A Matter of Temptation (22 page)

“I planned to never touch you, and once John could be freed, then I planned to find a way to undo the marriage and some way to circumvent the law—even if it required an act of Parliament—to see to it that you were able to marry the man you’d planned to all along.”

His voice held such sincerity, such desperation to believe him, to trust him, to understand.

“How did you escape?”

She listened in silence, spellbound and fascinated as he described his daily routine, the continual isolation, except for the walk in the exercise yard and the walk to chapel. But even during worship the isolation was there, the silence surrounding them except when they sang. And how he’d worked to loosen the floorboard and make his escape.

He told her about Mr. Matthews and how he’d had John returned in his place.

“Although it really wasn’t my
place
. I should have never been there to begin with.”

She saw the tears spring to his eyes, watched as he blinked them back. He averted his gaze, and she saw the muscles of his throat working.

“Torie”—his voice was rough and scratchy—“you can’t imagine what those eight years were like. To never be touched, except when being shoved, to never be able to talk to someone about the most inconsequential of things—the weather, the color of a woman’s eyes, the grace with which she walks—let alone the momentous yearnings of your heart, your hopes, your dreams.”

“And yet you held your distance, until the night of the storm when I asked you not to.”

“You were not mine to touch.”

“And yet you did.”

“If you want an apology—” He shook his head. “Whether or not you want it, you deserve it. I’m sorry, Torie. For whatever hurt I caused, whatever damage I’ve done that can’t be undone—”

“How will you prove your claims?”

“Do you believe me?”

His voice contained such hope, such desperation to be believed.

“I know only that I love you,” she admitted.

Releasing a deep sigh, he lowered his head. “That’s not enough.”

Her heart twisted painfully with his admission. But she suspected that her reluctance to recognize him as the duke was equally painful to him. If she loved him, shouldn’t she believe him?

Searching through the blankets, she pulled out the knife she’d hidden within the folds. “Regardless of who you are, you don’t deserve this treatment.” She began sawing on the rope binding his legs. “Go to London and find out to whom lords are supposed to talk when there is a dispute over their claims.”

“The Lord High Chancellor.”

With his feet freed, she stilled and glared at him. “If you knew, why haven’t you already spoken to him?”

“Because I can’t prove my claims. It is John’s word against mine.”

“And you think this is better? To play a game of tag imprisoning each other?”

“No, you’re right. I must trust the courts.”

She scooted up while he twisted around, giving her access to his hands. When she’d cut the bindings, he groaned and began rubbing his wrists, flexing his fingers.

“Go to London,” she ordered.

Reaching out, he cradled her cheek. “Will you go with me?”

When her love wasn’t enough for him? With tears burning her eyes, she slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”

Hearing the door open, she spun around, her heart leaping into her throat at the sight of the other man who claimed to be Robert.

“Thought I’d find you here,” he ground out. “Imagine my surprise when I saw my guards trudging toward the manor.”

Torie’s husband grabbed the knife from her hand and struggled to his feet.

“What are you doing to do with that, brother?” the man by the door asked.

“It depends on what you
force
me to do with it.”

“It seems we are at an impasse. I’m curious, though. How did you manage to escape from Pentonville?”

“Through the flooring in the chapel.”

“Ah, clever.”

“And you?”

“I didn’t escape. I was released. Once they let me out of solitary confinement, I insisted on speaking with Mr. Matthews—”

“The warder.”

“Yes. Fortune smiled on me the night I met Matthews. He liked his drink and he liked his gaming hells. Unfortunately, cards seldom favored him. He owed a few unsavory men a good deal of money. He was only too willing to take what coins I offered. He also has a secret he wishes kept—the fact that I knew what it was caused Matthews to realize he’d made a dreadful mistake. He arranged for my release. And now he’s on his way to America.”

“Convenient. The only witness to your scheming is gone.”

John smiled. “I must do what I must do.”

“What of Mother and Father? Did they never question only one of us returning that night?”

John rolled his eyes. “Brother, they never knew only one of us returned. It was quite tricky, my pretending to be both of us…never at the same time, of course. And only for a few days, only until
John
convinced them that he would be leaving for America to seek his fortune.”

“And Weddington?”

“He was a bit of a bother. Always hinting that he thought I might be John—you. I had to sever that friendship. It was some time before I could sever it completely, though. Not until he got involved with that little trollop.”

“You’ve been so diabolically clever.”

“I had no choice. You kept claiming to be the heir apparent.”

“Would you have ever released me?”

“I don’t know. Matthews was terribly good at the task I gave him. I’d only expected you to be there for a few months. Until you were to be transported, but he feared moving you out of isolation would bring with it the risk of his actions being discovered.” John shrugged. “Or so he confessed when faced with his benefactor. And now you are once again trying to usurp my place.”

“You have me at a disadvantage, but I’m willing to let you have it all.”

“Including your wife?”

“No, not her.”

“But if I am Robert, then she is married to me—”

“Grant her a divorce.”

“A divorce is so scandalous. Besides, even if she’s free of me, she can’t marry her husband’s brother.”

“In America she can.”

John arched a brow. “Are you going to America?”

“Yes, I think we shall.”

“Will you send me letters? I so like reading of your adventures. I think you should travel west, though. Virginia’s growing boring.”

“I shall write you letters from wherever you like.”

Torie watched as the man by door slowly shook his head. “Unfortunately, brother, I don’t trust you.”

She watched in horror as he leveled a gun—

“No!” she shrieked, rising to her feet, lurching in front of her husband. She felt fire pierce her body and explode within her, heard an echoing bang that she thought might cause the ceiling to cave in, found herself back on the floor, darkness creeping in along the edges of her vision.

Had someone extinguished the lantern?

“Oh, dear God. Torie? Torie?”

She felt warm fluid seeping out of her, pooling around her. Everything around her was fading to
black; even the voice calling to her was growing distant. She felt herself being wrapped in blankets, felt herself being lifted into strong., steady arms.

“For God’s sake, man, don’t just stand there! Get to the village and fetch a physician. Now!”

As she succumbed to the welcome abyss of oblivion, she realized she’d just heard the voice of the true Duke of Killingsworth.

S
he sat in a field surrounded by raspberry bushes in bloom, the tiny flowers calling to her. Her husband was stretched out beside her, his head resting in her lap. He plucked a flower free of the thorny bramble and handed it to her. Resting in her palm, she watched as it miraculously turned into a raspberry. She placed it against the lips of the man she loved…

Torie fought through the darkness, her body aching as though someone had tossed her off a cliff. She shifted slightly, pain slicing through her side. She moaned.

“Shh, rest easy now.”

She felt fingers combing her hair back from her brow. Opening her eyes, she saw the man sit
ting beside her bed, so much love and concern for her reflected in his eyes that she thought if a hundred men who looked exactly like him were lined up in a room, still she would be able to pick him out.

He’d been there each time she opened her eyes, giving her a reassuring smile, bathing her brow, spooning broth into her mouth, urging her to get well, as though the choice were hers.

“Robert?”

“Shh,” he urged again, taking her hand, pressing a kiss to her fingertips. “You’ve been through a horrible ordeal. You need to rest.”

He looked as though he’d been through a similar ordeal, and she couldn’t imagine that hers had been any worse. He had several days’ growth of beard, his hair was disheveled, his eyes rimmed in red, his shirt unbuttoned at the collar.

“I know how to prove you’re Robert,” she whispered.

“Dear God, Torie, you almost died. Do you honestly believe I care about the damned dukedom?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion. “More than I care about you?”

She could see tears in his eyes, which he was furiously blinking back. His hand was trembling when he laid it against her cheek. “I spent eight years alone, but when I thought I might lose you, that I might never again see your smile, or that tiny little dimple, that I would never hear you laugh…loneliness is not a big enough word for
what swept through me. Despair so deep that I would give up everything, my titles, my properties, my name, everything for one more moment of holding you. Just one more moment.”

Tears burned her eyes. She wished she had the strength to reach for him, to wrap her arms around him.

“I can’t abide the thought of a world without you in it.” He averted his gaze, and she watched his throat muscles as he worked to regain control of his emotions.

When he looked back at her, she was surprised to see that fury reigned.

“And if you ever again put yourself at risk…what were you thinking to leap in front of me like that?”

She placed her hand over his where it still cradled her face. “That I couldn’t abide the thought of a world without you in it.”

He released a sob that seemed to come from the depths of his soul. He laid his head on her bosom, and she threaded her fingers through his hair to hold him close.

“I never want to lose you,” he said.

She wanted to tell him that he wouldn’t, that she’d figured it out, but she began growing weary, her eyelids heavy. She needed him to know how to prove his claims. Just before she drifted back off, she whispered, “Raspberry…”

Raspberry
.

Torie had been going on about the silly fruit for two days now.

Robert felt Torie’s hands relax in his hair, lifted his gaze to see that she’d drifted back to sleep. But at least she’d been awake for a moment. Tomorrow perhaps she’d awaken for a few minutes more.

He’d thought Pentonville had been hell, but it was nothing compared to the agony of the past three days. He’d never felt so helpless. Realizing what she’d done, what John had done, seeing the blood pooling around her…an emotion he couldn’t describe had welled up inside him, and he hoped to never experience it again. Terror, cold and relentless. And when it had passed…

Gingerly he moved himself off his wife, only to discover that she was once again awake, watching him, her eyes clear, the tiniest of dimples visible, a slight smile when he’d feared to never see one again.

“Raspberry tarts,” she said softly.

Smiling, he leaned nearer. “Would you like me to have Mrs. Cuddleworthy bake you some?”

“No, they’re how you prove you’re Robert, the Duke of Killingsworth.”

“Pardon?”

“The first morning here, Cook told me that as a boy Lord Robert loved raspberry tarts.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“John doesn’t like them. I don’t know why I didn’t remember sooner—”

“Torie, darling, it doesn’t matter.”

“But it does. You’re the duke and proving it is so simple.”

“With raspberry tarts.”

Her dimple appeared, deepened. “So simple,” she said wearily, her eyes warm with love, not fever.

He brought her hands to his lips, held them there. So while her fever had raged and her body had fought to heal, she’d been dreaming of saving him yet once again.

“It’s even simpler than that,” he told her. “I simply have to
be
Robert, the Duke of Killingsworth.”

“I don’t understand. How does that prove—”

“Torie, I realized that I don’t need to prove who I am. Not to anyone. When John shot you”—he shook his head, trying not to remember the blood soaking through her clothes onto his, the terror he’d felt—“when you lunged in front of him, when I saw you on the floor, for the first time since I escaped Pentonville, I truly became the Duke of Killingsworth. I wasn’t going to allow anyone on God’s green earth to get between me and what I knew had to be done to save you.”

“I heard you,” she whispered in wonder. “In the mausoleum. And I thought, Whichever man
is
speaking, he is the duke.”

Robert smiled at her. “No one questioned my
orders. Not even when I ordered them to restrain John.”

A look of worry passed over her features. “Where is he?”

Reaching out, he combed the stray strands of hair from her brow. “Where he will never harm me or mine again.”

“Where?” she insisted.

“There is an asylum, in the countryside, not too far away. I had him taken there. He’s not a well man, Torie. There are times when I think he truly believes he
is
me.”

“Whatever happened to make him—”

He pressed his thumb against her lips. “I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever learn the truth of John Hawthorne.”

What he did know was that John’s parting words as he’d been led away haunted Robert.

“She loved me first!” he’d screamed.

Robert had responded like a child taunted by a bully. “I only care that she loves me last.”

When she was strong enough, he would have to test her love…and his.