It's Always Been You

by Victoria Dahl

  When he opened the door, he found Kate standing in the center of the room, her arms wrapped around her middle. “Aidan. Are you all right? What happened?”

  He could not speak yet, so he only gestured toward the stairway. Kate trudged up the stairs and Aidan followed. He tried to sit down, but his muscles twitched beneath his skin, so he rose again. And every second, Kate watched him with eyes so wide he thought he’d fall into them. “Tell me,” he finally rasped. “Tell me the truth.”

  He heard the rush of air in her throat as she inhaled. “I’m sorry.”

  “Just say it!”

  “My husband died ten months ago,” she whispered, and Aidan felt his stomach drop so far that he felt hollow.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you. Or when.”

  “What does that mean, you didn’t know how? You simply do it! And when? When I asked about him. When we made love. When I begged you to divorce him! Jesus Christ, Kate!”

  “I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t. You heard Gerard. He’d accused me of killing my husband!”

  “Did you?”

  “No!”

  Aidan scrubbed his hands through his hair. “I feel like I’m going mad. Was any of it true? Any of what you told me? Were you even sent away at all?”

  When she didn’t answer, he looked up to find her so pale that she looked gray. She nodded. Her hands gestured as if she’d say more, but when Aidan saw the way they shook, he cursed and moved to hold her. Her skin felt cold when she leaned into him. “You need to sit down, Kate.”

  He settled her close to the stove and fed the fire. Then he poured her a glass of Madeira and pressed it into her hand. “You have to tell me everything. Everything or I’ll leave right now. This is cruel, what you’ve done to me.”

  “I know,” she murmured.

  Aidan paced to the window and stared out. He waited and she finally spoke.

  “I was sent to Ceylon, not India. And you were right, you know. I didn’t want to go. I fought them at every turn. But when I stepped onto that ship, part of me thought, ‘Well, this will show him. He’ll feel sorry when he hears I’m gone.’”

  Aidan winced, hating her in that moment.

  “But,” Kate said quietly, “I got over that soon enough, long before I arrived in Ceylon. . . .”

  Determined not to offer comfort, he clenched his jaw to bar any soft words from escaping.

  “I thought I’d be able to talk my way out of it somehow. But when the ship docked, a cart was waiting to take me into the jungle. Two servants and me and a pastor . . . He did not even introduce himself, my husband. I didn’t have time to change out of my dusty clothes or wash up. I was led into the house and the pastor married us. And then, I think . . . I disappeared.”

  Aidan turned to her to find her staring down at her hands as if she’d never seen them before. “What do you mean?”

  “I still thought it wasn’t too late. I was shown to a bedroom, and when he came in . . .”

  Aidan tensed and held up a hand, thinking he would stop her, but it was too late.

  “I told him it was all a mistake. That I’d been promised to you. That I’d already made love with you. I thought he would send me back, but he didn’t.”

  “Kate—”

  “He only said, ‘This will be easier then,’ and he laid me on the bed and h-h-he—”

  “Kate, please—”

  “—he had me. Just like that. As if it meant nothing to him.”

  Pain spiraled through Aidan as if a knife was twisting straight through him. He’d said those words to her. That those women had meant nothing to him. But he couldn’t imagine . . . He didn’t want to imagine what those words had meant to Kate.

  “So yes, I was telling the truth about that, but I was married in Ceylon, and his name was David Gallow.”

  She went quiet then, but Aidan could hear his own breathing, too loud and fast. “And he’s dead,” he growled.

  “Yes.”

  “So I will not have to kill him?”

  She looked up, surprise in her eyes. “He didn’t deserve to be killed.”

  “He did!” Aidan shouted. When she shook her head, he pounded his fist onto the table as hard as he could. “He did, Kate. How can you say that? He raped you.” He thought of her, young and bright, laughing over her shoulder as he’d teased her. Looking up at him as he’d eased inside her body while his heart shook like a bird in his chest. Smiling across the table the first time they met.

  He didn’t know how she’d lived with what had happened to her. Aidan wasn’t sure that he could.

  “I thought he was a monster,” she said quietly, “but he was just a man. He was in love with a woman named Iniya. He’d bought her from her father when she was sixteen and made her his mistress, and that was why he needed me. The good Englishmen of Ceylon all had women they kept, but he was too open about it. He took his children into town to buy them treats. He lived in her cabin instead of the big house. He scandalized the other wives with his indiscretion. None of them wanted the truth flaunted in their faces. He needed me as a shield against scandal, and that was all. David was as miserable as I.”

  Aidan eased down to sit next to her. “How can you say that? No one forced him to anything. No one put their hands on him.”

  Kate shrugged one shoulder and stared down into her glass.

  “How did you live like that?”

  She flashed a quick smile with no humor in it. “I didn’t. I ate and breathed and slept. I existed. Nothing more. Sometimes I took laudanum to help me sleep longer because there were so many endless hours in the day. Have you ever noticed that? How many hours there are?”

  He shook his head.

  “One night I woke up and I simply walked out. It was the middle of the night. I had nowhere to go, but I just couldn’t stay another moment in that house. I walked for miles. Miles. Into the jungle. Into the rain. I just kept walking. After the sun rose, I heard hoofbeats behind me; it was David. He didn’t say a word, he just put his hand out to pull me up. I tried to run up a hill, and he followed. The hillside wasn’t stable, and the horse slipped. . . . The whole world seemed to fall away.” She touched her cheek and the scar that lay there. “In the end, his spine was broken. He was never the same, but I came to know him as a person after that. I helped care for him. Iniya moved into the house. I wasn’t happy, exactly, but I was alive.”

  “Did he kill himself?” Aidan asked.

  “Yes. He never fully recovered. When he didn’t want to live that way anymore, he took poison. Gerard thought I’d done it. He accused me and so I ran. And I came here. I changed my name to hide from him. And I thought that would be the end of it, I swear. I had no idea that others suspected the same thing.”

  “You could’ve told me,” he said roughly.

  She nodded. “I could have. But I didn’t.”

  The color had returned to her cheeks, but Aidan wondered if she’d stolen it from him. He felt shaky and ill. He did not know if he should be furious or if he should go to his knees before her.

  “Gerard will tell everyone. He’ll see me ruined.”

  “No, he won’t. He’s locked in a cabin on the Talisman . He won’t get off until it reaches Ceylon.”

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes wide with surprise. “That was very smart.”

  “And very expensive,” he joked, amazed that he was able to smile. “But worth every shilling.”

  “I’m not sure about that.” She waved her hand toward the front of the building. “I’m not sure my reputation is salvageable after all this.”

  “It will be fine. I’ll send a letter to the governor, explaining what I’ve witnessed. I’ll have my brother send one as well.”

  “I don’t know. If that doesn’t work . . . I do not even care for my reputation, but yours . . .”

  “Kate . . .” he started, but what could he say? He hated her and loved her. He wanted her still, but she didn’t want him. And when she turned to him, he was sure he imagined the yearning i
n her eyes.

  He cleared his throat. “Speaking of . . .” He tossed a glance toward the window. “I should go before there’s even more talk.”

  “Oh. Yes.” Even as she nodded, tears welled in her eyes and spilled over her lashes. “Of course you must go.”

  Every muscle in his body ached with the need to hold her, but he had no right to touch her. She’d made that clear in London in no uncertain terms. So he stood, and his eye caught on the doorway to her bedroom and the open chest inside.

  “Were you going to go with him?”

  “No.”

  “You were already packed, Kate.”

  “I wasn’t . . . I thought I would have to flee, but I wasn’t going with him.”

  “But you were leaving.”

  “I . . .” She shook her head and didn’t bother saying more.

  Aidan gave a small bow. “Well, you can unpack now at least. I’ll be back. I need to compose that letter, but I’ll need more details first.”

  “That’s very . . . I can’t thank you enough.”

  “Yes, well . . . If Lucy is waiting below, I’ll send her up.”

  His foot was above the top step when Kate said his name. He stuttered, turning back to her.

  “Don’t go,” she breathed.

  Kate stood, her hands twisting so hard together that her fingertips tingled and flashed. “I know you might never forgive me.”

  His brow fell and he started to shake his head.

  “Please,” she said, holding up one shaking hand. “It’s all right. I just wanted you to know that . . . This morning I was lying in my bed, waiting for the sun to come up, and all I could think of was you. I knew I’d never let Gerard take me to Ceylon, because I needed to tell you I was sorry.”

  “Kate, I understand. It’s—”

  “No, not about the lies, but for what I said in London. And what I thought . . .” Tears stung her throat at her own bitter resentment. He’d apologized, he’d revealed to her his shame, his regret, and she’d turned from him just as she’d turned from him ten years ago.

  But did she have the courage to turn back now? Could she offer him mercy, accept that it was natural for a grieving man to turn to visceral pleasure for comfort? And how could she please a man who’d had so many women?

  That morning, in the cold hours before dawn, Kate had thought of the glorious implosion of her first climax with Aidan, right there in her bed. Each one after had been just as intense, just as surreally pleasurable. And in the aftermath her body and mind had been unresponsive, so lax, so drained that she’d always fallen immediately asleep. As had Aidan. She could imagine that blankness as comfort. She could imagine how he’d crave that.

  “That woman,” she whispered. “She said you were insatiable. That you never stopped. But you weren’t insatiable with me, were you?”

  Red burned into his cheeks, not of embarrassment it seemed, but helplessness. His hands rose from his sides as if he were searching for some diplomatic way to phrase his words.

  “It’s all right, Aidan. You don’t have to lie.”

  “I don’t know how to explain it, Kate. It can’t make sense to you. . . .”

  She nodded. “I’ve been humiliated, thinking that I could never satisfy a man who’d known so many women—”

  “For God’s sake, never think that. There’s nothing true about it.”

  But Kate realized that she didn’t need him to say the words to her. She understood. She did. “Insatiable,” she said again, and Aidan flinched from the word. “That doesn’t mean satisfied, does it?”

  “Pardon?” he murmured.

  “It means unsatisfied. Starving. Desperate. And you weren’t that with me . . . were you?”

  His brow wrinkled for a moment, a spasm of confusion passing over his face, but then his eyes cleared and he looked at her. He truly looked at her for the first time that day, though pain shone clearly in that gaze. “No,” he said. “I wasn’t. Not with you.”

  He hadn’t been lying to her. He had been alone . . . lonely, lost. He hadn’t found comfort with those women. Not at all.

  At that moment, even knowing he might not forgive her, Kate felt brave. Felt she could throw her soul into the void and trust that she would be fine. She nodded.

  “I hope that you will forgive me some day. For the things I said to you. And the things I never said. And for letting them take me away from you before. I won’t go away again.” She managed a smile past her tears. “Perhaps not even if you want me to.”

  He moved toward her, and he looked so large, suddenly. So strong and safe. He’d always just been Aidan before, but now she saw him with new eyes. He was the Aidan she’d always known, but he was more than that too. Strong and steady and a man she’d love even if she’d never known him before.

  “Katie,” he murmured, reaching to touch her cheek.

  She could not tell what was in his eyes. If he was saying good-bye or something much better. But she would say the same thing to him regardless. “I love you so much,” Kate whispered. “More than you can ever know. You are such a good man.”

  “Don’t say that. Please.”

  “You are good. But not perfect. If you were perfect, I’d never have even met you. You would’ve kept your hands to yourself, just as you should have.”

  He pulled her into his arms, his laugh sounding suspiciously rough. Kate just closed her eyes and breathed him in, thankful for every second that she could touch him. It might have to last her for years.

  He drew a deep breath, the sound of it a comforting rumble in her head. “I haven’t been good for a long time. I couldn’t imagine life without you, Katie. I never could. That’s why I was so lost. I just . . . I couldn’t make myself want anything more than you.”

  That was when she began to cry, because she knew he would forgive her, and he’d love her, and they would have this chance. Finally. A real chance to love each other on their own terms. She was on solid ground again. Every stone back in place.

  “I love you,” he breathed against the top of her head. “I’m not perfect, but I’m yours, if you’ll have me. I’ve never been anyone else’s.”

  Chapter 32

  “He is very tall, don’t you think? Elegant even?”

  Kate smiled down at Lucy as she fastened a simple pendant around her neck. “Mr. Penrose? Yes, he is quite elegant.”

  Lucy sighed and swung her feet against the legs of her stool. “He may be too cautious for me. He hasn’t even tried to steal a kiss!”

  “He respects you. Perhaps he has something more permanent in mind.”

  “Bite your tongue!” Lucy gasped, tapping a playful slap on Kate’s arm. “Whatever would I do with a respectable man like that?”

  “Liven up his life, I’d say.”

  “Well, he does need a bit of livening. All he ever does is work.”

  “He’s very dedicated. That’s important in a man.”

  “Mmm.” Lucy sighed and resumed her pose of a forlorn maid. “Well, you have Aidan in your bed and my beau is nowhere near mine.”

  “He’s a beau then, is he?” Lucy’s blush wasn’t the least bit innocent. “I don’t want to disappoint you, Lucy, but he doesn’t seem the type to fall happily into an affair.” Lucy groaned in exaggerated misery, but Kate threw her a cheeky grin that held not a trace of sympathy. “But I, for one, think Lucy Penrose is a lovely name.”

  “Ha! Can you imagine that? Me, a nice married woman?”

  “Yes, and so can you. I can tell by the frighteningly devoted way you watch him.”

  “Never say so!” Lucy laughed, jumping up from the stool. “Are you ready then?”

  Kate drew a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

  “You look so beautiful.”

  Kate ran a shaky hand down the skirt of her new dress. The silk was a deep ruby red shot through with hints of black. She loved it so much and could not wait for Aidan to see it. But the thought of being surrounded by his family set off butterflies in h
er stomach. What would they think of her? Did they blame her for his unhappiness?

  She was so glad she’d brought Lucy along as her guest. Since the moment they’d set foot in the York family home that afternoon, she’d done her best to distract Kate from her nervousness. But though Lucy kept up her chatter, Kate was still trembling as they descended the stairs. There were so many people to meet, and she felt like a lone warrior entering battle.

  As soon as her feet touched the floor, Kate looked up and saw Aidan’s mother headed straight for her. Kate squeaked, but her squeak was smothered in Baroness York’s arms as the woman pulled her into a tight embrace.

  Hoping she was being hugged and not strangled, Kate tentatively patted her back.

  “You!” the baroness sobbed.

  Kate stared wide-eyed at Aidan as he approached with a smile. “Lady York, I’m sorry if I’ve—”

  “My darling girl, you are the best birthday gift I could ever receive!”

  “Oh, I . . . Are you quite sure?” Kate made helpless eyes at Aidan, but he only crossed his arms and watched with a wide grin. Help me, she mouthed when his mother squeezed even tighter. Aidan shook his head.

  “My dear, dear girl,” his mother sighed before finally leaning back to hold Kate at arm’s length. “Returned from the dead! Imagine that! I tell you, I fainted when I heard the news. I did!”

  “Mother,” Aidan warned quietly.

  “Oh, hush. I won’t tell a soul. Not a soul!”

  Her voice carried clearly through the crowd, and Kate laughed at the way Aidan winced. They’d agreed it would be best if no one knew who Kate Gallow truly was. She was being introduced as a distant cousin from Hull, but his poor mother was fairly vibrating with the need to tell everyone the real story.

  “And thank you,” the dowager baroness whispered loudly, “for bringing my son back. He has been ever so grumpy for years.”