Forbidden

by Jess Michaels

  Jude took a good look around him. He had last seen the room after he and Audrey arranged the furniture there, but Lady Woodley was right. There was much more spark to the place when the fittings of their lives were back.

  “It is wonderful.”

  “And do you notice what portraits were placed on the wall?” Lady Woodley pressed.

  Jude gave Audrey a half-glance. She smiled, but there was a slight sadness in her eyes as she did so. It startled him enough that he was more careful as he examined the pictures on the wall.

  “Why, they are all immediate family,” he said, looking at the family portraits from over the years and the coming out pictures of each of the children. The portrait of Claire was especially highlighted, for Lady Woodley had arranged for it to be hung in a more central wall of the parlor where no one could avoid seeing it.

  Lady Woodley smiled, but the sadness in her eyes was not something she could hide. “Yes. When we talked yesterday, I realized that this shade of yellow was Claire’s very favorite. She used to have a dress this color.”

  Now Audrey finally stepped forward. Her voice was rough as she said, “So Mama decided that it would be the perfect parlor for family gatherings, rather than formal ones.”

  Jude looked at her carefully. He could see how deeply she was affected both by the changes to the room and to the way her mother talked about them.

  Briefly, Jude’s mind screamed how he had done this to them, but then he shoved it aside. This was not the time nor the place to wallow in his own guilt.

  “Well, I think it is lovely. Will you make the east parlor the new formal one, then?” he asked.

  “Yes. It has that fine blue wallcovering that no one could find objectionable. I may have the furniture recovered and buy a few new pieces, but it will need little overhauling.”

  “Thank goodness,” Audrey said with a laugh that was meant to lighten the mood, but sounded hardly more than halfhearted to Jude. “We already have so much to do with the dining room.”

  Her mother nodded and motioned them all to the cozy new settee and chairs at the center of the room. To Jude’s surprise, she took his arm as she moved forward, leaning on him before she took her place in the settee. She obviously still did not feel herself, and Jude frowned.

  “When will the refinished chair be ready?” he asked as he sat down on the older one. He tracked Audrey’s movements as she took her place next to her mother.

  Audrey smiled at him, perhaps recalling, as he was, their trip to town together just a few days before. Was it a few days? So much had changed that it felt like a lifetime.

  “They are in the midst of reworking it now,” she said. “I think they said tomorrow they would bring it in and replace the one you are seated on.”

  He nodded, but before he could continue this very benign line of conversation, Lady Woodley caught his eye. “I want to talk to you about Claire.”

  Jude felt his stomach lurch and was very pleased he hadn’t troubled himself with lunch. He wasn’t certain it wouldn’t have churned, asking to be sent back up, if he had.

  “Mama,” Audrey said softly. “You shouldn’t upset yourself like this.”

  Her mother cast her a quick glance. “I know you don’t like me to think about her or talk about her, but I must.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t want you to think of her,” Audrey said with an expression of horror at the implication. “I think of her every day, myself, but you are still not completely well from your cold, are you? I don’t want you to make yourself even sicker.”

  Lady Woodley ignored the comment, her gaze refocusing on Jude. “Everyone keeps things from me, or they try to. But the secrets only make me imagine the worst. Samson, you must tell me, do have any news about my daughter?”

  Jude drew back, not just at her pointed question, but the look of intensity that accompanied it. He had known Lady Woodley for a long time and never seen such a wildness to her expression. It made clear how much the lady had suffered at the hand of the man who had taken her eldest daughter almost two years before.

  At his own hand too.

  The same guilt that had been swelling in him for just as long burned now, clawing at him, threatening to drag him under in its wake. He cleared his throat and tried to sound calm as he said, “I’m sorry, my lady, but we really know so little about Claire’s whereabouts. There is nothing we’re keeping from you on that score.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Does Edward still search for her?”

  He nodded instantly. “I assure you, my lady, we continue to look for Claire always. No one has given up on finding her.”

  “Do you think she lives?” she whispered.

  He caught his breath. “Yes, I do. You know as well as we do that she writes to Gabriel.”

  Lady Woodley’s face was growing paler by the moment as her eyes took on a hollow look. “Yes. And he shares the letters generously, but couldn’t they be forged?”

  “There is no reason to believe it isn’t her hand,” Jude said, making a mental note to discuss just how upset Lady Woodley was by this subject with Edward and his brothers. “I’m afraid Claire doesn’t want to be found at present.”

  “Or he makes certain she isn’t,” Lady Woodley spat, her hands shaking in her lap. “That bastard Aston could be manipulating her, holding something over her head.”

  Jude hesitated. He had often thought the same thing and discussed it with the men in the Woodley clan, though he had no proof. But to see Lady Woodley tied in knots over it was infinitely painful. Especially when Audrey sat beside her, tears in her eyes as she took her mother’s hand and tried to offer comfort.

  “Mama,” she said softly.

  Lady Woodley blinked, and suddenly the intensity was gone from her expression. She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Samson. I doubt you came here wanting an old woman to ramble at you about the daughter who doesn’t even want to see her.”

  He leaned closer. “No, my lady. Please don’t apologize. I have watched your family go through Edward’s terrible first marriage and Claire’s disappearance. You have earned any feelings you have and you needn’t shield me from them. Anyone who is responsible for Claire’s departure should suffer for it.”

  She nodded. “They should.”

  He frowned, for she didn’t know he included himself in that equation. “May I pour you tea?” he asked.

  She smiled, but there was nothing happy about the expression. “No. I find…I find I am not feeling like tea now. I think I’ll lie down.”

  “Mama,” Audrey sighed, the pain on her face reflected in her voice now too. “May I walk you up?”

  Lady Woodley shook her head. “No, dearest. Stay here. I can manage by myself and I think I’d rather be alone right now.”

  Audrey and Jude stood together as her mother got up, nodded apologetically and then slipped from the room. Once she had gone, Audrey scurried to the door and shut it behind her. Jude tensed. He hadn’t expected her to want to be alone, be intimate with him, after such an emotional moment with her mother.

  But as she turned to face him, he saw that her expression wasn’t one of seduction but something else. Something far more frightening.

  “Jude, I want to help you.”

  He moved toward her slowly. “Help me…what?”

  She straightened up, her chin tilting with defiance before the words had even left her mouth. “I want to help you look for Claire.”

  Audrey watched Jude pace the room, his frown deep and his hands fisted at his sides. He had been doing that for almost a full minute since she declared she wanted to assist him. Finally, she could take it no longer.

  “Well, say something, will you?”

  He spun on her and she could see there were a great many emotions on his face. Anger and guilt, mixed with worry. Her heart sank before he uttered a syllable.

  “Don’t say no,” she snapped, rushing toward him.

  He surprised her by taking three steps back, his hands raised as if to ward her off. “God
damn it, Audrey, you know what you’re asking is entirely inappropriate!”

  She flinched at the finality and the harshness of his tone and stopped moving toward him abruptly. She folded her arms and glared at him. “Why?”

  His eyes went wide. “Truly? Is that a serious question?”

  “Yes!” She threw up her hands in frustration. “I am totally serious.”

  He shook his head. “Audrey, you are a lady. The last thing you need is to expose yourself to the kind of people, the kind of information related to Jonathan Aston.”

  The heat left her cheeks at that statement. It irritated her, yes, but it also made her think of Claire, stuck in a damaging, frightening world with a criminal who had taken her only for money. Was she being hurt? Was she frightened? How was she used by that bastard?

  “Claire is my sister,” she said, her voice trembling even though she tried to remain strong both to bolster her point and to honor Claire’s situation. “I miss her every day, just as deeply as my brothers do, my mother does. Do I not have the right to try to help her?”

  Now Jude’s face softened. “But you can’t, sweetheart.”

  “How do you know that? How can you be certain I would be worthless in the search? After all, aside from Gabriel, I was closest to her. If I had more information, I could analyze it with a woman’s eye and heart. I might see things they didn’t.”

  Jude squeezed his eyes shut, and she could see how hard he was going to fight her on this. “You don’t understand.”

  She shook her head swiftly. “Don’t I? Maybe I didn’t before, but I can certainly see now how easy it would be to be seduced.”

  His lips parted at her words. Accusations were what they felt like, and her stomach clenched and churned at their harshness.

  “Is that what I’m doing? Seducing you?” he asked softly. “Is it for my own gain, Audrey, like it was for Aston?”

  She sucked in a breath. “No, no, Jude, that wasn’t what I meant.” She reached out and was relieved when he let her place her hand on his forearm rather than jerking away. She stared up into his eyes. “I don’t think you’re anything like Jonathan Aston. I only mean a woman’s heart is different from a man’s.”

  He frowned. “That is probably true.”

  With her hands clenched at her sides, she was the one who paced away this time. “In the weeks before Claire left, she was so…odd. Secretive. I always judged her for being taken in by such a man as Aston. How could she abandon her family? How could she get so wrapped up in him? But for the first time since she disappeared, I think I can sympathize with whatever passion drove her to him.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that you should involve yourself in the investigation,” he said, his voice very soft, barely carrying in the big room.

  She spun on him. “Why? I just want—” Her shoulders rolled forward. “I have been kept on a shelf for so very long, Jude. I’m just starting to realize how much that troubles me. Perhaps it’s another reason why I’ve felt such malaise when it comes to seeking a husband. Couldn’t I…couldn’t I just look at any evidence you have regarding Claire? I truly might see something there that no one else has seen.”

  He folded his arms. “No.”

  “That is all? Just no? Don’t you think I deserve more of an answer than that?” she asked.

  “Do you know how angry your brother would be with me if he knew I was exposing you to such things? If he knew I was endangering you?”

  She held his stare for a long moment, and he allowed it. But she was surprised that even as she stared into the depths, she couldn’t read his thoughts or feelings. He was blank, turning himself away from her.

  “Would he be as angry as if he knew that you were tupping me in the cottage?” she asked, her tone icy.

  His jaw tightened, and she knew she’d gone too far. With a shuddering sob, she turned away from him and walked out of the parlor, out of the house and down the long path toward the garden. But she was under no illusions that a long walk would help her in any way.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jude walked along the terrace at the back of the estate, watching below as Audrey stumble-stepped her way down the garden path and into the distance. Her parting words still stung in his heart, but he didn’t actually see them as the threat, despite the way she’d formed them. No, he knew that this was her pain speaking, her anger lashing out at him for thwarting her.

  He wished he could explain to her why he couldn’t let her close to his investigation into Claire’s disappearance. To explain how he thought her utterly capable of discerning the truth. And that was the problem. The truth would destroy everything.

  She lifted her hands to her face as she staggered along, and his stomach clenched. She was crying. He had made her cry.

  “Bollocks,” he muttered, and swung around to the end of the terrace where a spiraling stone staircase led to the garden below. He could see where she was going. The lake where he knew she’d often hidden and watched while her brothers skipped stones and caught frogs. She had been locked out of their fun all those years ago and he couldn’t help but understand how locked out she must feel now.

  She had already crested a small hill when he reached the garden, and he could no longer see her in the distance. He quickened his pace to a run as he tried to catch up with her. What he was going to say, he had no idea. After all, he couldn’t give her what she wanted.

  But perhaps he could offer comfort regardless. If she would allow it.

  He caught up with her at the slope to the lake. She stood at the edge of the water, hurling rocks at the surface rather than skipping them, and he came to a stop to look at her while she was still unaware of his presence.

  She was so utterly beautiful. In anger or sadness, happiness or relief…Audrey was Audrey. Audrey, whom he adored from afar. Audrey, whom he couldn’t resist.

  Audrey, whom he loved more than his own breath, even though he could never, ever do anything about the emotion that bubbled within him. These moments with her were stolen, precious, and he wasn’t ready to let them go. Even if that desire was desperately unfair to her.

  “Go away,” she said, her voice cracking.

  He jumped slightly. “I didn’t think you heard my approach,” he admitted.

  She shrugged but still didn’t turn to face him. “I guess I do perceive more than you give me credit for.”

  He flinched at the accusation in her tone. The betrayal. As if they were on the same side and he had turned on her. If only she knew how close to the mark that was.

  “Audrey, it is not about credit. I credit you with a great deal,” he said, approaching her with caution. She said nothing, even as he reached her side and stood at the lake’s edge with her. “Did you ever learn to skip rocks?”

  She tossed him a gaze from the corner of her eye, still angry but now uncertain. “How do you know about that?”

  “I talked about you with Edward sometimes.”

  Those talks had fed him over the years. He had sucked up every fragment of information like a dry sponge. With a smile, he stooped to pick up a rock and skidded it across the water’s surface. It disappeared about halfway across the lake.

  Audrey didn’t smile, but did the same, only her rock sped past where his had sunk. He nodded. “Impressive.”

  “Yes, surprising, isn’t it?” she snapped, and moved as if to turn away.

  He caught her arm and spun her back. “Damn it, Audrey, yes. You are surprising in the best sense of the word. But not because I don’t believe in you. Not about rocks, not about Claire, not about anything.”

  “Then why won’t you let me help?” she said, and the tears filled her eyes again. “Why do you shut me out like Edward and Evan and Gabriel do? I thought you were different. That you knew me.”

  He recoiled slightly. So her belief that they were a team wasn’t just a fantasy of his. And God, how it warmed him to know it. But it wasn’t possible, no matter how much he wished it could be.

  “I know you,” he r
eassured her, and reached for the only part of the truth of the situation he could tell. “I don’t want you to help me because…because there is evidence that Claire’s time with Aston has been very unhappy. You said you might understand how passion could drive her, but I’m not certain your sister has experienced much of that. Aston is a villain and taking Claire’s money through their marriage has only made him worse. Audrey, he has…”

  She caught her breath. “Hurt her?”

  He nodded. “Physically, yes. We believe so. And in other ways. She is forced to travel with him, probably forced to be his partner in his criminal endeavors. She is forced to be with him, to perform wifely duties. Could you imagine doing what we have done in my cottage but with someone who hurt you?”

  Audrey bit her lip and the tears began to flow. “No. If I feared you, hated you, was betrayed by you…I can well imagine that the moments in your bed would not be pleasant.”

  He clenched his teeth, self-loathing hitting him again. He ignored it to focus on her. She was trembling now, but it was no longer out of outrage. Now he could see her pain lined along her face.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, pressing a hand to her cheek, spreading his fingers along the curve of her face. “Trust me that none of us is happy to know this about Claire. But I don’t want to hurt you more than you have been, Audrey. Please, do you trust me?”

  She hesitated, and his breath hitched as she stared up at him. “Yes,” she finally whispered.

  “Then know that I’m doing everything I can to find your sister and bring her home to you. You don’t need to worry yourself about it, but let me do what I must.”

  She didn’t agree, but lifted up on her tiptoes. She cupped his cheeks and drew his mouth down to hers. He knew he shouldn’t, but he let her kiss him, her mouth hot on his, her tongue sweet as it breached his lips.

  He crushed her against him, unable to control the swell of desire that rolled over him, washing him under in its wake, removing all other thoughts and protests from his mind. He would have her, and these moments of passion would ease her pain. That was all he could give, perhaps.