Aching for Always

by Gwyn Cready

  She crossed the road. She could feel his eyes upon her, but that in itself was not relevant, as she was frequently the object of men’s attentions. He was surprisingly handsome in person, especially in the black coat he wore. She wondered from whom it had been stolen. She considered killing him on the spot, but somehow the notion of stripping him of the Brand Industries wealth gave her more pleasure. Hugh had better succeed in their petition to Sir William.

  She decided to take the offensive. She turned, choosing the moment when their eyes would meet, then nodded. Reynolds bowed. “Are you lost?” she asked. “You look a trifle uncertain.”

  “I am not lost. I’m on my way to Scotland.”

  She nearly laughed. No one in their right mind would hire a post chaise to Scotland. “Gretna?” she asked with a smile. “Do you have your bride stowed in there?” Let the bastard twist a little.

  “No,” he said. “My bride is decidedly not inside.”

  “Tsk-tsk. ’Tis a shame.” Then it struck her. Allowing Reynolds to walk into Lord Quarley’s home now, while Hugh and that woman pleaded her case, would be tantamount to throwing their family’s chances of recovering their fortunes into the Thames, but allowing him to discover Joss a moment after the Lord Keeper put his signature on the transfer would be poetry indeed. Reynolds could drag Joss back to the future—a very changed future—and Hugh . . . well, Hugh could find comfort in the arms of the woman who remained.

  Reynolds turned as she passed and, like many men before him, was swept along in her wake. “What about you?” he asked, jogging a step or two to catch up to her. “You talk of Gretna as if you have personal knowledge of it. Where is your husband?”

  “I am unmarried, sir. I’m afraid I find most men about as enticing as o’ertight shoes.” She looked over her shoulder to see if Nathaniel was about. “I wonder,” she said, “if you would like to consider an exchange, Mr. Reynolds.”

  He paled upon hearing his name.

  “Aye, sir, I am quite aware of who you are. And I think we can effect an exchange that would be beneficial to both of us.”

  His face broke into an interested smile. After casting a look in both directions, he led her around the corner of the inn into the quiet of a barrel-strewn alley. “Tell me more.”

  She gazed at the long shadows in the street. It must be close on five. Hugh had said he would see the Lord Keeper today. If he signed the deed by sundown, then delivering Reynolds to his fiancée at midnight ought to be a fitting end to a successful day.

  “Provide me with a nice hot supper,” she said, “and I shall take you to your fiancée.” In fact, she thought, if he continued to look at her with those glittering blue eyes, she might allow him to provide her with more than supper. It was all in the name of service, after all, and if Joss was going to bed Fiona’s lover, Fiona certainly wasn’t going to hesitate to bed Joss’s.

  “You know where she is?”

  “I believe I might.” She smiled.

  “Then tell me now.” He caught her by the throat and squeezed.

  She couldn’t breathe. His hands were as cold and strong as steel, and he backed her hard into the wall. She clawed at his grasp but couldn’t loosen it. He lifted her slowly off the ground. Spots appeared at the edges of her vision. The gun was in her cloak. She could feel it banging against her thigh. “I’ll tell!” she croaked. “I’ll tell!”

  He held his grip. “Where?” he said coolly.

  “The home of Lord Quarley,” she said, kicking against his bulk. “Let me down!”

  The corners of his mouth rose in an apologetic smile, and he tightened his grip.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “Sir William is finishing his lunch,” Silverbridge said when Hugh returned, holding up a palm to stop him from bursting through the closed doors of the Quarley dining hall. “Might I suggest you have a seat? Might I also suggest that a pleasant demeanor will do more for your case than the scowl currently residing there?”

  Hugh dropped into a chair, clutching his papers, abashed. He took a deep breath. “I beg your pardon. You are quite right. I am a bit, well . . . let us say today has not gone as well as I had hoped.”

  Silverbridge picked a small leaf of ivy out of the gold rope at Hugh’s shoulder. “Anything you’d care to speak of, Captain?”

  Hugh flushed. “I . . . no.”

  “Miss O’Malley, is it? Kit is quite fond of her.”

  Hugh shook his head. “Delicacy forbids . . .”

  Silverbridge clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep at it, Hugh. Do not give up. ’Tis like navigating a maze with mortars at every turn, but if you don’t press on, you will be obliterated where you stand. That’s the one thing I learned with Kit. The only thing harder than persevering was giving up. I would have died without her.”

  Hugh hung his head. “Miss O’Malley belongs to another.”

  “You and I know that doesn’t always matter. Your brother, I think, would counsel you to think otherwise.”

  “You knew him?”

  “My father knew him. I knew of him. But I remember hearing a dinner guest at our home criticize him for leaving the navy. My father, who knew a thing or two about war, said, ‘Sometimes love is the only battle worth winning.’”

  “Thank you.”

  “And does this have something to do with Miss O’Malley?” Silverbridge tapped the map.

  “No. Well . . .” Hugh thought of Bart in that awful pool of blood and all the steps Hugh had taken over the last twenty years that had brought him here to avenge his brother’s death. “Did you know I went into the navy to impress my brother? Lord, I was a miserable recruit. The only thing I had the slightest bit of talent for was climbing to the top of the mast. Bart was twenty years older, you know, and I thought of him as this noble, untouchable hero—like a knight from a child’s tale.”

  Silverbridge laughed. “You are hardly the first man to follow the model set by a family hero. Good God, the way they revered my father . . .”

  Hugh knew Silverbridge’s father had been a much decorated general in the army prior to his death at the hands of a Scottish clan chief in the borderlands—a clan who was now Silverbridge’s grandfather-in-law.

  Silverbridge said, “For many years, I measured myself against my father. Everything I did was either to honor him or make him furious. It works for a randy youth in London, but it seemed rather foolish for a grown man, especially after my father was dead.”

  “How do you bear it?” Hugh asked, then quickly held up a hand. “I beg your pardon. ’Tis none of my business.”

  “You mean my father’s murder?”

  “Aye.”

  “’Tis kind of you not to add, ‘at the hand’s of your wife’s grandfather.’ I know you know it. Everyone does. Kit is part Scot. ’Tis an odd thing, I’m sure, to outsiders, especially since I spent half my life before I fell in love with Kit trying to avenge my father. He did die in a legitimate battle—and battle, as you know, is different—but I think what happened is that one day, not long before I’d met Kit, I got down on my knees at my father’s grave and asked him what he wanted me to do. I was angry. I felt I’d been under his bridle my whole life, both before and after he died. I was fighting a bloody no-win battle with the Scots that had been his battle and undoubtedly will be my son’s battle and my grandson’s as well. The queen was cutting me off at the ankles. I felt penned in on all sides. I believe my words were ‘Speak up, old man. You were never afraid to tell me what I needed to do before. Tell me now.’”

  “And what happened?”

  Silverbridge chuckled. “Nothing. Not a damned thing. I think I realized then the only person who can guide me is me. My decisions are my responsibility. Of course, it wasn’t long after that when I first noticed Kit—really noticed her, if you follow—and if you care to interpret that as a reward for accepting my burden, I will not disagree. Life could not have made it clearer that I should put my father’s death behind me than by making me fall in love with the granddaughter of the
man who killed him.”

  Hugh shook his head, amazed. “You are at peace, then?”

  “Aye. Though,” he added with a cocked brow, “if I do not get Kit out of here by Tuesday, I will withdraw the statement.”

  Hugh laughed despite his turmoil. If Sir William accepted his map, all that Hugh could rightfully do would be done. And then what? He wouldn’t have Joss. He wouldn’t have his brother. He would have a profession he had approached only as a means to an end. And he wouldn’t even have revenge. Alfred Brand had died a lonely, sick, rich old man, and if Hugh reversed the future, Brand would die without ever knowing what hell he had once caused. Restoring the wealth to the McPhersons was the right thing to do, and Bart would have approved. But revenge? The only person he would hurt is Joss.

  He gazed at the thick sheet of paper, tracing his finger over the new property line it had been drawn up to display. A few tiny acres. So much unhappiness. So much bloodshed. When he looked hard, he could see the disconnected dots that revealed it as a mere ghost of the original, dots that could put him in prison or on a gallows. Would Bart have wanted that?

  The dining hall door opened. Hugh and Silverbridge got to their feet. Sir William bowed to Silverbridge. Hugh bowed to Sir William. Silverbridge said, “This is my acquaintance, Captain Hugh Hawksmoor of Her Majesty’s Navy. Thank you for agreeing to hear this matter, Sir William. It is of grave concern to the captain.”

  The man blotted his mouth with a napkin. “I am familiar with the case,” he said. “When I heard you were to ask my help, I sent for my assistant. He was in Cambridge, so it was no great hardship for him to bring the relevant casebooks. And given the fact that these are lands that have been confiscated by the Crown, it is a fairly serious matter.”

  Hugh saw the man sitting at the dining table with his books and several magnifying glasses and swallowed.

  “Come,” Sir William said. “Let us begin.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  “And?” Kit said eagerly, passing Joss the flask.

  Joss lifted her chin only long enough to down the last of the whisky. “And so we came back just the way we came.”

  “Not quite the way you came.”

  “I meant on the horse. Only no one said anything.” Joss collapsed back against the pillows and closed her eyes ruefully. What a mess of a day.

  Kit leaned back on an elbow, watching the fire from her perch at the far end of the bed. “Poor Hugh.”

  “Poor Hugh?”

  “Whose pennant flag ended up beating in the wind?”

  Kit was a little tipsy, and so was Joss. “That’s supposed to be a secret.”

  “I will carry it with me to my dying day—the image most certainly. And ’twas like a squash, you say?”

  Joss choked. “I most certainly did not say that.”

  “That’s right. Your words were something like ‘a breathtaking garden delight.’ I was the one who said ‘squash.’” Kit flopped on her back. “But which kind? John keeps a hothouse, you know. I have seen a fair number. Did it have stripes? Maybe the courge? Or the one like a turban?” She adjusted an invisible swath of fabric around her head and began to snort. “Or the one like a swan’s neck? Not the one they call an acorn, I hope. Oh dear, that would be quite embarrassing.”

  Joss couldn’t help but laugh. “I think that’s all the squash talk a girl can bear for one afternoon,” she said, rolling onto her stomach and clutching the dress to keep her breasts from tumbling over the top, “though I did see one once that was round and as big as a bale of straw. It was orange, with teeth and eyes carved into it.”

  Kit let out a hoot. “I’m afraid the only one I ever see is toothless and blind, like a cranky old man.”

  “Can’t blame him for being cranky. He’s got a stiff back and too-tight shoes.”

  They dissolved into peals of giggles.

  When Joss caught her breath, she laid her head on her arms. “Oh, Kit. What am I going to do?”

  “I know exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to march right down to his bedchamber and finish this up.”

  “Oh, no I’m not.”

  “Aye, you are,” Kit said. “It’s like falling off a horse. You have to get right back on.”

  “These metaphors are starting to make me nervous.”

  “But only in the best possible way. As soon as you finish the whisky.” She took the flask from Joss’s hand and shook it. “Uh-oh. Looks like the time has come. And just to make sure he understands exactly what you’re there for, I think we shall send you down in your chemise.”

  “That is not going to happen.”

  “Oh, gather your courage. I shall let you keep a wrap on, but only until I leave you at the door. Then—”

  “No, it won’t do. I don’t want to give my virginity to a man whose heart is not open to me.”

  “‘Not open’?”

  “He guards so much. There are things he doesn’t reveal.”

  Kit pursed her lips. “And this openness—you say it is a necessity?”

  “Of course. How can any sort of affection grow without it? I was about to give my virginity to him.”

  “I agree. I damn any man who aims to carry the mantle of such an honor yet behaves so shoddily. He’s a brute.”

  “But he didn’t know I was a virgin. I hadn’t told him yet—” Joss saw the duchess’s spreading grin. “Oh. I get it.”

  “Come, now. A chemise and the truth: ’tis the best cure for a broken heart—and virginity, too, come to think of it.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Hugh paced the length of the library. He had been sent here to await word from Sir William. The carriages of Lord Quarley’s guests had been arriving all evening, issuing their well-dressed passengers into the waiting arms of Quarley’s footmen. He wondered what Joss was doing now, and what, if anything, she was thinking about him.

  “Sir?”

  One of Quarley’s footmen had opened the door and stepped inside.

  “Aye?”

  “I am to inform you the Lord Keeper has come to a decision. He wishes to see you at once.”

  Hugh inhaled and followed the man out.

  The dining room doors were open, and Hugh knew his future as soon as he saw Sir William’s face. He prayed he had not also besmirched Silverbridge’s reputation in the process. Hugh stepped into the room, straight as a mast, to accept his fate.

  “We’ve been examining the map closely,” Sir William said. “It will come as no surprise to you that there is very little that some men will do to defraud the Crown.”

  Hugh tried to keep his face expressionless as he felt his liberty and possibly his life evaporate.

  “This map caused us a good deal of consternation, especially given your reputation.”

  Hugh bowed his head. Sir William’s assistant had pushed the map as far away from him as his arm would reach.

  “But I am sorry to say,” Sir William went on, “we cannot accept it. While I’m certain it reflects the will of both parties, the time for contesting the decision is too far passed. The Crown will not reverse its decision. Please give my sympathies to the family.”

  He would not be hanged, but the realization that his lifelong quest—the only thing that had given his life meaning these last twenty years—had failed wrapped his heart in a heavy darkness.

  “I-I thank you for your consideration,” Hugh said, barely seeing the table before him. “I will let the family know.”

  He closed the door behind him, the roar of defeat in his ears. There was nothing left. Everything he had hoped to do for Bart was gone. Everything that had guided his life since the age of eleven, swept away. And there was nothing but a vast unknown before him, an unknown he had not an inkling how to navigate.

  He returned to the far end of the garden wing, to the small bedchamber he’d been assigned, and stood at the window. It had been a day of reckoning for him. He had hurt the woman he loved and failed his brother. He had nothing left.

  His hand went to
the timepiece in his pocket, and he closed his eyes.

  Bart, I am abject before you. You gave everything for me, and now I have failed you. I wish . . . He wiped away the wetness gathering in his eyes, ashamed for his weakness. I wish there was something I could do, something to set things to rights, something to honor the good you did and wash away the evil that was done to you and to Maggie, but there is nothing, nothing I can—

  A knock at the door lifted him from his thoughts.

  “Who goes?”

  “Joss,” came the quiet reply.

  He ran to the door and opened it. She stood in her chemise, a vision in diaphanous white. She looked small and cold and more than a little uncertain.

  “Good God, what are you doing?” he whispered fiercely, looking down the hall and pulling her inside. “Someone might see you. Think of your reputation!”

  “My reputation.” She gave him a weak smile. “I would not care to have anyone characterize my reputation at this moment—especially not you.”

  He closed the door. The garment was barely buttoned. He could see the outline of her breasts and hips through the lightweight linen. There could be no mistaking her purpose in coming. The only question now was, would he do it?

  “I thought,” he said in a voice barely audible, “you did not care to betray your fiancé. I thought that was why you stopped me this afternoon.”

  “Oh, Hugh, if that had been my concern, don’t you think my actions betrayed him long ago?”

  Hugh stood unmoving, afraid to even breathe.

  “I chose you that night in the inn,” she said, “because I want to be with you. I haven’t been truthful. I’ve had feelings about you since the first time we met—before, really, if you count when you picked me up and carried me through the sparks. At first, I thought it was just a crush, but the first time you wrapped me in that chiton, I knew I was mistaken. I was in trouble.”