It's Always Been You

by Victoria Dahl

  “If that’s what you call help—”

  He lunged for her, wrapping his hands around her upper arms to shake her. “Listen to me, damn it. I hardly think one kiss is too much to ask for saving your life. And to think you repaid me by nearly breaking my skull open.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  “You will have to answer to the authorities one way or another. Did you think you could flee Ceylon after my father’s death, and people would shrug and say fare-thee-well?”

  “I don’t know. I . . .”

  His eyes burned like dark ice in the dimness of the shop. His lips pressed tight to his teeth when he spoke. “You need me, Katherine. Come home with me and I’ll tell them you were out riding the day he died. I’ll swear you couldn’t have hurt him. Or stay here and I’ll tell them the truth.”

  “I didn’t hurt him!”

  “Damn it, I don’t care if you hurt him, don’t you see that?”

  His hands were squeezing bruises into her arms. The sound of his panting filled her ears.

  “He was supposed to bring you to Ceylon for me,” Gerard said. “And he ruined everything. Even when that bastard died, he ruined everything.”

  She saw true sorrow in his eyes then. Torment instead of madness. “Gerard . . .”

  “I want to take care of you. You were the only good thing in my life. Ever. I just want you to come home.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t go back. I don’t belong there.”

  His hands slowly loosened. The sorrow in his eyes faded to disappointment. “You’re tired,” he said.

  “I’m tired of being afraid.”

  He shook his head. “There’s no need to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you.”

  “Just go home. Please. I’m begging you.”

  Gerard opened his hands and stepped back as if to show that he meant no harm. “You’ve had a shock. Lie down and rest before dinner tonight.”

  “Just go,” she begged, but she could see he didn’t mean to respond. He kept his mouth flat and gestured toward the stairs.

  Kate couldn’t escape today, not truly. So she walked up the stairs and tried not to remember the way she’d walked onto that ship to Ceylon. She felt that helplessness again. That same weakness.

  And yet . . . And yet this was a moment. A choice, just like the choice she’d faced when she’d let her father lead her onto that ship. She could give in to whatever Gerard planned. She could be terrified and foolish and certain of her powerlessness . . . or she could make the right choice this time. The choice she hadn’t made before. She could be strong.

  Yes, this time would be different. And if Gerard wanted the truth, she’d have to give it to him, no matter what she’d promised David.

  Gasping back a choked cry, Kate opened her eyes to blackness. Her neck tingled as the tiny hairs at her nape rose, warning her of the danger.

  Though her eyes rolled wildly, she could see nothing, nothing. For one long, terrible moment, she was back in Ceylon, where night fell like black wool, where this feeling came often. She was suddenly sure that Ceylon had reclaimed her, that England had been a dream, Aidan a fantasy. In that moment, brief and heart-wrenching, she thought she would dare anything to have him back again. Anything.

  Lying there, stiff with shock, too frightened to even shake, she sensed the minutes tick past. Her heart finally receded, dropping back into her chest where it usually lived, and reality eased its way closer.

  This was not Ceylon. This was England. She gulped at cold air, fighting to ease the sharp burning of her lungs, to calm her driving pulse. Her panic was fading, but the sense of wrongness remained.

  “Gerard,” she whispered, holding herself still.

  He’d shut the curtains and the bedroom door, but he was waiting in the parlor.

  She could scarcely believe that she’d slept, but her sleepless nights had caught up with her. He’d be coming in to wake her soon. Dinner couldn’t be far off, and he was determined to go. Determined to play at being her husband, just as he’d always wanted.

  Her heart jumped at every sound, every creak of the old building. Her eyes continuously slid to the parlor door, imagining footsteps. Eventually, though, her pulse began to slow to a more reasonable pace.

  She was left in the company of a different sort of anxiety, not based on fear, but on hope. Aidan. When she’d awakened, certain that her time with him had been a dream, she’d thought she’d dare anything, risk everything, to be with him. The thought had been straightforward, uncomplicated: Nothing mattered except the chance to love him.

  But only the chance. When he found out that she had no husband, he’d hate her for that. He must.

  Still, there was a chance, and this time she’d take it.

  She rose and lit the lamp, then washed in the basin and opened the wardrobe.

  “Wear the blue,” Gerard said from the doorway.

  Her muscles tightened painfully as her heart forced a wave of blood through her veins. She hesitated, staring at the blue stripes aglow against dark wood.

  “The blue,” he repeated, and she heard the scrape of his boots turning to retreat back to the parlor. Kate dressed as quickly as she could, afraid he’d reappear again without warning.

  Though he swept her with an approving look when she emerged, he didn’t say a word during their walk to the Cains’. He was like his father that way. Quiet and serious. At least he didn’t try to force her to laugh and flirt with him. They simply moved through the cold night like strangers, both staring straight ahead.

  After dinner tonight, she’d tell him the truth, and then perhaps he’d go. If she could get him to leave on his own, to return to Ceylon without her, everything would turn out well. Better than well, because her masquerade would be stronger than ever after her mysterious husband had made an appearance.

  She would not be ruined. She would not have to leave.

  She shot him a look from the corner of her eye. “I can never be your wife, you know.”

  “I know. Not legally. But I hate that place without you.”

  “But, Gerard . . . I am happy here. Can’t you see that?”

  He shook his head, but as they walked, he frowned down at the ground as if he were puzzling through a problem. Was it possible he was actually listening to her?

  “I have my shop here. A simple life. It’s all I want.”

  “We’re late for dinner,” he muttered.

  Kate let it be. They obviously weren’t sailing for Ceylon tonight. She had time. And better than that, she had a plan. He wasn’t mad. He’d only been grief-crazed that night he’d pushed her onto the bed and kissed her.

  He lusted after her, yes, but he did not hate her. She could fix this. And if she couldn’t, this time she wouldn’t be a fool. Aidan had promised his help before, and if it came to it, she’d run to him. She could pretend that she didn’t trust him, but that was only hurt and jealousy. She trusted him with her life. She always had. It was why she’d given herself to him in the first place.

  By the time they reached the Cain home, she was almost relaxed, but when the door opened, she found it was more than just Lucy and her father awaiting them.

  Gulliver Wilson was there as well, and his wife, a sharp-nosed woman with icy eyes. They both stared at Kate with gleaming interest as everyone was ushered toward the dining room. Mr. Cain made a joke about their lateness, observing that it must have been a happy reunion.

  Kate avoided speaking to any of them, even Lucy, until they were all seated.

  “Well, Mr. Hamilton,” Gulliver Wilson drawled, “I can assure you that we’ve all been looking after your lovely wife.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilson,” Gerard said without a hint of deceit in his expression. “I can’t pretend I haven’t worried.”

  “I am surprised you would send her ahead on her own. . . .”

  Gerard made a dismissive noise and brought the soup spoon to his mouth without responding. Mr. Wilson looked irritated.


  “The shop is quite popular!” Lucy said into the silence. “What did you think of it?”

  But Gulliver Wilson was determined to make trouble. “Your friend Mr. York was especially attentive to Mrs. Hamilton,” he said. Kate felt her face flush. Even Mr. Cain could not miss the implication and frowned in Wilson’s direction.

  “York?” Gerard said.

  “Yes,” Wilson said with a smile. “Mr. Aidan York of London. He visited several times. Said he was an associate of yours.”

  Gerard’s gaze slid to her. “Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought he’d made it back to England yet.”

  “You’ll be happy to know he’s been here for months,” Wilson said, his sly grin widening.

  Lucy glared at him. “How is your brother, Mr. Wilson?” she asked loudly.

  Wilson coughed and blustered, but Gerard’s eyes were still on Kate. She tried to keep her expression flat, but she couldn’t keep the color from her cheeks. She wanted to leap over the table and stab Mr. Wilson with her fork. She wanted to jump up and scream at them all that Gerard was not her husband and she was free to do as she pleased. But she only sat there, eating slowly so that her knotted stomach wouldn’t betray her.

  Lucy’s eyes were wide and liquid with worry, but Kate avoided her gaze. She did not like lying to her friend, but she had no choice.

  The tension remained all through dinner, with Gulliver Wilson continuously hinting that she’d been a less-than-perfect wife during her stay in Hull. No one suggested they linger over port. Indeed, Mr. Cain seemed eager to see everyone out the door. Gerard took her arm too roughly, and soon enough she was whisked away.

  “You are happy here?” he hissed into her ear. “Because of the shop? Because you enjoy slaving away like a merchant’s wife? By God, you are a damned liar, is what you are.”

  “I am not.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Gulliver Wilson despises me. He is goading you, hoping I’ll get a beating.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  Kate hesitated, but finally his fingers dug so deep into her arm that she couldn’t stay quiet. “Mr. York is an importer, nothing more.”

  “Yet you told people he was a friend of your husband.”

  She swallowed hard, focusing on the stones of the street. “What does that matter? I was trying to shut that awful Mr. Wilson up. I don’t even have a husband.”

  He didn’t say another word, and she thought he’d left the matter behind, but when they reached the shop, he locked the door behind him and threw the key across the room so hard that it cracked against a bin. “I actually thought you were telling the truth. That you wanted to be here, alone, at peace.”

  She hurried toward the stairs. He tried to grab at her arm, but she scooted around him and stormed up the steps. “I’ve done nothing wrong, just as I did nothing wrong in Ceylon.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re returning with me. Whoever this man is, he can rot for all I care.”

  She paced across her small parlor, back and forth, while Gerard watched her. “I am free, and you will not take that from me!”

  “We shall see about that,” he growled.

  “Listen to yourself! What happened to you? You were a boy with hopes and dreams when I met you. You wanted things from life that had nothing to do with Ceylon. But you can have any life you want now, don’t you see that? You are free too. As free as I am.”

  “I am not free,” he snapped.

  She reached out to grab at his sleeve. “Sell the plantation. You can go anywhere. Be anyone.”

  His hand closed over her arm with brutal speed. “He paid a fortune for you.”

  She tried to pull away and failed. “What?”

  “He paid my fortune for you. All that money he sent your father just to shut up that blasted governor . . . he mortgaged the plantation to the hilt. But he didn’t give a damn because he had his beloved Iniya. So don’t tell me I’m free. I’ll be buried in that cursed place as surely as my father was.”

  She’d had no idea. David had never said a word. “I’m sorry, Gerard. I truly am. I would never have wanted that for you.”

  Gerard cursed and his hand fell away. He ducked his head, fists on his hips, and glared hard at his boots.

  “I need to tell you something,” she finally said, hating the words that were about to come out of her mouth.

  “What?” he asked, sounding exhausted already.

  “About your father.”

  His head rose. “What?”

  “Your father. He . . . he did die from poisoning.”

  “I knew it.” For a moment his face twisted with rage.

  Kate raised her hands. “But I did not give it to him.”

  That caught him back from his anger. He pulled his chin in. “What do you mean?” Then his eyes widened. “Good God, it was Iniya, wasn’t it? I can’t believe that never occurred to me.”

  “No, it wasn’t. . . . That is . . . she didn’t kill him, Gerard.”

  “Well, somebody damn sure did, and you seem to know a lot about it.”

  She said a silent prayer. An apology to David for revealing the truth. “Gerard . . . he did it himself.”

  Gerard frowned at her, clearly not understanding what she’d said. She felt a sharp stab of grief for him. Despite all their differences, Gerard had loved his father.

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “For a long while, he thought he was getting better, regaining strength. But for those last few years, he left the bed less and less often. He could no longer ride. He asked me to bring him poison, and I refused. For weeks. But someone must have brought him some.”

  “Iniya.”

  “I don’t know. It could’ve been one of the servants. Any of them. He took it, and called me up to him. He’d already said good-bye to Iniya. He wanted to say good-bye to me.”

  “But not to me?” Gerard roared.

  “You were his heir. He felt he’d done what he could for you. But he had money for me. Enough so that I could leave. And Iniya, of course. He wanted to see her settled. And . . .” She swallowed hard. “And he didn’t want you to know that he’d taken his own life. I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said simply.

  “He didn’t want his son to think he was weak—”

  “I don’t believe that he committed suicide!”

  “Oh, Gerard. He was tired. I tried to talk him out of it, I swear. So did Iniya.”

  “You should’ve told me!”

  Kate’s shoulders dropped. She’d hoped it had been idle talk on David’s part. She hadn’t thought he’d really do it. “You’re right, of course. Perhaps you could’ve stopped him. I could not. But he made us promise we would never tell you. In the end, there was nothing I could do but hold his hand. . . .” Her throat closed with the memory. Iniya had stroked his face and whispered comfort into his ear. At least he’d had her there at the end.

  Gerard dropped into a chair and slumped over the table, head in his hands. Though he didn’t make a sound, she knew by the way he shook that he was weeping. Whatever was between them now, she’d known him for so many years. Kate put her hand to his shoulder. “If it’s a comfort to you . . . he didn’t have any doubt that you could run the plantation. None at all. He was proud of you.”

  His silent sobs eventually faded. Kate poured a glass of wine and brought it to him. He drank it all in one long draw.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Go to bed,” he growled.

  “Gerard . . .” She reached to touch him again, and that was a horrible mistake. Gerard spun and caught her to him, crushing her with his strength. He pressed his forehead to her bosom and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  For a moment, she let him hold her, thinking he needed comfort. She kept her hands high and tried to breathe past the vise of his arms.

  But then he shifted, dragging his face higher until his mouth touched the bare skin of her chest. “My God, I love you.”

&
nbsp; “Don’t . . .”

  “Please,” he whispered, opening his mouth against the rise of her breast. “I need you. I need you.”

  “Stop. Stop!” She dug her fingers into his head and pushed as hard as she could.

  He finally shoved her violently away. “Go!” he shouted. “Get out of my sight.”

  She stumbled toward her bedchamber, relieved he’d let her go, afraid that he’d follow. But his next words turned that fear into despair.

  “We’ll book passage to Ceylon tomorrow.”

  Kate grasped the doorjamb and whirled back to him. “What?”

  He poured himself another glass and downed that one as well.

  She shook her head. “No. I told you what happened. I’ll write a letter, explaining it.”

  His face had twisted with rage. “You can tell them yourself. And see if they believe you.”

  Worried that she was making everything worse, Kate closed the door and sank down to sit on the edge of the bed.

  If Gerard hadn’t come to his senses by morning, she would have to send for Aidan after all. It was her only choice. Hopefully, he’d find a way to forgive her. Whatever happened, she would not set foot on that ship. No one could make her go this time.

  Chapter 31

  “Penrose!” Aidan shouted, slamming open the door of their rented quarters. “Penrose! Damn it, man, what the hell did you mean, sending that ridiculous message?”

  He sped up the stairway, his boots echoing like explosions against the plain wooden stairs. “Penrose!”

  His secretary didn’t greet him when he reached the rooms. Aidan threw back the covers of Penrose’s rumpled bed in case he’d somehow flattened himself into the mattress.

  Christ, he was losing his mind.

  Miss Cain has requested your urgent assistance. Please return to Hull as soon as you’re able. Discretion prevents me from saying more.

  What the hell could that mean? He couldn’t wait to find out. If Penrose couldn’t tell him, then Lucy would.

  Growling in frustration, Aidan wheeled around and pounded back down the stairs.