Grave Consequences (Grand Tour Series #2) (22 page)

“He asked if
she
loved
him
.”

I sucked in my breath. “Poor form on his part.”

“Indeed. For what my brother has in knowledge, he lacks in wisdom—at least in the ways of men and women. I suppose I got all the good looks and understanding of how women work, in my family.” Again, I resisted the urge to pull away when he leaned toward me, and instead looked ahead to Will, who was glancing back at us in concern. I gave my head a little shake, silently telling him not to worry, and he turned his attention back to Lil, beside him.

“And so?”

“And so?” Hugh repeated wryly.

“Hugh. What is their plan?”

“To spend some time apart. To think on it. Search their hearts. And decide if they truly belong together.”

“Goodness,” I said, still a bit overwhelmed by this turn. All on account of such a short conversation with Viv? Or a sleeping dragon awakened by a butterfly’s passing?

“You should know,” Hugh said. “My brother can get rather volatile when he’s angry.”

“Are you…
warning
me?” We neared the funicular railway station.

He pursed his lips a moment. “Just that you should stick with the group. Don’t go where Andrew can corner you alone again. Especially if he’s been drinking.”

I frowned. I’d never seen Andrew overly imbibe. That was more the realm of Felix and Hugh. “How is any of this my fault?” I whispered as we got closer to the others. My heart was pounding. Because while Hugh liked to play with my emotions, he seemed earnest in this warning.

He turned to me and leaned toward my ear. “You, dear Cora, appear determined to delve into matters of the heart. Don’t you know that we Morgans and Kensingtons prefer to keep things on another plane altogether?”

I avoided Andrew all night, as well as most of the others in our party. I kept to myself, forcing myself to eat something, then quickly making my excuses of a headache as some of them went to the Lumière cinema for a moving picture show, and the others went to a local dance hall. “I’d like to turn in early,” I said, meeting Will’s searching eyes. “I’m exhausted.”

He nodded and let me go, clearly reluctant. Antonio escorted me to my room, waiting until I had locked the door behind me. I didn’t even call upon Anna, glad to undress myself, unpin my hair, brush it out, and slip into a nightdress, then burrow under the cool sheets and blankets of my big bed. Because I
was
unaccountably tired. Weary from the bones out. Tired of trying to think through every word, every action, and what the repercussions might be. And within seconds of laying my head on the pillow, just as I was thinking I’d never sleep, with all that was on my mind, I was.

Hours later, I dreamed of knocking, pounding at my door. Someone calling my name. I opened one eye and sat up, turning up the flame of my bedside lamp and then going to the door, still wondering if I was dreaming.

“Cora!” he said. “I must see you!”

It was Andrew.

“Andrew, it’s far too late. I shall see you in the morning.”

“Come out! Come out this instant!”

I could hear the slur in his voice. And Hugh’s words came back to me. About his volatility. Particularly when he’d been drinking. As if to emphasize the truth of Hugh’s warning, he banged on the door so hard, the whole thing shuddered. I took a step back.

I glanced at the lamp in my hand. I was shaking so hard, the oil was sloshing around in the well at the bottom. “Tomorrow, Andrew! We’ll speak tomorrow!”

“Come out here, Cora! Please!” I heard his voice crack. He paused. “Please. Just a word.” Could he truly be weeping?

My heart paused a moment and then pounded. What had I done? Why had I interfered? The man was clearly devastated.

“Just a moment, Andrew.” I moved to my bedside table and set down the lamp, then pulled on my dressing robe. I went back to the door and opened it a few inches. “Andrew?”

“Just a word, Cora,” he said, his shoulders shaking. He was leaning his head against the wall, inches from the door. He wiped his nose and cheek with one serpentine swipe of his hand and arm and looked at me with such pain, such brokenness, that my heart broke for him.

“Andrew,” I begged him. “Go to Vivian. She’ll see that you love her.”

“No,” he said. “She won’t. She wants something from me that I cannot define. Something even she cannot define. It was you. You planted some seed in her mind.…” He searched my eyes, and in that moment, his own hardened.

My internal alarm moved me to action a moment too late. I tried to slam the door, but he wedged his foot in and then pushed it open, sending me sprawling. I fell on my hip and elbow, sliding across the polished floor and moved to try to get up. But he was there, yanking me upward, clenching both my arms in his powerful hands. “What have you done?” he spat at me. “What have you
done
?”

He shook me so hard my teeth rattled.

“Andrew, I didn’t mean to. Please…you’ve had too much to drink—”

He let out a cry and this time pushed me up against a wall, his fingers digging into my arms. He leaned his beet-red face down toward mine. “How dare you tell me I’ve had too much to drink! Who are you to come into our lives and get between us? What do you hope to gain? Why are you bent on destroying our future?”

“I hardly think I’ve destroyed anything,” I said, finding strength in my own fury. “If my innocent question was enough to do so, you had no semblance of a foundation for a marriage! Come now, Andrew. Look at yourself. What are you doing?”

“Yes,” Will said from the doorway, every line in his face speaking of warning. “What
are
you doing?”

Art was beside him.

Andrew looked at them, to me, and then back to Will. “I needed a word with her.” He released me and took a step back.

“In the middle of the night? Menacing her so?” He strode over to us.

“This is none of your business, William,” Andrew said. “I will be done here in a moment.”

“No,” Will returned evenly. “You are done now. Go to your quarters and sleep off whatever you’ve imbibed this night, or Art and I shall drag you there.”

Andrew looked over Will’s shoulder to Art. Behind him, several of the hotel’s guests in nightcaps and dressing gowns peered from their doorways to see what the fuss was about. Andrew let out a sound of disgust and shook a finger at me. “Make it right with Vivian. Immediately.”

“The only one who can make it right with Vivian is
you
, Andrew,” I said.

His eyes widened with renewed anger, and he lifted his hand to slap me, but Will was there, grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm behind him. “To bed, Andrew. Now,” he seethed, forcing him from my room.

Art, halfway in my room, turned to the gaping people in the hallway. He spoke to them soothingly, his tone clear, even though he spoke French. He was probably telling them it was all over, to go back to their rooms. Slowly, grudgingly, they turned and did as he asked, while he stood there, a hand on either side of my doorframe, as if standing guard.

After a moment, he threw a wry grin over his shoulder and cocked his head. “You certainly know how to rile people up, Cora Diehl Kensington.”

My knees felt watery beneath me, and I shakily reached for the back of my dressing table chair.

“Whoa there,” he said, hurrying over to me and grabbing my arms, helping me sit down.

When I winced, he belatedly realized he held me where Andrew had. If I’d had bruises from the kidnappers, what would these be like come morning? Vaguely, I reached up and ran the fingers of my right hand over my left arm.

“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” he said, kneeling before me. “Do you need something? A glass of water? Something stronger?”

“No, no.” I looked to the empty doorway, longing for Will to return. I wanted him here. Him to take me in his arms. Not this man with his inquisitive eyes.

“I’ve messed things up,” I said with a sigh. “Again. We were all getting along so well.”

“Who?”

“Me and my siblings. They were accepting me, trusting me…and now this.”

“Seems to me that it’s Morgan who has an issue with you. Not your siblings.”

“Trust me,” I said dimly. “It won’t take long for the Kensington ire to follow.”

“I take it you came between Andrew and Vivian.”

“Not on purpose. I merely asked Viv if she loved him.”

Art laughed softly. “You truly are new to this whole set of society, aren’t you?”

I cast him a look of irritation. “Don’t mock me, Arthur. I’m not in the mood.”

He quickly schooled his expression. “Forgive me. But you do seem to walk into trouble after trouble….”

“Cora?” Will said from the door, looking at me and Art, then back again. He stepped closer. “Are you all right?”

Just seeing his face made me feel so relieved I wanted to cry despite myself.

Art looked at us and rose. “I’ll see myself out.”

We should have refused him. We shouldn’t have been left alone. But neither of us spoke.

Art smiled a little and departed, but he did not close the door. Will, frowning in concern over me, followed him and quietly shut it. We met in the middle of the room. I threw myself into his arms, clinging to him, and he wrapped his arms around me, cradling me against his chest. “Are you all right?” he asked, stroking my hair. “Did he hurt you?”

“No—” My voice broke. I was crying, knowing that it was more than Andrew’s attack. It was the trauma of this night on top of our last night in Nîmes. It was all too much…Too much. I shook my head and tried to gather myself. “I’m fine. Just shaken. If you and Art hadn’t come when you did…”

“It’s all right, Cora. Shh. I’m sorry. Andrew will be better tomorrow. He’ll have a beast of a headache. But he’ll be better.” He backed away a bit to cradle my face and gaze into my eyes. “Trust me,” he said. “Andrew has to figure out some things. But I think he will. It’s just that…”

“What? I—”

“You took something from him. Regardless of whether you meant to do it or not,” he said quickly, seeing that I was about to defend myself. “He sees you as the one that set this ball rolling.” He ducked his head. “Granted, it needed to roll. Before an engagement happened. But I’d wager no one has ever taken something away from Andrew Morgan, all his life.”

He smiled then. Because we both had had things and people taken from us. And this…the normal course of life put everyone on an even playing field. In time.

“They might…they might resume their relationship. Tomorrow.”

“I’d wager it’s likely,” he said, leaning close, brushing away my tears. “But in the meantime, you’ve made them think about things they should have been considering all along.” He kissed me then, tenderly, reassuringly, on either side of my face. “About what it means to care.” He gave me another kiss, softly, this time on the lips. “About what it means to be devoted.” And another…“About what it is to love.” He used his thumbs to wipe away more of my tears, but his eyes never left mine.

I stared up at him, wondering if he was saying what I thought he was saying.

“I love you, Cora Diehl Kensington,” he whispered, his hands tightening on either side of my face. He shook his head, his eyes becoming desperate. “And I don’t know if I can continue this ruse. Pretending that you are merely one of my seven clients, when every moment, all I want to do is to sweep you away. If only I had the means…if only Uncle—”

He paused and ran a hand through his hair. “Please know that I’d declare myself to your father today if I could. I’d tell him I could no longer act as your guide. Because I wish to court you as your intended. But my uncle…”

“What is it? Are you not his heir? Have you not come into your own means?”

“A pauper’s means,” he said bitterly, backing slightly away from me. “I inherited nothing but debt. Even after we sell everything he had, I’m liable for more.” He looked at me, pain in his eyes. “I need to see this tour through. To the end. Collect my pay,
then
tell your father of my intentions.”

I took his hands in mine. “I love you, too, William. And I understand. Truly. It’s only another six weeks, this tour. Surely we can last that long. You can collect your pay. I can get my tuition check. And when we’re home, nothing can keep us from each other. Not even Wallace Kensington.”

He smiled and leaned his forehead against mine. “Do you really think it’s possible?”

“Yes.
Yes
.”

“What of…Pierre?” he asked, both guilt and fear crossing his face.

“I wanted to tell him in Carcassonne. But with all that went on…I will send him word. Tomorrow. I promise. Now, please. You must be away. If anyone were to find you in here…”

“I know,” he said miserably, making no move to depart. After a moment, he groaned, pulled me into another long, tender hug, and then forced himself to turn away and go to the door. “Lock it as soon—”

“Wait.” I pulled him aside and then peeked out the door and down the hall, looking both ways. Making sure no one yet lingered in the hall, I pushed him out and practically slammed the door in his face, then leaned against it, smiling. “Good night, Will,” I whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear me. Not that it mattered.