The Widow Wager (30 page)

But
he
was not her problem. Crispin’s heart was the one she yearned to heal.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “This is a kindness you most definitely didn’t have to offer. And I will not forget it.”

He nodded. “I never blamed Flynn. He was her pawn, sent out in a war with me. And if this helps you, then I am happy to do it. And perhaps it is best to get rid of these things at last. They have held too much power over me as it is. Destroy the diary when you are finished as well.”

“I will if that is your wish. And I have taken enough of your time as it is. Thank you again.”

“Goodbye, Mrs. Flynn,” he said with a small bow. “I hope you don’t mind if I allow you to show yourself out.”

She nodded, understanding completely. “Not at all. Goodbye, my lord.”

She left the room, motioning to Kate as she reached the foyer. As she took her reticule and placed the letter and the diary inside, her stomach began to churn.

“Where are we going now?” Kate asked, wary as the carriage returned to receive them.

“Annabelle’s house,” Gemma said, nodding to the driver until he acknowledged her request. “I have a husband to find.”

Gemma could hardly breathe as she entered Annabelle and Marcus’s foyer a half an hour later. Their butler, Green, smiled at her as he took her wrap.

“Have you come to join Mr. Flynn, Mrs. Flynn?”

Her heart jumped. “So he is here?” she asked, unable to keep the relief and the fear from her voice.

Green took a step back, but quickly regained his composure. “Indeed, he is, Mrs. Flynn. He has been working away in Mr. Rivers’ study with Mr. Abbot for hours. But Mr. and Mrs. Rivers just joined them, so their business must be concluded.”

“Show me,” Gemma managed, her voice trembling.

She followed the servant down a long and twisting hall until he stopped at a door and knocked. He opened it and she stood just behind him, out of view, as he announced, “Mrs. Flynn is here.”

She moved around him and stepped into the room. Crispin slowly rose from behind Marcus’s desk, his gaze locked on her as she walked inside. The others in the room also rose and greeted her, but she was too driven by her need to talk to Crispin to be polite.

“I need to speak to you,” she said to him. Annabelle and Marcus exchanged a glance from the corner of her eye, but she refused to acknowledge that humiliating fact. “Now.”

Crispin did look at the others. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

Abbot nodded. “I need to get back to the club anyway.”

“Thank you, Abbot,” Crispin said, shooting the man a very genuine expression. “Truly.”

Annabelle stepped forward as Abbot left the room. “Is everything well?”

Gemma forced herself to look at her sister-in-law. “I just need a moment with my husband. I am sorry, this is your house and your study, but—”

“There is no need to apologize,” Marcus said as he stepped forward and took Annabelle’s hand. He began to move her toward the door. “We’ll be in the parlor when you have finished. Join us for tea.”

As they exited, Gemma thought she heard Annabelle say, “The hell we will be. I’m going to list—”

But she was cut off by the shutting of the door.

So they could very well have an audience outside. There was nothing to be done about it. This was the moment Gemma had to face, one way or another.

“You are pale,” Crispin said, though he stayed behind the desk, as if it offered him protection from her. “Will you sit?”

“No,” she whispered. “You left this morning without a word.”

He flinched, as if caught in a lie. “Yes. I had an appointment with Abbot.”

“You said nothing, you left no indication. I wasn’t even certain you would come home again.” Her voice broke and she turned her face so he wouldn’t see how hurt she was.

But she obviously didn’t hide it well, for he came around the desk in three long strides. “Of course I was coming home. I wouldn’t just disappear, Gemma. You must know that by now.”

“I don’t know. After all, so much has changed in less than twenty-four hours.”

He shook his head. “Nothing has changed.”

“
Everything
has changed,” she argued, her voice elevating a little even as she desperately tried to rein in the emotions that had begun to bubble over the weeks they were married, had boiled at the ball and were now threatening to overflow. “There has been a wall between us from the beginning, but for the first time I know why. Now I know there was an Alice. And that you blame yourself for her death. And that you feel any tenderness between us is proof of a betrayal.”

“But we never wanted love, Gemma, either of us. Why does it make a difference?”

“It does,” she said, unready to tell him the truth that was in her heart. Not until he could separate himself from the past and hear her without Alice’s voice, her lies, in his head. She cleared her throat. “I also went out today.”

He shifted at her change of subject. “You did?” he asked with an uncertain tone. “Where did you go?”

“I visited a man,” she admitted, her hands beginning to shake.

“A man?” he repeated, his expression growing guarded. “I don’t understand. Your father?”

“No.” She focused on remaining calm as she said, “I called on Lord Woodley.”

His face drained of all color and when he staggered back he hit the desk with his legs and sent the items on it tumbling. He didn’t seem to care, didn’t even notice the ink that splashed across the wood behind him.

“Lord Woodley,” he repeated, his voice raw with pain. “You did not.”

“I did. He received me. And then he told me his side of the story of Alice and you and her death.”

He moved on her, his expression wild. She expected him to grab her, but he never touched her. He just stood in front of her, face twisted in betrayal and anger. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I think that you are caught up in a fairytale, Crispin. You were designed to believe yourself her savior and to blame yourself for her death. But I knew that couldn’t be true. That there was more. And there was, Crispin. So much more.”

“What more?” he barked as he all but shoved past her and walked to the other side of the room. As if he couldn’t get far enough away. “You want to believe she was a liar, but you didn’t know her.”

“But
he
did,” she insisted. “More than you, even. Woodley told me that her pursuit of you was as a revenge on him. He knew about it, she bragged about it, Crispin. It was leverage for her to control him. And she threw herself down the stairs for the same reason.”

“How could you know that? How could anyone know her heart?”

She dug into her reticule and pulled out the items Woodley had shared with her. “I read several entries of her diary on the way here and I examined her note to Woodley on the night she died.” She winced, her stomach turning as she remembered the woman’s poisonous, hateful words. “She is not what she seemed, what she made you believe she was.”

He stared at the objects in her hands and slowly reached out to take them. He said nothing.

“Crispin,” she whispered, meeting his stare, hating the pain and the anger she saw there. “I care for you. I more than care for you. But your beliefs about this woman and the situation you shared with her are what drove you to the edge. And they are what keeps you there now, balancing between an attempt to better yourself and a desire to remain in a pit of despair that is endless and destructive. Read what she wrote. Hear the truth of it as it rings in your head. Please. Please don’t throw yourself away, throw whatever life we could share away, for nothing.”

He stayed motionless, still empty in every way but his flashing, emotion-filled eyes. Then he turned away and crossed the room. At the door, he stopped.

“I can’t believe you would do this behind my back.” His tone was filled with betrayal.

She winced. “I did it because—because I love you.”

He didn’t recoil from the declaration. But he did turn away, open the door and leave.

The moment he was gone, Gemma’s legs went out. She collapsed onto her knees, shaking, unable to cry, unable to move. She just stared at where he had been. Where he had left.

Annabelle rushed in, and she stopped at the sight of Gemma’s form on the floor. Gemma looked up at her and at the kindness in her sister-in-law’s face, her tears began to flow.

Annabelle didn’t hesitate, she didn’t speak. She just sank down on the floor next to her and held her as she wept.

“What did you hear?” Gemma asked between sobs.

“Enough,” Annabelle whispered. “Marcus went after him, but he will not be able to stop him. When Crispin runs, he
runs
.”

Gemma’s heart hurt. Like someone was inside her chest, squeezing with all their might, trying to steal all her blood and her love and her life.

She looked up at Annabelle. “Did I do the right thing?”

Annabelle cupped her cheeks. “You tried to set him free,” she said. “And if he can manage to see that, if he can truly believe it, that is the best chance you have at doing what we’ve all been trying to do for months.”

“What’s that?” Gemma asked, beginning to regain the composure that had been destroyed by the confusing hours that had passed since the ball.

Annabelle looked toward the door, looked toward where Crispin had gone. “Save him.”

It was dark by the time Crispin turned his horse up the drive to Rafe’s home, but he had no idea of hour. He also couldn’t have reasonably told someone how he came to be here. All he knew was that he’d looked up and there was his brother’s house, bright and filled with light, waiting for him like a beacon.

And here he was, swinging off his horse, hoping he would find Rafe home. Hoping he would be the only one there since he didn’t want anyone else to see him as he was.

He’d sat in the park to read Alice’s letter. He’d sworn he wouldn’t read the diary, wouldn’t invade her personal thoughts. But the poison she had spilled in her letter to her husband forced him to do the thing he had promised not to do.

And now he knew the truth. And everything in his life had been blown apart like he was a battlefield causality.

The door opened before he could knock and he was shocked to find it was Rafe himself who greeted him.

“What are you doing?” Crispin asked.

Rafe’s smile was very small. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He stepped aside and motioned for the foyer. “Come in.”

Crispin staggered through the door and Rafe caught his arm, supporting him even as he shut the door. “Are you drunk?”

“No,” Crispin said, his voice cracking.

Rafe steadied him, then released him to lead him to the study where he grabbed a bottle of whisky and handed it over silently before the brother’s took the chairs beside the roaring fire.

“I thought you believe I drink too much,” Crispin said, eyeing the bottle with both desire and disdain.

“You do. But I think you’ve earned it.”

Crispin swallowed hard, struggling with the urge to drink coupled with the urge to be set free from his past. Slowly, he set the bottle down. His brother knew something. Which meant Gemma must have been here. Was she still?

“Where is Serafina?” he asked. “The baby?”

Rafe took a long breath. “They went to your home with Annabelle and Mama. To comfort Gemma.” Rafe arched a brow, as if daring him to respond.

Crispin draped his arms over his legs and put his head in his hands. Thoughts of Gemma had been confusing to him since he left her that afternoon. Since she told him she loved him.

Hadn’t she? Or was that a falsehood his mind told him? Kind of like the ones he had believed about Alice.

“Is Gemma well?” he finally asked, looking up from his hands at his brother.

Rafe leaned back in his chair. “She is upset. Very upset. She wanted to go look for you, but we managed to convince her to stay where she was. And I came back here because I hoped that you would come to me, as you once did, to discuss your pains.”

Crispin nodded. “I found myself here. I don’t know how. But it sounds as if you already know my pains.”

“I know a little,” Rafe said. “But why don’t you tell me the whole story?”