Scandal in the Night (25 page)

Thomas felt the portal flex slightly beneath his hands and forehead, and for a moment he felt a sliver of hope slide through the widening cracks in his façade of control. But she must have only turned to face the door, because he could hear her more clearly even though her voice was nearly shaking with the effort to retain her own composure.

“You mean to be kind, but you don’t understand. It’s best this way.” He heard another sigh, and he could almost feel the small, wry smile in her voice, when she added, “I was right, you know. Son of the Earl Sanderson. You really were a hidden prince all along. But you can’t make a princess out of a Scottish sow’s ear. Men like you aren’t meant to help the Miss Anne Cates of this world.”

“For God’s sake, Cat. You ought to know me well enough to know I care nothing for what I am
meant
to do. I care only about you.” He took a deep breath, but the words came easily, smoothly, without hesitation, as if they had been merely biding their time in the back of his mind, waiting for their chance to get out. “It’s not best. And I don’t mean to only
help
you. I mean to marry you. I meant to marry you in Saharanpur.” He pushed aside the looming regret, and kept his mind concentrated on the present and future. “But we can do so now, as soon as possible, and make a new life together.”

“A life?” She pronounced the word as if it were as strange and foreign and faraway as a Tibetan monastery. “You can’t mean it. What about your family? What about Saharanpur? And the fire? And people saying that I did it, that I was the one who killed them all? Do you mean to forget all that?”

“It is already forgotten.”

“No.” Her exhale was less forlorn, but no less weary. “Mr. Jellicoe. Not even the son of an earl, nor even an earl himself, can make a charge of arson and murder be forgotten.”

“But I did. My God, Cat! Did no one ever tell you? Did you not know? There is no charge. I went to them. I went to the judiciary committee the company set up to investigate the fire and the allegations against you. I told them you were with me.”

*   *   *

The ache inside had grown so intense Catriona thought it might consume her. It was loneliness and heartbreak and every unmet need she had ever had. It was dark and needy and deeply, deeply selfish. It was a gaping gulf that had grown too wide to ever cross, and too strong for her to disobey.

And now he was telling her that she had been wrong. Astonishment was a tepid word for the hot jolt of disbelief that cracked through her like a bolt from a summer storm. Every nerve and fiber in her body trembled and vibrated with icy heat.

Catriona found her voice somewhere at the back of her throat, and when she did, it was as thin and threadbare as her heartbeat. “Say that again.”

“I went to the judiciary committee.” He spoke firmly and clearly so she might hear him through the wood of the door. As if he knew she had curled her ear to the panel to better listen. “I told them that you could not possibly have done any of the things of which you were accused, because at the time the fire started, you were with me.”

Catriona couldn’t move. She was too shocked. Her skin prickled everywhere on her body, and she felt cold and hot all at the same time—unbalanced as if the floor were tilting beneath her. As if the whole of the earth had fallen over sideways.

All this time. All this time she had lived with the fear. All this time she had lived with the burden of knowing other people thought the worst of her, and wished the very worst upon her. But Thomas Jellicoe had not.

She wanted to see him. She wanted to see the evidence of the truth on his once familiar face—his once beloved face—and hear the words again. She needed to be sure his reprieve was real and true.

Catriona’s hands sprang for the doorknob, spinning it open with cold, clumsy fingers.

And there he was, on the floor on the other side of the door, rounding to one knee in front of her. He looked wretched and exhausted, worn out as if he had run all the way from Kabul to Wimbourne. His hair was nearly standing on end in disarray, and inky dark circles surrounded his deep green eyes. But at that moment, he was perilously beautiful.

“Do you swear it?”

He didn’t hesitate. He nodded, emphatic and sure. “I do. I swore it to them then, and I swear it to you now. I spoke for you. I told them we were secretly betrothed.”

“When?” She could not possibly keep all the aching regret, the years and years of breath-stealing loss and longing and loneliness from her voice. She was breathless, as if she, too, had run all the way from Saharanpur to Wimbourne. And she had, in a way.

“When did I tell them? Six months or so later. When I came south again from Kabul and Lahore.” There was something that sounded very close to regret in his voice, too. Or perhaps it was shame. He reached to take her cold hand in his, much as he had the first day she had met him, his large hand enveloping hers. “That was the first that I was told—by Balfour—that you’d been accused and presumed guilty, but no charges had been pursued since you had been assumed dead. But while the judiciary committee were still pondering what to do with the information, word came from England that the children were in fact alive, and safe, and had somehow, rather miraculously, made their way home to England with no one the wiser. For myself, I was shocked”—his deep voice cracked and splintered like dry wood—“and elated—my God, you have no idea how elated—to realize that you must have escaped the fire. It was the begum who told me that you were alive, because you had come to her. Clever girl, to think of her.” His big, callused hand squeezed hers lightly, a tender, tentative encouragement. “Not even Balfour, her husband, knew for sure that you still lived.”

No. Colonel Balfour would not have known. It was the begum and her
zenana
of surprisingly well connected ladies who had been a wonder of clandestine contrivance. For a woman who never left the confines of her house, the begum had a network of contacts that would have put the company men to shame had they even conceived that such a thing existed. It was the begum who first heard the insidious rumors that spread from the cantonment that Catriona had been to blame. It was she who had helped Catriona, she who had hidden Cat and the children behind the high walls of the
zenana
. She who had made swift, sure, deviously effective decisions. The begum had seen to it that Catriona and the children had already been spirited well away by the time the company men had thought to look for her at the old palace. “Did they believe you?”

“I made them believe me. I
made
them listen.” With each statement he shook her hand a little with emphasis. “Though I did have to have Colonel Balfour with me to vouch for my character. And my identity.”

“Your identity?” Catriona still could not get her breath.

“As the Honorable Thomas Jellicoe.” His half-smile was as careful as it was wry. “Up to that moment my real identity was known only to Colonel Balfour, and to a file at the bottom of a dusty locked drawer in some company office—fortunately not all of the cantonment’s files had been destroyed in the fire. But that’s when I gave up being Tanvir Singh.”

“For me?” She still couldn’t breathe, but now she didn’t need to. Relief was making her giddy. All this time. All this time she had let the fear conquer her. All this time she had worked relentlessly, in the long days and nights in the loneliness of her exile, to push all thoughts of him aside, to convince herself that he had cared nothing for her. That he had thought better of loving someone like her.

But he hadn’t. He
had
loved her.

He still did.

The thought was as wonderful as it was terrifying.

Relief made her more than giddy. Heat kindled behind her eyes, brimming over to spill wet, warm salt down her cold cheeks. She was too full—too full of trembling, weak, unfamiliar joy. She took her hand from his to pull out a handkerchief. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.” He gifted her with one of his slow, encouraging smiles, and carefully thumbed the warm wetness from her cheeks. “The moment I realized what I had to do, I took up my knife and cut my hair. Just like that.”

Catriona could see it as if she had been there—the dark sweep of the long ebony locks, the quick, decisive flash of the talisman of a knife that had always ridden in his waistband. His beautiful long hair—the emblem of his faith and covenant with his God. Forsaken in a moment. Just like that. “Such a sacrifice.”

He shook his head. “No sacrifice at all if it could bring you back.”

But it hadn’t brought her back. Not for two long years, while they both suffered, it seemed. Her heart was so full of relief and gratitude it hurt to speak. Her throat felt as raw and aching as if she had been crying for hours and hours on end. Who would have thought that joy would prove to be as cataclysmically painful as despair?

But relief shouldn’t make her long for the feel of the warmth and weight of his hand on her skin again. Gratitude shouldn’t make her lean in closer so she might inhale the very English essence of him once more. Joy shouldn’t make her ache to comfort him for everything he had lost as well. He had endured as much as she, but somehow, he had managed to survive with his love and faith intact. To be steadfast and whole, where she had been inconstant and untrue, even to herself.

She had been more than inconstant. She had doubted him. She had even hated him for failing her. For not being everything she had set him up to be—her champion and her savior. But alone at night, facing the inevitable truth that came in the dark quiet of her rooms, when there was nothing, no children, no lessons, no saving activity to take her mind off the loneliness, she had wrapped her arms around her middle under the soft blankets, trying to hold the fear at bay, and consoled herself with the memory of his tender friendship and his careful, sure, evocative touch.

She ached to feel that touch again. She wanted to lay down the burden of her cares into his safekeeping, if only for a moment. And fear had worn her down—she was not strong enough to resist his wordless appeal. She turned her cheek and leaned the weight of her cares into his palm, and allowed herself to rest for just a moment. Just a moment.

Even if the relief, the ease, lasted no longer than a moment, it would be enough. Enough to bolster her onward. Onward to the next inevitably hard decision she would have to make. The next painfully hard thing she would have to do.

But not now. Now she could close her eyes, and lean her cheek into the cradle of his big hand, and rest. At last.

Catriona felt his other hand skim along the line of her jaw to caress her cheek, cupping her face before his lips brushed tenderly against hers. Just once. Then his arms came around her, steadfast and sure, and that was all that mattered. He was holding her, murmuring her name over and over, until she was enveloped by the comfort of his heat. By the surety of his strength. By the promise of his passion.

“Tanvir—” But he did not look like Tanvir with his English face and English haircut. She reached to finger the blunt ends of his hair, and he closed his eyes again, as if it were an agony of experience when she touched him. He looked vulnerable, shaved and shorn like Samson. But she was no Delilah wanting to tame him, and take away his powers. She wanted the sum of everything he was—the innate command of the son of an earl, the wiles of the sly Punjabi
sawar,
and the skill of her exotic lover. “It’s so strange and hard. I don’t even know what to call you.”

“Thomas.” His voice was rough, and almost strained, though his tone was sure. Emphatic even. “Thomas, please.”

“Thomas.” The word felt as foreign and exotic upon her lips as “Tanvir” had once been.

He closed his eyes as if he needed to hold whatever he was feeling—his own relief or gratitude—deep inside. “Again,” he murmured as he drew ever closer.

“Thomas.”

Like an incantation, his name worked unseen magic. He smiled, that dazzling white smile that had enchanted her so. And he was smiling at her, and threading his hands into her hair as he whispered, “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you to say my name.”

This she understood. She understood what it was like to live as a stranger in one’s own clothes, within one’s own skin. To never have the luxury of being oneself.

“Thomas.” It was easy now, so easy and so wonderful to give him the small gift of his name, though it was scant recompense for his suffering. So she stuffed her damp handkerchief back into her pocket, and she took his dear, different, familiar face in her hands, and leaned toward him, offering herself.

He lowered his lips to hers slowly, with much of the same care and deliberation as before, but once he tasted her, he began to kiss her with firm, unyielding intent. He took her mouth completely, with hungry lips and possessive tongue, overwhelming her, bending her head back with the force of his desire.

She could only be thankful for his strength—the strength that had endured the years of separation, that had spanned the gulf of time and loss that had kept them apart.

His kisses pressed upon her, over and over, buffeting her like wave after wave on a shore, his tongue and taut lips snaring all her attention, engaging all her senses. Yes. She did not want care and tenderness. She did not want anything of the past. She wanted to feel the press of his passion upon her now. She wanted to forget everything of regret and loss and longing, and for once be sated.

And he was sating her. “Cat,” he murmured again and again as his kisses filled up the desperate, deep well of her longing.

He kissed down the side of her neck, nipping at the sensitive skin, overwhelming her with each sensation. But then he pulled back for a moment, his big hand cradling her skull, holding her so she could read the truth of his words in his piercing green eyes. “You said I didn’t tell you the truth—that I wasn’t myself with you in Saharanpur. But I am the same man. I loved you. I adored you. I made love to you with the same hands, the same mouth, the same body.”

She remembered it all as if it were yesterday—the care and adoration. And she wanted it again. “Make love to me now.”