The Duke and the Lady in Red (34 page)

 

Chapter 24

S
he awoke to sunlight streaming in through the windows and a bed absent of Avendale. She jerked upright, saw him sitting in a chair beside the bed, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I don't know if I've ever slept so well,” she confessed.

“You barely stirred when I got up.”

She studied his fine clothes: his tan trousers, his brown brocade vest, his white shirt, his black jacket, his perfectly knotted neck cloth. Something was amiss. A shiver of trepidation went through her. “Why are you dressed?” She lifted the covers a bit to reveal her nude body. “Come back to bed.”

“You have an appointment.”

He extended something toward her. A narrow bundle. Taking it, she untied the string, folded back the paper to reveal tickets. She studied them. Passage on the railway to Scotland. She shifted her gaze to Avendale, not certain why a fissure of anger went through her. “As much as I owe you, I expected you to require more than one night.”

Slowly, he shook his head. “No, our bargain is done.” He stood. “The others will be waiting at the railway station. I purchased passage for them as well. I'll send Edith in to help you prepare for the journey.”

She wanted to cry, scream, beg him not to send her away. He loved her; he said so. She'd dared to say the words back to him and make herself vulnerable. Then a coldness settled through her. Last night, he hadn't told her he loved her. Not once. Why would he? In striving to grant her freedom, he had uncovered all her secrets, all her shameful actions. As haughtily as possible, fighting to hold in the pain, she angled her chin. “What time do we leave?”

“In an hour.”

She nodded. “Well, then, I'd best get to it.”

He walked from the room without a word. In that moment, she hated herself for falling in love with him, for giving him the power to break her heart.

W
alking out of that room was the hardest thing that Avendale had ever done, but he knew he had no choice, had known he would have no choice when he paid off the man she had first swindled. And the one after him, and the next. As her debt to him had accumulated, risen ever higher.

He wanted her love for as long as he lived. But that was not something for which he could ask. He cursed the damned bargain. If she stayed, he would always doubt the words whispered in the night, whispered in the throes of passion. He could not live with the uncertainty, the doubts regarding her true feelings for him.

Nor could he ask her to give up the carefree life she craved. As his duchess, she would have more responsibilities heaped on her than she could imagine. He had to let her go, give up his own hopes, plans, dreams in order to ensure her happiness. He understood it fully now, the sacrifice, the pain of setting aside everything one wanted in order to ensure that someone else realized his or her dreams. It was odd that in the ache of loss there was also some joy in knowing that she would be happy. That she would not feel like a slave or a whore.

That by sending her away, he would ensure that she not awaken each day feeling beholden to him.

As he headed to his library, he knew that if he weren't a selfish man, he would have taken her to the railway station the day before, but he was a selfish man and so he'd given himself one more night with her, one more night of memories that he would carry with him for the remainder of his life. No woman would ever replace her. He knew that as well.

In the library, he went to the window and looked out on the garden. When he returned later in the day, he would lock the door and drown himself in drink. Perhaps tomorrow he would fill his residence once again with loose women and young swells who only wanted a good time. They could frolic naked in his fountain—­

No, he wanted them nowhere near the fountain. He wanted nothing that would tarnish his memory of Rose standing there striving to explain to her brother how naughty the stone ­couple in the fountain were. He had posed for the blasted sculptor. He'd thought it a grand idea at the time. Funny, how now when he looked at the woman carved there, he saw Rose. She had not been the model, and yet she was the one he saw.

He feared he would see her in everything. A silly thing to fear when it was what he wanted: to never forget her.

“My trunk is being loaded,” her soft voice said behind him.

Turning, he caught sight of the clock on the mantel. An hour had passed. How had that happened?

“I want to thank you for everything you've done for me,” she said, her voice flat, unemotional. The swindler who could make him believe anything, even that she didn't care that she was leaving, stood before him. If she had torn up the tickets, objected to his offering, he might have asked her to stay.

“It was nothing.” His voice was equally flat. But then he'd spent a lifetime mastering the art of not appearing to care.

“Well, then, I'll say good-­bye.”

“I'll accompany you to the station.”

For a moment, she almost appeared panicked, but then once again all emotion was wiped from her face. “That won't be necessary.”

“I insist.” Although things between them were strained, he still wanted a few more minutes with her. Offering his arm, he was surprised when she slid her hand around the crook of his elbow.

Uttering not a word, they walked from the room, down the hallway. It was odd to feel this unnatural tenseness between them when they'd never had it before. From the moment they had met, whether he was angry or irritated with her, he'd never felt this widening chasm. He knew that in short order it would be too broad to breach. It was for the best. He told himself it was for the best. It was for her.

In the coach, he sat opposite her. If he sat beside her, he might find his resolve weakening. It was bad enough with her scent filling the interior, taunting his nostrils. He could see only her profile, because she was looking out the window as though the passing scenery were infinitely fascinating.

“What will you do with yourself?” he asked.

She looked at him. “I don't know, but I do recognize that you have given me a great gift. My life is a blank slate. I shall take advantage of that to do something worthwhile. Perhaps I'll teach. Or write. Although unlike Harry, I would want to write fiction. The truth is too sobering. What will you do with yourself?”

“Return to the pleasure gardens.” It was a lie. Going with her had ruined them for him. He would see her there. Everywhere he looked.

“What of the responsibilities to your title? You should marry. Have an heir.”

So easily she could give him to another when it nearly killed him to think of her with another man. “I have a cousin. He can see to them.”

“You should do it.”

That would involve marrying a woman he didn't love, because he couldn't envision that he would ever love another.

Finally they arrived at the railway station. The footman saw to her trunk. The others were waiting on the platform. Avendale stood to the side while she greeted them with exclamations of joy and long, hard hugs. That would be her life: joyful reunions and friends.

Merrick approached him, craned his head back to hold his gaze. “You're not such a bad sort.” He stuck out his hand.

Avendale shook it. “High praise indeed.”

“We can never thank you enough,” Sally said.

“My pleasure.”

“If you ever need anything,” Joseph said.

He needed Rose, but he couldn't have her, not under the circumstances to which they'd agreed. Even with declarations of love, the debts were there.

She stepped forward, his beautiful, courageous Rose. “I wasn't expecting to say good-­bye to you so soon. Seems so much needs to be said.”

“Just make the most of the opportunity you're being giving here.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked. “Pay off all my debts?”

“I promised Harry.”

Slamming her eyes closed, she nodded. “Of course.” Then she opened her eyes, and within the depths, he thought he saw understanding, but she couldn't possibly understand it all. “My brother knew far more than anyone ever gave him credit for. He would have asked you to look out for me.”

He would have done it without his promise to Harry, but telling her that would only delay the inevitable. A whistle sounded. “You all had best be off.”

Very quickly, she leaned in and kissed his cheek before striding away, her head held high, her back straight. The others quickly followed, leaving him standing there, fighting not to rush after her, struggling not to call out to her and beg her to stay.

He had to let her go, even if he died in the process.

S
itting on the bench seat, Rose looked out the window. She wanted one last glimpse of Avendale to carry with her. She could hardly believe he was sending her away, not after everything he'd done for her.

She saw him standing on the platform. How forlorn and lonely he looked. How alone.

Harry, who had known so much, hadn't known everything. She remembered the words in his final letter to her.

I also think he loves you, although I am not sure he is a man who would voice the words.

But he had voiced them—­in anger and frustration, to be sure. Yet when it had mattered most, when he'd come for her, they had been so formal. When she had dared to say the words, he hadn't repeated them. Now he was sending her away to a land she had mentioned, to a life with no responsibilities other than to herself. She could do anything she wanted: sleep in, eat cake three times a day, travel in a hot air balloon—­

Her thoughts rushed back to the picnic, to lying in the field, when he'd asked her what she would do when Harry was no longer in her life.

I'll have no responsibilities, no duties, no obligations. I'll wander, with nothing to tie me down. I'll have no plans, no strategies, no compelling need to do anything except breathe.

He was giving her that. All of it. He hadn't stopped loving her because of the journey he'd taken to pay off her debts. If he didn't love her, he'd have left her to rot.

“Oh dear God.” The train began to move. She shoved herself to her feet. “Wait for me at the next station.”

“What is it?” Merrick asked.

“Love.”

Then she was running down the aisle. She reached the door, threw it open, and, as the train picked up speed, she leaped out.

A
vendale could hardly believe his eyes. Knocking ­people out of his way, he rushed forward, reaching Rose as she finally rolled to a stop on the platform. Grabbing her arms, he pulled her to her feet. “Are you completely daft?”

“I promised to stay with you for as long as you wanted. Are you already so tired of me?”

He looked to the train growing smaller in the distance, looked back at her. Dammit. Where was he to find the strength to let her go again? “I will never tire of you, Rose.”

“Never is a long time.”

“Yes, but where you are concerned it is not long enough.”

“Then why are you sending me away?”

“I'm not sending you away. I'm setting you free of our bargain. I want you in my life more than I've ever wanted anything. But from you I learned what it is to be unselfish. I shall never again know happiness but as long as you are happy, that is all I care about.”

“You are an idiot, Avendale. How in God's name am I to be happy if I am not with you?”

“Rose—­”

“I love you.”

“You say that because you owe me.”

“No. I say it because it's what I feel. I don't give a fig about your money. Something I thought I'd never say. You could be a pauper. That you paid my debt . . . Avendale, I can never repay that. Not if I live to be a thousand. But I loved you before you paid it. I loved you before I was arrested. I loved you before Harry died. I wished to God we'd never made the bargain so that you could believe me. I'm so skilled at convincing ­people of lies, but I don't know how to convince you of the truth. I love you with all of my heart and all of my soul. I will love you until I draw my last breath. Please believe me.”

“How can I not? You jumped out of a blasted moving train to tell me.”

“I would jump out of a balloon if I needed to.”

“You would splatter.”

Moving up against him, she wound her arms around his neck. “No, I wouldn't, because you would catch me.”

Rising up on her toes, she kissed him. Yes, he would catch her, he would always catch her. He kissed her back because he had no choice. Cradling her face, he drew her back.

“I love you, Rose.”

“I don't deserve your love, but I will take it because there is nothing in this world that I want more. I will be your mistress as long as you want me.”

He angled his head. “You don't understand how much I love you.” He dropped to one knee, took her hand, pressed a kiss to it before looking up at her. “I want you with me for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?”

She blinked, her mouth opened slightly. “You're a duke. You can't marry me. That would be scandalous.”

He grinned. “I've told you before. I'm nothing if I'm not scandalous.”

She dropped to her knees, cradled his face. “I love you so much. I will be the best wife that any duke has ever had.”

Pulling her in close, he blanketed her mouth with his, kissing her deeply, thoroughly, not caring one whit that ­people were staring at them. He was going to kiss this woman as often as he could for the remainder of his life.

“Shall we head home now?” he asked when they broke away from the kiss.

“I would like that very much, but I told the others to wait for us at the next station.”

“Let's go get them then.”

“Are you sure you don't mind?”

“Rose, the woman I love has agreed to marry me. I can't wait to tell Merrick.”

She laughed. “I don't think he's going to object. I think he's come around to you.”