A Season of Seduction (40 page)

He gave a long, shuddering sigh. His shoulder ached, but it wasn’t terrible. It had hurt far worse this morning than in the previous days. He knew it would heal now.

All he’d needed was to hear her say she wanted him to live. Those few words were enough for him to cross the barrier, to fight with everything he had to conquer the infection that threatened his body.

Yet he had broken her. He saw it in her posture, in the shoulders that she’d held so straight when she’d trusted him. Now they sagged beneath the weight of her sadness. He saw it in her face, in those changeable eyes that no longer sparkled with passion but were somber and dark. In the flat line of her brow, and in her pale complexion. He didn’t know how long it had been since she’d discovered his betrayals and his lies, but she must have lost half a stone in that time, and on a frame as slight as hers, half a stone was an enormous amount of weight.

Mrs. Jennings bustled in with a steaming bowl. “Well, then, young man. I’ve heard you’re feeling a mite better. Are you feeling up for some supper?”

He eyed the dish in her hand warily.

“ ’Tis only a bit of mutton broth. Do you think you can manage it?”

He needed food. He needed his strength. He’d been chained to this damned bed long enough, and he wanted out. He wasn’t made to be an invalid.

“Yes. I can manage it.”

“Very good, then.” She settled in the chair that Becky always occupied. Guilt stabbed at him for asking her to leave. But watching her, the way she was now, broke his heart. He wanted to hold her close and tell her all would be well. That he loved her and cared for her, that he’d take care of her. That he’d make her happy.

But he had no right to touch her. And he damn well had no right to say any of those things to her.

Mrs. Jennings fed him several spoonfuls of the broth in silence. Then she said, “I was very much in love with Mr. Jennings.”

He eyed her, wondering if, at her advanced age, she might be slightly addled.

“Just like my mistress loves you.” A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Before we married, Mr. Jennings did something that made me very angry indeed, and Ipunished him. I didn’t shoot him, though perhaps Ishould have.” She paused, empty spoon held in midair, and looked down at him, her face a prunelike mask ofdisapproval. “You must have disappointed her greatly.”

He closed his eyes.

After a short silence, in which Jack heard only the sound of the spoon scraping the bowl, metal pressed against his lips. He opened his eyes and lips and took the proffered soup.

“She is a sensitive girl,” Mrs. Jennings said softly, as if she didn’t want Becky to hear from wherever she was. “I’ve only known her less than a fortnight, haven’t I? Yet she wears her emotions plain on her chest, clear as day for anyone with half a brain to see.”

Jack swallowed the salty broth.

“Can you see them? Her emotions, I mean?”

“Yes, Mrs. Jennings,” he murmured. “I see them.”

Becky was right to have shot him. Not once, even when he was closest to death, even when the pain was at its worst, had he questioned her choice or her motivation.

He’d betrayed her in the worst way possible—he’d demanded her trust and then he’d crushed it beneath his boot heel. If someone did the same to him, he wouldn’t spare that person a second glance. He’d shoot and then turn away and let him rot.

And yet, every time he’d opened his eyes, she’d been there. Caring for him. Helping him. Praying for him. She’d wanted him to live, even after what he’d done toher.

“She is a melancholy girl, but she is a good lady,” Mrs.Jennings said. “We are old, you see, and we’ve not kept her home as fine as she’d have wanted. Yet she didn’t complain, not once. She got on her hands and knees and worked alongside Mr. Jennings and myself. And when our weary bones was tired, she entreated us to rest.”

“Did she.” Jack wasn’t surprised. Of course she was a fair mistress. He wouldn’t have expected her to be any other way.

Mrs. Jennings eyed him. “Aye, sir. She did. And then I’ve watched her care for you…”

“She was the one who shot me,” he reminded her with no animosity.

“Aye, and I daresay you deserved it,” Mrs. Jennings declared. “Lady Rebecca, she wouldn’t harm a fly. Unless that fly did something of a very bad sort.”

He sighed.

Mrs. Jennings raised the spoon. “She cared for you because she couldn’t bear to see you suffer. And you will survive it now, and that brings her peace. But would you like to know what I’m thinking, sir?”

“What’s that?” Jack asked dryly.

“I’m thinking it’d be more than trifling sad were she to be hurt again.” Taking the spoon, Mrs. Jennings scooped up the last of the broth. “Very sad indeed. I don’t think she’d survive it. Further, I think you’re one of the few people, for whatever reason, who is capable of killing her.”

Jack savored the warmth of the broth in his mouth. Heswallowed and remained silent for several long moments.

He knew what he had to do.

“I don’t want her hurt, either, Mrs. Jennings.” He took a shuddering breath. “I’m not going to allow it to happen again.”

Becky tossed and turned until, finally, at dawn, she gave up. With a sigh, she went to her window and pulled the curtain aside.

A fine layer of ice covered the ground. Beyond, the ocean was as silken and gray as a seal’s coat, rippling against the cliffs below. Becky pulled a chair to the window, propped her chin in her hand, and stared out as the sun burned through the wisps of fog and the sky lightened to a brilliant, jewel blue.

Soon it would be Christmas. The first Christmas she’d ever spent away from her family. The first Christmas in four years she’d spent apart from Kate and Garrett.

It was a lonely feeling. But when it came to her family—not only Kate and Garrett, but all of them—she knew that the feeling was mutual. They loved her unconditionally, and they would be missing her as much as she missed them.

She traced circles in the fog inside the windowpane. She’d told Mr. and Mrs. Jennings to wake her if there was any change for the worse in Jack’s condition. No one had come into her room last night, which meant either that he was stable or that he had continued to improve.

Jack would heal. When he was well enough, they would separate. She would return to London, and he… Well, it didn’t matter what he did. He would take his own path. Whatever he chose to do was of no concern to her.

Or, at least, it shouldn’t concern her. If it did, it was a sign of her weakness. It had been far easier to let William go, but Jack… he had wended his way through her, and try as she might, she couldn’t pry him free.

Sighing, she turned and dressed herself in one of the two dresses she had brought with her to Cornwall. This one was a deep green color reminiscent of holly. It reminded her of the season and was far more festive than her brown habit, which was now stained with grease and dirt from all the cleaning she’d done in it.

After she brushed, braided, and pinned her hair, she stared into the looking glass for a long time. She looked haggard and thin. Her straight hair hung in wisps around her face, and her eyes looked dark and large, set deep in her sallow face.

Too much guilt and fear, sadness and disappointment resided there. She shouldn’t feel that way, truly. She had Kate and Garrett. Aunt Bertrice loved her in her gruff way, and Sophie and Tristan would never turn her away. Her nieces and nephews were all enamored of her. She was the favored aunt, and she loved them all.

She shouldn’t feel this crushing weight of loneliness in her chest.

She turned to the door. Toward the man who had not so much been the source of her loneliness as deepened it, turned it into a physical ache.

So much… she’d wanted so much for him to love her. She closed her eyes, remembering those few days that she’d believed. How happy she’d been. How free she’d felt.

How could she capture that feeling ever again?

She exited her room, crossed the corridor, and slipped into Jack’s room. To her surprise, he opened his eyes as soon as she pushed the door open.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning.” She paused at the threshold, uncertain if he’d ask her to go away.

After a brief silence, he said, “Come in.”

She walked over to her chair, pulled it back from the bed several inches, and sat.

He studied her for a few moments. “You look tired.”

“I am fine.” She gazed at his arm, narrowing her eyes at the fresh bandages. “Was Dr. Bellingham here?”

“Yes. He just left.” Jack took a breath. “We knew you were asleep, so we were quiet.”

She nodded. No point in correcting him.

He glanced down at his shoulder. “He splinted my arm, put it in a new sling, and he left more laudanum.”

She knew, from her personal experience with her broken arm, that injuries like theirs weren’t splinted until the swelling was down and they were on their way to healing. “That’s excellent news.”

“Yes.”

“Does… does it hurt?”

“No. Well… I won’t lie and say it doesn’t hurt at all. But…” his eyes captured hers, held them in a snare, “… it hurts less than the knowledge of how much pain I have caused you.”

A cement wall, established purely by an instinctual need for self-preservation, built up so quickly between them, she hardly had time to take a breath. She couldn’t answer. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—believe him. She tore her gaze from his and stared at the foot of the smooth old gray silk counterpane. Once upon a time, her grandparents had used it on this bed. It was one of the few pieces of linen in the house that had been well preserved.

“Becky?”

She tried not to twist her hands. She shifted uncomfortably in the chair.

“What is the date?”

She jerked her gaze back to him. “It’s the fourteenth of December.”

“The fourteenth of December,” he repeated in a whisper. Sorrow passed over his face; a look of exhaustion. Of defeat. Then he closed his eyes. “It’s near Christmas, then. I’ve kept you from your family. If you leave soon, you can be in London by Christmas.”

“No, Jack. I will remain here until you are well.”

Chapter Twenty-two

J
ack improved rapidly. The doctor removed the sutures, his arm wound closed and scabbed, and he seemed to be in less pain. His color was good, and he grew stronger by the hour.

Four mornings after his fever broke, Becky went to see Jack only to find the bed mussed but empty. Frowning, she left his room and called in the corridor. When there was no response, she hurried downstairs and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Jennings was baking bread.

“Have you seen Mr. Fulton this morning?”

“Why no, my lady, I haven’t.”

Panic beat in Becky’s chest. Where was he? Where could he be?

She searched the remaining rooms of the house, then looked for him outside. She called his name across the grounds, and even went as far as Mr. and Mrs. Jennings’s cottage. All was serene and quiet on this sunny, crisp winter’s morning.

She stumbled back into the house, worried, horrified that he might have left Seawood. Where could he havegone? It was so cold, and he hadn’t taken the horse, so he must have departed on foot. He’d told her that when he’d come from London in search of her, he’d come by post to Launceston, begged a ride from a farmer to Camelford, and then walked the rest of the way. There were limited options for transportation between here and Camelford, and the village was five miles away. She wasn’t sure he could walk that far now, not with his injury, not in this cold.

Lifting her skirts, she hurried upstairs to see if he’d left any evidence of where he’d gone.

There it was. A sheet of stationery on his pillow. How could she have missed it earlier?

She reached trembling fingers toward it. It was written in a shaky hand—Jack had used his healthier left hand to pen the note.