“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I just . . . I have to go.” She was stammering.
Stammering
.
“Here.” Aidan took her arm and led her gently down the stairs and into a hidden corner around the side of the house. “Tell me.”
His warm fingers touched her chin, a startling contrast to the cool air. She closed her eyes against the beautiful pressure of him tilting her face up. She tried not to remember this same touch, long ago, this same motion just before he’d pressed his lips softly into hers for the very first time. Her eyes burned, wanting to weep.
“Katie—”
“Don’t call me that!” She heard his sharp inhalation and shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Please don’t call me that. I’m Kate now.”
“All right,” he said carefully.
“And . . . I’m sorry but I can’t see you again.”
His fingers held her chin for a moment, tightened almost imperceptibly before they fell away. “Of course.” She didn’t dare look at him, didn’t dare to see what emotion chilled his voice. “Then I will take this opportunity to say good-bye. I’ll leave for London in the morning.”
“Yes. I think that’s just as well. I didn’t mean . . .” She forced her eyes open, willed away the tears before they even formed. “I only meant that it is too strange, seeing you. It’s discomfiting. And there are . . . There is my husband. I’m sorry.”
His mouth had lost its gentleness; the cold shadow of his eyes fell impersonally on her face. “Of course,” he repeated. “Would you like to return to the party?”
“No.”
“Let me walk you home at least. Did you bring a cloak?”
He retrieved her cloak and reappeared again. This time, he did not offer his arm, and she was grateful. He was far too real now to touch.
They walked as strangers, silence between them like another companion. Clouds passed the moon and shifted darkness over them, only to be banished by the bright lights of windows they passed. In and out of shadows they walked. He did not speak until they reached her narrow lane.
“Katie . . . I mean, Mrs. Hamilton . . .”
Her feet slowed, but she didn’t stop and turn to him until she’d passed into another patch of darkness.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for how things ended between us. If I could go back, I’d change so many things.”
She could not see his face, thank God. She could pretend it wasn’t him as she nodded. “I’m sorry as well.”
And what else was there to say? They made their stiff farewells at the door, she avoiding his eyes, he bowing perfunctorily. Then she fled into the shop and up the stairs to lie down in her bed fully clothed, wrinkling her best dress and not caring in the least.
He was leaving.
She was relieved and somehow burning with anger also, because even his departure disturbed her, flooding her with desperate regret.
My God, how could she be attracted to him? Granted, he was handsome, he always had been. But she’d not looked at a man with anything more than a distant sort of weariness in so long. She’d assumed herself immune to men and their charms.
Staring at the ceiling, she watched pale light fade as the moon rose past her window. The darkness thickened. She stared.
Her body had betrayed her. It seemed to have some memory of Aidan and the love she’d once felt for him, the passion. The idea was foreign to her now.
She knew, intellectually, that she’d once wanted him, even that she’d enjoyed making love with him, but she could not really remember it. It was as if it had happened to someone else, someone who’d told her the story. She knew he’d touched her body but she could not recall the feeling of it. Her mind was crowded with the impersonal grip of her husband’s hands, his blunt fingers digging into her flesh. Worst of all, she had ruined those memories of Aidan herself.
David Gallow had been her husband, and so she’d shared his bed. Still, for the first few months of her unwanted marriage, she’d thought Aidan would come for her, so every time her husband had taken her she’d been tortured with guilt. She betrayed Aidan, letting another man do that to her. It had seemed impossible Aidan would still want her, could still desire her, if she let another man touch her.
In defense, she’d tried to fill her mind with thoughts of him, ignoring her husband’s impersonal assaults. She’d thought it would lessen the betrayal, thinking of Aidan. Instead, it had obliterated all her memories of his gentle attention to her body.
Kate couldn’t remember their lovemaking, but her body seemed willing to draw him near again. She could not do that. She was not
free
to do that.
The flat blackness of her bedroom blanketed her. He would leave tomorrow. She felt the wet tickle of a tear inching slowly down her skin and thanked God that he was going.
Aidan tossed the remainder of his cigar onto the rocks beneath the train platform and strode down the steps. He headed for the crowded street where Penrose had already hailed the carriage. By the time he threw open the door of his modest Mayfair townhome, any sense of calm that the train had rocked into him had vanished.
“Shall I bring your personal letters immediately?” Penrose asked.
Aidan wanted to snap at the man, but he could not decide how he should answer. Instead of shouting, he bit his tongue and brushed past his secretary to retreat to his study. With a sneer, he took a seat behind his massive mahogany desk. The piece was a monstrosity that had come with the house, likely because it wouldn’t fit out the doorway.
Penrose said not a word as he retrieved a glass of whisky for Aidan, then disappeared through the door that led to his own smaller office beyond. The fluttering sounds of paper being sorted filtered through the door. Aidan stared absentmindedly out the large window next to his desk and thought of nothing.
He finished the tumbler of whisky, and Penrose brought him the decanter and a few pieces of correspondence before retreating again.
Aidan ignored the papers before him and resumed his study of the window.
“A note from Mrs. Renier,” Penrose murmured when he reappeared to add another letter to the pile. Aidan snapped that one up and looked it over. She was in London for a brief stay while her husband was on the Continent. She had instructed the butler not to place the knocker on the door, but a private dinner in her salon would not be an imposition.
At their last private dinner he’d fucked her on the table before the soup course had ended. The footman had dropped the fish course in the doorway, but they hadn’t bothered to stop what they were doing. She had simply bared her teeth and growled at Aidan to pound her harder. Perhaps that kind of mercenary focus was exactly what he needed.
Aidan folded the letter and considered her offer. He’d already ended the affair, and he was usually unforgiving in that regard. The invitation should have irritated him, at the least. On a bad day, he might’ve been enraged by it. What the hell kind of day was he having that he was actually tempted to take Mrs. Renier up on her offer?
Aidan frowned at the window. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea. If he resumed his normal activities, that would be proof that Katie’s resurrection meant nothing. “Penrose.”
His secretary materialized in the doorway. “Sir?”
“Please inform Mrs. Renier that I will join her for dinner tonight at nine.”
“Yes, sir. And Mr. Scarborough’s invitation to tomorrow’s lecture?”
“Pardon?”
Penrose’s gaze slid to the desk, and Aidan saw that there was now a tall stack of correspondence there. He’d only made it through one piece in—he glanced at the clock—an hour.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll look over the other business later.”
“Later, sir? All of it?”
“Yes, all of it. Leave me be.”
Penrose nodded and shut the door to his little room with a wary look. Normally Aidan let nothing come between him and work. Today he simply swung back to the window.
Katie had turned away from him . . . and he’d let her. Her claim of being disconcerted had wounded his pride and pushed him on his way—exactly the outcome she’d been looking for, he realized now. The lie that he’d only wanted to say good-bye had come easily to his lips. He’d been trying to wound her as she had wounded him. Instead, he’d seen relief in her eyes.
But why was she so disturbed by him? When he’d boarded the train, he’d told himself that she was married now and cared nothing for him, but that made no sense now that he’d shed his anger. If she were indifferent to him, completely absorbed in feelings for another man, his presence would be less than disturbing; it would be inconsequential. But he’d affected her, and that meant she still felt something.
“Hmm.” The progress of a slowly strolling couple occupied his eyes as they passed on the walk in front of his window, but his mind was still far north of London.
Perhaps he had exited the field prematurely. That story about her husband was poppycock. No man would let his wife live halfway around the world if he loved her. And no decent husband would let his wife toil in a shop when he had funds enough to run a plantation.
She’d left her husband. She must have.
Still, it had nothing to do with Aidan. He’d pass an evening with Mrs. Renier just to prove it.
He told himself to leave off staring out the window and be productive. An hour of work and he could bathe and dress and set off for Mrs. Renier’s house and a few hours of oblivion. But he was so damn tired.
Weariness pulled at him as if weights hung from his wrists and ankles. The feeling should’ve been familiar. He never slept well. But usually his tiredness was a restless ache. This felt more like a shroud of lead.
He glanced at the clock. Seven
P
.M.
Perhaps the sleepless nights in Hull had finally caught him up.
“Penrose,” he said sharply.
The poor man looked downright worried as he rushed into the room.
“You may depart for the evening.”
“But, sir—”
“On your way out, tell Whitestone to ready a bath.”
“Of course, but if I may . . .” Penrose held up a sheaf of papers.
Aidan caught sight of the seal at the top of the first page. An important contact in France. Someone he’d been waiting to hear from. But his head felt ready to explode and his bones seemed to want to fall from his skin.
He reached for the decanter and poured himself another glass. “No,” he finally answered. “Not tonight.”
“Oh. Of course.” Penrose hesitated a moment, as if waiting for Aidan to admit he was only joking.
Just as he turned away, Aidan gave in to one last impulse. “Have you sent the note to Mrs. Renier yet?”
“I have it here, sir.” He raised a small square of paper.
“I’ve changed my mind. Let her know I’ll come to dinner tomorrow.”
“Of course,” Penrose said as he retreated.
Relief spread through Aidan’s muscles. Tonight he would simply have dinner and a bath and find his bed. He didn’t need a woman’s body tonight. He didn’t need to exhaust himself, he was already there.
He took his bath, then drank too much, forgetting dinner altogether as he fell into bed. Amazingly, he got through the night with no dreams, but he woke with a memory, and a certain mission. A sense of purpose that had nothing to do with his work, for once.
He had to return to his family home, not to visit his mother or his brother or any of the dozen people sure to be hanging about. He had to return and find the box he’d hidden in the attic so many years ago. Because the contents of that box would give him a reason to see Kate again.
“Aidan, my darling boy!” His mother enveloped him in an energetic embrace as he bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Mother. How are you?”
Her arms squeezed harder. “Thank God you’ve come! It’s madness!”
The words didn’t cause any alarm. His mother’s world was always in crisis. “What’s happened now?”
“Your cousin Harry,” she wailed. “He means to propose to . . . to
someone,
and I’m sure he’s chosen Miss Samuel, but he refuses to confirm.”
“Confirm what?”
“That he means to ask for her hand!”
Aidan shook his head. “But he hasn’t asked yet, correct? Perhaps he’d like to wait until the woman has accepted his suit.”
“Oh, but there is planning to be done! We must have a party to announce it, and it must be before my birthday, and there is only so much I can do without knowing who the bride will be. It is all so frustrating.”
He frowned. “There are two Miss Samuels, aren’t there? Which one do you mean?”
“I don’t know! If your sister were here, she could surely find out more. I’ve asked her to return.”
That caught even Aidan off-guard. He’d been reaching toward the sideboard for a drink, but he stopped to frown at her. “You asked Marissa to return early from her honeymoon?”
“Well, she is the Miss Samuels’ best friend.”
His brother, Edward, stepped into the drawing room, and Aidan met his bemused gaze with his own. “Ah. Completely logical then. What did Marissa say?”
“Pooh. She didn’t even mention my request in her next letter. Just went on and on about the sights of the Ottoman.”
Edward snorted loudly enough to convey his exasperation to their mother. “Good for her. It’s almost as if she’s a sane person.”
“Baron,” their mother snapped. “Don’t be snide. If you would only order Harry to tell us the truth, I daresay he would.”
“Ah,” Edward said, reaching past Aidan to snag the whisky he’d poured. “But I am almost a sane person myself, you see, so I won’t order him to do any such thing.”
She snatched up her skirts and marched for the door, seemingly forgetting how thrilled she was to see her sweet younger son. “You are all so very difficult.” She’d only just disappeared through the door when her head popped back past the doorway, bearing a happy smile. “Aidan, how long shall you be here? I’d like to have a welcome home dinner in your honor.”
“Only a day, I’m afraid. And I was here a scant three weeks ago, so it hardly bears celebrating.”
“Everything bears celebrating, Aidan. You know that.”
She left them with that cheerful truth, while they both stared in silence at the empty door. As often as not, this was how she left any room.
“Well, then,” Edward said a full ten seconds after her footsteps finally faded. “What are you doing back so soon?”
Aidan poured himself another glass and collapsed into a chair. “I was told there was an emergency.”
“That’s never brought you home before.”
He tipped his glass in acknowledgment. “Right. I need to retrieve something I left behind.”
“Surely you could’ve just sent a note.”
“Mm.” He left it at that as they both sipped their whisky.
“Did your business in Hull go well, then?”
Aidan was aware, as he always was, that his relationship with his family had dwindled to polite and guarded conversation. It wasn’t the way he wanted it. Somehow it had just happened. He’d been so angry that first year. At himself and his family and the whole damn world. And instead of dissipating, the anger had merely buried itself more deeply over time, like a badger digging in. He’d used it as a barricade to keep everyone at a distance, but what of times like this, when he needed someone near?
He missed Edward, he realized. He missed the unspoken friendship of a brother.
“You can’t tell Mother,” he said quietly.
“Tell her what?” Edward asked, his head tipped back to rest against the chair.
“What I’m about to tell you.”
Edward’s eyes opened slowly and he raised his head to meet Aidan’s gaze. “What is it?”
The moment he had his brother’s attention, Aidan wished it gone. It was too much. He dropped his eyes and looked into his glass as if it were the one with the secret. “She’s not dead,” he murmured.
“Who’s not dead?”
“Katie.”
A dull thud punctuated the word. Edward’s glass had slipped from his hand and landed on the carpet. “Pardon?”
“Katie’s alive.”
“But . . . I don’t understand.”
“Ha.” Aidan’s smile was drawn. “Neither do I, but there it is.”
“She survived the shipwreck?”
Aidan finally found the courage to meet Edward’s gaze. Not the courage, actually, but the ever-present anger. “There was no shipwreck. She was packed off to India to marry a rich farmer, and she arrived quite safely. The shipwreck was a ruse.”
Edward looked as stricken as Aidan felt. “But why?”
“I’ve no idea. She claims she knew nothing of the tale. Perhaps it was only that I kept returning to her home, demanding to see her, and had to be swatted away like a pesky fly. Perhaps it was meant to hide the shame of her family selling her to a farmer with no name and hoards of money.”
His brother leaned forward, eyes growing wider. “Wait a minute. You’ve seen her?”
“In the flesh. She’s running a coffee shop in Kingston-upon-Hull.”
“Katie Tremont? Running a coffee shop? That makes no sense.”
“No,” Aidan said. “No, it doesn’t. And she’s not Katie Tremont anymore. She’s Mrs. Kate Hamilton.”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
Of course
. As if any of it made any sense. “I must ask you to keep this in your confidence. Her family has no idea she’s returned to England.”
“Aidan . . .” Edward’s voice had gone ragged at the edges, as if his throat was too tight. “If it weren’t you telling me this, I wouldn’t believe a word. Why has she not told her family?”
Aidan shrugged. “Her father died last year.” He felt no emotion as he spoke the words. He’d hated the man for a long time, but now he didn’t even feel triumphant.
“Yes, but her mother! And her brother is the earl now.”
“I have no idea why, Edward. She asked me not to resurrect her, and I agreed.”
“Jesus Christ,” Edward breathed. “Katie Tremont. Will you . . . ? What will you . . . ?”
“She’s married. Her husband is still in India, but she’s married.”
“I see.”
But of course, Edward could not see any more than Aidan could see. It was a ridiculous farce. Or a tragedy. A poorly written play, whichever it was.
Edward retrieved his fallen glass and took Aidan’s as well. He refilled them both before collapsing back into his chair. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I had to tell someone. And you . . .” He tipped back the whisky and swallowed it all in two long gulps. His throat burned, but so did his eyes. “I wanted to tell you.”
“I’m glad.”
Aidan cleared his throat, dislodging any trace of emotion that might linger there. “Are my old trunks still in the attic?”
“I believe so.”
“Good. I need to go through them.” He pushed up from the chair, aware that his brain wobbled a bit with the movement.
“You’re retrieving something for Katie?”
“I am.”
“Aidan.”
Aidan set the glass down carefully on the table, not happy with the warning in his brother’s voice. “Yes?”
“She’s married. You said so yourself.”
“And?”
Edward set his own glass down hard. “Only you would treat that so casually.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well what it means. But Katie Tremont is not just some jaded, bored wife. She is the woman you used to love. And she’s the woman who never
once
contacted you in the past decade.”
“I’m well aware of that. You needn’t fear for my heart, brother. It’s no longer tender. I’ve spent years banging it against other women’s backs, as you kindly point out.”
“Aidan—” Edward started, but Aidan shook his head.
“It is only the truth.” He was out the door and headed for the stairway before his brother could stop him.
He cursed as he bounded up the stairs, briefly sorry he’d said one word about Katie. He wasn’t stupid. He knew they were both changed. But that was why he wasn’t afraid. She was married. There was no chance at a tender, innocent reunion. There was no chance he’d tumble into love again and beg her to marry him. She was someone’s wife. And if she was an unhappy wife, well what woman wasn’t? He had some experience in unhappy wives, after all.
After Katie’s supposed death, the women of the ton had taken an uncomfortably avid interest in his return to the social scene, and that was before he’d even made his fortune. Young women, especially, suddenly began treating him like a rare treasure that had been plunked down in their midst. He’d finally solved the mystery of his appeal weeks later when one of his lovers had made a confession—all her friends were half in love with him, taken with a rumor that he was grieving the death of a secret lover.
That
was why they wanted him: because he’d lost Katie.
He’d been coldly furious at the time, sick that Katie’s death had become titillation for the ton, and yet he hadn’t stopped. He’d used the bodies of those women to forget for a few moments, and so he’d used her death as well. As that realization had sunk into his bones, he’d only become more dissolute.
The guilt and the drink had nearly killed him. And then a cousin in France had proposed a partnership. He’d needed an English contact, and Aidan had needed . . . what? To prove himself? Certainly the idea of making a fortune had appealed to his sense of revenge. Kate’s father had rejected Aidan’s suit because he’d had no means to support a wife. Or her family, in retrospect.
So he’d gone to France, drawn by a desire to show Kate’s father up and, if truth be told, by the idea of drowning his sorrows in Frenchwomen for a time. Eventually, he’d found that he could drown his sorrows in business, as well. That deal had saved him. But not his soul. Not his conscience.
After a time, it hadn’t been Katie he’d grieved for, but the man he’d meant to be. He’d betrayed himself with his actions.
When he reached the fourth floor, Aidan was happy for the dimness. It helped alleviate the sudden stark fear that Kate would find out what kind of man he’d become. But no. No, her own desire for privacy would protect his secrets. And who would ever tell her?
He lit the lantern that hung on a nail on the wall, then opened the door to the attic stairs. Once he reached the warm, dusty black of the attic itself, he turned up the wick on the lamp. Narrow trails snaked through the boxes and crates, leaving little room to maneuver. Thankfully, he found his chests stacked near the door, as if they had awaited him all this time.
The top chest contained nothing but old clothes as far as he could tell. When he lifted the lid of the bottom one though, he found what he’d been looking for. Nestled among the books and papers lay a large wooden box, carved with his initials. He hesitated a moment, watching the box with a wary look, as if it might lash out and injure him. He’d purposefully packed it away to remove the temptation of revisiting his memories of her. Blowing out a long breath that sent dust motes dancing wildly, he took the box from its coffin, set it on a crate, and opened the lid.
It was all there, the pitiful leavings of his secret time with Kate. Twelve letters—lavender paper covered with her looping script. A tiny white lace handkerchief that had once smelled tormentingly of her perfume. A pressed flower she had included with a note. And there, underneath it all, the thing he’d come here for.
The heavy gold pocket watch had been her grandfather’s, she’d told him as she pressed it into his hand. She’d given it to Aidan as a pledge of love, bidding him hold it for her until their marriage. He still remembered the way his fingers had shaken as they closed around it. They’d just made love for the first time, both of them nervous and overwhelmed with emotion as they gave their innocence to each other.
Jesus, they’d been fools. Certain, as only young people can be, that the world would genuflect before their love. Only a month later they’d been shouting at each other in frustration, helpless in the face of her father’s refusal.
And then she’d been gone.
Every day for a year Aidan had carried this damned watch over his heart until he’d finally grown so disgusted with his own grief that he’d packed everything away in this box and never looked at it again. Until now.
Slipping the watch into his breast pocket, feeling the familiar weight settle against his chest, Aidan made his way out of the attic with a grim smile. He now had the perfect excuse to see Kate again, whether she wanted him to return or not.