Only a Kiss (27 page)

And she poured out the story of the smugglers and Mr. Ratchett and James Mawgan and her husband’s valet and how Percy had confronted them all when no one else would since Dicky’s time and had pursued the matter recklessly and relentlessly until he had exposed the truth and the two men had been arrested and were awaiting trial. She had no idea if her story made sense.

Vincent was still patting her thigh when she had finished.

“I came here early,” she said, lowering her hands to her lap. “I needed to feel safe. I needed to— I needed—”

“Us,” Flavian said. “We all need us too, Imogen. You can rest here. We all can.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “But it must be horribly late. I should let you all go to bed. I am exhausted if you are not. Thank you. I do love you all.”

George, smiling gently, was holding out a hand for hers.

“Come,” he said. “I’ll see you to your door. You know you can
always
come here, Imogen.”

“I also know,” she said, getting to her feet, “that I must live my own life. And I
will
. This is just a brief setback, like Vincent’s panic attacks. Good night.”

She squared her shoulders and looked at them each in turn. She did not even notice that none of them was making a move to follow her from the room.

*   *   *

Percy did not know why he was angry, but he was. No, not angry exactly. Disgruntled. All out of sorts. In as bad a mood as he could possibly be without actually snapping at everyone who came in his path.

Jealous.

But that was preposterous. Why would he be jealous of a collection of men he did not even know? Men who called themselves by the pretentious name of Survivors—with a capital
S
, if you please? Wasn’t everyone a survivor? Wasn’t he? What gave them exclusive right to the word? And how much could they love her when a number of them—he could not remember if it was all—had gone off and married other women.

But it was to them she had gone running—in the middle of the night without a word to him. Even her note had been addressed to her aunt.

And now he was playing messenger boy and deliveryman combined. In the carriage with him were letters from Lady Lavinia, Mrs. Ferby, his mother, Beth, Lady Quentin, and Miss Wenzel. It was ridiculous. If many more people had written, he would have needed a wagon to pull behind. And there was a large trunk of her belongings in the boot of the carriage, leaving hardly any room for his own luggage.

And here he was arriving at Penderris Hall, which was just as large and imposing as he had expected and considerably closer to the ever-present cliffs than Hardford Hall was, and he was having second—or was it forty-second—thoughts about the wisdom of coming here but it was too late to turn back because his arrival seemed to have been noticed and the main doors had opened and a tall man with elegantly graying hair—damn him!—was stepping outside to see who the devil was arriving when he had not been invited and Percy could see that he was the Duke of Stanbrook. He had seen the man a few times at the House of Lords.

He felt stupid and belligerent, and if the man stood in his way, he would first flatten his nose and then take him apart with his bare hands and maybe his teeth too. He was going to see her—he must see her—and that was that. She had had no business running off that night without giving him a chance to collect his thoughts and respond to what she had told him. He was going to talk to her—now. She owed him that much, by Jove.

Stanbrook was holding out his right hand as Percy stepped down from the carriage and closed the door on Hector.

“Hardford, I believe,” Stanbrook said, and Percy shook his hand.

“I have brought Lady Barclay’s trunk,” he said, “and some letters for her. And I will see her.”

The ducal eyebrows went up. “Come inside,” he said, “and have some refreshments. Your man may proceed to the stables after unloading the trunk. Someone will see to him there.” And he turned to lead the way inside.

There was an army lined up in the hall, of course. Well, there were only four of them in addition to Stanbrook, but they looked like an army. Or an impregnable fortress. But let them just try to stand in his way. Percy almost hoped they would. He was spoiling for a fight.

Stanbrook introduced him with perfectly mild courtesy—damn him again. The great big bruiser with the closely cropped hair was Trentham; the one with the nasty slash across his face was the Duke of Worthingham; the blond one who looked as though the whole world had been created for his amusement was Ponsonby; and the slight, blue-eyed boy was Darleigh. Percy looked at him, looked away, and then looked again. Was he not the blind one? And then he saw that the eyes that had appeared to be looking directly at him were actually missing his face by a few inches. It was a bit eerie.

Civil enough greetings were exchanged, and then another man appeared on the stairs, tottering slowly down them with the aid of two canes that encased his lower arms.

“Sir Benedict Harper,” Stanbrook said.

Six of them. The seventh was missing.

“I will see Lady Barclay,” Percy said curtly. Good manners might have served him better, but to hell with good manners. He was in a bad mood.

“There may be a slight problem,” the blond one said on a sigh, as though even speaking those few words was a trial to him. “For you see, Hardford, Lady Barclay will perhaps not see you.”

“And frankly,” scar-face added, “I would not blame her.”

The big tough one folded his arms and looked tougher.

“Then ask her,” Percy said, “and find out. And tell her I am not budging from here until she does see me.”

He felt as though he were standing back from himself and observing his bad behavior with a slightly incredulous shake of the head. Where had all his famed charm fled?

“Say please,” he added, glaring at the lot of them.

“Perhaps you will step into the visitors’ salon,” Stanbrook suggested, “and have a drink while you wait. The others will go with you while I go talk to Lady Barclay. I warn you, though, that she may refuse to speak to you. She saw you come and was less than delighted.”

Percy felt a bit like a hot air balloon that had sprung a leak.

“Let me go, George,” Darleigh said. “Let me talk to her. And I will remember to say please, Hardford.” He smiled with great sweetness. “Go and have some refreshments. You are upset.”

And there went the rest of the hot air, leaving Percy feeling limp and deflated.

Good God and a thousand devils, what if she would not see him? He could hardly camp out beneath her window—even if he knew which one it was—forever and ever, could he? Not with the army on the prowl. He particularly did not like the look of the giant.

He turned in the direction of the room Stanbrook was indicating, while the blind Darleigh set off in the opposite direction, led by a dog Percy was just noticing for the first time. He remembered that he had left Hector in the carriage. The wretched hound had flatly refused to be left at home.

I
mogen was in the conservatory, where she had taken refuge after seeing the familiar carriage approaching. She would not have had even that much warning if she had not been standing in the drawing room window at the time, rocking a sleeping Melody Emes in her arms and thinking that there could surely be no lovelier feeling in the world.

She was gazing out through the conservatory windows now at some daffodils blooming in the grass, though she was not really seeing them. She heard someone come—someone
with a dog
—but did not turn her head.

Vincent sat down beside her, first feeling for the seat. His dog settled by his knee.

“Imogen,” he said, and he reached out and patted the back of her hand. “Does he always behave badly?”

“Oh.” And strangely, bizarrely, she found herself smiling. “
Did
he behave badly?”

“There is a smile in your voice,” he said, and that sobered her. “He was bursting with belligerence. It would not have taken much provocation for him to take us all on at once with his bare fists. I could not see him, of course, but I could hear him. Is he a large man?”

“Yes,” she said. “Not huge, though.”

“Then Hugo alone could have knocked him down with one punch,” he said, “though I have the feeling he would had hopped right up again for more punishment. What does he look like?”

“Oh,” she said, frowning, “tall, dark, handsome—all the old clichés.”

“And is
he
a cliché?” he asked.

“No.” She was still frowning. “I thought he was at first, Vincent. But not now that I know him better. No one is less of a cliché. He is . . . oh, no matter. Did he go quietly?”

She felt as though there were a leaden weight at the bottom of her stomach as she imagined his carriage driving away from Penderris. Actually, it had been there since the night of his birthday ball, that cold, heavy weight. Would it never go away?

“He is in the salon with the other men,” he said. “He wants to see you. He demanded that one of us come and tell you so. But then he added a
please
.”

Her lips quirked into a smile again, though she felt nearer to tears than laughter.

“Tell him no,” she said. “And add
thank you,
if you will.”

“We all expected him to come, you know,” he said. “We were all agreed upon it the night before last after you went to bed. There was no point in laying wagers. We were all on the same side. And Sophie agreed with me, and the other ladies did too. We have
all
been expecting him to come.”

There was nothing to say into the pause that followed.

“He is terribly upset,” Vincent told her.

“I thought he was belligerent,” she said.

“Precisely,” he said. “But there was nothing to be belligerent about, you see, Imogen. George went outside to greet him like a courteous host, and we all behaved with the greatest civility.”

She could just imagine them all lined up in the hall, not realizing how formidable they could look when they were standing between someone and what that someone wanted.

Poor Percy! He had done nothing to deserve any of this.

“I will send him away if you wish,” Vincent said. “I believe he will go even though he told us he would not budge until he saw you. He is a gentleman and will not continue to pester you if your answer is no. But I think you ought to see him.”

“It is hopeless, Vincent,” she said.

“Then tell him so.”

She drew a deep, audible breath and let it out. Vincent, she noticed irrelevantly, needed a haircut. His fair, wavy hair almost touched his shoulders. But when had he ever
not
needed a haircut? And why should it be cut? It made him look like an angel. His wide blue eyes only enhanced that impression.

“Send him here,” she said.

He got to his feet, and his dog stood beside him. But he hesitated. “We never ever offer one another unsolicited advice, Imogen, do we?” he said.

“No, we do not,” she said firmly, and he turned away. “But consider your advice solicited. What do you wish to say?”

He turned back. “I believe,” he said gently, “we all have a perfect right to make ourselves unhappy if that is what we freely choose. But I am not sure we have the right to allow our own unhappiness to cause someone else’s. The trouble with life sometimes is that we are all in it together.”

And he left without another word. That was
advice
? She was not even sure what he had been trying to say. Except that it made perfect sense while she waited and pondered his words. Are we not all responsible just for our own selves? she thought. Why should we be responsible for anyone else? Would that not be just meddling interference?

The trouble with life sometimes is that we are all in it together.

And she remembered her relatively minor decision to dance again at the village assemblies.

She heard more footsteps. Firm, booted feet this time. Belligerent feet, perhaps. Again she did not turn her head. He stopped a short distance away. He did not sit down.

“Imogen,” he said softly.

She clasped her hands in her lap, lacing her fingers. She touched the tips of her thumbs together.

“You do not play fair,” he said.

“I am not involved in any game with you, Percy,” she said. “I cannot play either fairly or unfairly if I do not play at all.”

“You told me a story,” he said, “and left a hole in it so large and gaping that it would have made a crater in any highway wide enough to stretch right across the road. When I begged you to tell me the rest of it, you offered me a pebble with which to fill that great hole.”

“What I told you was a
pebble
?” She looked at him for the first time, anger sparking. She was shocked at what she saw. It was not quite a week since they’d last met, but his face looked drawn and pale with smudges beneath both eyes that suggested lack of sleep. The eyes themselves were fathomless.

The trouble with life sometimes is that we are all in it together.

“You shot him,” he said, “between the eyes, deliberately. I believe you. But
why,
Imogen? How did you get to him? Where did the gun come from? Why did you use it to kill him? Maybe I have done nothing to deserve answers except dare to love you, but tell me for that reason if not for any other. Help me to understand. Tell me the whole of it.”

She drew one breath and then another. “Over a number of days,” she said, “they were unable to break him. I have no idea how many days that was. They all ran together for me. They must have thought he carried information inside his head that was essential to them. Perhaps they were right—I do not even know. Finally they took me to him—four of them, all officers. There were two other men there too. He was chained upright to one wall. I scarcely recognized him.”

She lowered her head and touched the heels of her hands to her eyes for a moment.

“Oh, good God,” she thought he muttered.

“They told him what they were going to do,” she said. “They were going to take turns with me while he and the others watched. I have
no idea
why one of them set his pistol down on a table not far from where I stood. Contempt for a helpless woman, perhaps? Carelessness, perhaps? Or perhaps he was to go first and needed to divest himself of a few things. I picked it up and held them all at bay, their hands in the air. But the hopelessness of the situation was immediately apparent. If I shot one of them, the others would be upon me in an instant and nothing would have been accomplished. They would have raped me and he probably would have broken—maybe before it even started, maybe after one or two. He could not have lived with himself after, even if they had let him live, which is doubtful. If I forced one of them to free him, I could see that he would not be able to walk out of there. And even if I devised a way, there were dozens more soldiers in the building and hundreds, even thousands more outside. I do not believe it took me longer than a second to know what the only solution was. And Dicky knew it too. He was looking at me. Oh, God, he was
smiling
at me.”

She had to pause for a few moments to steady her breathing.

“And I knew what he was thinking and he knew what I was thinking—we could always do that.
Yes, do it,
he told me without speaking a word.
Shoot me, Imogen. Do not waste your bullet on one of the French officers.
And just before I did what he bade me do, his eyes said,
Courage.
And I did it. I shot him. I expected—
he
had expected—that I too would be dead moments later. It did not happen. Those very courteous . . .
gentlemen
, furious though they were, knew how to punish a woman, and it was not with rape. They let me go, even escorted me back to my own people. They left me to a living hell.”

She did not know how long the silence stretched.

“Leave now, Percy,” she said. “I am a bottomless well of darkness. And you are full of light, even if you do feel that you have wasted the past ten years of your life. Go and forget about me. Go and be happy.”

He muttered that word again. It really was getting to be a habit.

“He loved you, Imogen,” he said. “If his eyes could have spoken to you for a little longer, if he had known that they would let you live, what would he have told you?”

“Oh.” She gulped.

“Don’t evade the question,” he said. “What would he have told you to do?”

Somehow he compelled honesty—an honesty that penetrated the layer upon layer of guilt in which she had wrapped herself ever since that most dreadful of moments in that most dreadful of places.

“He would have t-t-told me to be h-h-happy,” she said, her voice thin and high again, as it had been the night before last.

“If he could somehow be aware of the past eight or more years,” he said, “and how you have lived them and how you intend to live the rest of your life, how would he
feel,
Imogen?”

She looked at him again. “Oh, this is unfair, Percy,” she cried. “No one else has dared ask this of me—not the physician, not any of my fellow Survivors. No one.”

“I am neither the physician nor any of those six men,” he said. “And I dare ask the question. How would he feel? You know the answer. You knew him to the depths of his being. You loved him.”

“He would have been dreadfully upset,” she said. She drew her upper lip between her teeth and bit into it, but she could not prevent the hot tears from welling into her eyes and spilling over onto her cheeks. “But how can I let myself live on, Percy? To smile and laugh, to enjoy myself, to love again, to
make
love? I am afraid I will forget him. I am
terrified
that I will forget him.”

“Imogen,” he said, “someone would have to cut into your head and remove your brain and smash it to pieces. And even then your heart and your very bones would remember.”

She fumbled for a handkerchief, but he took a few steps closer and pressed his own large one into her hand. She held it to her eyes.

He was on his knees in front of her then, she realized, his hands on the bench on either side of her.

“Imogen,” he said, “I tremble at my presumption in trying to win your love for myself when you have loved such a man. But I do not expect to take his place. No one can ever take anyone else’s place. Everyone must carve out his own. I want you to love me for my sorry self, which I will try very hard for the rest of my life to make worthy of you—and worthy of me. I can do it. We can always do anything as long as we are alive. We can always change, grow, evolve into a far better version of ourselves. It is surely what life is for. Give me a chance. Let me love you. Let yourself love me. I will give you time if you need it. Just give me hope. If you can. And if you cannot, then so be it. I will leave you in peace. But please—try to give me a definite maybe if you possibly can.”

She lowered the handkerchief after drying her eyes. He looked like a poor, anxious schoolboy, hoping at least to avoid a caning. She reached out and cupped his face with her hands.

“I do not want to drain all your light, Percy,” she said.

Something sparked in his eyes.

“But there is never an end to light, Imogen,” he told her, “or to love. I’ll fill you so full of light that you will glow in the dark, and then when I want to love you in a very physical way I will be able to find you.”

Oh, absurd,
absurd
Percy. Yet so pale and anxious despite his ridiculous words.

“Do I dare?” she asked, but more of herself than of him.

He did not answer her. But someone else did, deep inside her in a voice she recognized—
Courage
. And for the first time in more than eight years her mind listened to the tone in which that silent word had been spoken. It was one of deep peace.

He had welcomed death—at her hands. It had released him from intolerable pain and the certain knowledge that there would be more of it before he died. And it had released her from the horrors of rape—he had believed that as he died, and he had been right, though not quite in the way he had expected.

He had been at peace when he died. She had been the instrument of his death, or of his release, depending upon how one looked at it.

She could live again. Surely she could. She owed it to him, and perhaps to herself. And perhaps to Percy. Oh, she could live again.

“I will wrap myself from head to toe in a thick blanket,” she said, “and you will have to search for me. It will be more sporting and more fun that way.”

She watched the smile grow in his eyes and gradually light up his whole tired face. And his arms closed about her like iron bands, and his forehead came to rest on her shoulder, and he wept.

*   *   *

It was the second week of May before Percy’s wedding day finally dawned. He
thought
it was the same calendar year as that in which he had become betrothed to Imogen, but it could easily be anything up to five years after. It seemed like forever.

He had wanted to get up from his knees there in the conservatory at Penderris and dash off in pursuit of the nearest special license, dash her back to Hardford Hall, and then dash her off to the church in Porthmare for the nuptials—all within one day if it had been humanly possible.