“I saw how she looked at you. Your hands on her. Kissing her. How she adored you. I asked a neighbor who she was.” Still a punch to her belly, Cass had to swallow a breath, forcing the next words out before she couldn’t. “Mrs. Trowlson. Your wife.”
“Mrs. Trow—you have this all wrong, Cass.”
“Leave, Rorrick.” Both hands flew up, shoving him in the chest as hard as she could. “Get out—out.”
“Cass—”
“Leave.” She shoved him again. “It is done. I know. Why are you still here?” Her mouth clamped shut, her eyes flying up to the storm clouds as she shook her head. A caustic chuckle escaped her lips. “The land. The bloody land.” The words came out in a bitter whisper.
Her look dropped to him, her lip curling. “Take your blasted land and leave—I’ll sign it over to you. I’ll send you the papers. Just leave. There is nothing more to say.”
His eyes narrowed at her. “Why didn’t you stay? Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Ask you what?”
“I don’t have a damn wife, Cass.”
Her eyes closed and she puffed an exhale into the cold rain.
Hell, she was weary. So very weary of this. So very weary of lies that ripped her heart out. She just wanted him gone. Gone from her life. Gone from her memories. Gone from her dreams.
She didn’t bother to open her eyes to him. “Stop the lies, Rorrick. They won’t work anymore.”
“You have been waiting for me to fail you since the moment we met.”
The low rumble of his voice, thunder gathering, made her eyes fly open.
Rage, pure and focused at her, vibrated in his blue eyes. “Stop your distrust, Cass. Have I not proved to you again and again that you can trust me?”
Her head tilted back and raindrops splashed into her eyes. Or tears. She wasn’t sure. Either way she had to wipe them away, her wet kidskin glove tugging across her face. She met his look, not cowing from his storm. “Yes, well, I trust, and then I get destroyed, Rorrick. I don’t see how this is any different.”
“It’s different because it’s me, Cass. Me.” He leaned slightly forward, his voice dropping to harsh whisper. “I am the man that saved you on that damn ship. That held you against the cold. That took a bullet for you. That found the salvation you needed just so you could have peace. The man that took you in that cabin—and from that moment, I would have died a thousand times over for you.” He paused, his head dropping as he drew in a ragged breath. His eyes lifted to her. “It’s different because it’s me.”
He shook his head slightly and turned, moving toward the rear entrance.
At the gate to the mews, he paused and turned back to her. “When you figure that out, come find me.”
For one long moment, his gaze pierced her.
She had seen the warrior in him before with Folgart, but it was nothing compared to the ferocity in his eyes now. Then, he had been fighting for their lives. Now, he was fighting for her.
For her.
She blinked.
He was gone.
~~~
“I did not expect this.”
Cass jumped in her chair, looking up from the ledger in front of her. From the rows of numbers that she hadn’t managed to see for the past hour.
The duchess walked into the office at the rear of the Revelry’s Tempest ballroom, her green eyes concerned, her head angled to the side as she tucked a rogue strand of her red-blond hair into her loose upsweep.
“Expect what, Ada?”
“The complete despair you are sitting in. I thought you were excited to get back to life here at the Revelry’s Tempest?”
Cass glanced down at the open ledger. The numbers in the columns had been smudged, illegible from her tears falling on the ink. She quickly picked up the ledger, slapping it closed before Adalia could see the mess she’d made of the accounting. Violet was the one that would throw a fit if she saw what happened to the ledgers, but neither did Cass want Adalia to witness her shame.
Adalia’s right eyebrow lifted, and she scooted around the chair in front of the desk and sat. “Are you to tell me?”
Cass attempted to shove down the sob that had been stuck in her throat for the last half hour. It fought, ripping her neck from the inside out. “Tell you what?”
“Whatever has made you make a mess of those numbers in that ledger.” Adalia motioned with her head to the leather-bound book on the far edge of the desk. “I did see.”
Of course she had. Cass sighed. “And you are not dizzy from the sight?”
“I am dizzy more from seeing you in this state. What has happened?”
Cass looked to her friend, both wanting words to form and not wanting to speak at all. “Rorrick is here.”
Adalia’s head snapped back. She absorbed the news, her face twisting in disgust. Adalia and Violet knew everything that had happened in America. She shook her head, her eyes going wide as she looked at Cass. “Rorrick—Lord Vandestile is here? Here in London?” A brutal smile lifted her lips. “Excellent. I have been looking forward to cutting him direct in public. Violet is as well—we have been planning the moment for maximum impact.”
“Here, as in here in your back gardens an hour ago.”
Adalia’s hand slapped onto the desk. “Wait, he came here? Here to see you?”
Cass nodded.
“The knave.”
Cass nodded with a shrug.
“What did he say? Clearly it has put you in straits.” Adalia groaned. “The spectacle of a cut is not nearly good enough for the bastard. I have a mind to go after him directly. What is his business? Shipping? Surely if we involve Torren and my brother we can ruin much of his business. I think—”
“Stop.” Cass’s hand flew up. “Before you start constructing his downfall. He…”
Adalia leaned forward, her hands clasping the edge of the desk. “He what?”
“He says he’s not married.”
“Not married? But you saw his wife—you verified it was her.”
“I know—I know I did—I don’t understand what is going on.”
“What did he say?”
“He was angry—brutally, brutally infuriated that I had left him in Charleston without a word, without a trail.”
“And?”
“And I told him I knew—that I saw him with his wife.” Cass closed her eyes, a weary sigh escaping. “And then he claimed he had no wife.”
“Directly? Do you believe him?”
Cass’s eyes were at a complete loss as she opened them to Adalia.
Adalia’s fingers rubbed along the edge of the desk, stilling as her forefingers entwined. “You want to hope he is telling the truth, but you aren’t letting yourself dare it?”
Cass exhaled, sinking back into her chair. Exactly. She hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself. Hadn’t wanted to be weak. To hope for more.
She had no room left for hope in her heart.
Her head heavy, she nodded to Adalia.
Adalia’s lips pursed. For long seconds she stared at Cass, not saying a word. Her mouth opened twice in false starts, only to be silenced as her lips clamped shut.
On the third try, words formed, Adalia’s voice soft, comforting, even as she echoed from the past all the hurt Cass had endured in her life like only a true friend could. “Cass, I know…I know what has happened to you. Percival. His mistress. Franco. His wife.” She paused, her chest lifting in a deep breath. “I know the torment. It has crushed my heart to see you in pain all those times. No one owns more just cause to close off her heart than you.”
Adalia’s hands on the desk flattened, stretching, her fingernails digging into the wood. “But do you know that is the very thing that makes you extraordinary? It is your hope, your optimism. Your belief in others—in us.” Her hand lifted, swirling in the air. “We have done all of this—the Revelry’s Tempest—because you have believed in us. Because you hoped and you were optimistic and you don’t give up on us. Violet is the genius with numbers. I am
the creative. And you—you are the quiet heart of the Revelry’s Tempest, of our friendship. You always have been. Everything we have accomplished, it has been because of your belief in us, for all those times that our own belief wavered.”
Adalia leaned forward further, her chest bumping into the desk, her voice earnest, vibrating in vehemence. “So I don’t want you to lose that. To lose your hope. It is selfish, but I need it. Violet needs it. Logan needs it. Those two children, Percival and Lilah, need it. The world needs it.”
Cass drew a quivering breath. “And if I am wrong to hope?”
“Then I get to plot out my destruction of the man unencumbered by your interference.” The side of Adalia’s mouth lifted in a half grin.
Cass chuckled.
Adalia’s green eyes went serious. “But more importantly, Cass, what if you are right to hope?”
{ Chapter 18 }
Cass had visited Violet countless times in the library of the Alton townhouse, but never had she paused at the threshold, terrified to touch the door handle.
Violet stood at the end of the hallway, watching her like a hawk, her fingers swishing by her mauve skirts, urging her to go inside. Her friend was not bashful. Whereas Violet’s husband had taken the nonchalant course—Theo had executed his part of the plan and then excused himself to his study—Violet had not.
Violet was not going to allow Cass even a breath to compose herself—nor was her friend going to allow Cass to run out of the townhouse a coward.
Cass stared at the door, her eyes centered on the brass knob.
She had asked for this.
She drew in a deep breath.
She had to take this chance. Of all the chances in her life, of all the risks, this was the one she least wanted to do, yet the one she most needed to dare.
Trembling, her fingers lifted to the doorknob.
She pushed the door open gently, slipping inside and closing it behind her before she could bear to look up.
“Cass.”
Damn. She had wanted one moment. Just one tiny moment to see him from behind—from the side. One moment to center her mind. To prepare herself. To be able to see him and not have the air around him sweep her into his space.
She lifted her eyes to him, her breath catching in her throat.
Rorrick stood, frozen, far across the library, his body facing toward the high case of ancient tomes that neatly lined the shelves opposite the fireplace. His left hand clutched a short tumbler of brandy, his knuckles turning white. A black coat of the finest cut stretched across his shoulders, crisp, the lines impeccable. His dark waistcoat, his trousers, shirt, cravat—the whole of him stood just as he was the first time she’d met him. He was dressed for London again. Dressed for the cool civility of it.
He cleared his throat. “I thought I was here for a tongue-lashing from Lady Alton.”
Cass looked over her shoulder at the door. “I am surprised Violet didn’t fit that in before I arrived.”
“A mercy.”
Cass’s head dipped, her chin touching her shoulder. She couldn’t look at him. Not yet. “You don’t know what it has taken for me to come here, Rorrick. I swore…I swore I would never allow myself this vulnerability again.”
“I know.” His words were a whisper. “I know, Cass.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and forced her gaze to him, her voice raw. “I don’t want you to tear my heart out, Rorrick. To take away the last of my ability to hope.”
His eyelids slipped closed with her words, the breath he inhaled shaking his whole body. He opened his eyes, his look piercing her. “Cass—”
“So tell me. Make me believe.” Her right hand curled into a fist, her fingernails cutting into her palm. “I don’t know if I can chance this. But I…I need you, Rorrick. So make me believe.”
“She’s not my wife.”
“You said that.”
His body suddenly unfreezing, he turned fully toward her. But he kept his distance. Far, far away. “Those aren’t my boys, though I think of them as such.”
Her brow furrowed as she waded through his words. “Is this something I don’t understand about America? Marriage by habit and repute? Polygamy? Divorce?”
“No. None of that, Cass. They are my family but not how you're thinking. The woman you must have seen is Mary, and she was Johnny’s wife—she has not remarried so she is still Mrs. Trowlson.”
“Johnny’s wife? Your brother?” Her voice cracked as all feeling left her body and she sank to her heels, catching herself on the ground with her hands on either side of her, her back flat against the door.
Her head dipped as she tried to drag a ragged breath into her lungs.
She looked up at him, unable to make a sound.
“Johnny left her and the boys years ago and then refused to acknowledge them, though there was never a divorce. And not only did Johnny desert them, he left them deep in debt and I’ve been taking care of them ever since Mary contacted me after he disappeared.”
“But you…you kissed her.”
“She is my sister-in-law, Cass. I don’t know what you saw, but I have never kissed her but on the cheek. Those boys are my nephews.”
Cass’s jaw dropped, the implications of Rorrick’s words rolling through her mind. “But if those are his boys…”
Rorrick nodded. “Fredrick and Thomas—they are the rightful heirs to the Vandestile title and estate. But Mary doesn’t want that for them just yet. She is extremely protective of the boys, and after how Johnny left her, she didn't want this life for them, especially if the estate is debt-ridden. She wants them to grow up in America. And most importantly, she doesn’t want them to become their father.”
“But the title…so you…”
A weary half-smile curved the side of his face, his right eyebrow arching. “I am keeping it warm, so to speak. And I am ensuring that it is safe, that the boys are safe—I don’t trust the Vandestile cousins. I am quite positive they had something to do with Johnny’s death. But above all, I could not have Mary and the boys inheriting my brother’s mess again. They are family and I witnessed once how Johnny destroyed Mary. I’ll not see it happen again. So I’m determined to right the estate so that when Fredrick wants to take his rightful title, he can do so and it will not be a debt-ridden burden. It is why I needed the land.”
Cass’s head dipped forward and she stared at the bright blue scalloped border of the Axminster carpet centering the floor. After a long moment, she pushed herself up from the floor, her hands trailing up the door as she regained her feet and locked her knees.
When she looked to Rorrick, he had not moved a muscle. He stood, staring at her across the distance. Waiting for her.
“How do the solicitors of the Vandestile estate not know about this?”
“Johnny lied to them from the first. He never admitted to having a wife and sons. He lied about a lot of things. He lied to make his life how he wanted it to be. Not how it was.”
“But how—why is this your responsibility, Rorrick?”
“We don’t always get the choice about what we’re responsible for, Cass.” His look bored into her. “You know that.”
Her lips drew inward.
He took the smallest step toward her. Just one. “I have been cleaning up after my brother since that gold mine tore us apart, Cass. And then Johnny died and I never got to talk to him. Never got to reconcile what was wrong between us.”
“And you never thought to tell me all of this?”
“Of course I did. I thought about it a hundred times a day. But I couldn’t tell you. I can’t tell anyone. It’s not my secret to share. I swore to Mary no one would ever know of her and the boys’ existence until she was ready. Until the boys were ready. Until they were grown and men of their own and it was their decision whether they wanted this.”
He took two steps toward her. “It was why I wanted you to meet Mary—why I wanted you to meet me on Tradd Street. I needed her permission to tell you the truth and I had convinced
her to meet you. She wanted to talk to you, to know you before she allowed me leave to tell you who they are.” He glanced down at the tumbler in his hand. “But it was her choice to make, not mine. And I was bound by that—for my nephews’ sake.”
“All of this.” Cass’s arm swung in a wide swoop as her voice pitched higher, outrage taking a hold of her body as the enormity of what he had hidden from her sank in. “So every day you were lying to me? You were living a lie and you weren’t going to tell me? Ever? After you asked me to marry you? Ever? You hypocrite—honesty is what you live by, but you do this?”
“Cass—” The word turned into a growl and he spun from her, turning to the sideboard and stalking over to it. He set his tumbler of brandy down and paused, hunched for a long moment with his thick hands gripping the smooth edge of the sideboard.
Finally, after long moments of seething to himself, he pushed away from the sideboard and turned to her, his voice defeated. “You are right, Cass. I am a hypocrite.” He stopped, his hand running over his eyes as he shook his head. His hand dropped to his side. “He raised me, Cass. Johnny made me who I am.”
She took a step toward him, the ire in her voice not dissipating in the slightest. “And what do you owe him for that? Your future? Why is it that you were willing to throw away everything—me—for him? For a dead man?”
“I wasn’t about to toss you aside, Cass.”
“No. Just lie to me.”
He heaved a sigh. “There is no reason for my loyalty to him. It doesn’t make sense, I know. But there is a bond there that I will never be able to break. All the bad between us. Yet it…it just is.” His fingers ran across the slight scruff along his jaw. “And Johnny’s sons. They don’t deserve his legacy. They deserve a legacy they can be proud of—a legacy that doesn’t hold them down—a legacy that allows them to be honorable men.”
Her head snapped back. “But if Mary wasn’t going to allow you to tell me? What then? Were you going to leave me? Or were you going to lie to me our entire lives? Lie to our children? Or just until twenty years from now when your nephew showed up and you handed him the title?”
Of Risk & Redemption: A Revelry’s Tempest Novel Page 17
