Chapter Eighteen
Meg drew in a shaky breath as she looked around the master bedchamber one final time. It was perfect. Of course it should be, considering how much time and effort she had put into preparing it. Flowers were set around the room, a blazing fire brightened and warmed the space, the bedcovers were drawn back in the hopes what she would do would go well.
She turned toward the mirror. She was wearing her finest gown, and Fran had done her hair to perfection. What had Emma said to her before? That her clothing and her hair were her armor. Well, if so she was prepared for war now. She only had to wait for Simon and then somehow manage to say the words she had been rehearsing all afternoon.
As she paced her room, she tried to calm her racing heart. For years she had waited, loving Simon from afar, doing what she felt was right and best for everyone around her except for herself. Today she was taking the first step toward the future she wanted. With the man she loved.
And yet she had no earthly idea what his response would be. He could fall into her arms, surrendering at last to the feelings he had fought so hard and long to deny out of a sense of guilt and duty. She sensed that he wanted to do that. Or she hoped he did.
But he had such a strong sense of what he’d done wrong. Which meant he might put up a stronger wall than ever between them. One she feared she might never be able to climb, no matter what she did.
The risk was very high. The reward was even higher. And it was time, at last, to be brave. To fight this last fight and to hope that he would do the same. To think of her own wants and stop worrying about anything but her heart.
There was a light rap on the door and she jumped, as she faced the entrance. “Yes?”
The door opened and her heart sank. It was only Simon’s butler.
“Yes, Finley?” she asked, trying to keep her expression serene. “Do you have word from His Grace?”
“No, Your Grace, not yet,” Finley said, with apology lacing his tone. “He went to his club is all I know, I’m afraid there is no word from him as of yet. But you do have a guest, the Duke of Roseford.”
Meg wrinkled her brow. Roseford had not sent word he was calling. “He came to see me?”
“No, to see His Grace, but since he isn’t here…”
Meg nodded. “Of course, I’ll be right down.”
“Thank you, Your Grace. I’ll tell him.”
Finley left and Meg looked at herself in the mirror once more. She was in no mood to have company, especially not Robert. Thanks to James’s slip of the tongue all those weeks ago, she knew Roseford had once been Simon’s partner in debauchery. Who knew what he was encouraging her husband to do now?
She smoothed her skirts and made the short trip downstairs and into the parlor. Roseford turned from the fire when she entered, and he actually caught his breath when he looked at her.
“Roseford,” she said with a blush. “I did not expect you.”
He caught the hand she offered and lifted it briefly to his lips. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, I ought to have sent a card ahead, especially as it looks as though you are on your way out. You look lovely.”
She smiled at his compliment. “Thank you. I am not going out, actually, I’m just waiting for Simon. He should be returning from his club shortly.” A brief shadow crossed Roseford’s face, and Meg’s heart leapt. “What is it? Do you have news?”
“No, not at all. I-I actually came here looking for Simon, myself. You see, he isn’t at the club.”
Meg swallowed. “No?”
“No, when I arrived there a while ago, he had already left.” Roseford shifted with discomfort. “It seems he—he encountered Northfield there.”
Now Meg staggered and Robert actually reached forward to keep her from falling. He helped her to a chair and she drew a few breaths as she tried to remain calm.
“He and Graham saw each other. How bad was it?”
“A bit of shoving is all,” Roseford said, his mouth thinning to a grim line. “At least this time.”
She bent her head. “God, how I hate that their friendship is on such poor terms because of me.” She sighed and stared at her clenched hands in her lap. “You saw Graham?”
Roseford nodded. “He was still there.”
“And how…how was he?”
He hesitated. “Do you want the truth, madam, or some lie meant to comfort you?”
She jerked her face up at the faint disdain in his tone. She deserved it, after all, for the friendships between all the men in their club had been strained with her as the cause. “The truth, Your Grace. I am not some dainty flower who requires only positive words.”
He arched a brow at her calm reply and she thought she saw a flicker of appreciation in his stare. “Very well. Graham is…troubled. Betrayed. He is not handling it well.”
She squeezed her eyes shut as she thought of the pain Graham was in. “It’s my fault.”
He didn’t deny that charge, but let out a long sigh. “We’ve all had our part in this debacle. You shouldn’t have run off in a fit. Simon shouldn’t have followed you that day. I should have made Crestwood leave the moment he said he wanted to—”
She stood up slowly and stared at him. “Leave?” she repeated as her entire body went cold and numb. “What are you talking about?”
Roseford’s jaw set. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “Know what?”
“I ought not say something if Simon hasn’t.”
She moved toward him, her hands clenched at her sides. “You’re implying that my husband intended to leave, but you won’t tell me any more details. You must understand that you cannot drop such an explosive accusation in my parlor and then walk away as if you did nothing. Tell me, Roseford. What do you mean that you should have made Simon leave? When did he want to leave?”
Roseford flushed and he refused to meet her eyes. His voice was taut when he said, “When you and Graham announced your wedding date, Simon came to me and we decided we’d go to Ireland. Or Italy. It didn’t really matter where. He just wanted to go and not come back until after your marriage was performed. I thought he might have told you so himself, but it seems I’ve revealed a secret. One that will clearly hurt you both.”
Meg’s ears were ringing as she stared at the handsome man before her. Roseford was many things, and he had certainly never been her favorite of her brother’s friends but he was not a liar.
“He was going to walk away,” she whispered.
Roseford nodded. “You must see that was the honorable thing to do.”
She clenched her jaw, her hands shaking as she stared at him. “Honorable. Ballocks,” she finally choked out, “I’m so bloody sick of that word!”
Roseford’s eyes went wide that she would curse in such a way, but before he could reply, Simon walked into the parlor.
“Roseford,” he said. “Finley said you were here and—”
He cut himself off as his gaze slid to Meg. She knew what he must see, for she couldn’t hide it. Her hands were shaking, her breath came short and tears filled her eyes no matter how she tried to angrily blink them away and keep her weakness from being revealed in such a humiliating fashion.
“Meg,” Simon said, moving toward her. “What is it?”
“Roseford, get out,” she whispered.
Roseford cleared his throat gently and bowed to her. “Of course, my lady. I’m sorry that I upset you.” He moved toward the door and added, “And Crestwood, I’m just sorry.”
Simon didn’t acknowledge it as his friend left, closing the door behind him. “What is it?” he asked.
“You were going to leave,” Meg said. Not asked—said, for she didn’t want to give him a chance to launch into a hundred explanations of the unexplainable.
The color left Simon’s cheeks and he stared at her in silence for what felt like an eternity. “Roseford told you?” he finally asked.
She nodded, but the movement felt jerky and unbalanced. “Yes. And thank God he did, for it seems you never would have. But that’s what your best at, isn’t it, Simon? Withholding.”
He flinched at the accusation and she could see that he wanted to move toward her. He didn’t, of course. It seemed he was patently incapable of doing so.
“I wasn’t trying to withhold something from you, Meg,” he said softly. “I didn’t leave, so I wasn’t certain there was any point in telling you that it was my initial plan.”
She moved toward him, hands clenched at her sides. “Do you wish you had?”
“Told you or left?”
“Left!” she cried. “Do you wish you had left?”
He bent his head. “If I had, I wouldn’t have hurt anyone.”
She drew in a sharp, hard breath and staggered away, recoiling just as she would have if he struck her. In some ways, it felt as though he had, for the truth of him…of them…now hung between them in a way she had been trying to hide from. Avoid. Pretend she could repair.
It was clear now that she had been a fool.
“You would have hurt me,” she said, her voice hardly carrying.
He lifted his gaze slowly. “What?”
“Damn it, don’t pretend that you don’t know how I feel for you,” she said with a violent shake of her head. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know all along. You and I have had a connection that went deeper than friendship, deeper than lust, for years. We both felt it. And you know that if you had ridden off with Robert and I had married Graham, that it would have hurt me. The fact that it was only some night you regret that kept you from doing it…well, that hurts me almost as much.”
“The situation was…complicated,” he said softly.
“Of course it was,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I was in love with one of my brother’s best friends and marrying the other. You think that hasn’t torn me apart for years? That seeing you and wanting to be near you and wanting to touch you hasn’t broken my heart and my spirit?”
His eyes went wide. “You love me.”
“If you don’t know that, then you are blind as well as a coward,” she whispered. “Because I have never been very good at hiding it. Especially not when we were alone together.”
“Meg—” he began.
She shook her head. “No. No! I know you, Simon. You’re going to start reciting all these reasons why we are wrong and what we did was wrong and how we don’t deserve to be happy. That you don’t deserve it. But that is a pile of…well, it’s a pile of something I’m not supposed to say as a lady. And you know it.”
“I was never trying—”
“You were never trying at all!” She realized she was shouting. And she didn’t care. She wanted to shout. She wanted to scream because she had been silent for so long.
“Do you think I wanted to walk away?” he snapped.
She folded her arms. “You were going to, so in this situation I suppose it doesn’t matter what your intention was.”
He stared at her, his mouth opening and shutting.
She shook her head. “Simon, I know you’ve cared for me as long as I’ve cared for you. But you were never willing to fight for me. And I’ve been fighting. I’ve been fighting since we were caught together that night in the cottage and it was clear we would be forced to marry. I knew that we could be happy, that we could be…right. But now I see I was a fool.”
She stared at him, at his beautiful face. She saw his pain. But she also saw his hesitation. And that was what broke her, for it proved to her what she already knew.
He wasn’t willing to overcome the obstacles between them. She wasn’t worth it to him. And like Emma, she realized she didn’t want to live a life like that. She couldn’t love this man and have him incapable of allowing himself to feel the same in return.
She’d rather be alone.
She backed away, forcing a wall down between them just as he had done so many times before. “I’m leaving.”
His eyes went wide. “Leaving?”
She nodded slowly. “I need time. I need to think. I’ll go to James and Emma’s. I just need…to not be here.”
“Please, Meg,” he said, moving to her. He caught her arms, but she struggled free of him even though his touch burned her with desire and love.
“No,” she insisted. “I just need to…go.”
He backed up a step, his mouth drawn down and his eyes dark with emotion. Then he nodded. “I won’t stop you.”
Those words were meant to give her what she wanted, but her heart sank when he said them. Because in the end, that was the problem. He wouldn’t stop her. And that meant what she wanted was something she would never have.
She shook as she turned her back on him. She shook as she walked out of the parlor in silence. She shook as she waited for Finley to call for a carriage. But she didn’t turn back and he didn’t call out for her.
In that moment, she knew it was over.
Simon paced the parlor, drink in hand, just as he had been doing for…God, he didn’t know how long. Hours, for certain. The room had grown dark, then light had returned.
Meg had not.
His mind had spun all night, spun with Graham’s accusations that he didn’t fight, with Meg’s. Their words wound together, burrowing into his soul and making him question everything he’d ever believed about himself.
He was a peacekeeper. He had been between his mother and father, he had been between those in his group. He’d spent a lifetime trying to be whatever was needed to make things…pleasant.
And now he was being told that it wasn’t enough. Worse, he knew that it was true. But to be more, to fight, that required him to take a risk. And giving his heart, reaching for more, that had never ended well for him over the years.
“Your Grace.”
He turned to find Finley in the doorway, the butler’s face drawn with concern as he looked at him. And why not? The poor man kept offering him food and suggesting he take some rest, but Simon couldn’t do it.
He had to find a way to deal with this and he just didn’t know how.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice rough from exhaustion.
“It’s me.”
The butler stepped aside and James strode into the parlor. Simon froze. His best friend’s face was tight and his eyes were bright with anger.
“You can leave us, Finley,” Simon said softly.
The butler did so, closing the door behind him without having to be asked to do so. The moment it clicked shut, James pushed up on him, chest forward, body language nothing but aggressive. “I asked you to do one simple thing. What was it?”
“Not to hurt Meg,” Simon said, and his voice cracked. “And I failed you. You want to hit me, call me out, destroy me, then do it.”
“I don’t want to do any of those things,” James snapped. “I want to see you figure out what you need to do. What you want to do. And I want to see you be happy.”
Simon bent his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever been happy, James. I’m not sure I know how.”
He sank into the settee and rested his head in his hands as emotions he normally controlled washed over him. He felt James sit beside him.
“I know what your life was like as a boy,” James said. “Your father wasn’t as overtly cruel as mine could be, he wasn’t as violent as Graham’s, but I know you spent your life walking a tightrope. Trying to be what everyone wanted you to be in order to keep some kind of peace. Hell, you even tried your best to keep Graham and me steady when we lost our way.”
“You and he are fighters,” Simon whispered. “I just don’t know how to be.”
“What do you want?” James asked.
“Her,” Simon snapped, looking at his friend at last. He saw pity in James’s face, but also understanding and both broke him. “Bloody her, always her, only her.”
James nodded. “Then you’d better figure out how to be the man she needs, because your time is running out.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was devastated when she showed up at our home yesterday,” James said, his frown deepening. “I’ve never seen her so broken. And she…”
“She what?” Simon asked, leaning in.
“She left, Simon. She was determined that she couldn’t see you again, that she couldn’t know that you don’t love her enough to make her a priority. She left London this morning.”
Simon leapt up. “Left? Where did she go?”
“Back to Falcon’s Landing,” James said with a sigh. “I tried to talk her out of it, said that I would mediate between you. Emma tried to convince her too, she even invoked our unborn child in an attempt to guilt her into remaining. But Meg just kept saying that you hated yourself more than you loved her and she wouldn’t be a part of it anymore.”
Simon stared at his friend, the words that James was saying settling into his skin, his soul, his mind and his heart. They mixed with Meg’s accusation that he was a coward, with Graham’s harsh words about Simon never fighting for what he wanted. It stewed together and, without thinking, Simon tilted his head back and let out a roar that all but shook the room.
James rose slowly as Simon panted through the intense emotions that ripped him apart.
“I have to go after her,” Simon gasped out at last when he could speak. “I have to follow her.”
For weeks James had only looked at him with a combination of concern and contempt, but now his friend’s lips turned up slightly. “It took you long enough to figure that out. What will you do?”
“What I should have done from the start,” he said. “What I was afraid to do for all these years. I’m going to be honest. I’m going to be open. And I’m going to…to fight for what she is and what I want. And I won’t take no for an answer, even if she gives it to me for ten years. I won’t back away until she knows that I am just as invested in her as she is in me.”
“She loves you,” James said softly.
He bent his head. “I haven’t deserved it before. I was so convinced that I couldn’t sacrifice anyone else’s needs to get what I wanted. But I’m going to fight to deserve it from now on.”
“Good. That will be a start,” James said, clapping him on the arm. “So when do you go?”
“I have a few things to prepare,” he said, wishing he could rush headlong toward Meg right that instant and throw himself on her mercy. But he had hurt her for too long and too deeply to think that was enough atonement. He needed to prove himself to her. That would take planning.
And perhaps a few days to herself would make her more open to what he wanted to give.
“I’m going to fix this, James,” Simon said, locking eyes with his friend. “First with Meg, and then with Graham.”
“Worry about Meg now,” James suggested. “Now what can I do to help?”
Simon thought on it a moment, then nodded as a plan began to take shape in his mind. “Well, first I need the very powerful Duke of Abernathe to send word to his servants…”