My Favorite Thief (34 page)

He regarded her uncertainly, trying to absorb all the changes he sensed in her. “What about that Bryden? Do you have feelings for him?”

She looked down, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. “Yes.”

He stared at her in grim silence, fighting to sort out the maelstrom of feelings tearing through him. There was loss there, and an undeniable sadness. When had his shy, gentle little sister, who had always looked to him for comfort and protection, grown up into this beautiful, self-assured woman? A woman who now looked to another man to be her champion? He swallowed thickly.

“I don't need to ask if he has feelings about you. I could sense them the minute I walked into the room.”

She raised her gaze, surprised. “You could?”

He nodded. “Is he going to marry you?”

“I don't know. Last night he met my real father, and…” She clutched the folds of her skirts again, unable to finish.

“And what?”

“It's one thing to know about a person's past, Jack—you know, to have been told about it and think, well, that was many years ago. But it's quite another to be actually faced with it. Last night Harrison saw the world I come from, and the father I come from—and it was awful. How can I expect an elegant, titled gentleman like Harrison to want a wife who comes from such a vile world? What would people say?”

“He would be bloody lucky to have you,” Jack stated flatly, “and if he doesn't agree, I'll make him bloody sorry.”

A helpless smile spread across her face. “Of course you would say that, Jack, and I love you dearly for it. But don't you see how impossible it is?”

Jack raked his hand through his hair, feeling hopelessly ill equipped to deal with his sister's heartache. “Listen to me, Charlotte. I don't know much about love, and even less about marriage. But I know what I've seen between Haydon and Genevieve. People have always talked about them, and it never seemed to bother them.”

“It did bother them,” Charlotte countered. “They just tried not to let us see it.”

“But it never affected how they felt about each other,” Jack amended. “It bothered them only because they were protective of us, and they didn't want people judging us for where we came from. If Bryden cares about you, what people say about you will make him angry, but it won't alter how he feels about you. He already knows where you came from, Charlotte.” He hoped to hell he was right about what he thought he saw in Bryden's eyes as he finished, “And if what he just said to me in the drawing room is any indication, I'd say he understands how incredibly rare and special you are.”

“Do you really think so?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Let's find out.” Before Charlotte could stop him he stood and jerked open the drawing room doors.

“My sister wants to speak with you, Bryden,” he announced without preamble. “She's waiting for you at the top of the stairs.”

“Why doesna she just come in here?” asked Eunice, bemused. “Me an' Doreen is servin' a lovely tea—”

“I'm thinkin' the lass wants to see the lad alone,” Oliver speculated.

“Children and their games,” said Lady Bryden, shaking her head with amusement. “Tell me, Lady Redmond, how do you manage to keep track of so many children?”

Genevieve smiled tenderly at Haydon. “I've had a lot of help.”

“Excuse me.” Harrison made his way across the drawing room and past Jack, who glowered at him warningly before closing the doors behind him.

Charlotte was seated at the top of the staircase, waiting for him. Her expression was grave. What had Jack said to her, Harrison wondered, that made her suddenly appear so unsure of him?

“May I sit down?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He seated himself on the step beside her, not quite touching her. “What did you want to speak with me about?”

Charlotte regarded him miserably. She had not wanted to speak to him about anything—not this way, with him being forced to face her on the landing of the staircase and her entire family anxiously waiting for a report in the next room.

“It was Jack's idea that I should speak with you,” she confessed. “He's just being protective of me. He always has been—much more so than Simon or Jamie, or even Haydon, for that matter.”

“You are lucky to come from such a loving family, Charlotte. It is part of what has made you so incredibly strong.”

She nodded and looked away, suddenly unable to bear the intensity of his gaze.

“There is something I have to tell you, Charlotte.” His voice was low and edged with regret.

Whatever he was about to say, she could see he dreaded telling her. It was over, she realized, struggling to maintain some semblance of dignity as her heart began to tear in two. And what had she thought would happen? Had she honestly believed that Harrison would marry her? That he would merely overlook the sordidness of her past, especially after coming face to face with Boney Buchan?

“Ye canna change what ye are,”
her father had railed at her.
“Ye've my blood runnin' through those coddled veins.”
At that moment, as Harrison stared at her with such sorrow, she realized that her father was right. She might have been able to change the way she dressed and talked and acted, but nothing would ever change the blood that pulsed through her veins. In flesh and bone she was still Lottie Buchan from Devil's Den.

“I believe I may be suffering from the same illness that afflicted my father,” Harrison confessed in a halting voice. “You have a right to know that, so I'm telling you now.”

Charlotte regarded him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“I suffer from the same excruciating headaches that plagued him for years. Sometimes I can fight them by lying perfectly still in a dark room for hours by myself, but often I have to resort to dosing myself with laudanum. It doesn't do much except dull the pain and make me sleepy, but even a restless sleep is preferable to just enduring the pain.”

“Have you seen a doctor about them?”

He shook his head. “I don't need to. My father saw enough doctors for his headaches to cure me of any desire to go near them. I'm not about to ingest any of their insane concoctions, and I'm afraid subjecting myself to bleedings and blisterings, or letting them crack my head open, is out of the question.”

“You must talk to Jamie, Harrison,” Charlotte urged. “He isn't a doctor yet, but he is studying at Edinburgh University, which is reputed to be one of the finest medical schools in the world. He has access to some of the best doctors in Britain, and he may be able to find out about new treatments you could try. Jamie is quite brilliant when it comes to medicine—he's always at the top of his class—so I don't think he would recommend anything that didn't have any proven benefit.”

“Perhaps,” Harrison allowed, unconvinced. He hesitated a moment before reluctantly adding, “There is something more you need to know, Charlotte.”

She waited, fighting the dread that now gripped her.

“A couple of years ago, I found myself starting to forget things. At first I dismissed it as nothing but the relentless advance of age, but as the incidents of forgetfulness began to occur more frequently, I feared I was suffering the same mental deterioration that afflicted my father.”

Charlotte looked at him in surprise. “I've never noticed you to be forgetful, Harrison.”

“I believe I have learned to hide it well. But last night Tony admitted that he had played upon my fear of becoming like my father. For nearly two years he pretended I was growing increasingly forgetful, knowing that at some point he would use this against me.” He shook his head in frustration. “While I'm relieved to know that my mind may not be deteriorating to the extent I had thought, now I have no way of knowing how much of my forgetfulness is real, and how much of it was merely constructed by Tony.”

“But that is good news,” Charlotte pointed out. “Knowing how desperately Tony wanted to destroy you, it is quite possible that all of these incidents were nothing more than either normal forgetfulness or Tony's invention.”

“Perhaps,” Harrison allowed. “But without knowing, how can I move forward with my life?” He looked away, unable to meet her gaze as he ruefully finished, “How can I ask you to marry me, not knowing whether I am condemning you to endure the same hideous fate my mother was forced to suffer as she watched my father's mind break?”

Charlotte stared at him, speechless. “Is that your way of proposing to me?” she finally managed.

“It's my way of explaining to you why I can't propose to you.”

“And where I came from or who my father was has nothing to do with it?”

He creased his brow in confusion. “What on earth does your father have to do with it?”

A guarded sense of wobbly joy began to spread through Charlotte. He didn't care. It was incredible to her, but there it was. He knew about her childhood and all the ugliness that went with it—he had even seen some of it firsthand. He understood that Boney Buchan's blood ran through her veins.

And he didn't care.

“Honestly, Harrison, there are times when I don't know whether to shake you or kiss you,” she declared, exasperated.

Harrison frowned. “I don't think you understand—”

“I believe I understand perfectly,” Charlotte countered. “You are reluctant to ask me to marry you because you are afraid that you might be condemning me to having to support you through an illness that you don't even know you have—is that more or less correct?”

“Yes, but—”

“So you are suggesting that instead of living our lives together and loving each other and finding happiness in however much time we have, it would be better for us to part and live the remainder of our lives alone. Is that right?”

“Not quite. You could marry someone else, Charlotte,” he told her gruffly. “You could build a life with someone else.”

“No, Harrison, I'm afraid I could not. Because I happen to love you. Intensely. You're the only man I ever have loved, and you're the only man I ever will love.”

She slipped one hand into his and tenderly traced her fingers along the shadowed curve of his jaw as she continued, “I'm not afraid of helping you to endure your headaches. I know what pain is. I've lived with it almost my entire life, and if we can't find a cure for yours, then I'll learn everything I can about helping you to live with it. And I'm not afraid of facing an uncertain future with you. If you do suffer from whatever illness afflicted your father, I will stay with you and help you cope with it, just as your mother did for your father. Because that's what people who love each other do. They look at each other with all their faults and frailties, and they love each other in spite of them, and they help each other to bear whatever burdens their lives may hold. And I love you, Harrison. Completely.”

A guarded sense of happiness began to filter through Harrison, like faint ribbons of sunlight streaking a leaden sky. She was right, he realized. It was foolish to assume only the worst would befall his mind, when he had just been given reason to think that it would not. No one could predict the future. Whatever was to happen, one thing was utterly clear. He loved Charlotte to the depths of his being.

And he could not bear to live another moment of his life without her.

His mind suddenly felt remarkably lucid as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close.

“I love you, Charlotte,” he said hoarsely, nuzzling the fragrant silk of her hair. “If you'll let me, I would be very honored to marry you and spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.” He began to press a trail of silky kisses along the ivory length of her throat. “I do believe we should arrange for our wedding as quickly as possible, however,” he murmured, brushing his lips against the pale swell above the neckline of her gown. “If it weren't for the fact that your entire family is anxiously waiting for us on the other side of those doors, I'd lay you down upon this very handsome carpet and start demonstrating just how much I love you right now.”

“Here?” Charlotte gasped, pretending to be horrified.

“Shocking, isn't it?” His voice was low and lazy. “In the middle of the day, yet.” He caressed the gentle curves of her and kissed her deeply, leaving no doubt that he wanted to do exactly as he said. Finally he groaned and pulled his lips from hers.

“At the risk of seeming a coward, I'm afraid we shall have to stop,” he managed huskily.

“It's all right, Harrison.” Charlotte's expression was teasing as she brushed a dark lock of hair off his forehead. “I won't let Jack hurt you.”

“It isn't Jack I'm worried about,” Harrison assured her, sounding insulted. He gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. “It's Oliver.”

She laughed and threw her arms around him, feeling gloriously happy and strong and whole. His halfhearted attempt at propriety vanquished, Harrison decided to risk Oliver's vexation after all, and once again captured her mouth with his.

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

K
ARYN
M
ONK
has been writing since she was a girl. In university she discovered a love for history. After several years working in the highly charged world of advertising, she turned to writing historical romance. She is married to a wonderfully romantic husband, Philip, who she allows to believe is the model for her heroes.

Readers can find out more about Karyn at www.karynmonk.com

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