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“Tahlia,” Connor pleaded. “You can’t go and see the solicitor tomorrow.”
“Stop telling me what I can and cannot do,” she snapped. “I am a fully grown up adult.”
“Yes, but you are in London now,” Connor retorted flatly. “You are expected to adhere to etiquette, for your own safety if nothing else. It isn’t safe-”
“I know London, and its foibles,” Tahlia protested. “I was here three years ago when I was faced with their scorn, Connor. Believe me; I know just how harsh and cruel life in London can be. Today’s events have just confirmed to me that I am best to leave just as soon as I can arrange it.”
Isaac coughed uncomfortably when it was evident that a full scale argument was brewing. He and Barnaby looked at each other, but neither man was brave enough to challenge a woman when as angry as Tahlia was. Wisely, Barnaby and Isaac took their leave.
Connor stood up, but there was no trace of fury in the gaze he levelled on her, just concern. He wasn’t prepared to shy away from the issues they needed to discuss. He knew that if they had any chance of having a future together they had to clear the air over what had happened three years ago. It seemed like the best time to do that was now, when emotions were high and he was more likely to get to the truth.
“Did our being caught scar you that badly?” he asked quietly.
He watched her tense as she sought a way to answer him.
“I was cast out of society, Connor. What do you think?” she snapped.
Connor nodded. “I accept that I didn’t wait around afterward. I tried to see you later that night, but your uncle said to leave it; that you were too upset. Unfortunately, when I returned to my digs, orders were waiting for me. I had to return to Cornwall as a matter of urgency. My colleagues needed me to help with an important part of the investigation we were conducting at the time.”
While she accepted that his explanation was perfectly feasible, she wasn’t prepared to forgive him so easily.
“Why didn’t you call the following morning? I was still at the house.” Hurt suffused her, almost choking her with memories she struggled to suppress.
“I had to vacate my digs because I was told to. I had no address to leave you,” he argued.
In hindsight, he should have delayed leaving London until he had forced her uncle to one side and seen her personally. What he had done, however, was carry out his orders to the letter. The fact that he had left a very large part of himself behind in London was something that had haunted him each and every day since.
“It turns out that it was eighteen months before I was free to come back here,” Connor replied softly. “When I did return, I came straight here only to discover that you had moved away and weren’t ever expected to return to London.”
“Why did you leave like that? Why abandon me to face everyone alone?” she cried, oblivious to the tears on her cheeks. “I was ruined, Connor. Ruined. My reputation wasn’t tarnished; we were caught in flagrante delicto. I was the scandal of the year. Everybody was whispering about me. The least you could have done was stick around and face everybody with me.”
“I couldn’t be the centre of attention, Tahlia. I had to protect my identity because of the nature of my work,” Connor argued.
“Ha!” Tahlia spat. Her anger toward his callousness suddenly replaced her tears. “Your work. Your work. That is your excuse for everything. You were a scoundrel; a heartless cad. You used me and left London as soon as you realised people were talking about you. It is the weakest thing I have ever heard of.”
“Tahlia, it wasn’t like that,” Connor countered. “I was investigating into a gang of smugglers who were using a network of people in the ton to furnish spies with accommodation and contacts in London.”
Tahlia stared at him as she thought over the times he had sought her out. She had believed that he had been interested in her. All the time, he had been working.
“You danced with me, and talked to me, and paid me attention because you were there to investigate someone?”
A condemning silence settled over them.
“I have to be honest with you, Tahlia, not least because my conscience demands it. I did approach you because I needed a ruse while I watched someone who moved amongst your circles at that time.”
Her muffled sob struck him in the centre of his chest. He felt the worst kind of cad. He placed his hands upon her shoulders and tried to get her to turn around to face him. When she refused to budge, he remained where he was but stood so close to her that he was practically holding her, anyway.
“I quickly found myself ensnared, though. I spent far more time with you than I should have done. So much so, I am afraid, that the man I was there to watch disappeared from right under my nose. I was so captivated by you that for the first, and only time in an investigation, I forgot all about the reason I was there.”
When her shoulders remained rigid, he knew he wasn’t getting through to her and sighed.
“I should never have allowed matters to go as far as they did. It was wrong of me but, in my defence, I had no idea that I was about to be sent to Cornwall. I was weak and foolish and for that I apologise.”
Tahlia allowed the tears to fall, and refused the comfort he offered. It wasn’t fair for her to blame him completely and she knew it. She had to accept joint responsibility whether she liked it or not. At the time, neither of them had really discussed what they expected of each other. Neither had either of them really stopped to consider of the consequences, especially herself. She had only learned of one very serious consequence several weeks later.
Guilt weighed heavily on her conscience. She knew she should tell him, but then had a duty to protect Joseph. Connor had already said he did not have anything to offer her–what would he have to offer a child? Someone who needed security, comfort, and loving support the most didn’t need a parent who was never there and unable to provide any of those things.
She made a decision there and then that he should not find out about Joseph. As a mother, and parent, she would do whatever it took to protect her child from the hurt and heartbreak she herself had experienced, even if that meant keeping Joseph away from his own father. It felt awful to have to even think such a thing, and it was with heavy shoulders that she turned around and made her way toward the door.
