ate the sham. And the tuna-ish. He’s at least earned the chance to talk to her.” To Chase, she said, “Alex said she had a few things to purchase before we made the journey.”
“What sort of things?”
“I don’t know the full list.” The duchess hesitated. “But she mentioned books.”
Books. Of course. He should have known it would be books.
“Do you know which shop?”
She shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”
Well, then. He’d done too much dashing about London to stop now.
Chase would simply have to check them all.
