by Karen Ranney
“How dare you come back here and not explain yourself.”
The moonlight revealed his frown. She didn’t care. She’d gone too long without an explanation. The time had come for him to tell her why he’d left. She refused to go to bed confused, uncertain, and heartsick.
“At least you’re speaking to me,” he said.
She stepped back. “Why, Gordon? Why did you leave five years ago?”
“You know why I left, Jennifer.”
“No, I don’t. No one would tell me. Not Sean, not Harrison. Not even Mr. McBain. All I know is that you were there one moment and gone the next. Without a word.”
“Why should I leave you a note, Jennifer, when you were just going to give it to McBain?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know all those notes I left for you, the ones you thought were so precious? McBain showed them to me, proof that you wanted me gone.”
“I wanted you gone? How could you think such a thing?”
“What was I to think? You’d left for Edinburgh without a word to me.”
“I gave Betty a letter for you.”
They stared at each other.
Her world had been destroyed on that spring night when Gordon left. She could still remember what it had been like upon her return from Edinburgh to wait for him right here, only for him never to appear. She’d tapped on his window in the gardener’s cottage, but he hadn’t opened it and whispered, “Hush, Jen, my mother’s in a mood.”
Betty had always been in a mood. She was a disagreeable person, but she hadn’t changed overmuch when Gordon disappeared. Jennifer had never seen her cry about her missing son.
“Your notes disappeared from my desk,” she said. “Harrison said he destroyed them.”
“Betty never gave me your letter.”
It had been a concerted effort to separate them. McBain, Harrison, and Sean had all lied. They had simply rearranged her life and Gordon’s without any thought to how they would feel.
“I didn’t know,” Jennifer said. “I didn’t understand when I returned and you were gone. Mr. McBain said that you’d wanted to make your way in the world.” She didn’t tell him what else the advocate had said, that Gordon had probably become bored with his life here at Adaire Hall.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my letters?” she asked.
“I only got two,” he said. “Only that first one and the one about Sean.”
“I wrote you every year on your birthday and Christmas.” She’d probably been too open in those letters, pouring out her heart, hoping to remind Gordon of what they’d shared for years.
“You never once wrote back.”
“I never got them, Jennifer. I’m sorry.”
He offered her his hand. As if they’d been transported back in time, they began to follow the path to the loch, the same one they’d taken for years. They didn’t speak as they topped the hill.
Moonlight made the surface of the loch appear like molten silver. Farther to the east was a dock and a rowboat they used from time to time. On this side of the loch, however, she’d had a bench built, placing it near a stand of pines overlooking the water.
She took the lead, guiding him to the bench. It was only about three years old, one of her favorite places to come, sit, and remember. Once there, she sat at one end, pulling her skirts to the side. He joined her and still they remained silent, both looking out at the water.
She clasped her hands tightly in front of her, the constriction in her throat nearly choking her. She felt on the verge of tears.
He finally began to speak. “I was only the gardener’s boy, a young man who was occasionally punished for thoughts above his station. How many times did my parents say that to me? I lost count.”
“So you left and stayed away five years. Five years we could have had together.”
He glanced at her. “Where, Jennifer? Where could we have had those years? In London?” He shook his head. “You don’t know what those early years were like. I wouldn’t have subjected you to that.”
“You don’t understand, Gordon. I would have done anything, gone anywhere, just to be with you.”
“And I wouldn’t have asked that of you.”
“So, your type of love has to be perfect? Everything pristine and without flaw? Nothing’s that pretty, Gordon. I would have gone with you. Don’t you understand?”
“How could I have taken you from here? You were an earl’s daughter, an earl’s sister.”
“I was myself, first,” she said, uncaring that the words were too loud, nearly echoing in the silence of the night.
“I was told that I wasn’t good enough for you. Just the gardener’s boy. Not suitable for Lady Jennifer of Adaire Hall.”
She shook her head. “You were Gordon. My Gordon. You were eminently suitable for me.”
“All three of them were at the door, Jennifer. All of them watching as I left. McBain, Harrison, and my own father.”
She stood and moved away from the bench, the one place she’d come when she couldn’t bear the loneliness anymore, when the hurt over his behavior made her cry.
“Jennifer.” He stretched out his hand toward her.
“That didn’t stop you from writing me. You could have written me. You could have said, ‘Jennifer, I’m in London. I’m well. Don’t worry about me.’ Did you never think of me?”
“Every day.”
“You couldn’t have,” she said, shaking her head. “You couldn’t have and never let me know where you were or what you were doing. Five years, Gordon. Five very long years. I didn’t even know if you’d found someone else. If you’d fallen in love or married.”
“Of course I didn’t. I was too busy.”
She looked at him, wishing that the moon hadn’t gone behind a cloud. His face was shrouded in darkness, and she couldn’t read his expression.
“What about you, Jennifer? Why haven’t you married? Do you have a sweetheart somewhere?”
No one but you.
“No, no sweetheart.”
“In all this time you might have met someone. You might have married, Jennifer. Had your own home.”
“I was given the chance. My godmother took me to see London and also insisted on my having a season in Edinburgh. I did everything any young woman would do.”
“Except get married and have your own family.”
“There was no one I liked well enough to marry,” she said, giving him the truth. Besides, she’d held out hope that he would return. “Everyone was too interested in the fact that I was an earl’s sister. Not to mention that more than one suitor seemed interested in the legacy from my father. What would I be bringing to the marriage? Not simply myself, but how much of an income could they expect?”
She turned and faced the loch. “Besides, how could I be sure that I wouldn’t be abandoned again?”
Perhaps that’s why she felt so sorry for Lauren. She knew what it felt like to love someone who left you.
“Jennifer.”
She moved back to stand in front of the bench.
“Forgive me. You’re right. I should have written you and asked.”
“You abandoned me, Gordon.”
“Not because I wanted to.”
He stood and walked toward her.
“Forgive me, Jennifer.”
He opened his arms and she walked into them. They stood like that for a long time until she stepped back and looked up at him.
What could she say? What words would soften the cruelty of that moment five years ago? All she could do was put her hand on his arm, connecting with him. The man wasn’t so far removed from the boy. Gordon’s pride had always been fierce.
The answer to why he’d stayed away was in his voice. He’d been told that he wasn’t good enough for her, and the shame of that had remained with him. Not only McBain had told him that, but his own father had evidently said something similar. The fact that Gordon had returned to Adaire Hall at all was an indication of the strength of h
is character.
She loved him. How could she not? Five years had not diminished those feelings. What did he feel for her? He hadn’t said and she wouldn’t ask.
The courage she felt earlier had dissipated, faded into nothing.
He could go back to London as easily as he came, without another word to her. He could leave and return to the life he’d created for himself and what would she do? Endure another abandonment?
She stepped back. She was determined not to let him see how emotional she felt. As a boy he’d always teased her when she cried.
“Jennifer.”
She turned and left him, walking as fast as she could back to the Hall. She half expected him to follow her, but he didn’t.
That made her cry even more.
Shame washed over Gordon.
He’d allowed McBain to tell him a story, and he’d believed it. Even worse, he’d never written Jennifer to get her side. Why, because he didn’t want to know? Anything was better than McBain’s version of events.
He had a great many burned bridges to rebuild.
The question was, could he?
As far as his grandiose plans about impressing her, she hadn’t even asked about his empire.
What had he thought to do, coming back to Adaire Hall? He’d wanted to mend the rift with Sean. Perhaps he’d even wanted to impress him, too. Finally, he would prove that he was as good as one of the Adaires.
More than that, he’d wanted to find out, once and for all, if he’d been a fool to keep Jennifer in his mind and heart all these years. He certainly hadn’t done anything to mend that rift tonight, had he?
He’d learned to change his destiny in London. He’d fought and scrapped for the future he’d wanted. The men he’d bested in London called him a rogue. As far as they were concerned, he was a Scottish ruffian who was determined to succeed, even if that meant he followed his own rules and not theirs.
He outbid, undercut, and paid higher wages, all of which made him an irritant to other businessmen. He also dared to employ women in high positions, something that wasn’t normally done. According to one wag, he was undermining how business was done.
If he could do that, he could bridge the gulf that now existed between him and Jennifer.
He wasn’t going to lose the woman he loved.
Chapter Ten
Jennifer spent a restless night, barely sleeping. She went over and over her conversation with Gordon, both understanding why he’d stayed away and annoyed and hurt that he had, and furious that he’d never written her.
She didn’t have any words to ease what had happened to him. She felt anger on his behalf, but to whom did she express it now? Not Mr. McBain. He’d moved back to Edinburgh. Not Sean, because he was dying. Betty was beyond any human emotion.
Where did they go from here? After Sean died, was Gordon simply going to go back to London?
Did he feel anything for her?
She was up before dawn, dressed, and making her way to the loch. Here, on this bench where they’d sat last night, was the place she came when she wanted to think. No one from the house followed her here, as if they knew she needed to be alone.
She sat there for some time, watching as the rising sun bathed the horizon in light.
“You’re right,” Gordon said.
She turned her head to see Gordon standing there.
“You’re right. I should have written you and asked how you felt.”
“I can see how you’d believe McBain, especially if he had the notes I’d saved.”
“You were the only good and decent thing about my life here all those years. I couldn’t bear the idea of you verifying McBain’s words and turning all of that into dust.”
He came and sat beside her.
“I wouldn’t have,” she said. “You were the best part of my life, too.” She smiled faintly. “When you left, it was like all the life went out of every day.”
He placed his hand on hers.
“I couldn’t stop what I felt for you,” she said, “even when you didn’t write me back. Perhaps I was foolish.”
“If you were, then I’m grateful for it.”
“Why stay away five years, Gordon McDonnell? Why make me long for you all these years? Unless it was to bedevil me. And confuse me. And make me cry entirely too much.”
“I wanted to return a success. You’re Lady Jennifer. I was the gardener’s boy.”
She looked up at him. “That sounds like Sean talking or McBain. Not you.”
His quick smile surprised her. “You always did know how to insult me.”
She reached over and slapped him on the cheek with one gentle palm.
“I worked hard to prove something to you. That you wouldn’t have wasted your life with me.”
She bent her head, wishing she didn’t feel so close to tears.
“I never thought that,” she said.
“I wasn’t ready to give you the world, and now I am.”
“I didn’t want the world. I never wanted the world. I only wanted you. Didn’t you know that?”
He looked at her. She’d never been studied in quite that way before. What did he see? Someone desperately in love and hurting with it? Until he’d left, she’d never realized that love could be a sword, or that it could wound so deeply.
“There’s never been a time in my life that I didn’t love you and want you,” he said.
A spear of light traveled through her, illuminating all the dark and shadowed spots.
He reached out and wrapped his arms around her. She bent her head, resting her forehead against his chest as he tightened his arms around her. She sat with him in the dawn light, the seconds perfect in their simplicity. He was here, with her, and the world was suddenly friendly again.
The years slid away. The air was chilly just as it had been that last day she’d seen him, five years ago. It was like time had stopped.
Now he pulled back, just far enough to look into her face. She raised her head and returned his look. Let him see how much she loved him, how difficult these past five years had been. She didn’t want to hide anything.
The truth—the inescapable truth—was that she loved him. There’d never been anyone else for her but Gordon McDonnell, and there would never be.
“What did you do in those five years, Gordon?”
She felt as though they were tiptoeing through the words, bridging the divide that five years had created. She wanted to know everything about those missing years, but didn’t know if he would tell her.
“I built my empire,” he said. “I have two music halls with another being planned, plus a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall.”
She’d been to a music hall in Edinburgh and been startled at the size of it, not to mention all the entertainments offered there.
“Why music halls?”
He nodded. “I went to the Alhambra when I first went to London. I wanted to create the same experience, but with a Scottish theme. I’ve the Midlothian and the Dundee.”
“And a gentlemen’s club.”
“The Mayfair Club.”
“So the gardener’s boy is now a successful businessman. I’m not surprised.”
He turned and looked at her.
He’d made himself worthy, not understanding that she’d never felt that he was unworthy. He’d always been Gordon to her, her equal in all ways.
“Oh, Gordon, we’ve wasted so much time.”
He bent his head and kissed her. Passion bloomed between them instantly, making her breathless, intensifying the need she’d always felt for him.
Kissing Gordon was like being given a treasure after years of searching for it.
Gordon pulled back, finally, although he wanted to continue kissing Jennifer.
Her hand came up and pressed against his face, her fingers tracing the curve of his ear.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered. “I cried for weeks and months and years.”
There’d been an emptiness inside him that had
lingered for years. For the longest time he’d felt as if the world around him was gray, that he didn’t belong to it or wasn’t part of it. The revelation had come only months ago, when he’d questioned himself why he was so adamant about purchasing a certain house or why he wanted to acquire land in Scotland on which there was a romantic ruined castle.
Jennifer.
When he’d left the Hall, it had been with the taste of shame in his throat. His own father had repudiated him, as well as McBain and Harrison. He’d been called names that he didn’t like to think about, even now. All because he’d loved Jennifer. All because he wasn’t a peer or a relative of one.
He’d wanted to come back to the Hall triumphant and wealthy, landed and successful, showing that he’d multiplied the countess’s bequest to him a hundred times over.
In the past five years he’d met a sizable number of women, from the landlady’s daughter when he first arrived in London to the sister of one of the inveterate gamblers frequenting the Mayfair Club. Each one of them had, by their actions and words, indicated that they would not be insulted if he called upon them. He hadn’t taken them up on their unspoken offer, holding out for a dream.
A vision, a wish, fervently felt all these years.
Jennifer.
She was beautiful, the promise of the girl maturing to fruition. Her eyes were a clear green with the capacity to see through to his soul. Her hair, thick and curly dark brown, had featured prominently in his daydreams. How many times had he imagined it on his pillow?
When she smiled, revealing white, even teeth, a dimple formed on the left side of her mouth. Her nose, chin, even the shape of her face was perfect.
He kissed her again, unable to stop himself. When she moaned, he pressed his palms against her face, tilted his head, and deepened the kiss. Kissing Jennifer was the only thing that mattered in the entire world at this moment.
“I love you,” he softly said. “Never doubt that, Jennifer. I’ve always loved you.”
“Oh, Gordon.” That’s all she had a chance to say before he kissed her again.
