Winter's Warrior (The Wicked Winters Book 13)

by Scarlett Scott

  “This is wonderful,” she said, but she did not smile.

  Nor did she seem particularly happy to hear he once more had memories and an identity. Was it because she feared he would change his mind now that he knew who he was?

  “This changes nothing for us, Caro,” he said softly.

  Which was a lie. He was a Winter; she was a Sutton. Uniting their families would be damned difficult. But remembering he was Gavin Winter had done nothing to dim the love he felt for her. He would do anything necessary to make Caro his wife.

  She worried her lip, her fingers plucking at the counterpane which had fallen around his waist. “Surely it will change some things.”

  “Not the important things.” He grinned despite the throbbing in his skull.

  He was so damned happy. Relieved. Hell. His family must have been worried about him. Had they believed him dead? There was so much he needed to discover. He had to make his way to them as soon as he could, to let them know he was alive.

  “Gavin,” she said, her countenance ashen, “there is something I must tell you.”

  He noticed her use of his name. And how odd it was, hearing it on her lips. Of recognizing it, of the feeling of belonging that went along with it. He was Gavin Winter, and how right it felt to finally know who he was. To have a name, a past, a memory, a family, a purpose. He had returned to himself.

  Thank God.

  But Caro…

  There was something about her use of his name which rang false. Which seemed inherently wrong. His befuddled mind could not quite place it or make sense of what was happening even as his instincts seemed to. His gut clenched and a cold sweat erupted on his brow. He was hot and cold at once, the room spinning about him.

  Hell, he was going to be ill.

  “Chamber pot,” he ground out, knowing he did not have much time.

  She fetched it for him, pressing the cold porcelain into his hands as the contents of his stomach rebelled.

  He heaved into the vessel, misery mingling with the pain in his head. His whole mind felt as if it were falling apart, like a carriage which had gone off a cliff and been smashed to bits.

  She took the chamber pot away as his stomach calmed, but in the wake of casting up his accounts, his jumbled mind understood his body’s violent reaction.

  He had yet to tell her his name, and she had called him Gavin.

  “How did you know my name?” he demanded, fists clenching in the bedclothes as the room continued to swim around him. “I haven’t told you, Caro.”

  She blanched, then broke his gaze, glancing down at her nudity before rushing to find her discarded night rail. The one he had removed from her with such profound longing last night.

  Last night, when everything had been different.

  Last night, when everything had been a bloody fucking lie.

  He could not remain in her bed for one moment longer. Not when the devastating blow of realization hit him with the force of any bareknuckle fist. All these weeks of believing her an angel, of allowing himself to fall in love with her…

  “How long have you known?” he growled, slipping from the bed, uncaring of his nudity.

  He was a wild man now. Needing to know the truth. Sick at the notion of what it would bring, what it would mean. He forgot about his aching head as he found his trousers and angrily jammed his legs into them.

  She was flitting about, pacing the small chamber, her bare feet flying over the carpet, her face a study in worry. His butterfly was still flitting, but now he did not find her nearly as entrancing as he once had.

  He needed the truth.

  She owed him that much.

  “Damn it, Caro, say something.” His words were hoarse with torment as he fastened his trousers and stalked toward her, bare-chested. “Speak to me.”

  She remained rooted to the spot, watching him with wide, shocked eyes as he stormed to her, stopping near enough that her exotic scent hit him. The scent of betrayal.

  “Gavin, please calm yourself. I fear for your health, for your mind. It cannot be good for you to be so angry while you are recovering.”

  “Ha!” His laughter was bitter. He wanted to reach for her, wanted to kiss her cruelly. To make her tell him the words he didn’t want to hear but knew he must. “Do not, I beg you, feign concern over me now. You’ll pardon me if I doubt the sincerity.”

  “I do care,” she said, reaching for him. “I love you, Gavin.”

  He shrugged away from her touch, wanting no part of it. “Don’t speak to me of love. Not until you tell me the truth. How long have you been deceiving me?”

  Her lip trembled, her hazel eyes filling with unshed tears. “I have known from the moment Jasper recognized you.”

  “And when the hell was that?” he spat, growing weary of playing games with her.

  Sutton to the core, this one. How had he ever believed her to be sweet and good and true?

  “Before you woke,” she admitted.

  He had been expecting the blow. He had suspected. Gavin Winter was not a fool. At least, he had not been one before he had lost his memory. But his memory had returned to him, and with it, his sanity. He would no longer be kept a prisoner by the Suttons. He would have his freedom this day, damn it. But though he had anticipated the truth—her countenance and reaction to his questions had told him all he needed to know—he had not been prepared for how much it would hurt.

  He had faced masterful opponents as a prizefighter. Had received any number of powerful fists to the jaw, to the head, to the bread basket. Hell, he had been beaten near to death not long ago. But nothing—not one whit of any of those beatings—held a candle to the pain he felt now.

  Because this was a pain which would not heal. It came from within. From his stupid, trusting, wretched heart.

  “You have known who I am,” he managed to say, “all these weeks. As I have shared with you my struggle to recall the simplest details of my life, as I have trusted you and grown to care for the woman I mistakenly thought you to be, you have been deceiving me.”

  Her face crumpled, and the tears fell in truth, streaming down her pale cheeks. “Yes, but it is not what you think. I wanted to tell you—”

  “You wanted to tell me?” He unleashed a bitter bark of laughter, his lips twisting into a sneer. “If you had wanted to tell me, you would have done. Instead, you allowed me to wallow in this state of half living, not knowing who I am or where I belong. You lured me into your bed, made me believe myself in love with you. And still, you never spoke the five words which would have changed everything for me.”

  “Gavin, please—”

  “I know who you are,” he roared, cutting her off once more. “Those were the bloody words, Caroline Sutton. The ones you should have spoken to me instead of all the lies you fed me.”

  She. Had. Known.

  It was all he could think.

  And he was devastated. Ruined. Rocked to his core. Last night, he had fallen asleep thinking himself the most fortunate man in the world, and this morning, he had opened his eyes to a goddamn nightmare.

  “I…” She paused, pressing a hand to her lips to stifle a sob before continuing. “You are right. I should have told you. But I was duty-bound to keep the secret. My brother had asked it of me, and I believed I was protecting you by doing so.”

  “Protecting me?” His head was throbbing with a new vengeance.

  “Yes, protecting you,” she said. “There is someone in the world who wanted you dead, and forgive me for believing it was better to let that someone suppose you were.”

  He shook his head, wishing the action would clear the pain confusing his mind, his heart, his very soul. “I don’t believe anything you say. You’re a Sutton and a liar, and I wish to God you had let me die in that fucking street.”

  She gasped. “You don’t mean that, Gavin.”

  “Aye,” he told her ruthlessly. “I do. I would have been better off.”

  Without bothering to collect the remainder of his garments, and
without having a care over whether anyone would see him leaving her room half-nude in the early hours of the morning, he spun on his heel and left.

  He was going back to where he belonged: the Winter family.

  Caro rushed to don a chemise and gown, not bothering with stays, and bound her hair hastily in a simple braid with shaking fingers. Her heart was in agony, her stomach in knots, and her mouth had gone dry. Gavin had been furious when he had discovered the truth, and she could not blame him for his reaction to her deception. But she was desperate to find him and try to explain before she lost him forever.

  If she had not already done so. Merciful saints.

  Without bothering to put on slippers, she raced from her room, then down the narrow stairs to the floor housing most of the private rooms. Gavin was nowhere in sight, heightening her panic.

  What would he do if anyone tried to keep him from leaving? What if he left before she could catch him and try to speak with him? Where would he go?

  The questions were rushing through her mind faster than her traveling feet when she turned a corner and collided with her brother.

  Jasper caught her, steadying her, his expression concerned. “Christ, Caro. You can’t go bolting about the halls.”

  His voice was annoyed but not alarmed, and it occurred to her that the hour was terribly early for him to be awake. Unless he had not gone to sleep, which would hardly have been surprising, knowing her brother.

  Barnaby, one of Jasper’s dogs, was at his side, and the canine let out a loud bark that sounded remarkably similar to an admonition.

  She tried to collect her thoughts, but her desperation was rising. “I need to find Gavin. Have you seen him?”

  Her brother scowled. “Why would you have need to find him at this time of the morning, sister? What the devil is that mark on your swallow?”

  Her hand crept to her throat. Oh, bloody blue blazes. This was not the conversation she wanted to be having now.

  Or ever.

  “Never mind that. I need to speak with him.” She attempted to wrest herself from her brother’s hold, but he was not having it.

  Jasper frowned. “Why, I asked you? Speak or I’ll tell Barnaby to rip off his ear.”

  Barnaby barked, but Caro knew the dog was nowhere near as ferocious as her brother pretended or as he looked. Quite the opposite, in fact. Barnaby was a big, sweet, slobbering darling. But not even her fondness for her brother’s beloved dog could shake her from the worry and the fear threatening to overtake her.

  The truth fled her.

  “He knows, Jasper.”

  She didn’t need to elaborate.

  Her brother stiffened. “Sodding hell. When?”

  “This morning,” she explained, well aware of the conclusions her brother would draw from the admission.

  Correct conclusions, as it happened.

  But she would fret over that later. For now, her primary concern lay elsewhere. Namely, in the man who had told her he had wished she had left him to die rather than to save him. The man she had fallen in love with over the course of the last few weeks. The man she had given herself to.

  “Morning,” Jasper growled grimly, his jaw hardening. “The sun has scarcely risen, Caro. What the hell were you doing with him at this hour?”

  She swallowed. “I…”

  Before she could explain, a roar interrupted her words.

  “Sutton!”

  Gavin was stalking toward them, face contorted with fury, and though he now wore a shirt along with yesterday’s trousers, he looked rumpled and disreputable. She had never seen him look so dangerous.

  Barnaby barked.

  “Call off your dog and face me like a man, Sutton,” Gavin growled.

  Jasper released his hold on Caro and turned to square off with Gavin. “Sit, Barnaby,” he ordered his dog.

  Barnaby sat very near to her brother’s booted feet, eying Gavin as warily as Caro and Jasper undoubtedly were. Her heart lurched at the pain in his handsome face. She had caused it. She was partly to blame. Could he ever forgive her?

  “Gavin,” she said, trying to go to him.

  Jasper shot out a staying hand, keeping her beside himself and Barnaby. “Stay where you are, Caro. Winter ’ere’s got some questions that need answering if he doesn’t want me to send him back to ’is troublesome family in pieces. Why the ’ell were you in my sister’s room this morning?”

  Caro noted that her brother was dropping the h from some of his words once more, a sure sign he was disgruntled. And the rage emanating from Gavin was palpable. He was pale, fists clenched at his sides, his glare pinned upon Jasper. No good could come of a clash between these two men who were both so beloved to her.

  “Gavin,” she tried again, her voice pleading. “Look at me.”

  “No,” he denied, refusing her entreaty.

  Her heart was breaking. After the tenderness of the night before, to wake to this nightmare was devastating.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Get out of my sight, Caro,” he spat. “This is between myself and your bastard of a brother.”

  “Careful who you’re insulting, Winter,” Jasper warned, his voice silken with menace. “You have much to answer for too, don’t you? Why were you with my sister this morning?”

  Gavin’s lip curled. “Ask her.”

  Barnaby barked once more. He was an unusually smart dog, and he did not like conflict of any sort, which had oft proven a boon when it came to rising tempers in the gaming hell. Barnaby spotted problem patrons before their voices were sufficiently raised and they were challenging each other to name their seconds.

  Caro patted the dog’s soft head, trying to calm him.

  “I asked you,” Jasper returned.

  “And I don’t owe you an explanation.” Gavin’s fists were still clenched. “You’ve been keeping me a prisoner in this miserable hell for weeks, and all this time, you’ve known who I am but kept it a secret from me. Why?”

  Jasper shrugged. “Why not?”

  His taunting reply propelled Gavin forward.

  The two men collided, fists flying, as Caro clung to a barking Barnaby and watched the mayhem unfolding. “Gavin, Jasper, please stop this!” she cried out, terrified that they would injure each other.

  That Jasper would land a blow that would send Gavin spiraling back into the abyss, where he had no memories and no name. Or that Gavin’s prizefighting instincts would have him thrashing Jasper. But neither of them listened to her entreaties. They fought on, landing blows, grunting, as their punches escalated into a war.

  The commotion brought some of the guards racing down the hall, and it required the efforts of Randall, Hugh, and Bennet to force the two men apart. Her brothers Rafe and Hart appeared as well, aiding in holding Jasper back. Caro sobbed into Barnaby’s fur at the sight before her—bloodied, bruised faces, so much anger.

  Her fault, all of it.

  “Take him to The Devil’s Spawn,” Jasper spat around a mouthful of blood. “I want him gone.”

  “That makes two of us,” Gavin sneered.

  The glance he cast in Caro’s direction—at long last—was venomous. He said nothing to her, simply curled his lip, and turned his back on her.

  What had she done?

  Chapter 11

  Caro hovered at the threshold of her chamber—the room Gavin had spent the last few weeks inhabiting. Everything was as he had left it, but the room was empty and lifeless and still. On the floor, there were some broken bits of crockery she did not have the heart to sweep up. In all, it was a perfect reflection of what she felt within.

  He was gone.

  He had left without saying goodbye. Without giving her the opportunity to explain her part in the deception. Not that she was certain an explanation would change his mind. Quite likely, the betrayal she had committed was unforgivable.

  She had known better, of course. But she had been torn between her brother and a man who had initially been a stranger to her. A man who had become so
much more over the course of the time she had perpetuated the secret. Each day that had passed had brought her closer to the certain knowledge that she must reveal everything to him.

  And she had meant to. She had promised herself last night that she was going to tell him everything this morning, regardless of her promise to Jasper.

  But he had risen with memories returning to him, and she had been hopeful and terrified all at once. Hopeful that he would no longer suffer the pain of a mind free of memories and of not knowing who he was. Terrified that when he discovered her complicity in keeping his identity from him, he would never want to speak to her again.

  She had not been wrong in that fear.

  “What are you doing, sister?” asked a familiar voice.

  Not the one she wanted to hear.

  She turned to find Jasper approaching her, disappointment etched in his expression and tone. The blood on his face had been wiped clean, but his right eye was bruised and swelling. She winced as she took in the evidence of that morning’s terrible debacle.

  “You are wanting to speak with me, I suppose,” she returned, her stomach twisting again at the thought.

  “You owe me an explanation, and I owe you one as well,” he said cryptically. “Come and take some wine with me, and we’ll patter.”

  “I don’t want to speak now,” she said, feeling mulish. “Can it not wait?”

  “No.” Jasper was somber. “It can’t. Wine and patter or I lock you in this room until you squeak.”

  Ah, he wanted her confession. She had known he would, after she had revealed Gavin had been in her room this morning and he had seen the evidence of their night of passion on her throat. Sad evidence. All she had left of Gavin, it would seem, and not nearly enough. She may have deceived him these last few weeks, but doing so had been against her will. She had never lied about her love for him.

  “Wine and patter it is,” she conceded sadly, hating herself for what she had done. Hating herself for losing Gavin.

  “Good choice.” Jasper offered her his arm like a fancy cove, the effect somewhat comical with his swollen eye.