Dade stared at him. “Now, see here, Porter, what are you saying?”
Ren pushed Dade in the chest with both hands. “Listen to me! There have been several attempts on her life.”
Dade drew a breath. “Bloody hell.”
“The first came only a day after we wed…” The swift recounting didn’t take long, but as he heard the facts about each incident leave his lips, Ren cursed himself for not believing sooner—and for needing Callie so badly that he kept her, even after he believed.
“I cannot endanger her any further. This place where you stayed the night—”
“Wincombes’. It’s about twenty miles southeast on the road to London.”
“Twenty miles should be far enough.” Ren rubbed his face. Was it? How far-reaching was this vendetta? If it came from Ren’s past, there was no place on earth that was secure. He blinked himself back to the conversation. “It will have to do. She shouldn’t travel any farther.”
Dade frowned. “She shouldn’t travel at all! Why didn’t you send her home a week ago?”
Ren ignored his question. “Do you agree? Will you take her away tomorrow?”
Dade gazed at him for a long moment. “Yes, I’ll take her. If she’ll go. I’ve tried to make her leave you again and again. She’s even more stubborn than Attie. She’s just quieter with it.”
Ren looked down at his hands. The blood was long washed away. He could still feel it, hot and flowing. “Oh, she’ll go.” He turned his back on Dade and strode away. Every hour that passed was one where the assailant might muster another attack.
It was time to break Callie’s heart.
Chapter 36
Ren paused outside the door of Callie’s bedchamber, steeling his resolve, using it to make a cage around the pain in his chest.
It wasn’t as though she’d ever been meant to stay.
Liar. All you ever wanted was for her to stay. From the first moment that you found her half naked and draped in jewels, you wanted her to haunt your nights forever.
Well, he could certainly consider that mission accomplished.
When he entered her bedchamber with a swift knock, she turned her smile to him. He hadn’t expected to find her sitting up in bed, gazing at the open window, breathing deeply of the rich spring air. Though she was pale and he could see the shadows beneath her eyes, she looked much like Callie of old, thrilled beyond measure by the smallest of things.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
He almost smiled. He didn’t. “What is wonderful?”
She turned back to the window and closed her eyes, lifting her face into the perfect breeze. “Everything.”
You are wonderful. You are everything.
It wouldn’t do to confess to her now. Not now when he most needed her to go. He had to hurt her hard. It had always been his special ability, in covert operations, his instinctive understanding of people, his ability to read them.
Now he would use his best weapon on her, to annihilate her love, to save her life.
“I suppose it is.”
At his tense tone, she opened her eyes and turned her head to gaze at him quizzically. “Has something angered you?”
I’m angry, all right. I hate the world at the moment, the world and all in it who would act against us, ruining our happiness, risking your life, murdering our future.
He gazed at her calmly. “My dear, it is time for you to go.”
He could see the shock wash over her face. If it were possible to be paler, she would have gone entirely transparent.
“Calliope, I’ll admit that we’ve had a lovely time together, but now that I’m no longer at death’s door, there are many things I need to see to.”
She reached blindly, gesturing at the vast dell that lay outside the window. “The estate? True, there is a great deal that we—”
“Not Amberdell. I’m handing stewardship over to Henry,” Ren said curtly. “This was a good enough place when I was ill, but now that I’m gaining back my health, I hardly wish to molder away here any longer.”
“I suppose I can understand that.” She cast a last longing glance at the Cotswold countryside and then swallowed, turning resolutely away. “Very well. Where are we going?”
“Not we, I’m afraid. I. I’m being recalled to duty.” He lifted his chin. “I’m returning to the work I did before I was injured.”
She frowned. “Returning … to become a spy?”
“Yes.” He nodded shortly. “I’d prefer if you keep that little fact to yourself, of course.”
She blinked. “But … doesn’t that mean London?”
Ren shrugged. “I go where I am sent. Perhaps England, or France or Portugal. Perhaps Russia.”
She leaned back upon her pillows shakily. “Russia? That’s rather far.”
Ren allowed a note of eagerness to enter his voice. “The farther the better. I cannot wait to leave this dismal place behind me. I feel as though I’ve been in prison. Now I am free, thanks to you.” Ren took a deep breath and strode restlessly to the window, shutting it with a slam and whisking the curtains across it. “That’s enough of that chill. I’ll build up the fire for you, shall I?”
She held out a hand. “No. Wait. Ren … what of us? What of our … marriage?”
He smiled falsely. “Well, it is not as though we can annul it now, so I imagine we’ll carry on much as we’d planned to from the start. You’ll go back to your family and I’ll carry on with my life.”
“Your life.”
Callie felt sick inside. Even shot, even lying in the bed, alone with her pain and her laudanum haze, even worried about Attie, underneath it all she’d been happy.
Happy in her love for him, happy in the surety that he would someday soon love her back, that he needed her. That he wanted her with him … forever.
Yet, she’d only known him ill. She’d only known him broken. This man, this restless, brisk fellow … was this the man he truly was? Was this the man he’d been before? The man who had written racy letters to his old cousin? The man who’d won the Prince Regent’s regard with his bravery?
The man who had once loved someone else, someone who favored peacock-blue scarves?
Callie pressed her fingertips to her forehead, trying to force back the growing ache there, trying to force her mind to understand.
“So I am to be banished to London, to wait at Worthington House until you return?”
“Callie, I shan’t be coming home for a very long while. I think my missions will be even more long-term. I can hardly skip from identity to identity as I used to. On the other hand, my superiors believe this face might come to be an advantage. A man with scars is someone people don’t tend to question too closely. I rather suspect they don’t want to know any more than is necessary about my past.”
It all made a horrible kind of sense. He’d been very good at what he did before. At what he was. Furthermore, he’d obviously loved that life—needed the adventure, needed the danger.
More than he needed her, apparently.
What do you do when you are the one who loves more?
Do you stay, always waiting, always wondering? Always trying to earn that love, always feeling as though you’ll never quite measure up? As though you must work for every scrap of attention, every shred of affection?
Would he come to resent her if she stayed, and what would she do, here on the estate? Stay and sit and wait, like an obedient hound hoping for any scrap?
The pain was enormous. It lay upon her, crushing her sweet hopes, squeezing the life from her newborn dreams. Her Worthington pride fought the tears but, weakened by her injuries, it lost the battle against the onslaught of her emotions. Tears leaked silently, spilling into her hands, running down her wrists.
Stop.
It was no use.
“I don’t want to go,” she whispered. “Please? I want to stay with you.”
“But I am not staying. I am on my way I know not where. You can hardly follow at my heels.”
; Heels, like a good dog.
She didn’t care. She had no pride. All that was left was pain. Inside and out, her body and her heart. The words spilled out. “Ren, I love you. Don’t … don’t make me go. Why can we not simply go on, like before?”
“Here? Not a bad place to die, love, but hardly a place to live.”
He’d never called her that before, love, lightly, flippantly. Without meaning, like a Cockney grocer, trying to charm her into purchasing more apples.
The very first time he says the word and he wastes it.
The agony knotted inside her, a tangle of hurt and anger and weak, needful desperation.
He gazed at her disapprovingly. “Callie, my work is important. What I do serves England. It saves lives. Surely you don’t mean to put your happiness before that?”
It was a low blow, unworthy of a man who had once considered himself fair in a fight. Yet, it didn’t matter how low he sank, as long as she left him … and lived.
She straightened painfully, reaching for him. “Please! Ren, I cannot bear it. I cannot! Please tell me that you don’t mean it! Tell me that you want me to stay, that you want to stay with me…”
She dashed the tears from her eyes and looked up at him. She’d once thought him terrifying, then she’d found him beautiful.
Now she knew the true meaning of terror, for he only shook his head with a frown. “Calliope, you’ll strain yourself. Let me tuck you back in. I’ll send your mother in, shall I? You’ll need help to pack anyway. I think it’s best to send you home with them tomorrow.”
So soon. So sudden.
He lifted her back to rest upon her pillows and tucked her in with considerate hands. She clung to them, wrapping her icy fingers tight, but they were not the hands she knew. Not the hands of a lover. Not the touch of a husband. Just … not unkind.
“Pack,” she said dully.
Ren ached from head to foot to see her thus.
But alive. Away from him, she would live. Away from him, she would regain her vibrant Callie-ness.
Away from him, but alive.
So he made sure of it. He reached into his weskit pocket to offer her his handkerchief. Something dropped from the carefully folded linen, landing on the coverlet nearly in her lap.
When he was sure her gaze had fixed upon the small gold circle, mounted with a sapphire surrounded by emeralds, he made a wild snatch for the ring. Looking away from her, he tucked it back into his pocket with an appearance of studied nonchalance.
He knew she’d found the ring, along with the medal, long ago. He knew the way her mind worked, how she put clues together. He knew she would have imagined the woman who’d been meant to have the ring.
By the devastated depths of her hazel eyes, he knew he’d accomplished another mission. The life had fled her eyes, her sweet face. Even her body seemed slack and dull.
Drive in another blade? Why do if you can overdo? He cleared his throat, making his voice persuasive. “I suppose I have enough pull with the government to have the church grant you a divorce, if that makes you happier.”
“Divorce.” She blinked down at her hands, limp and shaking in her lap. “I don’t…”
“Well, as you wish. Write to Henry if you change your mind. I’ll be checking in with him every six months or so.”
“Yes. All right.” She looked away then. “I’m tired. I think I’d like to rest now.”
“Good idea. You may pack this evening.” Finally he weakened. “Would you like for me to open the window again?”
She closed her eyes. “No, thank you,” she whispered. “There is nothing out there I wish to see … now.”
Chapter 37
The next morning, the Worthingtons prepared to depart forever. Callie tolerated her mother’s fluttering and Attie’s lack of concentration only because Elektra devoted herself to the preservation and packing of Callie’s Lementeur collection.
Callie had nothing to do but rest and watch. Then Attie found the folio of botanical drawings in Callie’s drawer.
“What is this?” She peered closely at the genus and species penciled below each specimen. “Are any of these poisonous?”
“Attie, don’t poke through everything!” Elektra scolded. She took it from Attie and absently handed it to Callie.
Callie gazed at the leather-bound folio. “Don’t bother packing this. I won’t be needing it.” It wasn’t likely she would ever have time for such things again … even if she could someday bear to open the parcel full of painful memory. She didn’t want to take this place with her … these hills, these flowers, these beautiful days and wildly exciting nights …
Quickly shutting the folio, she slid it away from her across the counterpane. No. When she shut the door of Amberdell behind her, she wanted no reminders packed with her.
Elektra gathered up what she could carry, directed the twins to lug down what she couldn’t—for she was taking every stitch of clothing Mr. Button had provided. Elektra was beyond thrilled to have a Lementeur original and what couldn’t be made to fit could be sold for enough coin to keep the household going for many months.
She’d earned every bit of it, in the end, Callie thought with weary resignation.
Her hopes of making a swift and private exit were of course foiled by the usual madness involved in getting the Worthington clan on the road. Attie’s bonnet could not be found, then Iris wandered away, only to be found speaking cordially to one of the portraits in the gallery. When Callie, leaning weakly on Lysander, her nerves worn to shaking by her need to be far, far away, watched as Dade wedged her mother between her sisters in the family’s shabby carriage, she turned around to discover that Ren had decided to see her off after all.
Bloody hell. There he stood, just as she’d longed to see him, bareheaded in the sunlight, the scars on his face visible yet made less important by the new dignity in his bearing. The man before her was no lurking gargoyle. He was a hero, a knight, the true master of his house, not its inmate.
With all her heart, she wished him to remain so. Truly.
Ren knew that he was dooming himself, sending away this last chance at happiness. He approached her, not shying from the devastation in her eyes.
“You’ve forgotten something.” He held up the strand of pearls she’d strung a few days earlier.
She flinched but then bent her head, allowing him to fasten it around her neck. If his fingers lingered slightly, drifting through the curling strands of hair at the back of her neck, it was only because he fought the urge to drag her back into the house and lock out the world forever.
She did not seem to notice the crack in his façade. She scarcely looked at him at all.
Her brothers helped her into the second carriage, supplied by Amberdell, where she would ride behind with Dade whilst tucked into a nest of cushions, free of the strain of her family’s antics.
As the carriages pulled out of the drive, the rickety Worthington conveyance first, followed by the better-sprung vehicle, silence once more descended upon Amberdell.
* * *
Ren went back into his house, his beautiful, homey, comfortable, empty manor … and he could not bear it.
He found himself wandering the halls. He stood in the center of the empty ballroom, which still reeked of smoke and disaster, and listened to the faint tinkling of the crystalline chandeliers swaying above him.
He walked through the dining room, trailing his fingertips along the great table, recalling the bouncing of dozens of pearls on the polished surface.
He stood before the fire in the library, gazing at the crossed swords displayed above it.
And finally, he opened the door to Callie’s bedchamber. He closed his eyes and breathed, still able to detect the faint bouquet of rosemary and girl and wildflowers. He walked around her bed, gazing at the pillow that still contained the impression of her head.
His foot struck something. Looking down, he bent to retrieve the leather folio that lay discarded there. Unwinding the string closure, he op
ened it upon a riot of Cotswold springtime.
She’d left it. Forgotten? He knew her better than that. Like a creature gnawing off a limb to escape a trap, she had been forced to leave a piece of herself behind.
He closed the folio carefully and rewound the closure. Then he reverently placed the folio upon her dressing table and left the room.
As he descended the stairs, his steps quickened. By the time he’d reached the front entrance, he was running.
Running from the empty spaces where Callie was not.
* * *
On the journey, Dade watched Callie, regretting his selfishness now. She lay pale and wan upon her nest of cushions, a shell of her former brisk self.
Callie of the tidying hands and the managing ways. He’d never realized she possessed such a romantic heart, a heart to be so thoroughly broken by a stranger in less than a fortnight.
He wondered if he’d ever really known his sister at all.
They rode in silence broken only by the creaking of the slow-rolling cartwheels and the faint gasps of pain Callie could not suppress when a pothole was found in the road.
The family had long since disappeared in the road ahead, not even a wisp of dust in the air to mark their passing.
The pace was unbearably slow, yet Callie felt panicked, unsteady, as if they raced away … away from Ren.
She felt as though an ever-tightening strand of some kind bound her to Amberdell, to him, and with every revolution of the carriage wheels, that strand became more attenuated, until it was no stronger than a thought, no more permanent than a memory. She fought for breath against the ache in her body, against the ever-tightening bands of heartbreak that threatened to cut off her air entirely …
Callie became aware that Dade was speaking … something about “… glad to have you take Ellie’s spending in hand.”
“I am not your housekeeper, Dade.” She said it without rancor … as if, in fact, it was something she had just realized herself. She looked at him.
Dade frowned at her. “I know you aren’t. You could have a house of your own. You’re Mrs. Porter now—”
When She Said I Do Page 32
