Highlander Undone (24 page)

“You seem to have manipulated me into being your sneak thief very adroitly, Halvers.”

“I have merely taken advantage of the situation as it presents itself. In my position, you would do the same.”

“Do you sleep well, Colonel?” Jack asked bitterly.

“About as well as you, I expect.”

T
ake pity on the man. He’s been begging to see you for days,” Ted said.

“No,” Addie said.

“If nothing else, you owe it to yourself to hear him out.”

“I owe it to myself to get on with my life. Nothing Jack Cameron—Captain Cameron—has to say matters to me.”

“
‘Get on with’ your life?” Ted asked. “Is that what you call this? Sitting in this damn room?”

“I like this damn room.”

He chuckled. “It’s a fine room, as long as it doesn’t become a prison.

“Listen to me, Addie. I don’t like what Cameron did. But you need to hear his reasons for what he did precisely because you do need to get on with your life—whether with or without Jack Cameron. As it is, you’ll forever be dodging him, worrying about a chance encounter.”

“I just need time. A few more weeks.”

“Dear sister,” Ted said gently, “don’t you see that you’re repeating your history? This is exactly what you did after you married Hoodless. You hid away from society and friends and family. It seems to be your standard self-imposed sentence for assuming people
aren’t
what they appear to be: life in limbo.”

He was right. She had hidden away from the hurt, gone to ground. And she didn’t want to do it again, because much of the past few months, she had felt whole again. She’d approved of herself.

She already missed that.

“Lord, Addie,” Ted was saying. “You should see the man. He looks terrible.”

“Good!” She could not help saying it. “Good! But I still won’t see him.”

“Addie, let me say one more thing and after that I promise I won’t pester you again.”

She nodded mutely.

“You never allowed Hoodless to destroy you. You retreated from the battle but you didn’t let him win. Don’t let him win now.”

“This hasn’t anything to do with Charles,” she cried softly.

“It has everything to do with Charles. Don’t let him achieve in death what he could never do when he was alive.”

“And what is that?”

“Make you give up on yourself—on the life you could have—on the love you could have.”

“Jack doesn’t love me.” It didn’t matter that Jack had said he did. He’d said a lot of things. Most of them lies. Indeed, right after he had told her how much he loved her, she’d discovered his betrayal.

“Then see him. Make sure,” Ted insisted.

The thought of seeing Jack again, however painful, was like a siren call. Perhaps she did need to see him. She needed to see what about him had made her so blind, had made her repeat the old habit of self-destructiveness.

“All right,” she said. “But not here. I’ll see him at the Merritts’.”

She must hold her head up. She must not let him see how he had hurt her. She must be composed; she must be serene. Taking a deep breath, Addie handed the footman her gloves and coat.

“May I say it is a real pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Hoodless,” a dignified voice spoke from above. Addie looked up to see Wheatcroft coming down the stairs. He made a dismissive motion to the footman as he said, “I will show Mrs. Hoodless the way. Lord and Lady Merritt are in the morning room.”

“Together?” she asked in surprise as they walked down the Merritts’ marble-tiled main hallway.

“Yes, ma’am. Together. I shall inform Captain Cameron of your arrival. He has retired upstairs.”

“Oh?” She tried to sound nonchalant. “He is unwell?”

“No, Madame. He is not ill. But as the lunch hour passed, he became convinced you had forgotten your kind acceptance of his invitation and . . . well.”

“I see.” She was late. He’d assumed she wasn’t coming.

“In the meantime, Lord and Lady Merritt will be pleased for your company.” He bowed as he pushed the door to the morning room open and retreated, murmuring, “I shall inform the captain of your arrival.”

“Thank you, Wheatcroft.”

In the morning room, she was confounded by the sight of Lord and Lady Merritt huddled together on a small mint-green divan, their hands entwined. In the light of their long estrangement, the sight of them together was so unexpected that Addie stopped short. Both the Merritts were dressed soberly—Lady Merritt’s dark gray gown and Lord Merritt’s somber suit coat more befitting a funeral than a morning at home.

“Lord Merritt?” she asked when neither seemed to notice her entrance. Lord Merritt blinked up at her. She remembered him as a blustering, vigorous man with a booming voice. He was still muscular looking, his shaggy white head sitting squarely on his bulky shoulders. But the aggressive self-confidence had disappeared from his florid features. He looked confused, aggrieved, like a small boy who’d had his favorite slingshot taken away.

“Addie, how kind of you to come. To what do we owe the pleasure?” Lady Merritt asked in a subdued whisper, drawing Addie’s attention.

If Lord Merritt’s appearance had undergone a dramatic change, Lady Merritt’s had doubly done so. Her habitual bulldog expression was absent, replaced by bewilderment. Her powdered cheeks were streaked with gummy rivulets of tears and the hard line of her mouth looked wounded.

“I had to come,” Addie said. Lady Merritt nodded and took a deep, shuddering breath. Her husband patted her hand consolingly.

“You’ve heard about him, then.”

“Yes, of course.” She hadn’t realized the Merritts would take Jack’s masquerade so hard. Outrage, she could understand . . . but this . . . grief! And Lord Merritt! She’d have expected him to be at least somewhat mollified by the fact that Jack was not the artist he’d played at being.

“It was not our fault,” Lord Merritt said defensively.

“No, of course not. It had nothing to do with you. He told me.”

Lady Merritt stared. “He told you?”

Addie frowned. Surely Lady Merritt must have suspected their friendship—even if it had been merely an illusion. “Of course. The night of the party, when he took me home.”

Lady Merritt peered at her in perplexity a moment before enlightenment dawned in her eyes. She heaved a dramatic sigh. “Oh. You’re talking about Jack.”

“Yes. Jack. Who else? His deception, his exploitation of you, your home, your friendship. He gulled us, Lady Merritt, and you must not hold yourself accountable. He was very good—”

“Yes, yes.” Lady Merritt sighed again, and leaned her head back against the cushion on the divan, closing her eyes. “Jack has been naughty.”

“Naughty?” Addie’s tone echoed her astonishment. “He uses you—he uses all of us—and all you can say is ‘Jack has been naughty’?”

“Really, Addie. I don’t have the emotional energy right now to deal with Jack’s transgressions. Lord Merritt and I have a far greater betrayal to deal with.” Her lips quivered. Lord Merritt patted her again.

“A greater betrayal than Jack’s?”

Lord Merritt squeezed his wife’s hand and cleared his throat. “You might as well be told. The rumor mills will be grinding soon enough. Our son, Evan—” His voice cracked and Lady Merritt moaned. He tried again. “Evan has entered a seminary.”

“Excuse me?”

“Evan has converted. He is becoming a . . . a . . .”

“A Roman Catholic priest!” wailed Lady Merritt and flung herself in her husband’s arms.

“There, there, Harmy.” With difficulty, Lord Merritt hefted his wife to her feet. “You’ll excuse us, Addie,” he said solemnly and proceeded to stagger through the door under the weight of his sobbing wife.

Addie stared after them, amazed.

“It’s the only thing I can conceive of that would have effected a reconciliation between them.” Jack stepped into the doorway, clad in a dark suit that could not disguise the athletic breadth of his shoulders or the hard, lean length of his legs. Her heart skipped uncomfortably at the sight of his haggard face. He’d cut his hair, she thought, aware of the irrelevance of the observance. It was not so light now, but a soft nut-brown.

“What might do the same for us?”

“Nothing.” She lifted her chin. “I have come to tell you that your supplications via my brother have fallen on deaf ears. After today, I will not meet you. I thought it only fair to inform you in person so you might not be taken unawares should we chance to pass in public.”

The muscles strained in his jaw. He took a step forward and she countered with a step back. He started to reach out toward her but then dropped his hand, his fist clenched at his side.

“Addie. You must let me explain.”

“So Ted tells me and so I am here. Please continue.” Her coldness did not alter his expression; it remained one of profound gentleness.

“Will you please sit down?”

“No. You may have instigated this interview, but I have been manipulated by you long enough. Whatever you have to say, say it from there.” She kept her gaze on his shoulders. If she looked into his blue eyes she would lose her resolve. She must not make the mistake of believing in him again.

“All right,” he said. “All right. I was, as I told you, a captain of the Gordon Highlanders. I was in the regiment for over a decade, Addie. It was my life. As it was my father’s life.”

“That was not a lie, then.”

“No,” he finally said, “that was not a lie.”

“Go on.”

“I was a good soldier. A better officer.”

“Good at killing.”

“No.” The words were instant, sure. “Good at keeping my men from being killed.”

She could not question his conviction.

“Soldiers aren’t cut from one mold, Addie. Some believe in what they are doing. Some are forced into their careers. Some are idealists. Some are brave; some are craven. A very few enjoy carnage; the vast majority are sickened by it. Some just go through the motions, marking time while they serve. Whatever their reasons, it was my responsibility to see that they did their jobs and stayed alive.”

Seeing that she was not going to respond, he went on. “There is a brotherhood amongst soldiers that is born on the battlefield. Men depend on each other and, in turn, on their commanding officers. It is the only way soldiers can expect to live. That mutual trust.”

Her determination to cling to her anger faltered. She steeled herself. Words were easy.

“I discovered that one of the officers in the Sudan had betrayed that trust. He made money by working for the very slavers we were there to vanquish. In doing so, he knowingly forfeited his own men’s—perhaps my men’s—lives.”

She could hear the rawness in his words.

“I could not let him get away with it.”

She took a deep breath. “What has that to do with me?”

“The only thing I knew about this officer was that he was a member of the Black Dragoons. The man who told me died as he spoke. I couldn’t hear all of what he said, but I did hear that he’d seen some sort of evidence, some written proof of the traitor’s guilt. Before I could act on this information, I was wounded.”

She couldn’t keep herself from moving forward, just a step, but a telling one. He acted as though he did not see it. Jack would never use pity to gain an advantage.

“Under instructions from my last surviving relative, Lord Merritt, they shipped me to Gate Hall. There I recuperated under Wheatcroft’s tender ministrations. It was a protracted convalescence and by the time I was better, the war was over, the men dispersed, anything I might have found in North Africa was gone.” One corner of his beautifully sculpted lips curled in wry memory.

“How long were you at Gate Hall?”

“All spring and into summer. Long months when the only things that kept me from going mad with frustration and anger and boredom were the drive to find this traitor. And you.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said. “I heard you taking tea on the terrace beneath my window, walking in the garden with Lady Merritt. I would listen to you, for you. I came to know you, the cadence of your footstep, the contentment in your silence. I knew the way you watched the sky by how often you were told to mind your freckles. I knew when you listened to the same bird’s song I did, for you would pause while others spoke when a thrush trilled from the meadow. I fell in love with you, Addie, before I ever saw you.”

He waited quietly, exposed and acquiescent and so very vulnerable. Everything in her heart longed to believe him. She mustn’t listen to that defective instrument again.