Lucy’s eyes were wide and liquid with worry, but Kate avoided her gaze. She did not like lying to her friend, but she had no choice.
The tension remained all through dinner, with Gulliver Wilson continuously hinting that she’d been a less-than-perfect wife during her stay in Hull. No one suggested they linger over port. Indeed, Mr. Cain seemed eager to see everyone out the door. Gerard took her arm too roughly, and soon enough she was whisked away.
“You are happy here?” he hissed into her ear. “Because of the shop? Because you enjoy slaving away like a merchant’s wife? By God, you are a damned liar, is what you are.”
“I am not.”
“Who is he?”
“Gulliver Wilson despises me. He is goading you, hoping I’ll get a beating.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Kate hesitated, but finally his fingers dug so deep into her arm that she couldn’t stay quiet. “Mr. York is an importer, nothing more.”
“Yet you told people he was a friend of your husband.”
She swallowed hard, focusing on the stones of the street. “What does that matter? I was trying to shut that awful Mr. Wilson up. I don’t even have a husband.”
He didn’t say another word, and she thought he’d left the matter behind, but when they reached the shop, he locked the door behind him and threw the key across the room so hard that it cracked against a bin. “I actually thought you were telling the truth. That you wanted to be here, alone, at peace.”
She hurried toward the stairs. He tried to grab at her arm, but she scooted around him and stormed up the steps. “I’ve done nothing wrong, just as I did nothing wrong in Ceylon.”
“It doesn’t matter. You’re returning with me. Whoever this man is, he can rot for all I care.”
She paced across her small parlor, back and forth, while Gerard watched her. “I am free, and you will not take that from me!”
“We shall see about that,” he growled.
“Listen to yourself! What happened to you? You were a boy with hopes and dreams when I met you. You wanted things from life that had nothing to do with Ceylon. But you can have any life you want now, don’t you see that? You are free too. As free as I am.”
“I am not free,” he snapped.
She reached out to grab at his sleeve. “Sell the plantation. You can go anywhere. Be anyone.”
His hand closed over her arm with brutal speed. “He paid a fortune for you.”
She tried to pull away and failed. “What?”
“He paid
my
fortune for you. All that money he sent your father just to shut up that blasted governor . . . he mortgaged the plantation to the hilt. But he didn’t give a damn because he had his beloved Iniya. So don’t tell me I’m free. I’ll be buried in that cursed place as surely as my father was.”
She’d had no idea. David had never said a word. “I’m sorry, Gerard. I truly am. I would never have wanted that for you.”
Gerard cursed and his hand fell away. He ducked his head, fists on his hips, and glared hard at his boots.
“I need to tell you something,” she finally said, hating the words that were about to come out of her mouth.
“What?” he asked, sounding exhausted already.
“About your father.”
His head rose. “What?”
“Your father. He . . . he did die from poisoning.”
“I knew it.” For a moment his face twisted with rage.
Kate raised her hands. “But I did not give it to him.”
That caught him back from his anger. He pulled his chin in. “What do you mean?” Then his eyes widened. “Good God, it was Iniya, wasn’t it? I can’t believe that never occurred to me.”
“No, it wasn’t. . . . That is . . . she didn’t kill him, Gerard.”
“Well, somebody damn sure did, and you seem to know a lot about it.”
She said a silent prayer. An apology to David for revealing the truth. “Gerard . . . he did it himself.”
Gerard frowned at her, clearly not understanding what she’d said. She felt a sharp stab of grief for him. Despite all their differences, Gerard had loved his father.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“For a long while, he thought he was getting better, regaining strength. But for those last few years, he left the bed less and less often. He could no longer ride. He asked me to bring him poison, and I refused. For weeks. But someone must have brought him some.”
“Iniya.”
“I don’t know. It could’ve been one of the servants. Any of them. He took it, and called me up to him. He’d already said good-bye to Iniya. He wanted to say good-bye to me.”
“But not to
me?
” Gerard roared.
“You were his heir. He felt he’d done what he could for you. But he had money for me. Enough so that I could leave. And Iniya, of course. He wanted to see her settled. And . . .” She swallowed hard. “And he didn’t want you to know that he’d taken his own life. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said simply.
“He didn’t want his son to think he was weak—”
“I don’t believe that he committed suicide!”
“Oh, Gerard. He was tired. I tried to talk him out of it, I swear. So did Iniya.”
“You should’ve told me!”
Kate’s shoulders dropped. She’d hoped it had been idle talk on David’s part. She hadn’t thought he’d really do it. “You’re right, of course. Perhaps you could’ve stopped him. I could not. But he made us promise we would never tell you. In the end, there was nothing I could do but hold his hand. . . .” Her throat closed with the memory. Iniya had stroked his face and whispered comfort into his ear. At least he’d had her there at the end.
Gerard dropped into a chair and slumped over the table, head in his hands. Though he didn’t make a sound, she knew by the way he shook that he was weeping. Whatever was between them now, she’d known him for so many years. Kate put her hand to his shoulder. “If it’s a comfort to you . . . he didn’t have any doubt that you could run the plantation. None at all. He was proud of you.”
His silent sobs eventually faded. Kate poured a glass of wine and brought it to him. He drank it all in one long draw.
“Are you all right?”
“Go to bed,” he growled.
“Gerard . . .” She reached to touch him again, and that was a horrible mistake. Gerard spun and caught her to him, crushing her with his strength. He pressed his forehead to her bosom and wrapped his arms around her waist.
For a moment, she let him hold her, thinking he needed comfort. She kept her hands high and tried to breathe past the vise of his arms.
But then he shifted, dragging his face higher until his mouth touched the bare skin of her chest. “My God, I love you.”
“Don’t . . .”
“Please,” he whispered, opening his mouth against the rise of her breast. “I need you. I need you.”
“Stop. Stop!” She dug her fingers into his head and pushed as hard as she could.
He finally shoved her violently away. “Go!” he shouted. “Get out of my sight.”
She stumbled toward her bedchamber, relieved he’d let her go, afraid that he’d follow. But his next words turned that fear into despair.
“We’ll book passage to Ceylon tomorrow.”
Kate grasped the doorjamb and whirled back to him. “What?”
He poured himself another glass and downed that one as well.
She shook her head. “No. I told you what happened. I’ll write a letter, explaining it.”
His face had twisted with rage. “You can tell them yourself. And see if they believe you.”
Worried that she was making everything worse, Kate closed the door and sank down to sit on the edge of the bed.
If Gerard hadn’t come to his senses by morning, she would have to send for Aidan after all. It was her only choice. Hopefully, he’d find a way to forgive her. Whatever happened, she would not set foot on that ship. No one could make her go this time.
“Penrose!” Aidan shouted, slamming open the door of their rented quarters. “Penrose! Damn it, man, what the hell did you mean, sending that ridiculous message?”
He sped up the stairway, his boots echoing like explosions against the plain wooden stairs. “Penrose!”
His secretary didn’t greet him when he reached the rooms. Aidan threw back the covers of Penrose’s rumpled bed in case he’d somehow flattened himself into the mattress.
Christ, he was losing his mind.
Miss Cain has requested your urgent assistance. Please return to Hull as soon as you’re able. Discretion prevents me from saying more.
What the hell could that mean? He couldn’t wait to find out. If Penrose couldn’t tell him, then Lucy would.
Growling in frustration, Aidan wheeled around and pounded back down the stairs.
It had to be Kate. Perhaps she was with child. What other kind of emergency could possibly call for such discretion? If she was . . . Despite all the impossibilities of such a thing, his heart beat with hard joy. He’d marry her. He’d kill her husband himself if he had to, but he’d marry Kate if she carried his child.
If she was still determined to resist, he’d convince her. He’d move to Hull and sit on her doorstep every day and show her that he deserved her love.
Aidan burst from the door, nearly knocking down a boy running past. “Sorry,” he muttered to the startled child as both of them blinked at each other in shock. Finally, the boy ran on, and Aidan snapped the door shut behind him. But he’d only taken two steps when someone called his name.
“Mr. York!” Penrose rushed toward him, one hand raised in alarm.
“Penrose, where the hell have you been?”
“I thought you’d be on the eight o’clock train. I meant to meet you. . . .”
“I came through Leeds. The first train I could get.”
Penrose leaned over, fighting to catch his breath, but Aidan wasn’t sympathetic. He grabbed the man’s collar and hauled him up. “What the hell is going on? Is it Kate? What’s happened?”
“Mr. York,” Penrose gasped. “Mrs. Hamilton has . . .” He gestured vaguely toward the coffee shop.
Aidan gave him a shake, then forced himself to let Penrose go when passersby began to stare. “Spit it out.”
He didn’t realize just how hopeful he’d been until Penrose spoke four awful words. “Her husband is here.”
The shock forced Aidan back a step. “What?”
“Mr. Hamilton. He arrived on a ship three days ago.”
One more step back and Aidan’s heel hit the wide stairway of a bank. He sat down hard.
“Mr. York!” Penrose reached out, but Aidan waved him off with a slow sweep of his hand.
“What did Kate say?”
“I didn’t speak with her, sir. Miss Cain asked me to send for you. She seemed . . . overwrought.”
Fear took over his gut. “Why?”
Penrose’s gaze darted up and down the walk as if he were afraid of being overheard. He leaned closer. “She said that his return was unexpected and that Mrs. Hamilton seemed quite alarmed, but otherwise nothing was amiss.”
“What did Kate say?”
Penrose cleared his throat. “I don’t know that she said anything at all, but I thought you should like to know.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Of course. Thank you, Penrose.”
His secretary cast another nervous look around. “Sir, perhaps we should discuss this in your rooms. If—”
“I’ll go see her now. Wait here for word.”
“Mr. York, are you sure that’s—”
But Aidan waved him off and surged to his feet. Her husband was here. Aidan tried to find some way this could be a good thing, but it couldn’t be, no matter how quickly he turned it in his mind. Neither could he find a way to convince himself that rushing to see her was a good idea, but here he was, nearly running down the lane. What would he say? How could he look this man in the face?
Aidan had no answers. All he could think was that he must get to her now, now, before she was lost for good.
The front of the shop was still locked up tight, so he circled to the back, his heart beating so hard he could hear nothing but his own fear. He tried the alley door as if he had the right to simply walk into her home, but that door was locked tight too.
Aidan banged his fist against the wood, then waited, glaring a hole into the tops of his boots. When there was no answer, he banged again, harder this time, until the door bruised his hand. Still nothing. “Answer, damn you.”
Where was she? Where had she gone?
He let his head fall back in frustration, staring up at the narrow slice of blue sky above the alley. The view felt right, as if he were sinking beneath the ground and clawing uselessly at the earth.
A few deep breaths later and he only felt more determined. A quick look ensured that not one other soul graced the alley. Aidan tried the lock one last time, dared another glance around, and then he slammed his foot into the door as hard as he could. It shook and creaked, but the lock held. Offering a quick, unspoken promise to pay for the repair, Aidan put all his strength into one hard thrust with his foot, and the wood cracked and gave. He tugged it open and half the lock fell to the brick ground.
Dark silence greeted him. No outraged cries, no pounding feet. Just silence. He hesitated for a moment, foot poised on the threshold, worried what he might find inside. But stillness had never been his gift, so he moved forward, checking the shop first, and finding nothing out of order.
He made himself take the stairs at an even pace, though he kept his footsteps light. At first, Kate’s rooms looked perfectly normal too, but as his eyes adjusted, he realized something was . . . off. Her neat parlor was still neat, but things were out of place. He pushed the curtain back from the small window to let in more light. The first thing he saw was a crate packed with books and plates and silver . . . and the folded chess set he’d given Kate. Next he saw a bare table where there had once been a clock and a flower vase. A small chest sat next to the table, and Aidan crouched before it and slowly raised the lid.
It was clothing, packed carefully as if for travel. Men’s clothing.
All his muscles seized up and he jumped to his feet, letting the top fall shut. He turned to the bedroom, but there was no relief there. Kate’s bed, small as it was, took up most of the space, and he did not want to look at it. Not now. But there was nowhere else to look. The small dresser had once held her brush and comb and mirror. They were gone, along with the pots of cream and powder and the pins that held her hair. And at the foot of her bed, another chest, this one standing open and filled with Kate’s clothes.
Her husband was here, and she was leaving. Going away from Aidan without a word. Again.
The strength he’d always felt in her, the passion and certainty . . . What had that been? Nothing solid. Nothing real.
She’d rather go back to India with a man she didn’t want than stay here and fight for their love. She was angry at him, hurt, and so she’d leave again.
Barely able to feel his own movements, Aidan turned away from the bedroom. He turned away from her. She was someone else’s wife now. That was what she’d chosen. He would’ve fought the world for Kate, but he couldn’t fight her.
Aidan was tempted to find a tavern and drink until the serving wench seemed a fine idea. Or he could get himself invited to a dinner party and make friendly eyes at the women until one of them took him home.
But no. He wasn’t going back to that, not even for the sake of loving Kate. It was killing him, slowly turning his insides to dust.
He closed the alley door as best he could and walked away, blind to the people around him. He could do this. He could. It wasn’t so bad as being told that she’d died. And he was older now and sick of grief. This would be easier to bear. He was done with her.
But as he walked through the morning, through the streets that had become as familiar as his own, he looked up and she was there. Distracted, frowning, her hand rested on a man’s arm though her head was tilted away from him.
Aidan didn’t want to see him, but his eyes had a will of their own. They slid up the man’s arm, up to his shoulder, and his neck, and then his face. Younger than Aidan had expected. Much younger.
Kate’s chin kicked up, and his gaze was drawn to her. Her eyes widened, her lips parted in horror, and she stared at Aidan as if she could will him gone with just a look. But he didn’t disappear. In fact, his feet became rooted to the ground and he stood in their path like a tree.
She did not touch her husband easily. Her hand lay stiff on his sleeve and she kept distance between them. Sadly, Aidan found this satisfying. Small comfort when she was married to the man. But then he remembered her words about being broken like a mare, and Aidan felt ashamed. She might not be brave or strong, but that did not mean she should be miserable. Sudden, fierce hatred for this man rose up in Aidan’s chest like a serpent unfurling. The need to strike tightened all his muscles and his hands rose.
Kate’s face paled. She tried to shake her head, but her husband caught the movement and followed her gaze. Aidan’s eyes locked with his, and he saw the man’s knowledge as if it were a fire sparking to life in his dark gaze. In that one moment, her husband saw everything, and Aidan realized his horrible mistake.
The knowledge in those dark eyes had already blazed to fury and hate. Aidan welcomed it, but it would be turned on Kate soon enough, and Aidan couldn’t let her pay for their transgressions.
So instead of tipping his hat and allowing them to pass, Aidan held his ground and let his anger show.
“Mrs. Hamilton,” he said, though her name emerged as a low growl.
She didn’t respond. Aidan raised an eyebrow.
“Katherine,” her husband said, his gaze not leaving Aidan, “why don’t you introduce me to your friend.”
Katherine
. Aidan wanted to slap the sound of her name from this man’s mouth. The fact that he had more of a right to say it than Aidan did . . . that only turned his anger to rage.
“This is Mr. York,” she whispered. “Mr. York, this is . . . Mr. Hamilton.”
The man’s mouth smirked.
“Are you going with him?” Aidan asked her simply.
Please say no. Please say no so I can take you away from this
.
Her eyelashes fluttered.
“She’s coming home,” her husband said, and Aidan’s rage curled around his heart and squeezed.
“Kate?” he breathed. This wasn’t the place for this. He knew that. He could feel the stares of people as they edged past, but this was it for him. He couldn’t leave without hearing it from her lips.
“No,” she finally said.
Aidan frowned.
“No, I’m not going with him.”
“Katherine,” the man said, his hand curling around her wrist.
Aidan stepped forward. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not getting on the ship, Aidan.”
It would’ve taken him some time to believe. He needed to breathe and ask her if she meant it, but he saw the way she tugged at her arm and failed to free herself.
“Let her go,” he growled.
Her husband’s hand held her still. “Don’t do this, Katherine. I can’t be responsible for what will happen.”
“I don’t care,” she hissed, yanking her hand free just as Aidan rushed forward to help her.
“Keep your hands off her,” he said, leaning in close so that the passersby couldn’t overhear.
“You’re as much a fool as I,” her husband said, offering a hard smile. Aidan didn’t care what was said. His mind was overwhelmed with hope. But he’d misjudged the blow this man could deliver.
His black hair fell over his brow when he leaned close to Aidan. “I’m not her husband, you know,” he said casually.
For a moment, Aidan thought he was telling a ridiculous lie, but Kate’s face had paled at his words. “What?” Aidan asked.
She shook her head and started walking, and Aidan had no choice but to catch up to her. She rushed toward the shop, but the man followed close behind them.
“It’s true,” he said loudly. “I’m not Mr. Hamilton. In fact, there is no Mr. Hamilton.”
“Kate?” Aidan asked, but she kept her head down until she reached Guys Lane.
She scrambled to open the front door, then nearly fell to the floor when she finally slid inside. Aidan put his hand under her elbow and followed her in before he turned to block the doorway.
“Get the hell out of here,” he ordered, but the bastard only smiled again.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?” he barked.
“There is no husband, you fool.”
He was a madman. There was no other explanation. Aidan just wanted him gone.
“My father died months ago.”