‘No!’ Maybe. There certainly hadn’t seemed any need to take precautions. ‘Possibly... I sincerely hope not as that would rather complicate things.’ Which were quite complicated enough already. She didn’t want him because he felt beholden. ‘I suppose somebody could have overhead me and Maria talking about things in the garden—not that we saw anyone.’ Hope threw out her hands, exasperated. ‘And not that he would believe either, when he is so wedded to his outrage and unfair disappointment in me.’
‘Do you love him?’
‘I did.’ Her attempt at haughty bravado lacked conviction and her shoulders slumped. ‘I do.’ And likely always would too.
The irreplaceable wretch!
‘Do you still want to marry him?’
‘Only if he accepts the fact I am entirely innocent.’ She wouldn’t live with his doubts. That unsatisfactory compromise would be a step too far. ‘He should have trusted me. Implicitly.’ Like she trusted him.
‘He should—but men consumed by love are gloriously irrational, so as the more sensible sex we must afford them the occasional bit of slack. Do you remember Piers’s irrational jealousy when he saw me dancing with Edward Tate? When I thought all was done and dusted between us, it was you who intervened. Your sensible advice saved us and because it worked, I shall repeat it back to you. If you believe he is the one, that he is worth the risk and the effort of eternity, then you owe it to both of you to fight for your happiness. It’s barely two days’ drive from here to the Cornish coast. Why don’t we go there now and you can look the idiot in the eyes and make him see sense?’
Proud anger was instantly replaced by fear. ‘And if he doesn’t?’
‘We cross that bridge when we come to it.Ifwe come to it.’ Faith shrugged, her eyes filled with sympathy as she took her hand. ‘But better that than remaining a bystander wedded to her own self-righteous outrage and regretting it for ever.’
Luke was soaked to the skin by the time he got home from his evening ride. Soaked by the violent summer storm which matched his thunderous mood, chilled by the stiff sea breeze which had ruthlessly battered the cliffs like Hope had battered his poor heart, and thoroughly exhausted. A restless, impotent week of practically no sleep wasn’t doing anything to help heal his shredded emotions, neither were the endless, mindless rides he now took to clear his head. Two hours on this one and his damn head was still as confused as it had been last week and instead of lessening, the relentless pain in his chest was getting worse.
Which would have been bad enough without all the nagging doubts, which like his nagging mother constantly told him he should have stayed. Should have listened. Should have at least given her—them—a chance before he had slammed that door quite so decisively because he thought he knew best and was hurting so bad he wasn’t rational.
Now, it seemed it wasn’t his mother’s mind that was failing on the back of that hasty decision—but his. He had mislaid it somewhere on the road between Bloomsbury and Tregally when the enormity of what he had lost permeated his soul, and like a virulent cancer, destroying a bit more of it with every passing day.
He stared up at his house as what was left of the day disappeared behind it, not caring that rain still poured down his neck, beneath his collar and down his spine, and seriously considered turning his poor horse around to traipse another directionless route around his grounds again rather than go inside. Because going inside when the lamps were lit inevitably meant staying still and that gave him nothing whatsoever to focus on for the rest of the night but his own misery. Instead, he wearily led his mount to the stables, intending to brush it down himself for something to do until he saw the fancy carriage parked inside it.
Bizarrely, he knew that Hope had arrived in it before he sprinted to the house to find her, and skidded to a sodden stop in his parlour. He knew because his shrivelled, trampled heart started to beat again in his chest and the foolish optimistic voice in his head was praying that she could make it all right long before he saw her sat there with his mother and her older sister. Praying her arrival would miraculously fix things but fearing they likely wouldn’t most of all.
Her green eyes were troubled. The shadows under them as deep and as damning as his. ‘You’re drenched.’
‘It’s raining.’ An explanation which was rendered immediately unnecessary by the sudden flash of lightning beyond the dripping windows and the deep rumble of thunder which quickly followed it.
‘It’s late and this storm is in for the night.’ His mother touched her sister’s hand. ‘Why don’t I show you to your room, Faith?’
The panic was instantaneous. ‘They can’t stay here.’ If things were doomed to remain unresolved, he couldn’t bear the thought of her sleeping under the same roof. So close and yet so far. ‘They can stay at the inn in Tintagel.’
‘You’d send a pregnant woman and your intended twenty miles, along unfamiliar coastal roads in the dark in this weather? Over my dead body, Luke!’ Then she prodded him, unaware that the pain of the use of the word intended stung more than any pointed finger could, because he had no idea if she was still his intended or not. Whether she still wanted him or not, or whether he could forgive her or not. ‘Hope has travelled two days to get here to speak to you, and you’ll hear her out, or so help me I’ll murder you myself!’ And with that, she left them, taking the silently disapproving sister with her.
‘I didn’t go to the newspapers, Luke.’ Hope stood with more quiet dignity than he could muster. ‘And you should have known that without my coming here to say it.’
‘But you spoke to someone, Hope, didn’t you? You betrayed my confidence and my mother’s and made it impossible for us to stay in London.’
The sudden anger swirled in her eyes. ‘I spoke to no one. It wasn’t my secret to tell. Either someone overheard me talking to Maria in the garden or somebody else knew what happened.’
‘You expect me to believe you never confided to one of your sisters?’
‘Yes, Luke, I do.’ She folded her arms and stared, exasperated. ‘Why on earth would I betray your confidence or your mother’s when I love you and would never do a thing to harm you?’
‘I have no earthly idea.’
‘Why would I lie, Luke?’ She grabbed his hand. Laced her fingers tight in his. ‘After everything...after what we did? I love you! I gave myself to you! Body, heart and soul.’ He could hear her tears and they were like torture. ‘Why would I ruin that when you are my everything?’
The cruellest words he didn’t want to hear.
‘I don’t know, Hope.’ He wanted to believe her. Needed to so much. ‘But even if it was an accident, I cannot forgive it.’ He extricated his hand as he stepped away, needing the distance. ‘The stakes are just too high—the risk too great. If it were just me you had hurt, I could...but it isn’t. I have a responsibility to my mother and her recovery. I have to keep her safe no matter.’ And he couldn’t do that if he couldn’t trust every single person around her.
‘You hold me entirely to blame for somebody else overhearing?’ She looked so wounded. ‘Even though I could have had no possible idea that they have done so and your mother volunteered all the information freely? And you have no other candidate who could have betrayed you? None? Not a single other person in your entire thirty years could possibly know some of what happened?’
When he didn’t answer, she shook her head, those clever green eyes hardening to flint. ‘You are a fraud, Lucius Nathaniel Elijah Duff. A two-faced, lily-livered, disingenuous fraud. How dare you make me fall in love with you and then abandon me at the first hurdle!’ She stalked to the door and tugged it open, then jabbed her finger hard in the air. ‘And how dare you lecture me on trust and fearlessness when you are incapable of either virtue yourself! What a crushing disappointment of a man you truly are! At least all the others never pretended to be worthy.’
