The Accidental Abduction (35 page)

There were holes in that story, but now was not the time to pick at them. Harry took the ring, and tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. “Did you get your answer? Is it genuine?”

Jeremy nodded. “Doesn't answer as to what you were doing running around with a lady's ring in the middle of the night.”

“I'd been turned down by the girl I meant to marry, and I hadn't gotten around to selling it back to the jeweler, or throwing it in the river.”

“Oh. Well. Her loss, ain't it?” Jeremy added in the spirit of manly camaraderie.

“Thank you.”

“You're not what I was expecting.”

“Neither are you.”

Now it was Jeremy's turn to glance toward the house. “Better get back. They'll be shouting for us before long.”

“One minute,” said Harry. Harry felt the tiny bulge of the ring pressing against his rib. It seemed to remind him he shouldn't ask this next question. It was entirely dishonorable. He should speak directly to his wife.

“Leannah said Mr. Valloy had come to the house recently. Do you know what he wanted?”

Jeremy's face screwed up tight, like he was trying to hold back anger, or tears. “He's starting trouble, and he's doing it on purpose. He's got no business hanging about here offering our father his dirty money.”

“What's he giving your father money for?”

“For Leannah, so he can marry her.”

I
don't know anything.
Harry told himself.
I don't know anything.

“You got it wrong,” he said to Jeremy. “You misheard something.”

“Didn't. You can hear everything goes on downstairs if you put a glass up against the chimney in my room.”

Of course you could, and of course the boy would know that. He'd be suspicious of any man talking to his father, just as he'd been suspicious about the ring. He had seen what came of men having private talks with Octavian Morehouse.

“Valloy was offering a settlement,” Harry said, painfully aware he was grasping at straws. “He must not have known she had married again.”

Jeremy snorted. “Oh, he knew all right. Didn't care. He was talking big about ‘their' plans and how there was going to be so much money to go around once everything came through.”

She'd been hiding this from him. Spinning stories. Pretending. Lying. Using her sister as a go-between for herself and Dickenson and Valloy.

No. Don't think like that. You don't know. You've only got a boy's version of events. He's sharp, but he's still only a boy. Just because she married for her father's advantage once, it doesn't mean she'd do so again.

Jeremy eyed him nervously. “Got to get back in. I'm supposed to be doing lessons.”

This probably wasn't true, but the boy didn't give Harry a chance to question him. He just turned on his heel and pelted back the short distance to the kitchen door. Harry heard it slam, and he heard the cook's indignant shout that followed quickly after.

He stayed as he was, standing in the shadow of the garden shed where he could not be seen from the house, trying to understand, trying to think.

It can't be her fault. She was used before. Her father's the fraud, not Leannah.

The money's gone. My father's ill. A weakness of nerves.

Except that Octavian Morehouse hadn't looked ill. He'd looked calm, and in perfect possession of himself. And why wouldn't he? Everything was going according to plan. Leannah's family needed money. Leannah knew how money could be gotten and she helped set the plan in motion.

Which was why she couldn't bring him here before. He might discover why she'd really taken off her wedding ring and given it to her sister, who was intimate with Anthony Dickenson, who was bent as a corkscrew.

Harry's guts knotted tight. He doubled over, as if he'd just taken a blow straight to his solar plexus.

I don't know anything!

But that was the problem. He didn't know anything. He'd let himself be led by lust and pride. He thought Leannah had needed him in a way that Agnes never did. It had been a magnificent relief to be with her and to not have to be careful of her person or her body, or of his. He hadn't wanted to understand what was behind her acceptance of him, or any of her actions after that.

“Harry?” a voiced called from the house. “Harry?”

Leannah. Harry straightened, startled. He shrank back, coward that he was, even as he cursed himself for his weakness. But before she had to call again, he stepped out to where he could see her, and she could see him.

“There you are!” she cried. She ran to close the last few feet between them, like any girl would on catching a glimpse of her own true love. “Oh, Harry, I'm sorry about what happened in the study. I was afraid there'd been new trouble, but everything's going to be all right.”

“Is it?” he murmured.

“Yes, it is.” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Even now, understanding all he did, his body yearned for hers. He wanted to catch her up in his embrace and bury his face in her hair. He wanted to tell her it didn't matter that she'd lied. It didn't matter that she tried to betray him. Nothing at all mattered as long as she stayed with him.

He didn't move.

Leannah pressed her face against the side of his neck so he could feel each movement of her warm, vibrant mouth as she spoke. “I know, I'm talking like a madwoman, only I'm so happy.” She paused, and lifted her face away from his collar. “What are you doing out here? Did Jeremy bring you?” She smiled, her eyes alive with sparkling good humor. “He probably wanted to give you a thorough going-over to prove he's the man of the family.”

“Yes, that's it exactly. He also wanted to give me this.” Harry reached between them so he could draw the ring from his pocket. He waited for the shock to overcome her, but it didn't. She just clapped her hand against her cheek in surprise.

“My ring! Oh, thank goodness.” She seized it and slipped it back onto her little finger. “I'd been absolutely sick about it. Did Jeremy take it?”

“Yes,” replied Harry dully. “He wanted to make sure it was genuine.”

“Why that little . . .” She shook herself. “Well, never mind. We've got it back, and that's what's important.”

“I wish it was.”

Leannah frowned up at him. God, he was going to miss her eyes. Even now, with her brows knitted and her face filled with confusion, her eyes remained beautiful. He could see all those tiny flecks of gold that added such luster to her brilliant green irises. It occurred to him that Leannah's wedding ring should not be a diamond, or even a ruby, but an emerald.

But then, perhaps Mr. Valloy and Mr. Dickenson didn't care for emeralds.

“Harry?” Leannah gripped both his hands and shook them. “What's wrong? What did Jeremy say to you?”

“It's not what he said, or not
just
what he said. Leannah, I know.” Harry drew in a shuddering breath. “I know you gave the ring—your wedding ring—to Genevieve so she could give it to Dickenson.”

For a moment, Leannah only stared. Then, she yanked her hands away from him, as if she'd suddenly realized she'd touched something rotten.

“What was it for?” Harry asked as Leannah backed away, horror rising in her beautiful, shining eyes. “Was it a pledge against future income? Or a down payment for another piece of land along the Great Devon Road? Or was he just supposed to pawn it to raise more cash for the bribes to the ministers so that the route would go ahead as you all had planned?” He paused. “Is that what happened to your settlement, which was spent, not lost?”

She swallowed. He watched the movement of the muscles beneath her golden skin. He remembered how the satin flesh of her throat had felt beneath his fingertips, beneath his mouth. She wasn't speaking. She didn't offer any excuse or defense. Like her brother, she knew she'd been caught fair and square.

“Although, I don't see why you'd need any more cash. Surely, I was pouring out more than enough.” He couldn't stop talking. He should. He should get away from here. Run away. Run home. Beg his parents' forgiveness for his foolishness and lock himself in his room like a child. Lock away possibility of any more mistakes, lock away the memories of need and love—yes, love. Love that would never come again. A broken heart could never hold love, and his heart was broken—truly, utterly completely.

“You all must have had great fun creating those false bills for me to pay so you could take the money and give it to God knows how many corrupt men . . .”

“
Enough!
”

The word lashed out like a blow. Harry's mouth shut. Leannah stood in front of him, her face as wild with fury and determination as it had been that first night when she'd run away with him.

“Enough,” she repeated. “You will not speak to me that way, Mr. Rayburn.”

*   *   *

It is over.

Leannah heard the bitter words pouring from Harry's mouth, the mouth she had kissed and teased. The mouth that had tasted every portion of her body. He kept talking, spouting the worst calumnies, but all she could really understand was it was over. She had been afraid his love would fall away slowly. She should have been afraid it would explode like a cannon shell.

“You got an idea stuck in your head,” she murmured. “Fiona said you would.”

That stopped the flow of outrages, at least for a moment.

“You spoke with my sister?” Harry asked.

“I did.” Leannah felt herself nod. She didn't seem quite in control of her own body. It was as if she'd stepped outside it somehow. Perhaps her soul no longer cared to inhabit the flesh that would not be quite so cherished by Harry Rayburn. “She came to our . . . to the Dobbson Square house to tell me, among other things, that her brother tended to become fixated on certain ideas . . .” Her voice faltered. “I should have paid more heed. After all, I know how many ideas about me could come up. But”—she waved her hand—“I was sure what we'd shared would prove stronger than any stray ideas. Another mistake.”

“Yes, it was,” said Harry and his bitterness sank like poison into her mind. “Especially . . .”

She could not stand to listen to any more. A moment ago, all had seemed right. Father had turned away Mr. Valloy's attack. The danger had passed. Father was well in his heart and his mind—finally, truly well. She'd come out here to tell Harry everything. The new beginning, the one she had hoped for all her life, was at last going to come true.

Except, it seemed it was not.

“Especially what?” Leannah lashed out. “Especially since you've decided I'm a liar and, what else? A schemer? A whore? All because I lost your ring?”

“Because your family is consorting with corrupters and speculators and . . .”

“And because we're the Morehouses,” she spat. “Yes. Thank you. And because I didn't tell you about Mr. Valloy and that put the seal on it. I couldn't possibly have any reason not to speak of the man attempting to manipulate my family when I've always been judged so fairly and so decently by the world at large.”

This last seemed to hit home. Harry raised a shaking hand toward her. But she let all the contempt, all the outrage she felt show in her face, and he let it fall.

“I would have loved you,” he whispered. “I did love you.”

Now he said it. Now, when it would hurt the most. “I came out here to tell you that my father refused Mr. Valloy's money, as I had refused his threats previously. I came to tell you I sent Genny out with a letter for Meredith Langely. She'd been in touch with a man from the naval office about Mr. Valloy, and Mr. Dickenson . . .”

Now it was Harry's turn to stare. “Meredith Langely?
She
was the authority Nathaniel spoke about?”

He was talking nonsense. It was just as well she wasn't listening to him anymore. “I see now I needn't have bothered. We have all of us been tried and convicted in the court of Harry Rayburn's mind, and I should have known.” She let her head fall back, as if she thought to see the heavens themselves open to pronounce judgment. “It's never different. There's never any new beginning. Not for us. Not for me. Not even . . . not even love is enough to make one.”

“No,” breathed Harry. “That's not true. I will not let it be.”

Her throat tightened. The world was shifting around her. She couldn't think straight. It was all closing in, closing down. It was the same thing as she'd felt before. The house, the walls, all the troubles of her life, all the long, cold past was closing in, trapping her for good and all.

She had to get out. Leannah whirled around.

“Leannah, stop.” She heard Harry's boots smack against the muddy ground. “Wait. We must . . .” She felt his hand on her arm.

“Get away from me!” she screamed and slammed her elbow backward. The blow caught him in the ribs and he fell back. Probably not hurt, probably just startled, but it didn't matter. He'd let go and she could run. Run for the gate, burst through it, run for the street.

She'd lost him. She'd come back and she'd lost him. She'd opened the door to the tangle of her life, her family, and she'd lost him. He saw what she was and where she came from and he couldn't trust her, couldn't love her. Who could? It didn't matter that there was no blame this time. The blame from the past smeared itself across the present and it always would.

She had to get away, had to run. There was the carriage, and the team but not the groom. Where was the groom? Why was it Dawes standing there waiting for his orders. It didn't matter. She clambered up onto the box, and grabbed the ribbons from Dawes's hands. She slapped the reins, hard across the horses' backs. Gossip and Rumor leapt forward. She couldn't see straight. Her eyes were blurred. It didn't matter. All that mattered was getting away, from the house, from herself, from her life, from Harry Rayburn.

From the fact that she had loved him, and now he would never know it.

The horses didn't want to run, but she wouldn't let them hesitate. She shouted and smacked the reins again. The leather hurt her palms and she didn't care. She heard a voice, shouting in her ear.

“Leannah! No! I was wrong! Wrong! I love you! You have to stop!”