Aching for Always (44 page)

Hugh hung his head. “Miss O'Malley belongs to another.”

“You and I know that doesn't always matter. Your brother, I think, would counsel you to think otherwise.”

“You knew him?”

“My father knew him. I knew
of
him. But I remember hearing a dinner guest at our home criticize him for leaving the navy. My father, who knew a thing or two about war, said, ‘Sometimes love is the only battle worth winning.'”

“Thank you.”

“And does this have something to do with Miss O'Malley?” Silverbridge tapped the map.

“No. Well . . .” Hugh thought of Bart in that awful pool of blood and all the steps Hugh had taken over the last twenty years that had brought him here to avenge his brother's death. “Did you know I went into the navy to impress my brother? Lord, I was a miserable recruit. The only thing I had the slightest bit of talent for was climbing to the top of the mast. Bart was twenty years older, you know, and I thought of him as this noble, untouchable hero—like a knight from a child's tale.”

Silverbridge laughed. “You are hardly the first man to follow the model set by a family hero. Good God, the way they revered my father . . .”

Hugh knew Silverbridge's father had been a much decorated general in the army prior to his death at the hands of a Scottish clan chief in the borderlands—a clan who was now Silverbridge's grandfather-in-law.

Silverbridge said, “For many years, I measured myself against my father. Everything I did was either to honor him or make him furious. It works for a randy youth in London, but it seemed rather foolish for a grown man, especially after my father was dead.”

“How do you bear it?” Hugh asked, then quickly held up a hand. “I beg your pardon. 'Tis none of my business.”

“You mean my father's murder?”

“Aye.”

“'Tis kind of you not to add, ‘at the hand's of your wife's grandfather.' I know you know it. Everyone does. Kit is part Scot. 'Tis an odd thing, I'm sure, to outsiders, especially since I spent half my life before I fell in love with Kit trying to avenge my father. He did die in a legitimate battle—and battle, as you know, is different—but I think what happened is that one day, not long before I'd met Kit, I got down on my knees at my father's grave and asked him what he wanted me to do. I was angry. I felt I'd been under his bridle my whole life, both before and after he died. I was fighting a bloody no-win battle with the Scots that had been his battle and undoubtedly will be my son's battle and my grandson's as well. The queen was cutting me off at the ankles. I felt penned in on all sides. I believe my words were ‘Speak up, old man. You were never afraid to tell me what I needed to do before. Tell me now.'”

“And what happened?”

Silverbridge chuckled. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. I think I realized then the only person who can guide me is me. My decisions are my responsibility. Of course, it wasn't long after that when I first noticed Kit—really no
ticed her, if you follow—and if you care to interpret that as a reward for accepting my burden, I will not disagree. Life could not have made it clearer that I should put my father's death behind me than by making me fall in love with the granddaughter of the man who killed him.”

Hugh shook his head, amazed. “You are at peace, then?”

“Aye. Though,” he added with a cocked brow, “if I do not get Kit out of here by Tuesday, I will withdraw the statement.”

Hugh laughed despite his turmoil. If Sir William accepted his map, all that Hugh could rightfully do would be done. And then what? He wouldn't have Joss. He wouldn't have his brother. He would have a profession he had approached only as a means to an end. And he wouldn't even have revenge. Alfred Brand had died a lonely, sick, rich old man, and if Hugh reversed the future, Brand would die without ever knowing what hell he had once caused. Restoring the wealth to the McPhersons was the right thing to do, and Bart would have approved. But revenge? The only person he would hurt is Joss.

He gazed at the thick sheet of paper, tracing his finger over the new property line it had been drawn up to display. A few tiny acres. So much unhappiness. So much bloodshed. When he looked hard, he could see the disconnected dots that revealed it as a mere ghost of the original, dots that could put him in prison or on a gallows. Would Bart have wanted that?

The dining hall door opened. Hugh and Silverbridge got to their feet. Sir William bowed to Silverbridge. Hugh
bowed to Sir William. Silverbridge said, “This is my acquaintance, Captain Hugh Hawksmoor of Her Majesty's Navy. Thank you for agreeing to hear this matter, Sir William. It is of grave concern to the captain.”

The man blotted his mouth with a napkin. “I am familiar with the case,” he said. “When I heard you were to ask my help, I sent for my assistant. He was in Cambridge, so it was no great hardship for him to bring the relevant casebooks. And given the fact that these are lands that have been confiscated by the Crown, it is a fairly serious matter.”

Hugh saw the man sitting at the dining table with his books and several magnifying glasses and swallowed.

“Come,” Sir William said. “Let us begin.”

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY
 

“And?” Kit said eagerly, passing Joss the flask.

Joss lifted her chin only long enough to down the last of the whisky. “And so we came back just the way we came.”

“Not quite the way you came.”

“I meant on the horse. Only no one said anything.” Joss collapsed back against the pillows and closed her eyes ruefully.
What a mess of a day.

Kit leaned back on an elbow, watching the fire from her perch at the far end of the bed. “Poor Hugh.”

“Poor
Hugh
?”

“Whose pennant flag ended up beating in the wind?”

Kit was a little tipsy, and so was Joss. “That's supposed to be a secret.”

“I will carry it with me to my dying day—the image most certainly. And 'twas like a squash, you say?”

Joss choked. “I most certainly did
not
say that.”

“That's right. Your words were something like ‘a breathtaking garden delight.' I was the one who said ‘squash.'” Kit flopped on her back. “But which kind? John keeps
a hothouse, you know. I have seen a fair number. Did it have stripes? Maybe the
courge
? Or the one like a turban?” She adjusted an invisible swath of fabric around her head and began to snort. “Or the one like a swan's neck? Not the one they call an acorn, I hope. Oh dear, that would be quite embarrassing.”

Joss couldn't help but laugh. “I think that's all the squash talk a girl can bear for one afternoon,” she said, rolling onto her stomach and clutching the dress to keep her breasts from tumbling over the top, “though I did see one once that was round and as big as a bale of straw. It was orange, with teeth and eyes carved into it.”

Kit let out a hoot. “I'm afraid the only one I ever see is toothless and blind, like a cranky old man.”

“Can't blame him for being cranky. He's got a stiff back and too-tight shoes.”

They dissolved into peals of giggles.

When Joss caught her breath, she laid her head on her arms. “Oh, Kit. What am I going to do?”

“I know exactly what you're going to do. You're going to march right down to his bedchamber and finish this up.”

“Oh, no I'm not.”

“Aye, you are,” Kit said. “It's like falling off a horse. You have to get right back on.”

“These metaphors are starting to make me nervous.”

“But only in the best possible way. As soon as you finish the whisky.” She took the flask from Joss's hand and shook it. “Uh-oh. Looks like the time has come. And just to make sure he understands exactly what you're there for, I think we shall send you down in your chemise.”

“That is
not
going to happen.”

“Oh, gather your courage. I shall let you keep a wrap on, but only until I leave you at the door. Then—”

“No, it won't do. I don't want to give my virginity to a man whose heart is not open to me.”

“‘Not open'?”

“He guards so much. There are things he doesn't reveal.”

Kit pursed her lips. “And this openness—you say it is a necessity?”

“Of course. How can any sort of affection grow without it? I was about to give my virginity to him.”

“I agree. I damn any man who aims to carry the mantle of such an honor yet behaves so shoddily. He's a brute.”

“But he didn't
know
I was a virgin. I hadn't told him yet—” Joss saw the duchess's spreading grin. “Oh. I get it.”

“Come, now. A chemise and the truth: 'tis the best cure for a broken heart—and virginity, too, come to think of it.”

C
HAPTER
F
IFTY-ONE
 

Hugh paced the length of the library. He had been sent here to await word from Sir William. The carriages of Lord Quarley's guests had been arriving all evening, issuing their well-dressed passengers into the waiting arms of Quarley's footmen. He wondered what Joss was doing now, and what, if anything, she was thinking about him.

“Sir?”

One of Quarley's footmen had opened the door and stepped inside.

“Aye?”

“I am to inform you the Lord Keeper has come to a decision. He wishes to see you at once.”

Hugh inhaled and followed the man out.

The dining room doors were open, and Hugh knew his future as soon as he saw Sir William's face. He prayed he had not also besmirched Silverbridge's reputation in the process. Hugh stepped into the room, straight as a mast, to accept his fate.

“We've been examining the map closely,” Sir William
said. “It will come as no surprise to you that there is very little that some men will do to defraud the Crown.”

Hugh tried to keep his face expressionless as he felt his liberty and possibly his life evaporate.

“This map caused us a good deal of consternation, especially given your reputation.”

Hugh bowed his head. Sir William's assistant had pushed the map as far away from him as his arm would reach.

“But I am sorry to say,” Sir William went on, “we cannot accept it. While I'm certain it reflects the will of both parties, the time for contesting the decision is too far passed. The Crown will not reverse its decision. Please give my sympathies to the family.”

He would not be hanged, but the realization that his lifelong quest—the only thing that had given his life meaning these last twenty years—had failed wrapped his heart in a heavy darkness.

“I-I thank you for your consideration,” Hugh said, barely seeing the table before him. “I will let the family know.”

He closed the door behind him, the roar of defeat in his ears. There was nothing left. Everything he had hoped to do for Bart was gone. Everything that had guided his life since the age of eleven, swept away. And there was nothing but a vast unknown before him, an unknown he had not an inkling how to navigate.

He returned to the far end of the garden wing, to the small bedchamber he'd been assigned, and stood at the window. It had been a day of reckoning for him. He had hurt the woman he loved and failed his brother. He had nothing left.

His hand went to the timepiece in his pocket, and he closed his eyes.

Bart, I am abject before you. You gave everything for me, and now I have failed you. I wish . . .
He wiped away the wetness gathering in his eyes, ashamed for his weakness.
I wish there was something I could do, something to set things to rights, something to honor the good you did and wash away the evil that was done to you and to Maggie, but there is nothing, nothing I can—

A knock at the door lifted him from his thoughts.

“Who goes?”

“Joss,” came the quiet reply.

He ran to the door and opened it. She stood in her chemise, a vision in diaphanous white. She looked small and cold and more than a little uncertain.