by Laura Landon
“I’m fine. Fine,” she said with a broad smile on her face he doubted she could have produced a few minutes ago.
“I just got overly warm and wanted some fresh air. And,” she said, drawing out the word to make it sound as if they’d interrupted an assignation, “I wanted a private moment with Mr. Delaney.”
“Oh.” Felicity clasped her hands over her mouth. “We spoiled your intentions. How stupid of us.”
“Yes,” Charlotte added. “We thought you were ill.”
“No, I’m not ill. I just needed some fresh air and I wanted to tell Mr. Delaney Charlotte’s exciting news.”
“Yes,” Gray said, amazed at how smoothly Maggie pulled the attention away from herself and how gullible her sisters were to believe her. Or maybe they were just used to listening to everything she said and didn’t think to question it. “Congratulations, Miss Bradford. Markinsdale.”
Viscount Markinsdale stepped beside Charlotte and took her hand. “Charlotte made me the happiest of men when she accepted my offer of marriage.”
“Yes,” Felicity said, looping her arm through Landsdowne’s. “We’re going to have a double ceremony so Maggie only has to go through the ordeal of planning one wedding.”
“For which I will always be grateful,” Maggie said.
Gray saw the smile on Maggie’s face, but it didn’t seem real. Nor had the color returned to her skin.
He wanted to get her away from here and to someplace quiet. “If you will excuse me,” he said to Maggie’s sisters and their fiancés, “I have another appointment yet tonight and must be on my way. May I offer you a ride home, Miss Bradford? Or would you rather stay?”
Gray wasn’t sure why he thought Maggie would choose going with him over staying with her sisters, especially after what she’d just said about him pressuring her to marry him. But the look in her eyes told him she wanted to escape the crowd and the noise and the heat.
“I don’t know,” she said but even her sister picked up on the waver in her voice.
“Go ahead, Maggie,” Felicity and Charlotte both chorused. “Aunt Hester will see us home and it will give you a chance to speak with Mr. Delaney like you wanted.”
“Very well,” Maggie agreed, taking the hand Gray extended to her.
Maggie rose to her feet and after a round of goodbyes, went with Gray to bid the Duke and Duchess of Hardington farewell.
She said little while they waited for Gray’s driver to bring Gray’s carriage around and she was unusually quiet on the way home, but Gray attributed her silence to all the reasons she’d given him for being upset.
“Will you be all right?” he said when they arrived at her cousin’s home.
“Of course, I’m just tired. I’ve plans to make. Now that Felicity and Charlotte are both engaged, there’s no reason to keep Father’s death a secret any longer. The girls can make arrangements for their weddings. I’m certain no one will object if they say their vows a few months short of the required year.”
“No, I don’t suppose they will. What about you, Maggie?”
Gray slid across the carriage and sat beside her on the seat. He angled his body toward her and brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“What will you do?”
“Do you think you’ve taken all my options away from me?” she asked with a note of the defiance he was used to hearing in her voice. A tone he admired. It gave her a strength he respected.
“No, I would never underestimate you or think that you weren’t able to take care of yourself. But I want you to want me, Maggie. I want you to need me as much as I need you.”
He thought he saw a glimmer of wetness in her eyes and felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t intend to bring that up again.”
She sat for a moment as if composing herself. “Would you do me a favor?” she finally asked.
“Anything. What is it you want?”
“A few days to think everything through. A few days to be by myself. Will you give me that, Gray?”
Gray wanted to say no, but how could he? “Of course, Maggie. But be warned. When your two days are up, I’ll be back with every trick I can think of to get you to change your mind.”
“I consider myself warned.”
Gray turned to open the door but stopped when her hand caught his arm.
“One more favor?”
“Of course.”
“Kiss me goodnight.”
Gray felt a rush of warm heat race through his veins. “Tell me you want one final kiss to hold you over until you tell me that you’ll marry me.”
She smiled. “Perhaps.”
Gray pulled her into his arms and kissed her. If this was the kiss she’d relive as she gave thought to their future together, he wanted it to be a kiss she would never forget.
He deepened his kiss and when he lifted his mouth from hers, they were both out of breath. Gray lowered his head until his forehead touched hers and closed his eyes. “I love you, Maggie. I know they’re only words and you don’t want to believe them, but I don’t know any other way to convince you.”
“I know you don’t.”
She pulled away from him and he opened the door and helped her from the carriage. “Two days, Maggie, my love,” he said, kissing her forehead when they reached the door. “I want you to know it will seem like forever, but I’ll give you your two days.”
“Thank you, Gray.”
She lifted her hand and gently touched his cheek. The unexpected gesture tugged at his heart and a fiery warmth spread through his body. He clasped his hand over hers and turned her hand to kiss the inside of her palm.
“Two days, Maggie, my love.”
“Good night, Gray,” she said and Gray noticed the dampness in her huge ebony eyes as she closed the door.
****
Her two days were up—plus one more.
Gray jumped from the carriage the minute it came to a halt in front of the house where she and her sisters were staying and raced to her door. Today he’d finally see her.
He’d come yesterday but was told she wasn’t feeling well. He’d asked to see her aunt to make sure it was nothing serious but the butler told him Maggie’s aunt had taken Miss Felicity and Miss Charlotte to call on friends. He felt somewhat relieved when he heard that. Surely they wouldn’t leave Maggie alone if her illness was serious.
Although he was loathe to wait another day, he also knew how tired she’d seemed when he’d taken her home. But her one-day extension was finally over and today he could begin his pursuit in earnest.
He rapped on the door and stepped inside when the butler answered.
“Mr. Delaney to see Miss Margaret Bradford,” he announced handing the butler his hat and gloves.”
“If you’ll follow me, please.”
His heart soared. He waited patiently while the somber-looking butler placed Gray’s hat and gloves on a small table near the foyer closet door, then led the way down the long, narrow hallway to where Maggie was waiting for him. He couldn’t wait to see her again, couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms and…
They stopped at the second room on the left and the butler opened the door and announced him.
“Mr. Delaney to see you, my lady.”
He took an eager step into the room and scanned the area to find Maggie. She wasn’t there, only her two sisters and her aunt.
He turned his attention to where Lady Martinase sat.
“Thank you, Jeffers.” Maggie’s aunt set the cup of tea she’d been drinking down on the table.
“Where’s Maggie?” He scanned the room again in case he’d missed her.
The three occupants of the room remained eerily quiet. This was not what he expected from a gathering of women who should be relating the events of the evening before. A painful stabbing of unease jarred him.
Felicity and Charlotte sat together on the settee in the center of the room across from Aunt Hester. They both looked
at him briefly, then quickly lowered their gazes after they acknowledged his greeting.
“Isn’t Maggie down yet this morning?” he asked, studying the pale, frightened looks both Maggie’s sisters wore.
“No.” Aunt Hester answered his question in a mater-of-fact voice that sent his fear soaring.
“Is she still ill? Have you sent for a doctor? What did he say?”
“There was no need to send for a doctor, Grayson.”
Something in Lady Martinase’s tone sliced through his chest. The expression on her face stabbed into his heart. He didn’t need to ask any other questions. Somehow, he already knew his world had been destroyed.
He spun on his heels and raced for the door.
“Grayson, stop! Where are you going?”
He didn’t stop. He’d go upstairs and drag her down if he had to. She couldn’t ignore him. He wouldn’t allow it. He’d carry her before a reverend and force her to say the words that would make her his wife. Then he’d spend the rest of his life proving that he loved her. But he wouldn’t live without her.
He couldn’t!
He took another step, then another. Each one seemed as if his shoes were caked with cement.
“Grayson, stop!”
“No!”
He raced out the door and managed two steps into the foyer.
“She’s not here.” Lady Martinase’s words stopped him dead.
He turned around and stumbled back to the doorway. He braced his hands against either side of the door frame to keep from falling and gasped one painful breath, then another.
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone.”
“Where!”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Gray sat in the small, dingy room he’d rented and stared into the cold, lifeless logs of the fireplace. He reached for the bottle of brandy to refill his glass, but the bottle was empty and he sank back into the cushions. He wasn’t in any mood to search the house for another—just yet.
He would soon when the alcohol wore off enough that he remembered Maggie had left him. He needed the mind-numbing elixir to dull the agonizing pain he’d barely survived the last three weeks.
Gray reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the note she’d left. He didn’t need to read it to know what it said. He had it memorized. But it was written in her hand and was the only tangible part of her he had left.
He sat forward and stared at the blurring words.
Gray,
By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stay.
I don’t expect you to understand, but I’m certain when you get over being angry, you’ll realize it was for the best. I wish things could have been different, but I’m not enough like my mother to live her life over again. And you’re too much like my father for our lives to be any different.
Please, don’t try to find me. It was difficult enough leaving you once. Don’t put me through the pain of having to leave you again.
Maggie
She’d left him. He’d searched everywhere he could think of. He’d gone back to the brewery, praying that’s where she’d go. He searched Bradford House from top to bottom, certain she had to have found refuge there. He contacted every friend she’d associated with in London, but she hadn’t gone to any of them.
At first he was convinced Maggie’s Aunt Hester knew where she’d gone, or perhaps Felicity or Charlotte. But after the third heated confrontation in which he managed to bring Felicity to tears, he was finally convinced they were as in the dark as he was. And just as worried.
Where the bloody hell had she gone?
Gray pushed himself to his feet and staggered to the cupboard where he kept his supply of liquor. A loud knock sounded at the door but he ignored it and grabbed a fresh bottle. He didn’t care about anything except the need to numb his mind so he could survive one more hour without her.
“Go away!” he bellowed when the pounding sounded again.
“Grayson, open up,” his father said from the other side of the door.
“Bloody hell,” he mumbled beneath his breath. He sat again and threw a large swallow to the back of his throat. “Go away!”
The knob turned hard and the door shook as his father attempted to open it, but Gray had no intention of unlocking it. His father was the last person he wanted to see right now.
There was a momentary silence and Gray breathed a drunken sigh of relief. He couldn’t face him. He couldn’t admit to his father that he’d failed again. He couldn’t suffer the look of disappointment in his father’s eyes and know that he hadn’t measured up.
Gray lifted the glass to his mouth, then bounded from the chair when the door crashed open.
“What the bloody hell!” He looked to where his father stood in the open doorway. What was left of the door hung from the hinges.
Gray staggered, then pointed to the damage. “You’re going to have to pay for that, Father,” he slurred. “I’ve got more important things to spend my money on than a new door.”
“Like more liquor?”
“Can you think of anything better?” He emptied his glass.
“Perhaps, but then, I’m not you.”
“Ah, yes. Here it comes.”
Gray pushed away from the wall and brought the glass midway to his lips, then stopped when he realized the glass was empty.
“Why don’t you tell me what errors I’ve made—again. It’s been a while since I’ve heard them. I may have forgotten one or two.”
Gray took an unsteady step toward the half-empty bottle but stumbled into the small writing desk that got in his way.
“You’ve made no errors, Son. You were never to blame for anything. If only you could see that.”
Gray wanted to laugh. At least, that’s what he thought he wanted to do. Except for some reason, the sound he made wasn’t laughter. He lifted his chin, but when he looked up, the tears in his eyes blurred his father’s figure.
“You weren’t there. You don’t know what happened.”
“What don’t I know, Gray?” His father took a step inside the room. “That you got your mother out of the burning house but you went back in after Maudie? That when you brought Maudie out you realized your mother had gone back in to get the portrait of us? That you nearly died trying to save your mother? What don’t I know, Gray?”
He tightened his grip around the glass until his knuckles hurt. “But I didn’t save her, did I, Father?”
“Neither did I.”
Gray looked up. “You weren’t there.”
“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps I should have been?”
Gray looked at his father, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s me, Gray. Your mother was my responsibility. I was the one who vowed to guard and protect her. I promised to care for her. I’m the one who failed.”
The Earl of Camden crossed the room. When he was less than an arm’s length away he stopped and placed his hands on Gray’s shoulders. “I thought I was going to lose you, too. You were burned so badly the doctor said you’d be lucky to survive. Losing your mother was hard enough, but I wouldn’t have survived if I had lost you as well.
“Over and over I told you that you weren’t to blame for what happened to your mother. I made sure you knew how proud I was of you, how thankful I was that you were my son, how much I’d miss you if I lost you. But that’s where I made my mistake. You didn’t hear any of my words.”
His father dropped his hands from Gray’s shoulders and lowered his head. “Months went by before we were sure you’d survive—months that seemed like years. Even though I couldn’t understand how anything could be normal again, life went on as if your life, and mine, and Aiden’s, hadn’t been destroyed. The estates needed my attention, and the committees I chaired in government demanded my time. And, work was exactly what I needed to forget I’d lost your mother—and to forget that I’d failed her.
I was the one who neglected to save your mother. Not you. Never you.”
Camden lifted his head. “But immersing myself in my work was the last thing you needed. I’d said the words you needed to hear when you couldn’t hear them. And I didn’t say them when you needed to hear them the most. Forgive me, Son. I’d give anything to go back and do things differently.”
Gray stood solid as if he’d been turned to stone. His father was asking for his forgiveness. His father blamed himself for his wife’s death.
“Neither of us was to blame, Father,” Gray said, and for the first time he felt as if a heavy weight of guilt was lifted from his shoulders.
“I came to that realization quite some time ago,” his father said. “I’ve just been waiting for you to catch up with me.”
Gray stared into the sad, yet peaceful expression on his father’s face and thought of all the years his father had struggled to make him understand. He sank down onto the chair nearest him and rested his forearms atop his thighs. His head was too heavy to hold upright and dropped low.
“How did you survive it?” he asked, dangling his hands between his knees.
“Survive what?”
“Living without her? I know you loved Mother. How did you manage to live each day without her?”
“There were days I wasn’t sure I could. Days when I thought it would be easier to join her than go on without her. But then I’d remember you. And Aiden. And I knew she wouldn’t want me to leave you two alone.”
“I’m not sure I’m strong enough,” he said. For the first time he’d uttered the words out loud, and the sincerity he felt in voicing such a thought frightened him.
“You will never reach that point, Grayson. You may feel like it at times, but somehow you will find the strength to go on.”
“You had two sons to give you a purpose to face another day.”
“And you’ve got the knowledge that Margaret is still alive. I didn’t have that hope.”
Gray bolted from his chair. “But I don’t know where she is.”
“Then you haven’t looked everywhere.”
