Bombshell

by Sarah MacLean

  She snatched her elbow from his touch, hating the way awareness thrummed through her. “Don’t touch me.”

  He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t. Instead, he opened the door to the carriage. “Get in,” he growled.

  She narrowed her gaze up into the shadows of his face, the brim of his hat low enough to make it impossible to see his eyes. Good. She didn’t want to see his eyes. She didn’t want anything to do with him. “You needn’t worry I’ll linger.”

  “You are lingering,” he said.

  “I would never—” She stopped. He couldn’t believe . . . She started again, quiet and firm. “As much as I would enjoy ruining your day, American, you cannot think I would ever make trouble here.”

  “You have no idea what trouble you have made here. Get in. Now.”

  She’d taken on The Bully Boys again. Johnny Crouch would come to, and she’d have to deal with him. But she had proof of his crimes, and proof of Coleford’s as well, and it was time to see them both to justice.

  But Caleb did not mean that trouble. He meant something else. Something that she’d likely never understand, because he’d never tell her. And it no longer mattered, because now, she’d do all she could to avoid him. Forever.

  This wasn’t like the other times, when he’d leave and she’d hold her breath hoping for the kind of return that made him hers.

  Now, she knew the truth. He would never be hers.

  And so, this might well be the last time she would see him. It would certainly be the last time she ever spoke with him.

  She got in the carriage, refusing to look at him. Knowing that if she did, she’d say something that she’d regret forever. Something like, I loved you.

  And even that would be a lie.

  But she would go to the grave with the truth.

  Sesily turned back to close the door behind her, to discover him climbing up behind her, filling the space inside the carriage with his enormous body, quickly closing the door behind him and thumping the roof of the vehicle without hesitation.

  “No,” she said, sharply. “Get out.”

  The carriage lurched into motion, and Caleb ignored her, turning to look out the rear window, as though checking to see if they were being followed.

  Irritated that she hadn’t done it first, Sesily let her anger fly. “Did I not make it clear that I have no interest in being confined with you? That I certainly have no intention of going anywhere with you?”

  He spun to face her, and she sat back against the seat—shocked by the frustration on his face. The wild fury in his eyes. The fear there. “This isn’t a fucking choice, Sesily. This isn’t painting naughty words on some man’s face in the gardens. You’re in danger. And now they are, too.”

  Jane. Peter.

  He might have said the words a dozen other ways at a dozen other times, and she would have ignored him. Would have fought him. But here, now, there was something in his tone, in the way he held himself, that unsettled her.

  He was afraid.

  “And you?” she asked. “Are you in danger?”

  “I’m always in danger.”

  “In danger of what? Discovery by The Bully Boys? They’re aware of me, Caleb. Discovery by Coleford? What does he have to do with this place? With that house? With your—” She swallowed the words.

  Wife. Child.

  Betrayal came hot and unbidden. She shook her head. She wouldn’t say it.

  She didn’t have to.

  He turned to face her, and she looked out the window, feeling sick to her stomach and, for the first time in her life, not because of the motion of the carriage.

  “Sesily.” Her name on his lips, soft and insistent. Neither contrite nor angry.

  She shook her head. Refusing to look.

  “Sesily,” he said again, urgent.

  How many times had she dreamed of him saying her name like that? Like he wanted her attention more than anything in the world?

  She looked at him, his hat now off, his mahogany curls in disarray over his brow, his green eyes fairly glowing in the late afternoon light. She crossed her arms over her chest, pressing her lips together, and waited.

  He sat forward, elbows on his knees, and covered his head with his hands, rubbing them through his hair once. Twice. A third time.

  And then he looked up and found her eyes. Sesily caught her breath.

  “Jane—” he began, his voice hitching with emotion. The name was reverent. Precious. Sesily braced herself, ready for the blow.

  He finished, “She’s not my wife. She’s my sister.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  He shouldn’t have told her.

  Jane’s existence—his existence—was the kind of secret a man took to his grave. It was the kind of secret that put anyone who knew it in danger. It was not the kind of secret a man told the woman he loved. But when a man had been put through the wringer worrying about the woman he loved, he wasn’t exactly in his right mind.

  When Fetu had turned up on his doorstep two hours earlier, concern in his eyes, Caleb had known, instantly, that something had happened to Sesily.

  A message, delivered to Caleb at The Singing Sparrow. Collected by his partner because he hadn’t been there, because he’d been at home, packing to leave again. Once more, for the same reason he’d always left. To keep them all safe.

  To keep her safe.

  “Your girl—she’s headed to Brixton.”

  Fetu hadn’t minced words, and neither had Caleb. He hadn’t pretended not to know who his friend referenced. Hadn’t denied the descriptor, even though he knew it wasn’t accurate.

  She wasn’t his. She would never be.

  But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do everything he could to keep her safe.

  He’d driven hell-for-leather over the river, southwest of London, making the hour-long journey in half the time, not knowing what he would find when he got there.

  A singular thought in his head.

  Keeping Sesily safe.

  He’d loved her for an age, and he would love her for an age, and though he knew that seeing her, being near her, touching her—all of it—would make everything to come worse, he knew that he would do everything in his power, forever, to protect her.

  But first, he had to get to her.

  When he’d found her in Crouch’s grasp, in obvious pain and struggling for freedom, Caleb had gone mad with fear and anger that someone—anyone—would dare touch her, let alone threaten her.

  He didn’t remember what came next—everything blurred until he was staring down at the other man unconscious in the dirt, Sesily looking at him, frustration in her eyes along with pain—not caused by her wrist. Caused by him.

  He should have let her leave without him. Let her believe what she wished. Followed at a distance. Seen her home. Safe.

  Packed his things. Found passage to Southampton.

  He should have let her go then. It’s what a decent man would have done. But Caleb had never been decent. Wasn’t that the point? Wasn’t the proof of it that he’d followed her there and dragged her further into his past? Put her in further danger?

  Wasn’t the proof of it that he didn’t regret it, even then? That he would never regret following her. Never regret vanquishing her enemies. Never regret tying Crouch up and leaving him to be found by the next of Coleford’s henchmen . . . or never at all.

  But he knew, without question, that he would regret telling her the truth about what she had found there. Because once the truth was out, he wanted to tell her everything. And it would only make him love her more.

  Silence fell in the wake of his words in the quiet carriage, the importance of the statement heavy between them even as he willed her not to understand the full impact of the truth.

  “Your sister,” she said, finally, uncertain.

  “Yes.”

  “But . . . she’s English.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re American.”

  Secrets. “No.”

&
nbsp; She shook her head. “How is that . . .”

  He didn’t reply. Was afraid that if he did, he’d reveal more. Too much.

  But he didn’t have to reveal it. Sesily was brilliant, and it took her no time to put the pieces together. “She’s your sister. And you’re English. And Coleford is watching her.” Her eyes, clear and bright, met his. “And you knew his house. When I was there in his study, you knew where the servants’ closet was. You’ve been there before.”

  Caleb lifted his chin, hating the way the words brought the feeling of being there again, with too little muscle and too little power and far too little understanding of the world. “Go on, then.” When he spoke, Boston was gone, replaced by the West Midlands.

  Her eyes went wide at the accent. “I—” She shook her head.

  He gave it to her. “His son.”

  Her brow furrowed. “The one who died?” And then, understanding. His brilliant, beautiful girl. Of course she’d put it together in an instant. “No, not died.”

  He nodded. “Killed.”

  She shook her head. “No. Wait. The son—Bernard Palmer—he died. A riding accident. Years ago.” Of course she would know something about what had happened. Sesily Talbot was not a fool and she was not reckless, and she would not have ransacked Coleford’s study without knowing something of the man she investigated. Of his past.

  But she did not know everything. Only two people in the world knew everything. “Bernard Palmer, heir to the Viscounty of Coleford, died eighteen years ago,” he conceded. “But it was not a riding accident. Nothing about it was an accident.”

  “He deserved it.”

  He tilted his head. “How do you know that?”

  She met his eyes. “Because I know you.”

  She did.

  “The Honorable Bernard Palmer,” he said, a humorless laugh in the words. “It wasn't an accident, and he wasn't honorable.”

  “You were so young,” she said, and he could hear the understanding in her voice. Seventeen. “It was so long ago.”

  “Not long enough. Coleford was still watching. Waiting for me to make a mistake.”

  The words landed, and he regretted them instantly. Regretted the guilt that shadowed her eyes. “I was it. The mistake.”

  “No.” She would never be a mistake. Not one moment with her would be. “No. Sesily. Listen to me. Whatever happens. However this ends. . . . you were not the mistake. You were—”

  Athena.

  Ready to go to war for him. With him.

  “—perfect,” he finished.

  She watched him for a long moment, the rocking motion of the carriage and the sound of the wheels all there was between them. He came off his seat, leaning across the space to yank open the window next to her. “You need the air.”

  “I’m not going to be sick,” she said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because some things are not for knowing.”

  “What if I can help?” He started to answer, but she held up a hand, irritation flashing in her eyes. “Don’t tell me I cannot help. Have I not proven how useful I can be?”

  God, she was magnificent. “I know how useful you are, Sesily. I’ve seen you go head-to-head with earls in Mayfair and brutes in Covent Garden. I’ve seen you break a man’s nose twice.”

  “Three times.”

  “I was only there for two of them.” Her lips curved just barely, and he realized he would have given anything to see her smile. But she wasn’t having it. So he finished. “This is not a problem that you and your gang of brilliant ladies can solve. Not every tragedy can be righted with a pretty smile and a vial of laudanum.”

  “You don’t know that if you haven’t tried it.”

  He did, in this case, but as she stared him down, this stunning woman, he realized that he wanted her to know some of it. That he wanted to, for a moment, share it with someone.

  With her.

  He’d stop before he put her in danger. More danger.

  Before he could change his mind, he spoke. “I was born Peter Whitacre, raised in the stables on the Coleford estate in Warwickshire. My parents worked there, and their parents before them, and my father was a respected stable worker, so we lived in a small cottage on the land.”

  “Your parents and you, and . . .”

  “And my sister Jane, a year younger than me,” he said, softly. “We were servants’ children and so we grew to be servants ourselves. Me in the stables and Jane in the main house. My mother was a maid and good with a needle, and Jane learned to sew before she could talk.”

  “She loved it,” Sesily said, sad and nostalgic, as though it was her memory, and Caleb liked that—the idea that she might know his past—even as he knew it was a luxury he should not claim.

  “She did,” he said. “And that made her good at it. But she wasn’t old enough to mend for work, so when she was eight, she became a scullery maid.”

  “Eight,” Sesily said, softly.

  “No one was a layabout at the Coleford estate,” he said, lost to the memory. “The old man wanted every penny he paid us.”

  Her gaze shadowed and she moved, crossing to sit next to him. He shouldn’t like it. But then she took one of his hands in hers and he forgot about should, because her warm, firm grip was too tempting to resist. “The man deserves a cold, cruel death. In Newgate.”

  He met her eyes, fierce and beautiful. “I think he would prefer it to meeting you on a dark street.”

  “I guarantee he would, and I have not even heard the meat of your story.”

  “Goddess of War. I wish we’d had you.”

  Her gaze softened. “I wish the same.”

  He leaned over and dropped the window next to him, the crosswind in the carriage pulling tendrils of her sable hair loose from their moorings, making her more beautiful—and when she smiled . . . Caleb resisted the urge to rub the ache from his chest. For a moment, he let himself dream of her. “I wonder what it would have been like, if we’d been at your father’s estate instead of Coleford’s.”

  She smiled. “You would have hated it. You think I am mayhem alone. We were five girls born outside of the aristocracy and delivered to it untamed and untrained when my father won his title.”

  “I wouldn’t have hated it,” Caleb said. “I promise you I would have done everything I could to turn your head whenever you came near the stables.”

  She laughed and tucked herself into the crook of his arm, and he knew he shouldn’t notice the way she felt there, in that space that suddenly felt made for her. “I am sorry to say, good sir, I never went to the stables. Seline would have been the object of your affection.”

  The scent of her was making him wild. There was no other explanation for why he replied, “No, Sesily. One look at you, and I would have been done for.”

  “I would have liked that,” she said, tilting her face up to look at him—full and lush and beautiful, like she belonged on a swing in a painting by a French master, her skirts blown up to her waist, showing pantalets and stockings and ribbons. Waiting for him to kiss her.

  God, he wanted to kiss her.

  It would only make it harder to do what needed to be done, but he wanted it like he wanted his next breath. Resisting the desire, he refocused, returning to his story, but retaining his hold on her. Not wanting to let her go—especially not then. Not while he resurrected the past. “The winter of 1819 was terrible. Coleford had raised the rents and there wasn’t enough firewood or food on the estate, and we all struggled. My parents . . .” He trailed off.

  “Caleb,” she whispered, lifting his hand to her lips. “I’m so sorry.”

  He swallowed around the tightness in his throat, and focused on the feel of her lips against his skin. “You mean that.”

  “Of course I do,” she said, surprised. “How old were you?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “And what happened?”

  “We were given pallets with the other servan
ts. Me in the stables, her in the house. It was warm—mostly—and dry, and it seemed like we had more food than before. And I began to feel like all might be well.” He paused, then said, “Almost a year went by before Palmer returned home from university and discovered Jane.”

  Sesily swore, angry and vicious, her fingers tight on his, as though she could protect them through time. He took the grip and the words as a sign that he did not have to elaborate. She knew what was to come.

  “We all knew about Coleford. We knew he was cruel to the servants and the tenants and his wife. But Jane didn’t tell me that his son was the same.”

  She nodded. “She didn’t want you to be punished; she wanted to keep you safe.”

  Of course Sesily knew it. But he hadn’t. “Palmer hounded her. She did her best to stay away from him, and the other servants at the estate all did their best to make sure she was never alone.” But it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be. And Sesily knew that as well as anyone. Better, for all she’d seen of the world beyond her drawing room.

  “A few months later, it was decided that Jane would be sent to the house in Mayfair, where Palmer was to live as he entered society and took up the mantle of future viscount.” He paused, then spat, “He'd requested her. As a gift.”

  Sesily cursed.

  “That’s when she told me everything, because she was scared, and she knew she couldn’t keep it a secret any longer. She knew that once she was in Mayfair, he’d have access to her.”

  Sesily nodded. “She wouldn’t be protected there. The servants in Mayfair wouldn’t know her. They wouldn’t help.”

  “For someone who’s never been a servant you know more than you should about how we worry.” He met her eyes and couldn’t resist putting his own hand on hers, warm and firm. “I traded six months’ pay to switch places with a stablehand who’d been slated to outride to London with the family when they moved to town for the season.”

  “That’s how you knew the house.”

  No reason to keep the secret any longer. Not now, with the story pouring out of him. “Jane sewed a pocket in her skirts. Lined it with leather.”