by Diana Quincy
“Yes, you do. You are just having a difficult time acknowledging the truth. Our cousin lied to you. He’s been dishonest with you since the moment he took you into his care.”
“But why? What would he have to gain from keeping us apart?”
“I have no idea. You’ve spent all these years with him. You know him better than any of us.”
“I don’t know about that.” His chest jerked with each harsh breath. “I might not know him at all.” Could Norman have perpetuated a lie so massive, so destructive, so devastating?
“Has he spent your fortune?”
“No. He can’t touch it. He never could.”
“What else could it be?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” He strode from the room. “But there is one person who does.”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?” Norman asked.
Uncertainty flickered in the older man’s face. Griff had come directly to the hospital from Dorcas’s house. Registering Griff’s agitated state, Norman pulled him into the nearest storeroom, where blankets, linens and other hospital supplies lined the shelves.
“Did my sisters send me letters?” Griff asked after Norman closed the door. The narrow room was dim. The scent of fresh laundry saturated the air. “Did you hide my sisters’ letters from me?”
“Yes.” Norman’s words were calm and matter-of-fact. “I did it to protect you.”
“Protect me?” Griff flattened a hand against his chest. “From what? From my own sisters? From what family I had left?”
“I am your family, too.”
Griff gave an incredulous laugh. “I wonder about that. You kept me from my sisters. You destroyed what was left of my family.”
“No.” The older man’s face firmed. “The person who killed your parents destroyed your family. I picked up the pieces and put you back together.”
“By keeping me from my sisters? By letting me think that they believed I killed my parents?”
“I had a responsibility to you. Not to your sisters. My role as your guardian was to make certain that you grew into a strong and stable man. To prepare you for your role as viscount and to continue the family line. That was my duty to your father, and I fulfilled it. Look at you.” He gestured toward Griff. “You are strong and capable. You are a worthy man. I truly believed isolating you from the tragedy was for the best.”
“Shielding me from the tragedy is comprehensible, perhaps, but to cut my sisters completely out of my life?”
“The girls were a blathering mess for months after your parents’ demise. Anytime I saw them, they would cry and carry on.”
“They were grieving!”
“Being subjected to all of their caterwauling would have destroyed you. I needed to protect you from that.” Norman adjusted his spectacles. “You were so young, so hurt, so vulnerable. I had to keep you safe. All your sisters wanted to do in the months after the burials was to talk about your parents’ murders and finding their killer.”
“It is natural to want to avenge our parents’ deaths.”
“Perhaps. But I feared you’d get it into your head that it was your duty to find the killer. What if it became an obsession that dominated, and ultimately destroyed, your life? I couldn’t let that happen.”
“I cannot believe this.” Fists on his hips, Griff turned away. “You separated me from everything I held dear. My sisters. Haven House. They were all I had left.”
“I did what I thought was right. I don’t have children, and my only brother perished when I was so young that I don’t remember him. Maybe I know nothing about family bonds.” He paused, dismay filling his face. “Maybe I was wrong to do what I did.”
“Maybe?” Griff raised his voice. “All you’ve ever done is lie to me.”
“All I know is that your father entrusted you to my care.” Norman removed his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I did what I had to to keep you sound in the midst of unspeakable horror. The murders could have destroyed you. Keeping you stable and on course with your schooling was my primary focus.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth after I was grown? Why did you let me continue to believe that my sisters wanted nothing whatsoever to do with me?”
“I tried.” Norman faltered. “But I didn’t know how. I feared you wouldn’t understand.”
“Well, you had the right of it. Because I certainly do not understand. What you did was cruel.”
“But look at you now.” Pride filled Norman’s gaze. “You are strong and able. Your parents’ killings didn’t ruin you. Maybe I made mistakes, but I see the fine man you are today and know I fulfilled my duty.”
“The end justifies the means? No matter what the cost? Is that really how you view the world, Norman?”
“Most people are not willing to make difficult decisions for the greater good, but I did what I had to.”
Griff stared at him. “I don’t even know who you are.”
“Once you’ve had time to reflect, you will come to see that I honestly tried to do the right thing for everyone involved.”
“Wrong. I will never accept that what you did was right.” He pulled the door open, eager to escape. He was suffocating. “Never.”
Hanna turned the key in the lock as she and Evan closed the dispensary for the evening.
“What happened to your shadow?” Evan asked.
“Who? Lucy? She had to run an errand for Citi.”
They turned in the direction of her house. Evan had taken to escorting her and Lucy home before walking on to his neighborhood. “Your grandmother trusts you alone with me?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as to say that. She needs Lucy at home. We need to consider engaging an assistant for the dispensary.”
Looking ahead, Evan’s face twisted. “What’s he doing here?”
Hanna followed his gaze. She caught sight of Griff up ahead and brightened. “Good afternoon,” she called out. “Were you coming to the dispensary?”
“Where else?” Evan muttered. “The man seems to have a lot of time on his hands.”
“Of course he does. That is the very definition of a gentleman. Unlike you and I, they do not engage in work for their living.”
“Imagine being able to devote your days and nights solely to leisurely pursuits. And having the money to do it.” He grimaced. “Life is very unfair.”
“That it is,” she agreed. As they drew nearer, the expression on Griff’s face made Hanna’s skin prickle. Had the commission reached a decision? “What is it? What’s happened?”
“Do you have a moment?” he asked, his voice raw.
“I’ll be on my way.” Evan moved past Griff. “I’ll see you in the morning, Hanna.”
“What’s happened?” she asked Griff once Evan was gone.
“Can we go somewhere?”
“Of course. Come back to the clinic.”
He followed her and stood by silently as she unlocked the door. They entered the dispensary. The late-afternoon shadows fell across the floor. But the space was illuminated enough that she didn’t bother to light a lamp.
He sat on one of the examining tables. “Everything about my life is a lie.”
“What is wrong?”
His face was stark. “All of these years I believed my sisters abandoned me because they thought I killed our parents.”
“Did you visit Mrs. Rutland today?”
He nodded. “They wanted me to live with them, but Norman wouldn’t allow it. He decided it was best that I didn’t see my sisters.”
“What? Why?” she exclaimed. “Shu hayee!”
He cocked his head. “Translation?”
“He’s nothing but a snake. A backstabber.” Anger pulsed through her veins. “Why would he keep you from your sisters? They are your blood. Family is everything. We are nothing without our family.”
“Norman says my sisters suffered bouts of hysteria after my parents died. He wanted to shield me from the emotional upset.”
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br /> “When you lose someone you love, of course you get emotional. When Papa died, Mama and Citi wailed and carried on as if the world was ending. Citi would have crawled into the grave with Baba if we hadn’t stopped her.”
“My sisters sent me letters. Norman never gave them to me.”
“Oh, Griff. I am sorry.”
“He apologized when I confronted him. But he still believes he did the right thing. That he fulfilled his duty to raise me to be a strong man who would live up to the title.”
“You are a good man in spite of Dr. Pratt,” she said heatedly. “Not because of him.”
“Am I a good man?” He massaged his temples. “I don’t know anything anymore. My sisters are strangers to me. My former guardian, a man I believed I could trust above all others, deceived me for years. Society used to think that I was a murderer. Now they believe that I despoil innocent women.”
“Now that you know the truth, you have the opportunity to become reacquainted with your sisters. You can reclaim your life.”
“I suppose.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you for listening to me. I’m sorry to trouble you. I know I shouldn’t have come.”
“I am happy you did. We are friends.”
He shot her a skeptical look. “Do you really believe we can be friends?”
“I am your friend for as long as you need me.” Soon Griff would rekindle his relationship with his sisters. And he would have a wife and perhaps children. Her heart ached at the thought. “I shall be your friend until you return to your aristocratic world with your beautiful aristocratic wife and forget about the bonesetter on Red Lion Square.”
His eyes held hers. “As if I could ever forget the incomparable woman who saved me from a life of pain and misery.”
The air between them tightened. She moved closer until she stood between his legs. “I won’t forget you, either.”
“This is quite a mess.”
She stepped even closer. “I agree.”
“We should not.” His voice was strained. “It isn’t fair to you.”
She put her hands on his strong thighs. “You said yourself that you are not officially bound to Lady Winters yet.”
“No. I am not.”
He pulled her into his arms. She went willingly. An intense longing propelled her forward against her better judgment. When it came to Griff, Hanna’s body constantly mutinied against reason.
“Hanna.” He held her so tightly as if to meld her to him. “My love.”
“Hayati.” My life.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head, embarrassed to tell him. “Later.”
He kissed her. Deeply. Intimately. With everything in him. She put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against the hardness of his chest. His warmth and masculine scent enveloped her. The intensity of his ardor took her breath away. The kiss went on and on until the room was swirling and her legs dissolved beneath her.
“We should stop,” he whispered against her lips.
“We should,” she agreed before pressing her lips to his again. “I feel cheated.”
He pulled back, alarm in his face. “Why?”
“Because you have seen me practically disrobed, and I have not had the same pleasure.”
“What are you talking about? I took off my shirt many times when you examined me.”
“That was as a healer. I could not touch you the way I wanted. Put my mouth on you as you did with me.”
“Hanna.” His eyes darkened.
For a moment, she pictured it. Removing their clothes and making love right there. What would the most intimate of acts be like? How would it feel to have part of Griff inside of her?
Alarm flickered in Griff’s face. As if he could see her thoughts. He came up off the table. “I must go. Now. Before we do something that we’ll regret.”
“I am not so sure I would regret it,” she said. “But, yes, you are right. You should go.”
“I’ll escort you home.”
She nodded as she followed him to the door, keenly feeling the loss of him. “At least in public we should manage to control ourselves.”
“Just barely,” he murmured as he shut the door behind them and waited for her to lock up.
They started in the direction of Hanna’s house, walking in silence, quietly enjoying each other’s company.
“I am going to Ashby Manor,” Griff said abruptly.
“When did you decide to make the journey?” She knew how much he dreaded it.
“Just now. Norman has told me his version of events regarding my father’s last days, but I can no longer believe anything he tells me.”
“Don’t go alone.” She hated to imagine him confronting his past by himself. “Take someone with you.”
“I wish you could be there with me.”
“As do I.” She released a breath. “But we both know that isn’t possible.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You didn’t have to accompany me.” Griff observed the woman sitting opposite him in the carriage taking them to Ashby Manor. “I could have come alone.”
It wasn’t a long journey. Just an hour. But it had taken him almost a lifetime to reach this point.
“But why should you have to?” Dorcas asked. She’d insisted on accompanying him. Having sisters again was going to take some getting used to. “It was once my home, too. I should like William to see where we spent our childhood.”
Griff’s nephew rode in the conveyance behind them with his governess and the baggage. Dorcas also had an older son who was away at Eton and three younger children in Town with their nurse and father.
Griff gazed out the window at the countryside that had once been so familiar to him. “I would avoid Ashby Manor if I could.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Things eventually have to be faced. I am the lord of the manor now. I cannot neglect it forever.” He decided against revealing the full truth. He would tell her of his search for their parents’ killers only if the endeavor proved successful.
As they neared Ashby, Griff’s stomach cramped. Memories of that terrible morning flooded back, threatening to overwhelm him. At least Griff had been spared the sight of his parents’ bodies. The servants found them first, early in the morning. It was the magistrate who finally awakened Griff well past noon, hours after the rest of the household learned of the gruesome discovery.
They turned up the long drive that led to the house. The white Palladian villa soon came into view, rising up in the distance as they drew near. The household staff, about a dozen people, assembled out front to welcome them.
“It’s smaller than I remember,” he said. “But also more stunning.”
“Do you think so?” Dorcas asked. She peered out of the window as the carriage came to a halt in front of Ashby Manor. “I almost expect Mother and Father to come out and greet us.”
William was already out of the carriage behind them, loping toward the house with his white Pomeranian enthusiastically trailing him.
“We’re finally here.” Griff took a deep breath. “It’s time to make new memories.”
“There’s a message for you, miss.”
“Thank you, Annie.” The daughter of Dr. Pratt’s housekeeper was Hanna’s newest assistant. Lucy had returned to her position as maid of all work at home.
“The messenger says he was told to wait for a response.” Annie was still learning, but she was smart and eager. Bonesetting fascinated her. Hanna saw a smidgen of herself in the girl.
“Is that so?” She opened the note. It was on expensive paper. Was it from Griff? She quickly scanned its contents.
“What is it?” Evan asked.
“It’s from Mrs. Rutland.”
“The woman whose son put his finger out?”
Evan didn’t know Mrs. Rutland was Griff’s sister. And Hanna decided to spare herself the lecture that would inevitably follow if she enlightened him. “It seems her son fell out of an apple t
ree at their country estate. She wants me to come and tend to his arm. She fears it’s broken.”
“Where is this country estate?”
“In Richmond. If I agree, she will send a carriage for me in the morning. She asks that I plan to stay for a couple of nights so that I might see to the boy’s care. She says she will pay me for my time.”
“So now you are a glorified nanny for the Quality?”
“Mrs. Rutland’s husband is the grandson of an earl. She could be a powerful ally before the commission.”
“If she is willing to use her entitlement to assist you, it might be worthwhile.”
Hanna folded the note, wondering whether Mrs. Rutland had heard from Griff. He’d left just yesterday for Ashby Manor. Had he arrived yet? She didn’t know where Ashby Manor was or how long the journey might take. Although she knew Griff’s home was a real place, in her mind it was some mythical grand house. She headed to the back office to pen her response at the bottom of Mrs. Rutland’s note. Paper was dear. There was no need to waste a new sheet of paper when there was room at the bottom of Mrs. Rutland’s missive.
“Are you going alone?” Evan asked from the doorway.
“No.” She signed her name and refolded the note. “Rafi is coming with me.” He was her only option. Elias had returned to Manchester, but Rafi uncharacteristically decided to spend a little more time in Town.
“He is?”
“Yes.” She stood. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
Mrs. Rutland’s country estate was something out of a fairy tale. The park surrounding the house was lush and expansive. With green grass, trees and wildflowers as far as the eye could see. Through a copse of trees, Hanna glimpsed a charming stream.
The house itself was magnificent. White and elegant and enormous. It still boggled Hanna’s mind that people actually lived in such grandeur. Their house off Red Lion Square was probably one-hundredth the size of this palatial estate.
“Yubba yay.” Rafi stared out the window. “It’s practically a castle.”
