“I think you have said enough,” Derek bit out.
“I am blind, and after a few accusations none of you will admit to, you think I have said enough? I have not begun to say all that needs to be said!”
“Fine, I do offer services to the War Office,” Gabe muttered reluctantly.
“What I want to know is if the meeting I staged was even worth my being injured?”
He started not to answer, but shame and guilt overwhelmed him. “I am not a spy sharing government secrets with the enemy. However,” he quickly continued when it looked like she might say something, “the second man might very well be. When you are feeling better, we must talk more about him.”
“So I have lost my sight helping a country that didn’t even need it? For a man who has lied to me for how long, Gabe? And what I overheard that night?”
“She is truly a spy, but we gave her false information. We are watching her carefully hoping she will lead us to more spies.”
“This is wonderful,” she gave a chilling laugh before continuing. “Here I thought I was doing a service to my country, even willing to turn over information on my brother’s best friend. The man I. . .” she stopped herself and took a deep breath. “I found myself in the middle of an adventure and wished on several occasions that someone, anyone, would tell me that it wasn’t true. That you were innocent. Do you know how much time I have wasted worrying over this? All because I thought I had found a way to help my country! And now I discover it was all for naught. I can’t see my bloody hand in front of my face because of men like you. Tell me, is there anyone else that I am close too?”
She heard whispering and shuffling, and just when she thought she could take no more, her brother finally spoke up.
“McKenzie.”
“Of course, how could I forget? After all he is Director McKenzie. And let me guess, he reports directly to Castlereagh, does he not?”
“Yes.”
“Mikala, are you feeling all right?” Gabe asked seeing the tightness about her mouth and the gray cast to her face that had been getting worse as the conversation progressed.
“No, I do not feel all right. My head is pounding and I have burns and scrapes all over my face. Oh yes, and I almost forgot, I can’t see! I hope you all rot in Hell, and that your journey there is slow and painful!” she yelled as she turned to leave the room. She felt an arm wrap around her on either side to escort her from the room.
“She gave you gents quite the set down,” Richard snickered as he sipped his whisky.
“You’re a damn agent for the Foreign Office?”
“And you are an agent for the War Office. Now that we are past that, what are we going to do about her?” Justin asked as he inclined his head toward the stairs.
“You are going to stay away from her.”
“I think I could do a better job of protecting her than you did tonight.”
Gabe lunged towards Justin to be brought up short by Richard, while Derek halted Southerby. “Dru really hates blood on the carpet. I suggest both of you go home and cool off, preferably for a few days. I don’t foresee Kala becoming inclined to talk to either of you in the very near future.”
“And she is my responsibility,” Derek added, “and I don’t want to have to call either of you out.”
“Please, if anything changes in her condition, would you let me know?” Southerby asked with sincere concern etched on his features.
“Of course,” Richard replied, cutting off anything Derek would have said. He waited until the door closed behind Justin before releasing Gabe. “You know, I had to knock some sense into Derek a few weeks ago, don’t force me to do the same to you.”
“You won’t have to,” a feminine voice came from the door. Tessa and Dru stood there looking at the men left in the room.
“How is she?”
“Do you really care, Hawkescliffe?”
“Tessa.”
“Of course I do.”
“Then leave.”
“But...”
“Do you realize she passed up three proposals of marriage since she came to town, and that does not include the suitors back home? Do you have any idea how much she loved you at one time? No, because you can’t see past the nose on your face unless it has to do with protecting the Crown or saving your precious family name,” Dru lectured.
“What I do is important,” Gabe replied stoically.
“I know it is. But there have been too many secrets for too long. This secret has hurt someone deeply, both physically and emotionally. You don’t love her the way she needs to be loved. The best thing you could do is to leave her alone. Let her pick up the pieces and move on with her life.”
“I agree with Dru,” Tessa seconded.
“I should have stopped the meeting when I realized Kala was behind that mask.”
“Yes, you should have,” Derek turned on his best friend.
“Both of you stop. You both should have listened to her concerns. Instead, Derek, you saw your solution to be writing to your father to come and drag Kala home. When are you going to realize she no longer feels like she fits anywhere? Elizabeth has her family. Now you have Tessa. I have Richard. And your parents have each other. She sees herself as a burden to everyone. Do you realize how much you hurt her by your actions?”
“Derek, you didn’t,” his wife said sorrowfully from across the room.
“I hadn’t realized all this would happen.”
“It shouldn’t have happened,” Gabe jumped in once more. “She should have stayed out of what didn’t concern her.”
“When have you ever known Mikala to do that? Has it yet crossed either of your minds that she could have very easily been killed tonight? You think you are going to have a difficult time telling Michael and Martha their daughter can no longer see? Imagine if you had to tell them she no longer lived.”
***
The words haunted Gabe as he crossed the dark square to his house that sat facing Richard and Drucilla’s. He would have to talk to Derek tomorrow to find out how they should tell Mr. and Mrs. Simmons. He dreaded that. Gabe then did a very undukelike thing and sat on the steps in his gated front yard and stared at the house across the park. His eyes bore into the second story windows as if he could see the occupant he sought out. Dru’s words played across his mind like a litany, and damn if she hadn’t been right.
What if it had been worse and she had died? He had no doubt that whoever set that charge meant to kill. The thought made a fine tremor course through his body. He swallowed down the bile that rose up the back of his throat. A fine sheen of sweat covered his body.
Should all of them be more honest with her, as Drucilla suggested? Or had Kala once again merely been where she didn’t belong? Then his thoughts turned back to the explosion. Someone had not wanted the meeting to occur. The letter that she had sent setting the meeting up in the first place must have been intercepted. He would have to look into how it had been delivered and what hands had possessed it before reaching McKenzie. He would not be happy either. Time seemed to stand still as he sat staring and contemplating. Finally, the door opened and a wedge of light shown on him.
“Your Grace, you have been out here quite a while.” Gabe heard the concern that etched the butler’s voice. He had always been like an indulgent grandfather to Gabe rather than a servant.
“I guess it is time I came in, isn’t it?”
“If you wish, Your Grace. I have the decanter ready for you in your bedroom. If you are going to get drunk, you might as well make it easy on the servants.”
“Word spreads fast.”
“Only among the best of staffs.”
“Yes.”
“If I may say something, Your Grace?”
“I have a feeling that if I refused you, you would find a way to say it anyway.”
“Too true, Your Grace. This staff thinks a lot of Miss Simmons. We always have. Even when she romped around chasing after you and her brother. You should have been honest with
her.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hamlin gave him a speaking glance, but remained silent.
“Hamlin, I do not need to be lectured by you as well.”
“At least know this, Your Grace. If there is anything we can do, some of the best healers in this great nation come from our little area.”
“I will pass that information along to both her brother and the Duchess of Thornbrook.”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Well Hamlin, old friend, lead me to the drink. I do believe oblivion is just the thing the doctor ordered for me tonight.” Again he did something very undukelike and threw his arm around his butler’s shoulders in a sign of camaraderie.
Chapter 11
Kala awoke to darkness, making it difficult to tell if it were a moonless night or a sunny afternoon. Not a nightmare after all, she thought. She also had a mind-numbing headache, but refused to lie in bed and pity herself. As she pushed herself up and slid off the bed, the world felt as if it were tilting underneath her. She managed to latch onto one of posts of the bed until her legs felt a bit steadier. She attempted to recall to memory where everything could be located in the room. She stumbled her way around as she saw to her needs. She had shooed the maid off sometime during the night when she had awoken to her snoring.
Kala had walked over to the wardrobe and just pulled open the doors to search for an outfit when she heard her bedroom door creak open.
“Oh good, you’re awake. How are you this morning?” Dru asked.
“Not so loud, please. My head is pounding and I’m not sure if it is from the laudanum you dosed me with or the explosion. And I still can’t see anything if that is what you really want to know, so I am glad to know it is morning.”
“All right. Would you like some help getting dressed? You seem to have done fairly well finding your way around.”
“For a blind person?”
“Kala, stop it right now. I am not feeling sorry for you. Gabe is to blame, but you have brought some of this on yourself. If you had only told me what you had planned, Richard and I could have told you the truth. But no, you always have to tear off and take matters into your own hands. You never think before you act. You are not one of the boys, Kala, you are a young lady.”
“Are you finished?” She asked stiffly.
“Maybe.”
“I will have my things packed and be out of your hair as soon as I can,” she announced, her cleft chin sticking out prominently in a stubborn gesture. Her arms were crossed under her breasts as if for protection. It hurt more than she knew to hear these words coming from Drucilla. If it had been her mother or sister she wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. Both had thrown up their hands on her long ago. But Dru had always been a kind of an ally.
“There you go again. You’re acting without thinking. If you would just quit being so stubborn.” Kala stood in the middle of the room, moving her arms from below her breasts to wrap around her waist in a protective gesture. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable or alone. Last night her anger at the men and utter devastation at her physical condition had left her almost in a state of shock. That shock had prevented any tears from falling.
Now she could feel them building. Her lids fluttered rapidly as she tried to hold them at bay. In her mind everything came back to her. The explosion. The doctor’s pronouncement of her condition and not knowing if it would be permanent. The confrontation with Derek, Gabe and Justin. Now this. She did not want to show any more weakness, and took a deep breath hoping it would help. Instead it came out more like a sob and she lost the battle as tears streamed down her face, burning her eyes. She doubled over at her waist letting out a growl of frustration that quickly turned into deep, uncontrollable sobs.
Dru looked at Kala in shock. In her entire life she had never known Kala to cry. Not even when her broken arm had to be set after falling out of a tree. This Kala was not the girl she knew. She stood there unsure what to do, afraid that if she touched her Kala might break into a thousand pieces. She had never seen her so brittle. Dru watched in shock as Kala fell to her knees rocking back and forth, wailing.
Footsteps pounded up the stairs and the door flew open.
“Derek,” Dru looked at him helplessly, shaking her head holding her hands out to encompass his sister. She noticed Tessa enter the doorway a few moments after Derek. “Tessa, thank God. I’ve never seen her like this before.” Kala vaguely heard voices talking above her, but couldn’t make out what they were saying above her own sobs. She felt someone sit beside her and heard Dru whisper soothingly in her ear. She could only cry harder, if possible.
“Derek, go away,” she thought she heard her sister-in-law’s voice from the doorway.
“But. . .”
“We’ll take care of her, I promise. Go do what you need to do.” She heard the door click shut and then someone sat on the other side of her.
“I can’t see,” she sobbed out.
“I know darling,” she felt Tessa wrap her arms around her, rocking her.
“I don’t want to be blind,” she wailed.
“We know,” they both whispered in unison, letting her cry.
“Damn him. Damn them all. They should have told me, trusted me,” she gasped out between sobs. “An invalid. That’s what I am now.”
“No, you’re not,” Tessa soothed.
“A person to...rely on charity...the rest of my...life.”
“Never you Kala,” Dru whispered against her ear, pressing a motherly kiss to her temple.
She cried until she became physically ill, and then she cried some more. Finally, wrung out both emotionally and physically, she fell asleep in Drucilla and Tessa’s embrace. Her hair stuck to the sweat and tears that covered her face. Tessa brushed the hair back in a gentle manner.
“What exactly caused this?” Tessa maneuvered her head to indicate the sleeping Kala.
“I told her this was as much her fault as anyone else’s right before you and Derek arrived,” Dru told Tessa worriedly. They were talking over the sleeping woman, who still gave an occasional sob, even in her sleep.
“She probably needed to hear it.”
“Perhaps another time would have been better.”
“Is there ever a best time?” Tessa paused a moment, anger building in her. “I told Gabe to leave her alone. He had hurt her enough already. I thought she had finally given up on him, decided to move on. Why didn’t he just listen to me?”
“Do men ever listen?”
***
“Why didn’t you punch me last night?” Gabe demanded attempting to pick himself up off the floor of his study. Derek had struck before Gabe knew what happened. He rubbed his tender jaw. Derek’s fists were still formed, ready to hit him again. “Well, are you going to answer me?” He found himself a little shocked by Derek’s reaction. They had been best friends since Derek’s dad was hired to tutor him and his two brothers. In all that time they had had their share of fights. None had contained as much anger as this one, at least on Derek’s part, who often seemed the more easy-going of the two men. In fact, Derek even defended Gabe last night.
“Because I walked into that house this morning,” he pointed across the square, “to hear my sister wailing and sobbing. When I ran up to her room you know what I found?”
“No and I don’t want to,” Gabe turned away.
“But you bloody well are going to hear it. I saw my sister collapsed in the middle of the floor. Her arms were wrapped around herself and she rocked back and forth inconsolably. My sister, the hoyden, reduced to a sobbing mass of hysteria. It made me angry.”
“So of course that led you to me.”
“Seemed logical.”
“Of course.”
“Now, tell me about last night. Accidents like that don’t happen. You and I both know that.”
“Dammit, Derek, I pulled her back before she could be hurt worse, or possibly killed.”
“What do you mean?” Gab
e watched carefully as Derek relaxed his stance a little more.
“Someone had set enough gun powder that it blew a marble statue into bits. She had turned and begun studying said statue very closely for some strange reason. If I hadn’t pulled her back as far as I did, she might not be here now,” he bit out. That thought had haunted him well into the night. It still did, if he allowed himself to be honest. No amount of drink had been able to chase away his nightmares last night, and only served to create an incessant pounding in his brain.
Kala had been like a sister to him for years, and then things changed. Deep down, he knew that Kala cared for him deeply. He had even thought that after he had finished living his adventures he might go back home and marry her if for no other reason than they knew each other so well and got on famously. He could have been living a comfortable life, but fate had intervened. It always did.
“Dear God,” Derek shook now. Gabe moved quickly, standing up and nudging Derek over to a chair, knowing that the realization just hit him. Yes, Drucilla alluded to it last night, but only a man who had seen battle knew what the true effects could have been. Both of them had seen death first hand too many times. He had tried to chase it away with a bottle of brandy, but halfway through realized it wouldn’t help. Thank goodness I stopped there, he thought. The ringing in his head had increased tenfold after Derek’s punch.
“We shouldn’t have kept her in the dark. She kept our secrets before. We should have trusted her.”
“We can’t change the past.”
“And Southerby showed up there as well?”
“He said that he saw her slip off before the fireworks started and decided to follow her. Knowing now his connection to the Foreign Office, I’m just not sure.”
“Richard didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised by any of it last night.”
A Thin Line Page 9
