Unbuttoning Miss Hardwick (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

B
raedon roused once, when Chloe tightened a strip of cloth around his arm. He woke again, briefly, as many hands carried him from the corridor.

The next time, he came awake gasping, sitting up to find himself in his darkened rooms. Ashton sat alone at his bedside.

‘Chloe?’ he asked.

‘She’s still here,’ the earl answered, handing him a porcelain cup. ‘Drink that. I’m sure it’s nasty, but the sawbones says you must take as much liquid as possible.’ He sat back while Braedon drank. ‘She says she’s leaving in the morning. And she’s taking the boy. She’s in a high, fine temper, old boy. Won’t even talk with Mairi.’

Braedon swung his legs over the bed. ‘She’ll talk to me.’

Understanding shone in his brother-in-law’s eyes. ‘Be careful, man. You’ve lost a lot of blood. And don’t tell your sister that I let you go.’

Braedon didn’t know why he was going, really. What was there to say? She’d had the Spear. Did it matter how long, or if she’d meant to give it to him at all? The answers felt unimportant, for the first time, because they didn’t change the outcome of this night, couldn’t save either of them from the end.

He found her folding her things into a portmanteau.

‘You’re leaving.’

She faced him, her eyes lighting with horror. ‘What, pray, are you doing out of bed?’

‘Just tell me. Just say it. You’re leaving. Leaving
me
?’

Her gaze turned sad and inward. ‘I’m afraid I have to.’

He sighed and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘Conover.’ She turned back to her packing.

‘Today? Yesterday, now, I suppose.’

She nodded.

‘Are you going to him now? Is he hiring you? Or
courting
you?’

‘How easily you believe the worst of me.’ She sighed. ‘But I suppose you do have cause.’

It wasn’t an answer. He hesitated a beat. ‘Are you taking it with you?’

Chloe breathed deeply and determined to take the risk. She had to try. She set down a roll of stockings and gave Braedon her biggest, most reassuring smile. ‘I love you, Braedon.’

He flinched. Visibly.

She laughed. It was an ugly, bitter reflection of the hurt inside her. ‘It’s true. I know you don’t wish to hear it, but it’s the hideous truth behind…everything. It’s the reason why I left Denning—yes, even then I was beginning to love you. It’s the reason why I agreed to help you find the damned Spear. Why I made love with you.’

He breathed deeply and shook his head.

‘I told you I was searching for myself. It’s true. I told you I don’t want to allow fear to rule my life—and I’ve finally discovered why. You taught me why. It’s because fear blinds you to love. It blinded me at least, beginning back when I taught at that school. When I was your Hardwick—’ She broke off, stifling a sob, but gathered herself after a moment. ‘I let fear cut me off from any chance at letting love grow.’

She gave him a wan smile. ‘Do you know, at first I fretted that I had wasted my time here in London with your sister? I worried that I had not found a new calling or secured a new direction for my life. But now I know that I did accomplish something big and grand and so important that it will affect all the days of my life.’

She read the question in his eyes, but he didn’t speak, didn’t ask. She told him anyway. ‘I’m here, out in the open. I’m not hiding anymore, because I discovered that I want love, Braedon. Even more amazing, I discovered that I am full of it, ready to burst. It’s like love is a great, gorgeous leafy vine inside of me—and it wants out. It wants to stretch and entwine with others to connect me to the world.’ Her voice fell as she let her eyes roam over him. ‘And the thickest, healthiest, most demanding shoot inside of me is reaching for you.’

He made an inarticulate sound.

‘I know. It can’t reach you at all. You draw your sharp swords and knives and you hack away at any attempt to make that connection.’

He looked angry now. No longer leaning on the door, he stood stiff and proud, his hands clenched at his sides. He opened his mouth as if he was going to object, but he sighed instead. His shoulders slumped and he moved to sit in the wing chair by the fire. ‘You’re right.’

She waited.

‘But you are wrong, too. I don’t waste my time fending off love, Chloe, because I don’t believe in it.’

Her eyes filled. Lips trembling, she whispered, ‘How can you say so?’

‘Perhaps I should say that I don’t believe love to be the panacea that most believe it to be. Or perhaps I should just say that love is just not for me.’ He glared at her suddenly. ‘It’s a fantasy, Chloe,’ he said harshly. ‘And a
dangerous
one. How can I say so? I ask you the same! How can you and the rest of the world continue to perpetuate such a lie? Look around! Look at the misery around you. I refuse to believe in a fantasy that is not strong enough to keep the people who are supposed to love you from hurting you. Or turning away while it’s done.’

He propped his uninjured arm on to his knee and dropped his head into his hand. ‘Do you know why Rob is upset with me?’

She shook her head.

‘I saw him bent over the form of a sobbing little girl. I thought he was hurting her.’

She understood. ‘You thought he was like his father.’

‘Yes,’ he said harshly. ‘Connor…’ He swallowed.
‘God,’
he swore suddenly. ‘Not even Mairi knows how he died.’ He lifted his head. ‘But I’m going to tell you, because I want you to understand.’

She sank down on the bed, her heart pounding. Suddenly she was very much afraid of what she might hear.

‘There was a girl in the village. You know the sort—not bright. Slow since birth, but pretty. And docile and sweet. Connor abducted her. He took that innocent girl to a gamekeeper’s cottage in the woods and he used her horribly. It likely wasn’t the first time he’d done such a thing. But he went too far. He killed her.’

Her hand went to her mouth, though she couldn’t make a sound.

‘My father found them,’ he continued. ‘And at last he had to face what he had done. What sort of monster he had allowed Connor to become. All those years, he’d ignored Connor’s faults, because he
loved
him. But that night, for the first time he was ashamed of his eldest son. Sorry for what he’d wrought. And fearful for what might happen in the future, when he was gone and there was no one to check Connor.’

Braedon looked up at her with anguish in every line of his body. ‘My father shot him—killed his son, the light of his life. He blamed both deaths on squatters. But he wrote the truth in a letter to me—and a few days later he had an “accident” while cleaning his gun.’

He started to shake. Chloe flew to him and knelt at his feet. On her knees, she clasped him tightly and, crooning, ran comforting hands over his back.

He didn’t let her comfort him for long. Pulling away, he stood and moved back. ‘Now you know, Chloe. Love doesn’t save you. There’s no magic in it.’ He shook his head at the plea she could not hide. ‘It was misguided love that created a monster like Connor. And twisted, thwarted love that killed my father.’

Her tears were flowing freely now. ‘It’s horrible,’ she said. ‘But let it go, Braedon. It’s over.’

He snorted. ‘It’s never over. Look at what happened last night.’

‘I’m so sorry for all that you have seen and suffered. But you are holding it close, deliberately choosing not to let it go. We all have pain. Everyone. But it is possible to move past it. It is
necessary
. I’m ready to help you. We all are.’ She breathed deeply and narrowed her gaze. ‘I’m asking you to try, Braedon. You have to start somewhere. Somewhere, some time, you have to trust someone.’ Silently she asked him to begin now, with her.

‘I know what you want,’ he said. ‘I can’t give it to you. I can’t make myself believe.’

Her heart was breaking. Climbing to her feet, she went to the dressing room and came back with Skanda’s Spear. She stood tall in the middle of the room and planted it beside her.

‘So many stories I’ve heard of the Marauding Marquess,’ she whispered. ‘About captured French pay wagons and battles won and treaties forged.’ She choked out a small sob. ‘A hundred more I’ve dreamed up in my head. But never, in all of those tales, did I ever hear you called a coward.’

He made a wordless sound of objection.

‘You are making a choice,’ she said. ‘You are choosing fear and isolation—the things you never told me this Spear represented.’ She picked it up and offered it to him. ‘I didn’t know if I was going to give this to you. But you’ve decided. So take it.’ Unending tears spilled out of her. ‘I hope you will be happy together.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

J
ust past a fortnight later, Braedon leaned back against the magnificent porcelain display that housed his Japanese pole arm. He was drunk, but that didn’t keep him from pulling another long swig from the bottle in his hand.

Above him, the domed centre of his weapons wing arched. All was complete—the wing finished, his many beautiful weapons displayed to full advantage. He’d come in here every day for a week, ready to gloat, longing for the rush of victory, the warm flush of accomplishment, or even quiet pleasure in seeing his beloved artefacts showcased so well.

It wouldn’t come. None of it. He felt only empty instead. He didn’t understand—he’d thought when the project was finished, he would also feel complete. Here it was—a permanent, lasting mark on Denning, one that had nothing to do with either his father or his brother—one they would have despised, in fact. Their ghosts should have been defeated, permanently laid to rest. And yet Denning’s halls still echoed with their disappointment and displeasure, just as it always had.

He drank again, but the bottle was empty. He stared at it, dangling in his hand, and wondered why the hell he didn’t feel full?

He flung the thing away from him, scowling as it skittered across the marble floor. He knew why. He placed full blame on her—on Hardwick, who had helped him build this place, and on Chloe, who had left him unfit to enjoy it.

Oh, God. He reached for the Spear of Skanda. Never far away, it rested on the floor nearby. Pulling it on to his lap, he began to stroke along its burnished wood. All of those years, all of this effort to create the perfect retreat. All of the careful manoeuvring to maintain his emotional boundaries. Wasted. He was here, where he should be. Alone, as he should be, and still he did not feel safe, secure or fulfilled.

She had ruined him. She’d pressed her lithe body up against his armour and melted it with her warmth. She’d invaded his empty places, changed them with her presence, so that they no longer felt comfortable when she’d left them, but merely abandoned.

She was nothing but a thief. She’d robbed him of his contentment, of his future. Fury and frustration seethed inside him.

‘Damn it all!’ the scream tore out of him and bounced around the dome above. Fists pounding, he shouted again.

He thrust the Spear aside, got to his feet and began to move about the room. One by one he went to stand in front of his prized artefacts. Nothing. He was still hollow, still aching with emptiness. He went around to every one of his ancient treasures, but each failed him.

Broken, forlorn, he went back to the centre of the room. He lay down, spreadeagled on the cold marble, and tried to clear his mind. To cast back and find where it had all gone wrong.

He refused to let his mind dwell on his father or brother—he’d revisited that pain enough. Instead he thought of Thom, wondering what signs he’d missed, or if there had been something he might have noticed or done to change that disastrous outcome. He thought of Rob, and how in his rush to judgement, he’d inflicted the same sort of hurt on the boy that he’d resented himself.

And he thought of Chloe. How perplexed and distressed he’d been when she’d left this place. He remembered how he’d reacted to her in London with reluctant fascination and trepidation. How the hurt at her reluctance to give him the Spear had paled, because he’d already made the horrific decision to leave her behind.

And then, as the cold seeped into his bones and his gaze fixed on the precise pattern above, it struck him—the ultimately important question. Why? Why had he been so afraid of her? Why had he known, so firmly and deeply in his soul, that he had to set her away? To save himself pain? To avoid feeling the cavernous void inside of him? Well, he’d done neither.

In fact, he suddenly wondered if these weren’t the same grievous emotions that he’d carried with him since he was a child. Perhaps Chloe hadn’t changed them or added to them. She’d merely made him more aware of them, because she had fleetingly taken them away.

He sat up, struck by a sudden notion. His hands shaking, his heart pounding in sudden excitement, he climbed to his feet, flung open the display and carefully took out the pole arm. It felt awkward in his hand. He had no training with this sort of weapon, was not sure how to control it. He couldn’t fight with it; he would be a danger to himself and to others. Understanding bloomed in his soul and gave birth to hope. Maybe love was the same. A thing of beauty, which could be twisted into a weapon in the wrong hands.

Perhaps, just as with a blade, all the importance, responsibility and power of love rested with the wielder. And that meant that the
real
question was not if he believed or trusted in love, but if he believed and trusted in Chloe.

He did.

My God, it was true. He trusted her. She held a number of substantial weapons in her personal arsenal, and from the beginning, she had wielded them
for
him. Her warmth, her generosity, even her commitment to finding the joy in her own life, had eased him. She’d agreed to help him on his quest, though she’d been under no obligation. She’d shared herself with him. She’d listened to his darkest secrets and given him back comfort and light. She’d taken away the hurt he carried and he hadn’t even recognised its absence—he’d only feared its return.

Bemused, he dropped the pole arm and looked around with new eyes. At last he understood the question. Now what of the answer? His feet were moving into a run before he even finished the thought.

* * *

Chloe sat on the rock promontory and let the soft sea wind soothe her. The tide hurried by, on its way to rejoin the vast ocean stretching before her. Spray occasionally reached her, gentle at this time of day, touching her cheeks with bright drops of comfort. She looked over her shoulder, towards the empty shore, thinking that it was time for Rob to return.

For several weeks they had travelled the coast, exploring villages and beaches. They had tried out several cottages, but none felt like they were meant to stay. Until this one, perhaps. Situated alone outside the village of Deal, it had much to recommend it. An ideal location, tucked into a protective basin, a short, wide trail down to the beach, and this glorious curved arm of rocks, which allowed Chloe to climb right out to the turbulence that echoed in her soul, and at same time created a protected cove ideal for Rob to explore.

As their journey had begun, Rob had clung a bit, keeping to her side, watching her expression closely. But as the days had passed and they had grown used to each other, he had relaxed, and his confidence had grown. They had been in this place nearly a sennight now, and he’d taken to disappearing in the morning, exploring down the shore with Fitz at his side. Chloe suspected that he had found a friend, for he’d returned lighter-hearted these last few days, eager to share his treasures: pretty shells, coloured pebbles or fantastically smooth driftwood.

She looked again towards the shore and saw Braedon’s figure striding along instead of the boy’s. She closed her eyes against the vision and turned back to the sea. It wasn’t the first time her imagination had forged a picture of what her heart wanted most.

It was the first time the image had shouted her name, however.

Looking again, she found him scrambling over the rocks towards her. He was here! Her heart stopped, then stumbled to a fast, hopeful pace.

He didn’t speak as he drew nearer, just perched next to her and looked out across the blue expanse. They sat in silence. Chloe waited, her nervous fingers fidgeting endlessly with her skirts.

‘No one has ever dared call me a coward before,’ he said at last.

Disappointment swamped her. Now her fingers stilled. Had he come all this way just to quarrel? She straightened her shoulders. Very well, then. The time of her easing his way was long over. ‘I’d say it was high time someone did, then.’

He laughed. ‘I’m sure you are right.’

She stared at him in mock wonder. ‘Well, that’s a first, isn’t it?’

He leaned back on his hands and smiled at her. Her breath caught. It was a true smile, open and unguarded.

‘Ah, Chloe, I begin to think that there are far too many firsts between us to count.’

She couldn’t stop looking at him. He looked so…
there.
Completely present, somehow. As if he’d stopped keeping out a wary eye for something behind him, stopped blocking her from what lay ahead.

She bit her lip, afraid to trust it. ‘I’m glad for it, then,’ she said. ‘But it’s the lasts between us that worry me.’

He sat up and reached for her hand. ‘They don’t worry me.’ His voice rumbled like the sea against the rocks, just as intense. ‘I hope we have many of both.’ He took her other hand. ‘I hope you are the first and last woman I chase to the end of this island. I want to wake up every morning with your face the first thing I see, and the last before I go to sleep at night.’ He moved closer and touched her cheek. ‘I know that you will be the first and last woman I say this to: I need you, Chloe. I love you.’

She clutched him tight with one hand and covered her mouth with the other. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I listened,’ he said simply. ‘I finally heard you. I opened my eyes and saw how generous you are and how blind I have been. I saw how I kept closing the door and you kept slipping through the cracks. I stopped and looked back and realised that with you, for the first time, I learned to accept tenderness and caring and concern and even to give it back a little, as well.’

He grabbed her hands again and she saw a bit of desperation return to his eyes. ‘I don’t want to stop. You were right. It’s the only way to move past the pain. I want to learn more, give and take more.’ His fingers tightened on hers. ‘Will you teach me?’

She bit her lip and searched his face. ‘Yes,’ she said on a whisper. ‘Yes.’

He threw his head back and whooped with joy. She laughed along with him until, growing serious again, he assured her, ‘I’m sure I’ll be a horrible pupil. I’ve been hiding for so long. But I trust you to stay. You’ve seen what lurks inside of me and still you care. I trust you not to turn away when I slide back into darkness, but to lead me to the light.’

‘You know I will,’ she told him. ‘But I’m so glad you took this first step—it had to be on your own.’

His eyes clouded. ‘It wasn’t easy—but you know that.’

‘And I couldn’t be happier.’ She cradled her cheek into his large hand. ‘But, Braedon, it’s not only me you must worry about. There’s Rob—’

She stopped as a sheepish grin stole over his face.

‘I know.’ He ducked his head. ‘I hurt him first, if not deepest. I’m afraid I’ve been…not a coward, but cautious.’

‘It’s you—’ she realised suddenly ‘—you he’s been off with in the mornings?’

He nodded. ‘I read your letters to Mairi. It’s not her fault,’ he said quickly. ‘I had to find you. I’m afraid I made a pest of myself.’ He grinned. ‘I saw in them how close you and Rob had become. I felt like I needed his blessing.’

Her mouth twisted. ‘And did he give it?’

‘Look and see.’ He motioned toward the shore.

Rob was there, at the edge of the rocks. Fitz frolicked at his feet as he jumped in the air and shouted something that the wind carried away.

‘What is that he’s holding?’ she asked, shading her eyes and getting to her feet.

‘It’s Skanda’s Spear.’

She knew her face fell as he continued.

‘This morning I asked Rob what I should do with it.’

‘And what was his answer?’

‘Well, I was of the mind to throw the thing into the sea.’

She gasped and he shrugged. ‘I meant to show you that I’ve finally and truly chosen you.’

She blinked back tears. ‘Would you do that?’

‘I’d do anything to show you how hard I’m holding on to the hope that you’ve given me.’ He blinked hard and after a moment, he went on, ‘Rob pointed out that the thing would only be likely to roll back in with the tide and make someone else miserable.’

Chloe laughed.

‘I thought of a cave then, or a cache in the cliffs back home, but Rob had another suggestion.’

‘What was that,’ she asked, genuinely curious.

‘He suggested that I give it to you. And further—that we make a baby girl and leave it to her—and to her daughter after that and on down the line, so that no man will ever be tormented by the thing again.’ Nervous, he looked into her face. ‘What do you think?’

Her eyes welled over. ‘I think it is a brilliant idea.’

He smiled in relief. ‘I promised him that if you agreed, I’d kiss you good and proper, so that he would know.’

Chloe laughed through her tears. ‘Then let’s not disappoint him.’

They didn’t.

* * * * *