Heartless (31 page)

George. Dead at the age of two-and-thirty. Killed by his own hand. Because he could not forgive himself. Because his brother would not forgive him. Because his brother had returned the money.

Hurt and bewildered and angry and proud, Luke had sent the money back and the paper on which only his brother's signature had been scrawled.

A peace offering.

A love offering.

Scorned and rejected.

In all the selfishness of youth, Luke thought now, he had believed that only he suffered—he and Henrietta. And so he had rejected the love offering. And love itself. He had killed all love in himself and torn out his own heart so that no one would be able to hurt him ever again.

And yet he had hurt someone else so deeply that he had killed himself. He had hurt his brother. He had killed George after all.

He hunched his shoulders as the cold breeze knifed between his shoulder blades. He had not brought a cloak. It looked as if it might rain at any moment. Everything around him looked suitably gray and gloomy.

“George,” he said aloud. “George.”
Forgive me. I have forgiven you. Forgive me. Forgive me.
“I love you.”

Love came in pain, in unalloyed pain, and was not turned back. Luke went down on one knee and rested one hand on the top of the gravestone and the other on the earth over where his brother's remains lay.

“Forgive me.” Tears plopped unheeded onto the grass. “Forgive me.” And then he rested his forehead on the hand that held the gravestone, and he wept with deeply painful, racking sobs.

A long time passed before he got slowly to his feet and turned again in the direction of home, leading his horse, not riding it. No one had disturbed him though more than one person, the rector included, had seen him.

•   •   •

Ashley
had told her yesterday that he was leaving today. He had set his hands on her shoulders after doing so, smiled cheerfully at her, told her to be a good girl, and gone striding away. It had been a very brief meeting. He had been riding all afternoon with Luke.

Emily did not want to see him today. She would not be able to bear seeing him actually leave. And yet when she had eaten her breakfast—or rather when she had not eaten it—she could feel nothing but panic. Had he left? Was he gone already? Gone forever and she had not seen him go?

She sat at her window and tried to draw calmness from the sight of the lawns and trees outside. But it was a gray and gloomy day. And perhaps even now he was at the door and entering the carriage that would take him away.

She would never see him again.

Her nurse would come for her soon and take her to the nursery, where she would try to interest her in some needlework or painting. She could not do any stitching today or any painting either. Not when her heart was breaking. She leapt up, ran into her dressing room for a cloak, flung it about her shoulders, and ran from the room while there was still time.

If there was still time.

But there were trunks and boxes in the hall. No carriage at the door. No sign of Ashley. He would be at breakfast. He had not left yet. But she could not go to him. She did not want to see him today. Oh, yes, she did. She must see him. But she did not want him to see her.

She ran outside and down the steps onto the upper terrace of the formal gardens. She ran fleet-footed through the gardens, across the wide lawn, over the bridge, and down the driveway, until she stopped, gasping for breath, among the trees. She set her back against one tree trunk so that she could see the driveway but not be seen. But all she would see was the carriage. It was unlikely that he would be looking through the window, and if he were he might see her. She did not want him to see her.

She wished her cloak was not red. Why had she not thought of bringing a different one?

She was shivering with cold by the time she heard the carriage approach. Not that she
heard
it, of course. But she was far more aware of vibrations than other people seemed to be. She knew the carriage was coming before it came into sight. And panic hit her. He was leaving forever and all she would see was the carriage. She leaned forward, desperate for one last sight of him.

But the carriage rolled on by and she saw nothing. And then it slowed and stopped and the door opened and Ashley jumped to the driveway and turned back to where she was standing, clutching the tree trunk behind her back.

He came to stand in front of her, very close to her, before he said anything. There was a sadness in his eyes.

“Little fawn,” he said.

But if he said any more she did not hear it. Her vision blurred.

His weight came against her, pressing her against the tree, though he did not immediately touch her with his hands. When she looked up at him, she saw that his head was thrown back and his eyes were tightly shut. And then he lowered his head and looked into her eyes, only inches away.

His mouth, when it touched hers, was warm and soft and wonderful. And it stayed against hers for a while. She pushed her own lips back against his for comfort.

He framed her face with his hands, one of them still, the other smoothing back her hair. “I will be back, little fawn,” he said. “I will be back to teach you to read and write and to teach you a language you can use.”

All I want to be able to say is I love you. I'll always love you. Forever and ever I will love you.

“Ah,” he said. “Those eyes. Those eyes, Emmy. I'll be back. I'll not forget you. I'll carry you here.” He stood away from her and touched a hand to his heart.

And then he was gone.

Some time after she had closed her eyes, the carriage was gone too. She felt the vibrations again.

Emily stood where she was for many long minutes until she pushed herself away from the tree and began to run recklessly, heedlessly through the woods, faster and faster, as if all the fiends of hell were at her heels.

•   •   •

Anna
was in the nursery playing with Joy when Luke came in. The baby, who had been insisting to her mother for half an hour or more that she was just not in a jovial mood this morning, smiled brightly as soon as she set eyes on her father.

“Rascal,” Anna said to her.

“She has your smile,” Luke said, setting a hand on Anna's shoulder.

“When she decides to use it,” Anna said. “Little imp.” She turned her head to look into his face. He was pale. He looked almost as if he had been crying. “What is it?” she asked. “You saw Ashley after all this morning? It was very hard to stay up here, I must confess. It seemed unnatural to let him go without a proper farewell.”

“Ash is very young,” he said. “Too young to want to be seen shedding tears, Anna. No, I did not see him today though I have been told that he has gone. I'll miss him.”

“I know.” She smiled at him.

His hand tightened on her shoulder. “Invite me to your sitting room?” he asked.

She never had since he had told her it would be her private domain, though she had often wanted him there, just the two of them together. She handed him the baby, who smiled at him again, and rang for the nurse. When the woman came and took charge of the baby, Anna led the way to her sitting room.

“What is it?” She seated herself beside him on a sofa and took one of his hands in both of hers. She was surprised—and rather horrified—to see tears spring to his eyes.

“I have been visiting my other brother,” he said, leaning his head back against the cushions and turning it so that he could look into her face. “I went to the churchyard to see George's grave.”

“Ah,” Anna said quietly. “I am glad, Luke.” And she could see from his face that there had been some reconciliation, absurd as that sounded when his brother was dead. But she knew that Luke had needed this, that he had needed to have all his family back after years of bitter estrangement.

“He killed himself, Anna.” He closed his eyes while she turned cold, and then he told her everything Ashley and Doris had told him between them. He finished with what she knew was the most painful fact of all. “He sent me that money as a sign that he still loved me, that he was sorry for what he had done to me. And I sent it back. I rejected him. I failed to kill him with that bullet—did you know that I aimed for a tree six feet to one side of him and hit him one inch from the heart?—but I killed him by returning that money.”

“No, Luke.” She lifted his hand to her cheek and held it there. It was so rare to see her husband weak and vulnerable. “Of course you did not kill him. You must not think that. Both of you suffered dreadfully. You had the strength to come through it. He did not. He might have written a letter to send with the money. He might have gone to Paris looking for you. You cannot blame yourself for what he did or did not do. And if you did reject him once, then he had rejected you too. Unfortunately, people do that to each other. People hurt each other, especially those closest to each other. And some people lack the inner strength to endure that others have. They cannot help it, perhaps. My f-father appeared strong to me all my life until he discovered that Mama had consumption, and then he fell all to pieces. Many people blamed him. It would have been easy to have stopped loving him.”

“I loved George, Anna,” he said. “He was always everything I ever wanted to be. He was my idol.”

“He loved you too, Luke,” she said. “To the end, else he would not have suffered so much. He would not want you to suffer now. He would not want to know that he had hurt you in death perhaps more than he hurt you in life.”

He turned his head to look at her again. “Love is never the soft and easy emotion it is sometimes made out to be,” he said. “I should be able to have him back so that we could make our peace with each other, but he is dead. Love hurts, Anna.”

“Yes.” She turned her head to kiss the lace at his wrist.

“Anna.” He was looking closely at her. “Has Henrietta always been your friend?”

She considered answering vaguely. But she knew that he was struggling to put his life together again, to reconcile the past with the present. He needed honesty, on this point at least. “No, not really,” she said. “She has always been at pains to describe her meetings with you and to make me understand how much you and she still love each other. And I have come to believe, perhaps unjustly, that it is deliberate, that she dislikes me. I avoid her company whenever I can.”

“'Tis not true, what she has insinuated, Anna,” he said. “I will confess that I was afraid to come back, afraid that my feelings for her would be revived if I ever saw her again. And after my return I was afraid to be alone with her for the same reason. She maneuvered all our meetings. It did not take me long to understand that what I felt for her was no longer love but pity.”

Anna drew a breath and let it out slowly. She lowered his hand to her lap again.

“Anna,” he asked her, his eyes searching hers, “do you have any regrets about marrying me?”

“No,” she said, closing her eyes. And then she opened them to look at him and spoke more fiercely. “No, none.”

“And I have none,” he said. “You are the best thing that has happened in my life.”

She bit her lip hard. What had he just said about love hurting?

“Is there anything . . . ?” he began almost hesitantly. He started again. “May I be of service to you in any way, Anna?”

How often the most momentous decisions of one's life have to be made in a moment, she was to think afterward. With no prior warning. With no more than a few seconds of time in which to weigh one's answer. Why had she not told him? she thought later. He was in a mellow, almost tender mood. He had just told her that she was precious to him. He had just been confessing to her his own terrible mistakes. He would have listened sympathetically to her own confession. He would have set her free.

But she had only a moment. She answered from instinct—the instinct for self-preservation.

“You are always good to me.” She smiled at him.

“And there is nothing—?”

“Nothing,” she said firmly, holding on to her smile.

He nodded. “I have to go to London on some business,” he said more briskly. “It should take a week or so.”

Her heart leapt with gladness, though of course any idea of escape was merely illusory. “We will go together?” she asked. “Soon?”

“No.” He reached out with his free hand to brush his fingers across her cheek. “I will go alone, Anna. 'Twill be easier than packing up Joy and her nurse and taking you all with me. I will come home as soon as 'tis possible.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You have no . . . fear of staying here alone?” he asked her, his eyes keen on hers.

Fear? Terror, perhaps, was a better word. “No, of course not.” She smiled at him. “But we will miss you, Joy and I. I shall count the hours until your return.”

“Anna,” he said. “Ah, Anna.”

He was in a strangely pensive mood. His eyes were unusually wide and defenseless. But he returned suddenly to his more normal self and rose to his feet.

“I must have a word with Fox,” he said. “And with my valet.”

She smiled at him, resisting the urge to grab for him, to cling to him, to beg him not to leave her alone. But she stayed where she was as he left her room. Perhaps being alone, without the semblance of safety to hide behind, was what she needed more than anything. Perhaps when she was alone she would find the courage to do something in her own defense.

Perhaps—the thought came unbidden again—she would find the courage to kill him.

A
N
hour or so later Luke was in the office of his new steward, Howard Fox, listening with some satisfaction to the man's praises at how well ordered the ledgers and records were and giving him some instructions on what was to be done during Luke's absence from Bowden. But they were interrupted by a knock on the door, followed by the appearance of Anna. She looked worried.

“Emmy has disappeared,” she said with an apologetic glance at Fox.

Luke nodded at his steward and left the room with her. “'Tis but early in the afternoon,” he said. “She is in the habit of wandering, Anna. Is there need to worry?”

“But she has been gone since early this morning,” she said. “Her nurse has only just reported her absence, foolish woman. She has been gone a long time, Luke. Ashley left early. I suppose she saw him leave and went off somewhere to grieve alone. I blame myself for not giving her my company this morning. I should have known how 'twould be. Goodness knows where she has gone.”

“Poor Emily,” he said. “She will come home when she is ready.” But he looked into his wife's face and saw agitation there. “You want me to look for her?”

“I have to feed Joy,” she said. “It will be half an hour or more before I will be free to go.”

“I will find her and bring her home safely to you,” he said. “Was she at least wise enough to take a cloak with her? 'Tis a raw day.”

“Her red cloak is missing,” she said.

“Ah, then she should be easy to spot,” he said. But he would wager a bundle that the child had gone running off to the falls. It appeared to be one of her favorite places.

He found her there, lying facedown on the flat rock that jutted out over the water, her cloak fanning over her.

“Emily?” he said softly as he scrambled up the other rocks toward her. Poor child. He had been so wrapped up in his own powerful emotions this morning that he had not spared her a thought. “Emily?” He touched a hand to her shoulder and kept it there.

He had not frightened her as he had feared he would. She turned her head to look up at him with dull, reddened eyes, and then hid her face on her arms again.

He sat down beside her and patted her shoulder for a while. She was not crying any longer. She was utterly passive. Poor child. She had loved Ash more devotedly, more singlemindedly than any of them. And she was fifteen years old already, was she not? It was probable that she loved Ash not as a sister loves a brother or a child loves a hero, but as a woman loves a man. It was so easy because of her affliction to think of Emily as a child rather than as a girl budding into early womanhood.

What would happen to her? he wondered. Would he and Anna be able to find her a husband who would be kind to her when the time came? But she would be quite unable at this moment to look forward to a possibly contented future. She was too absorbed in the agony of the present.

He turned her over eventually, scooped her up in his arms, and set her on his lap. He cradled her as she huddled against him, crooning comforting words to her even though he realized that she could not hear them.

“You saw him leave?” he asked her when she looked up at him at last with wide and unhappy eyes.

She nodded.

“Did you speak with him?” he asked. “He said good-bye to you?”

She nodded again.

He wondered if Ashley realized that the child loved him. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry for your pain, Emily.”

She rested her head on his shoulder again and lay against him for a few minutes longer before getting to her feet and arranging her cloak carefully about her, eyes lowered. He offered his arm and she took it.

“Emily.” He bent his head to her as they walked until she looked at him. “Anna and I love you very dearly. I know that knowledge will not help ease the pain, but 'tis true, my dear.”

She smiled wanly at him.

It was when they were halfway across the lawn to the house that he had an idea. He slowed his pace and bent his head toward her again.

“Emily,” he said when she looked up, “do you know Colonel Lomax?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Our new neighbor,” he said. “The man who is living at Wycherly.”

He saw awareness come into her eyes. And something else. Definitely something else.

“Do you know him?” he asked. “Had you seen him before he appeared here?”

She nodded, her eyes huge with a message he could not read.

“Where?” he asked.

She pointed in a vague, wide gesture and then shrugged helplessly.

“At home?” he asked. “At Elm Court?”

She nodded vigorously.

“But his name was not Lomax?” he said.

She shook her head.

He had known, of course. But there was a certain stab of bleakness about the heart to have his suspicions finally confirmed.

“Did you like him?” he asked.

She shook her head and her eyes told him that her feelings for Lomax were just the opposite of liking. But why? And did Anna like him? But he would not ask the question of Emily. It would not be fair. Though what fairness had to do with anything he did not know.

He squeezed her hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I will find out the truth for myself, my dear. Do you believe I should?”

She nodded and there were tears in her eyes. He squeezed her hand once more as he led her toward the house. Yes, he would find out for himself. It was time. And he had the feeling that the whole future of his marriage depended on his finding out the truth.

A marriage that had gradually—so gradually that he had hardly noticed its happening—become very dear indeed to him.

•   •   •

If
only one could go back, Henrietta thought as she rode alone up the driveway to Bowden Abbey, and order one's life differently. If only she had stayed with Luke—dull, unfashionable, bookish Luke with his dream of a career in the church. She might have been a bishop's wife now. Or perhaps the reigning Duchess of Harndon, though George might still be alive if . . . He might be married with sons.

She had just come from Wycherly, where she had been thanked for the news she had brought of Luke's intended journey. Thanked in the usual way. It had become more and more insulting. Never in a bed, as he had once half promised. It had been in a stall in the stables this afternoon, the door closed but not locked, grooms clearly audible just beyond the thin wooden barrier. He had laughed at her protests.

And yet she could not seem to live without it.

If only he took Anna away—she had stopped wishing he would take her instead—she would be free again. She would have her pride back. She would have Bowden to rule again. And Luke. She had never had Luke. But if half the stories about him that had come from Paris were true . . .

And there was a look in Anna's eyes some mornings . . .

Henrietta clamped her teeth together as she strode from the stable block to the house. Cotes met her in the hall, bowed, and told her that his grace wished to have a word with her.

Henrietta raised her eyebrows in some surprise but followed the butler across the hall to the study and swept past him when he had knocked and opened the door for her.

Luke was seated behind his desk. He got to his feet but stayed where he was. He motioned to a chair on the other side. “Henrietta?” he said. “Have a seat.”

She smiled at him when they were both seated. He looked steadily and silently back at her for several moments. How different he was, she thought. How much more handsome and commanding. How much more attractive.

“What has happened?” She leaned forward in her chair and set one delicate hand on the far side of the desk. “Has Anna—?”

“Henrietta,” he said, “we are going to have to make arrangements for you to live somewhere else. Permanently.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment, while what remained of her world began to fall about her ears. But perhaps she had misunderstood. Her eyes softened and saddened. “Poor Luke,” she said. “You feel it too? The constant tension? The constant temptation? You cannot bear it any more than I can?”

“You have done your best,” he said coldly, “to ruin my marriage, madam. I will have no more of it. My marriage is very precious to me.”

Her lips compressed suddenly and her eyes sparked. “What has Anna been saying?” she asked. “What lies has she been telling about me? She is naught but a slut, Luke, and you—”

“Silence!” Luke said, not loudly, but so coldly that she instantly obeyed and stared at him.

“I have to be away from Bowden for a week or so,” Luke said, “as I announced at luncheon. I will be leaving tomorrow. By the time I return, madam, you will be prepared to leave. I will send you to Harndon House until we can make more permanent arrangements. You will decide whether you would like your own establishment in town or whether you would prefer a house in the country somewhere. Somewhere that is not close to Bowden. I will honor your wishes in the matter.”

She realized then the extent of her loss, the extent of her foolishness. There were tears in her eyes. “Luke,” she whispered, “is this what has come of our love?”

“I loved you once,” he said. “But I doubt you know the meaning of the word, Henrietta. Frankly I have no wish to debate the matter with you. But you have been a force of destruction in my family for too long. You are my sister-in-law, my brother George's widow, and as such you are entitled to be housed in some luxury for the rest of your life and to be generously supported by the estate. But once you have left here, you will not return under any circumstances, madam. At least not during my lifetime.”

She got to her feet and looked scornfully at him. “You always were a weakling,” she said. “Wanting to be a clergyman, running away to France and fearing to return, marrying a slut for whom you have no feelings at all so that you could hide behind her skirts when you returned to me, fearing now to admit to your continued attraction to me. You were always weak. I am glad I took George instead of you. Of course, he would probably still be living if I had not, and I would be sitting in a church pew every Sunday morning, pretending to gaze adoringly at you as you delivered the sermon.”

Luke took his snuffbox from a pocket and opened the lid with one thumbnail. “You are dismissed, madam,” he said, looking up with cold eyes.

Too late she realized what her flash of temper had accomplished. She had lost him forever, lost Bowden forever. But then he was going to lose too. She could scarcely wait. She snapped her teeth together, turned sharply away from him, and flounced to the door, head high. Then she turned and glared at him.

“He would not lie with me after our son was stillborn,” she hissed at him. “What was I to do but hate him? He deprived me of my rights. He would not risk having any more children by me. The dukedom had to be preserved for Luke. Always his precious Luke. And finally he gave it to you—on the end of a knife, so to speak. Did you know that? Did you know that your brother, my husband, took his own life? So that no son of mine would succeed him, but his precious Luke?”

•   •   •

Luke
took snuff with a steady hand until she had turned again and left the room. And then he allowed the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place. All those years he had thought himself cruelly betrayed. Yet all those years he had been dearly, dearly loved.

Yes, Anna was right. George would not want him to suffer now from pangs of guilt. George had loved him and had done all in his power to make amends, finally—foolish, foolish man—giving his life in order to do so.

Greater love hath no man than this . . .

•   •   •

She
did not want Luke to go. Even for a week. A week was seven days long. Seven endless days. A great deal could happen in seven days. He would surely find out soon enough that Luke was gone and would take full advantage of the fact. So far he had been content merely to seek out her company wherever they went. There had been no demands. But that would change. It would probably change this week.

She had this week, too, in which to do something about the situation herself. To put an end to the terror. Or perhaps to begin it . . .

She did not want Luke to go. If she begged him, would he take her and Joy? Or stay at home and send Mr. Fox on whatever business there was to do? But she would not beg him. Clearly he felt compelled to go himself and preferred to go alone. Anna tried not to feel hurt at the realization.

When he came to bed and took her into his arms, she tried not to cling. But she knew immediately and with some relief that it was one of the nights when he would make love to her. She tried not to appear overeager. But she was always excited when she knew he was going to love her.

He kissed her mouth warmly and lingeringly. She opened it wide and arched against him.

“Mmm,” he said. “What is it, Anna?”

He always knew. Sometimes she thought he knew her better than she knew herself. It was so hard to deceive him.