by Lenora Bell
“Of course she did. The lady loves you. She said so while you were sleeping.”
“I know, and that’s terrible.”
“Is it?”
“I’ve hurt a young, innocent lady, and my dark, scarred heart is bleeding. I have to find some way to make this better.”
She’d said she was the one lady in the world who was immune to his charm and he’d believed her because he’d wanted to believe her, and because she had a convincing way of saying things, as though she were the authority on the topic.
He’d known she was inexperienced and easily hurt. He’d wanted to believe that she had shed her inhibitions so easily and entered freely and mindfully into a mutually pleasurable physical relationship with convenient time restraints.
What was it about her that made him want to be a better man?
He’d never had a twinge of conscience. Not once in all these years of debauchery. This was his destiny and he was merely fulfilling what was prescribed for him by his father and grandfather.
If this experience showed her nothing, hadn’t it shown her that he was unstable?
“I need to ask you something,” Nick said.
“You want me to take Lady Hatherly to India.”
“How did you know?”
“She missed her ship. And I know how much it means to her to go. And I also know how much you love her.”
“I don’t—”
He was going to deny it. And then he shut his mouth.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought,” Lear said with a smug smile.
“How did you become so all-knowing?”
“Always wanted to see India. Long passage around the Cape of Good Hope, though. Five, six months. Of course, it will give you time for that honeymoon you never properly had.”
“I’m not going. I can’t leave the duke, you know that.”
“Uh-huh,” Lear said skeptically. “Well, if I’m outfitting one of my ships for India, I’d best be going to make the preparations.”
“She’ll bring her cat with her.”
“That’s fine. I need a new ship’s cat. Mrs. Peebles perished, sadly, when she slept in the wrong barrel.”
“Kali will be an excellent ship’s cat; she loves to hunt mice and she’s not afraid of anything. When can you be ready? I’ll pay all costs, of course. She needs to be in Calcutta by December.”
“Two days. Do you want to tell her, or should I?”
“I’ll tell her,” Nick said.
Lear nodded and left.
I’ll tell her, Nick thought, and I won’t shout: Don’t go to India.
Even having that thought seemed sacrilegious. This was Alice’s goal. All her hard work and scholarship would be for naught if she didn’t follow her heart to India.
She would leave, and his life would descend back into chaos and emptiness.
She’d left a book behind on the chair by his bed. A memory penetrated the darkness of his mind. She’d read to him for hours, sitting by his bedside.
He touched the ridged spine of the book, thinking of Alice’s supple spine, the feeling of her smooth skin beneath his hands.
Think this through, Nick.
What if he convinced her to stay? She would resent him, maybe not right away but eventually, for ruining her dream.
What if she went to India and he convinced her to come back to him? They would spend years apart. Her requirement was fidelity. He could be true to her, but what if she forgot about him? She’d probably find her affable professor in Calcutta. And then what would Nick be? Just the wild ride she left behind.
Good for sexual gratification but not exactly the makings of a safe, stable partner.
There was nothing stable about his life. He lived on the edge of life, always testing its limits. Ride hard. Drink hard. Don’t care too deeply about anything because it’ll all go to hell sooner rather than later.
The duke will die.
Mother only wants her allowance.
No brother, sister, no bonds of flesh. Escape into pleasure because that’s the best hiding place.
Alice’s light and power should never be dimmed. She’d been held back by her mother trying to hedge her into a domestic, conventional role, but she’d found a way to escape.
She read poetry in Sanskrit. She took charge of difficult situations. She was kind to his father. She lightened Nick’s heart.
When he’d agreed to their arrangement, he’d known that bedding her would be pleasurable. He hadn’t known that it would change him.
She smiled, and he believed that life held some meaning and that he had a future.
You’re getting older, Nick. Flannel waistcoats and quiet nights by a fireplace reading with his wife didn’t sound so pathetic anymore. Maybe that’s what he wanted.
Sometimes I fall in love six times before breakfast. I worship every woman I bed and I adore them until the moment they leave.
The words he’d so glibly spoken only two months ago. The problem was he’d tumbled into infatuation with Alice and he’d never climbed back out again.
He was still there, mired in this need for her, this wanting that never waned, never grew cold.
Kali hopped onto the bed, and Nick caught her in his arms and scratched between her ears.
At first the cat stiffened, not sure how she felt about his big presence next to her on the bed, but then, when he found the right spot with his nails, she sighed and stretched her little paw out to touch his arm.
“Kali,” he said, feeling foolish for talking to a cat, but needing to tell someone. “I care for your mother. I don’t want to, but I do. But I can’t tell her because it would seem as though I were trying to make her stay here in England, when I want her to have her adventure.”
Kali’s tail thumped against the bed and her eyes closed.
Nick picked her up and cradled her in one palm while he scratched under her chin. What a sweet thing she was when she was in the right mood.
“We have to follow the plan, Kali,” he whispered into her ear.
Kali raised her head and flattened her ears.
“We have to,” Nick protested. “She’d think I was trying to keep her here for selfish reasons.”
You are trying to keep her here for selfish reasons.
“You want me to tell her? Let her make her own decision?”
Kali purred approvingly.
Nick kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for the talk.” He set her down, and she blinked sleepily and settled back into the covers.
Could there be anything more heart melting than a big, strong man holding a fluffy cat, scratching its chin, and whispering in its ear? Alice thought as she watched Nick and Kali.
People express love in different ways.
Some people don’t say anything; they use actions to speak their heart.
Had Nick been trying to tell her he loved her when he did those nice things for her?
Now what was he doing? Crooning a nonsensical ditty about lion tamers and fearsome huntresses to Kali in an off-key voice.
Drat! Alice wished he wouldn’t do things like that. It wrung her heart out like wet linen and hung it out to dry.
He glanced up and saw her watching. He sat up straighter, Kali still curled in his lap. “Alice, come here.” He patted the bed next to him.
She sat in the chair instead. She didn’t want him to touch her anymore. Every time he touched her would make it more painful when she left.
“I’ll see if there are other ships going to Calcutta tomorrow, Nick.”
“No need,” he said. “Lear will take you.”
“He will?”
“He’s mounting an orchid-hunting expedition and a trip to India fits well with his plans. There’s no way I’m allowing you to throw all your goals aside. You were always going to India. This was always ending with you boarding that ship.”
Yes, that was the way it was supposed to end.
Sailing off for adventure.
But the taste for adventure had gone f
lat in her mouth.
“I forbid you to stay here, Alice. But perhaps we’ll see each other again in the future.” He smiled. “Maybe we’ll become the kind of lovers who meet for a week once a year. Or a month, maybe. I’ve heard of such arrangements. Husbands and wives who are the best of friends. I never thought it possible but we could . . . we could be friends.”
He needed a friend. He didn’t need another lover. Was that what he was trying to tell her?
“We follow the plan, Alice. We honor the contract. You go your way and I stay right here.”
Traveling was her dream, not his. He had to stay here with the duke. And he’d said he would never set foot on a ship again. He didn’t want to travel; he’d made that clear.
But it hurt so much.
“You want me to leave,” she accused. “You can’t stand the idea that you might begin to care for me and you want to push me away and make me leave so that all your fears can be realized. You want me to be like your mother. Just another wife who leaves after a madness scare.”
“I do want you to leave. I want you to go to India and present your manuscript to the professors.”
“It’s only a pile of palm leaves with some scratches.”
“Don’t say that. You know that’s not true. This means everything to you, and you can’t suddenly not care about any of it. You’re so passionate about your work, and that’s something I love about you.”
He loved how devoted she was to her work.
He didn’t love her.
“It’s time to stop hiding behind your gambits and ploys, Alice. Time to be yourself, and who cares if anyone doesn’t approve? Break some rules, see where it leads you.”
“Nick.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she loved him, and what? Beg him to let her stay? That was ridiculous. She would never compromise herself or her ideals in such a way.
She would not swoon at his feet.
She never had and she wouldn’t start now. She rose on unsteady limbs. She wouldn’t cry.
Even though she knew this longing for Nick would never go away.
He was etched upon her heart, like stylus scratches on palm-leaf pages, and she’d never be rid of this wanting.
“Go forth, Dimples, go forth and conquer the world.”
She managed a wan smile. “I will, Nick.” She’d begun to dream a new future. A life with Nick. What a wonderful dream it had been. But it was over now.
Chapter 31
She should give him something capable of producing curiosity and love in his heart, such as an affectionate present, telling him that it was specifically designed for his use.
The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāyana
Alice gathered her manuscripts and her clothing.
She marshaled her emotions and locked them deep inside her heart.
She would have long months at sea to examine this pain. To dissect it. And to speak its language.
The only item she left behind was a worn edition of her favorite novel.
She’d read it to Nick while he was unconscious. He had no memory of her reading to him.
As it turned out, he’d been right.
Her Darcy did not exist. And she’d been foolish to think she would find him someday.
What need had she for girlish dreams? She’d known who she was the day she’d arrived at Sunderland, but she’d changed many times since then.
From now on she’d be all business. She would live for her scholarship, and she would become an esteemed linguist. Why shouldn’t she? No one could dispute the fact that she spoke the languages she did.
She said good-bye to Nick without crying; how she managed that, she’d never know.
She said good-bye to the duke, and to Berthold, March, and Bill.
She made her farewells and she left.
Climbed into a carriage wearing a sensible traveling dress with Kali in her wicker basket.
The carriage met some sort of obstruction and couldn’t seem to move around the blockage in the road. Alice sat, dully, watching the light fade.
She would be terribly late.
But Captain Lear would wait for her. He’d been charged by Nick with delivering her to India.
Follow the plan. Honor the contract.
And never look back.
Like a damned coward, Nick watched Alice’s carriage leave from his window.
Because if he’d gone down to see her off, he would have broken down and begged her to stay.
And that wouldn’t be fair to her. She might think she loved him, but if she stayed here, eventually she would resent him for ruining her dreams and subsuming her goals.
She’d left nothing behind but a book. Fitting for such a studious lady.
He slipped the leather-bound novel into the inner pocket of his coat and headed for the duke’s orchid conservatory.
March blocked his way as he attempted to leave the house.
“You’re still ’ere?” he asked, his wrinkled face filled with confusion. “Thought you would have gone after her by now.”
“I had to let her go,” Nick said, trying to convince himself he’d done the right thing.
“Won’t miss that furry rodent of hers,” March said, sticking out his lower lip. “Not one bit.”
Which was a very unconvincing lie.
Nick already missed her.
They would all miss her.
When he reached the front door, he saw Berthold walking down the pathway from the conservatory.
Bill came running downstairs behind Nick.
“Forgot I was supposed to give you this,” he said, handing an envelope to Nick. “It’s from the captain.”
“Open it,” March urged. “What does it say?”
Berthold joined them on the front steps, and the three men crowded around, closer and closer, waiting for him to open the letter.
Nick lifted the sheet into the sunlight.
Maybe Alice had been right. Maybe he needed spectacles.
Because he thought it said: There’s a special chamber for orchids on my new ship, The Huntress. And the duke’s already in it. If you want him back you’ll have to come and fetch him, you stubborn arse.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Nick asked after he read it out loud to the group. “The duke’s in the conservatory, isn’t he?”
Berthold gave him a guilty look.
“Isn’t he?” Nick repeated.
Lear kidnapped the duke?
March grinned widely. “Bully for the captain!”
Nick couldn’t believe it. “Are you smiling, March?”
“I might be,” March replied sheepishly, the grin never leaving his face.
Then Bill’s lips curved upward slightly.
Now Nick had seen everything.
Berthold joined in the group mania, chuckling loudly.
“You’re all mad,” Nick said.
“That’s right,” March said proudly. “And you’re in love with that daft lady.”
He was in love with her. And he’d let her go. Why had he let her go?
Would she have him? The one thing that he never could have planned for in this convenient arrangement was Alice.
No one could plan for Alice.
She was so completely and utterly her own person, you never knew what she would do or say. And if he laid his heart at her feet, she could tell him that she didn’t want him with her on her voyage.
But he meant to convince her that he had his uses on long sea voyages.
“I have to pack,” Nick said urgently.
Bill indicated a small trunk sitting on the steps. “Here you are, my lord. All packed and ready to go.”
“I had one assignment, men,” Nick boomed. “Love and honor my wife. And I mucked everything up.”
“That you did,” Berthold said cheerfully. “That you did, my lord.”
“Well, don’t stand there gawking,” Nick cried. “Saddle Anvil!”
“Already saddled,” said March with another delighted grin.<
br />
They were all in on it, Nick realized.
Turncoats, he thought with affection.
You need someone to love. The duke’s words leapt to mind. Had it only been two months ago? He’d been such a blind, stubborn fool. Why had he let her go alone? He needed Alice. If she’d have him, he’d spend the rest of his days making her smile. And blush.
Within minutes, he was swinging onto Anvil’s back with his trunk strapped behind.
Anvil whinnied, ready to fly. “Trample anyone who stands in our way,” Nick instructed. “We’ve a ship to catch.”
Chapter 32
. . . happiness is secured by the possession of excellent qualities in her husband, joined to a love of enjoyment.
The Kama Sutra of Vātsyāyana
It had taken hours to reach the docks because of the snarl of carts and carriages blocking the road.
The afternoon was misty and so were her eyes.
“There’s no use crying like that!” said Alice to herself rather sharply. “I advise you to leave off this minute.” She always gave herself good advice but rarely followed it.
Captain Lear joined her at the ship’s railing. “Nice day for a voyage to India, isn’t it?”
Alice nodded, unable to muster the excitement she should be feeling at the fulfillment of her long-held desire.
“Watching for someone?” Lear asked with a sly smile.
“Of course not.”
She’d been watching for Nick. Hoping to see him galloping along the docks on his big, black stallion. Coming to beg her not to leave. Telling her he loved her madly.
But there was no Nick, and no stallion.
He wasn’t coming.
Of course he wasn’t coming. This wasn’t a romance. It was an adventure story. The intrepid heroine sets off for a lifetime of adventure on the high seas and in foreign climes.
Throwing everything away for some man, even if that man was Nick, wasn’t an option.
“Come below when you’re ready, Lady Hatherly,” Captain Lear said as he left. “It’s starting to rain. Yours is the first cabin to the left.”
A drop slid off her bonnet brim and hit her cheek.
