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Of all the things that Judith had expected to hear when she came, this had not been on the list.
“I had night terrors as a child,” Christian said simply. “I’ve always had odd dreams; I’d scream out in the middle of the night, and kick at anyone who tried to calm me down. On top of my other oddities, it made my father believe that I belonged in an institution. My mother saved me from that fate by giving me a small dose of laudanum every night when I was young. The dreams didn’t stop; the screaming did.” He shrugged and gave her a smile that was not quite a smile. “By the time I started at Eton, the dose was no longer small.”
She found her fingers trailing down Fillet’s spine, searching out the rumble of her purr. Judith’s heart was squeezing inside her.
“Anthony found out because one night, I took too much. I stopped breathing.” Christian’s voice became more ragged. “Anthony made me stand. Anthony slapped my face. Anthony walked me around the room until I coughed and took a breath again. He saved my life. And he told me I had to stop taking laudanum.”
She could scarcely breathe.
“It took months. Every time I went home, my mother… Did you never wonder why I spent every holiday with your family? Every summer? Every spare moment?”
She shook her head. “It…just always was. I didn’t even question it.”
“I couldn’t go home,” Christian said. “My mother would set out my medicine, and…I couldn’t say no, not those first years. It’s as I said. Anthony saw what opium did. He sat with me when I was a gibbering mess. He kept my laudanum in his trunk and measured out smaller and smaller doses. He heard me beg and cry. He saw me at my absolute worst, and he would sit with me and help me make lists and sort things until the worst subsided.”
Judith couldn’t breathe.
“I hate opium the way one might hate an old lover—one has to hate it, because one doesn’t dare return. Anthony hated it the way you hate me—as the thing that nearly destroyed a friend.”
“Oh.” Judith’s chest felt heavy. She wanted to take his hand, to comfort him.
She wanted to comfort herself.
“So, yes,” Christian said. “I believe that Anthony hated the opium trade enough to turn traitor to stop it. How could he not?”
“Oh,” Judith repeated. Something inside her was breaking. Her anger. Her certainty. Her righteous fury.
“What I told you is true: I owe your family everything. Just not, perhaps, the way you imagine it.”
She inhaled. She’d known. Deep down, maybe, she’d always known. She’d been angry at Christian, so angry in part because she had known. Anthony hadn’t defended himself because he’d done it.
Everything was too much. “Of course.” She picked Fillet off her lap and stood. “Of course.” Her world had just altered in the blink of an eye and she wasn’t certain what would take its place. She should say something to him. Offer him an apology. Something. Anything.
“Thank you for explaining. I’m sorry for…everything.” She didn’t know what else to give him, so she handed him the cat.
“Judith?” He stood. “Judith, are you well?”
“Perfectly so.”
“No.” His hand touched her elbow. “No, you’re not. I should have known. It’s a great deal for anyone to take in. And you weren’t well when you came in.”
The words came out in a rush. “I have no idea where Camilla is,” Judith heard herself saying. “Nobody has any idea. The cats broke everything. Benedict…”
He set the cat on his desk and put his arms around her. She should tell him to let go. She absolutely should not twine her hands in his lapels, nor breathe in his scent. She shouldn’t let him hold her.
But, oh, how she wanted to be held. Even if it was by him.
Maybe especially if it was by him.
You don’t want to admit I could be right. If you did, you would understand that I was the one person on Earth who shared your pain.
“How could he?” She choked on the words. “How could he? How could he simply do what he believed to be right without thinking of the consequences? Without asking what it would mean for Camilla and Theresa and Benedict?”
“And you.” Christian whispered the words in her ear. “And you, Judith. How dare he leave you to fend for everyone? How dare he place that weight on your shoulders?” His hand crept around her waist.
“And you,” she heard herself say. “He let you discover…everything. He made you feel responsiblefor what happened to him.” Her voice shook. “He let me blame you, and I still don’t know how I can ever forgive you.”
“Sweetheart, I don’t know how I can forgive myself.”
She looked up at him.
Her life was a shambles. Everything had fallen to pieces. She had no idea where to turn next. But looking up into his eyes…
He was looking back at her, his dark eyes solemn. God, he’d asked her to marry him once. She’d said no; of course she had said no.
“Maybe we can figure that out,” she said. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”
He exhaled. He smelled of chamomile, of warm sugar.
He’d kissed her once long ago. That flutter in her belly said that whatever wounds her heart had sustained since then, she could let him do it again. Maybe if he did, maybe it would be as if all those years hadn’t happened. As if there were no pain, no anger, no fury between them. As if this were only that perfect summer evening in the apple orchard.
But there were no trees here. There was no moon. And kisses couldn’t wash away the pain she felt.
She looked down and the moment passed.
“Let me take you home,” he said.
“I can make my own way.”
“I know. Let me take you anyway.”
Chapter Eighteen
Christian’s carriage was well sprung and, despite the sound of wheels rattling against the uneven street, the ride was smooth. After so many years of having her teeth rattled from her jaw by indifferently sprung hacks, Judith had forgotten that a carriage might be like this, that she might pull the curtains, shut her eyes, and forget that the world was composed of rough streets and rowdy crowds.
Of course, one could not ignore one’s companion. Christian sat across from her. He didn’t speak. He didn’t let his legs brush against her skirt, although he could have claimed the space was small enough to require it. He gave her all the room she needed.
She would never have enough.
Judith had known that matters didn’t appear ideal for her brother’s case. But she’d always made excuses. Too many excuses. Someone had planted the evidence; someone had misunderstood. Letters had been misattributed. She’d imagined any number of shadowy unnamed actors, because she’d not wanted to admit the truth. Something must have happened, because it was easier to believe that the universe and Christian had conspired to orchestrate her family’s downfall than to comprehend that her brother might betray his family, his country, his every principle.
She might as well have convinced herself of the truth of those bedtime stories she had manufactured of Anthony, off fighting pirates and swimming to some unknown shore. Once-upon-a-time thinking, yet again.
The world in which he had betrayed her because of his principles was, for the first time, a colder, believable alternative. It was a lonelier place than the world she’d inhabited this morning.
She would adjust. She had to adjust. She always had so far.
She pulled her arms around herself and tried to imagine the truth.
Her brother was a traitor. He was not going to be vindicated posthumously. She was not going to have help. She glanced over at Christian and tried not to think.
Her thoughts were a muddle now. She hated Christian as much as she hated her brother—which was to say, she ached just to look at him. Her hand clenched over her skirt, reaching for the letter about her sister.
That was when she remembered that she’d left it in Christian’s office, on his seat. She’d taken it out because Fillet had st
epped all over it, drawing attention to her.
She’d almost forgotten her sister. That letter from the solicitor, blithely consigning Camilla to oblivion somewhere in this godforsaken country, was still at his house.
Maybe Christian’s servants would throw it out.
She hardly had time to untangle her own feelings. She didn’t have time for Camilla.
She could rush off to the last place her sister had been. She could ask a thousand questions, see what she could find. But if she did, she’d leave Benedict and Theresa alone, unprotected. Who knew what might happen to them?
The closer the carriage drew to her home, the more everything hurt.
She couldn’t concentrate on Camilla yet. Judith felt like a cat in a flood, trying to decide which of her kittens to save, knowing that whichever she chose, one of them would drown.
The carriage shifted right ever so slightly as it went around a turn.
Judith looked up to see Christian watching her.
You don’t want to admit I’m right, he had told her. If you did, you would know that I am the only person who can understand your pain.
He had been right. She wasn’t ready to admit that.
“Why have you never married?” she asked instead.
She could not see his face in the dark, and it was just as well. She didn’t want to know whether he was looking at her with interest or with pity. Night lay between them like a velvet curtain. The darkness muted the emotions that she might otherwise have detected, hiding them in shadows.
