Chapter 23
Her brother had a townhouse.
It was a peculiar detail to fix on given the fear she’d lived with these past weeks, and yet she hadn’t known Kit had been in possession of a London townhouse.
Seated on the window bench overlooking the streets of Grosvenor Square, her knees drawn up, Eve skimmed her gaze over the well-stocked library. She took in the floor-length shelving and leather button sofas. Kit was her brother and she loved him, and yet she couldn’t even venture to imagine what books he’d have placed upon those shelves. She didn’t know what dreams he’d had or who his friends were.
Since Papa had died, and letters upon letters had been sent and been unreplied to, she’d gone from hope to despair to eventual acceptance. For the whole of her life, Kit had been devoted—when he was around . . . The truth had always been that he’d been gone more than he’d ever been part of her life. Oh, she loved him and always would. But he’d represented the closest dream she had to family, and she’d not truly understood that—until Calum Dabney.
Through all the sadness and loneliness that her life had been, there had been one year of her life where there had been someone—a friend. In those days they’d spent together then, and too briefly again now, she’d revealed more of who she was than she had to any other.
“And I’ve lost him all over again,” Eve whispered into the quiet, for in giving that truth life, mayhap there could be peace. Her heart spasmed. No. It didn’t help. Dratted tears blurred her vision, and she frantically blinked.
“May I come in?” her brother Kit called from the front of the room.
Never let yourself be caught unawares . . .
Frantically turning her head back toward the window, she discreetly dabbed at her eyes. “Of course.” What a silly offering, given this was Kit’s home. Eve made to rise, but he motioned her back.
His skin bronzed from the sun, and midnight strands drawn back, he bore traces of her beloved elder brother, and yet there was a sharpness to his gaze that she didn’t recall. But then, she also had no remembrances of him brandishing a pistol and pummeling burly guards to reach her.
Flicking out his coattails, he claimed the spot beside her. “Evie.” He spoke with a trace of nostalgia. Did he also have remembrances of her so very different from the reality that had always been there? “I didn’t know what these years have been like for you,” he said somberly. “And I should have.” His mouth tightened. “I always knew what he was.”
“We both did.” She spoke softly to herself. Yet she’d made the mistake in trusting him with Calum’s care, as a child. She lifted her eyes to Kit’s. “What happened to him?” she asked, needing him to make sense of what she’d never understood about their eldest brother.
Kit dusted a hand over his mouth. He let his arm fall back to his side. “In my work for the Home Office, there are men and women who will trade their souls for government secrets. They’ll do it for fortunes and fame or prestige. And then there are others . . .”
Calum had struggled and clawed to survive in the streets and had shaped himself into a man who helped others and lived without resentment. And yet Gerald, who’d been born with the world at his fingertips for the taking, existed as this twisted, black soul.
“What could he possibly have wanted in life?” she implored.
Kit gave her a sad smile. “Gerald is one of the others. He’s one whom there’s no explaining for or understanding. Some men are just born evil, and our brother is one of those.” His empty smile withered. “I understand you were living inside that gaming hell.” She stiffened at that unexpected shift. “The Hell and Sin. Hiding from Gerald. What did he do?” There was a steely promise there that hinted at death.
For an instant Eve considered telling Kit everything. She considered going back years earlier to the day she’d found a friend in Calum, and then eventually lost that same one with her brother’s cruelty. But there could be no changing their pasts, any of them. Telling him the evil Gerald had carried out would not undo it, and would only rouse unwanted guilt. Just as sharing that special bond she’d shared with Calum with Kit, who was more a stranger to her, felt . . . wrong. “He attempted to maneuver me into a match with one of his wastrel friends,” she at last settled for. “Nothing happened.” It almost had, and would have had Lord Flynn not been more than slightly intoxicated.
Kit narrowed his eyes, and she curled her hands into tight balls, braced for his questioning. “I was on the Continent, Eve,” he said quietly in guilt-laden tones. “As a second-born son, I thought there was nothing more important than building a future and fortune for myself.” The muscles of his throat moved. “I was wrong,” he confessed hoarsely. “Gerald had been intercepting the letters sent by father’s solicitor, Mr. Barry. And yours and . . .” He sucked in a ragged breath. “Had I known . . . any of it, what your life had been like, I would have returned, Home Office and career be damned.”
“Don’t do that,” she admonished. Once it had devastated her that he’d been gone. Now, finding he was safe and had been all this time, she also found peace in knowing if Kit hadn’t been gone, she would have never moved inside the Hell and Sin. And those days she’d had with Calum Dabney, she would not trade for anything. “I’ll not have you guilty or regret having made a life for yourself, because of me.”
“But—”
“It is fine,” she said softly, covering his hand with one of hers.
“It is not fine.” His hand tensed under hers. “You were my responsibility—”
Eve’s patience snapped, and she surged to her feet. “I am not your responsibility,” she cried. All her life she’d existed as an afterthought for everybody, a person to be cared for and looked after, and yet she wanted more. She always had. “I’m not anyone’s responsibility. I’m not yours. I’m not Gerald’s. I’m not . . .” Calum’s. “Anyone’s,” she finished weakly.
Kit opened his mouth slowly, then pushed to his feet. “You are correct,” he finally said, offering words Gerald would have sooner cut his tongue out than admit. “You are my sister, and you deserved better than two rotten brothers.”
Eve sighed. “One rotten brother. You simply had your work with the Home Office. I’d not begrudge you a life of your own.” A wistful smile pulled at her lips. “I simply wished I could have been part of it.”
Kit came over. “I am here now, and I’m not leaving.” Once that would have been enough. Her brother hovered, rocking on his heels. In this instance he was uncertain when she’d only ever remembered him as self-assured. “What of the gaming hell? Did you come to any harm there?”
“No.” The denial burst from her lungs with a vehemence that brought his eyebrows together. She shook her head frantically. “Cal . . . Mr. Dabney,” she swiftly amended at Kit’s intense stare. “Mr. Thorne . . . everyone there was kind. They respected me, treated me with k-kindness.” She damned that silent quaver and cleared her throat in a bid to conceal it. “They provided me safety and security.” She spoke of precious gifts and yet how . . . wrong it felt mentioning all Calum had shown her in such sterile terms. Calum and his brothers deserved more than Eve had brought into their lives. “Gerald threatened to expose their club for illicitly hiring a lady. He threatened to tell Society that Mr. Dabney and I were . . .” Her cheeks exploded in warmth, and she prayed her brother mistook that blush for sisterly, ladylike embarrassment. Avoiding Kit’s eyes, she coughed into her hand. “It would be the height of wrongness for Calum’s club to suffer because I deceived them about my identity.”
“I’ll speak to Gerald.” The icy glint in his eyes served as an assurance that he’d not allow their brother to disparage the Hell and Sin.
An awkward pall of silence hung in the room as Eve and Kit stood, siblings but strangers. “I thought I might explore my new home,” she finally said. Home. The Hell and Sin had been more a home than this place or their family townhouse.
“Of course. Can I have my housekeeper show—”
“I promise I am not in need of a tour,” she said wryly. “That would take away the fun of exploring. I thought you of all people should know that.”
He grinned. “Indeed.” Kit dropped a bow and started for the door, pausing when he reached the entrance.
She stared questioningly back.
“Were there any accuracies to Gerald’s claims?”
Flummoxed by that blunt, unexpected query, Eve shook her head quickly. Too quickly. She stopped the frantic back-and-forth movement. “No. We were friends,” she settled for. “We became friends.”
Again, her brother brought his eyebrows together, only this time no further questions followed—and he left. And mayhap she was an ungrateful creature, for with all the years she’d spent missing Kit and yearning for him to return home, she felt nothing but a sweeping relief that he’d gone. She didn’t want to answer any more of his questions. As she’d said to him, everything that had come to pass had already come and gone and now served as nothing but a dull pain inside for what would never be.
Numb, Eve moved from the library, through the halls of her brother’s townhouse. Smaller than the residences they’d called home, but just as elegant with its dark Chippendale furnishings and dark satin wallpapers, it was very much a bachelor’s residence.
And she knew enough that no bachelor, regardless of how devoted a brother was or intended to be, wished to have a sister underfoot. A spinster one, no less.
But then, in two months’ time, Eve would no longer be dependent upon anyone’s charity—not Kit’s, not Gerald’s, not Calum’s. Those funds that had once represented the zenith of her independence and her hopes for the foundling hospital would at last be hers. So where was the previous thrill that such thoughts of independence had once roused?
Eve reached the end of the carpeted hall and stopped, staring blankly at the wall ahead.
Because independence had been the greatest dream she’d allowed herself. After years of being under her brother’s influence and living in constant fear, she’d thought of nothing except those monies that would allow her freedom from it all. She’d contemplated the good she could do with her inheritance with the foundling hospital . . . which she would at last be able to fully do.
Now, however, she’d a glimpse of what life was like with a partner at her side . . . someone who shared her interests and joined her in her efforts at the foundling hospital. Eve drew in a shaky breath. “Stop,” she whispered.
“My lady, do you require help?”
A maid startled her from her reverie.
Forcing a smile that she didn’t feel, Eve waved off her efforts. “Thank you. No. I was just . . . I am . . .” Wallowing in my own misery. How pathetic she’d become. Forcing a smile, Eve continued her trek through Kit’s home. She wound her way down the curved stairway, belowstairs. Drawn forward by the buzz of activity in the kitchens, Eve strode toward those familiar sounds.
As soon as she entered, the room drew to an abrupt halt, and then as one, the men, women, and children working dropped simultaneous curtsies and bows.
Eve’s cheeks ached from the force of her fake smile. Before one of those too-attentive servants came forward, she pulled open her own door and strode outside into the mews. She sucked deep of the spring air and, not breaking stride, marched toward the stables. Reaching the closest one, Eve let herself inside.
The horse, a chestnut gelding, let out a whinnied greeting. Eve closed her eyes and let a calming peace that she’d always found in the stables claim her. A horse knew not and cared not what station a person was born to. They saw only people . . . and for a too brief time at the Hell and Sin, Eve had been treated in that same light.
She sank down to the hay-covered floor and took support from the wall.
The people at the Hell and Sin—Calum, Adair, the servants and guards—had not treated her as a pampered miss. They’d not dipped their eyes and bowed and curtsied, and she wanted to go back to that. To go back to how it was. And she wanted that with Calum in her life.
The door creaked, breaking into her regretful musings, and she shot her gaze up. She stilled, afraid to move and find that she’d merely dreamed up the figure towering over her. Calum doffed his hat and twisted at the brim, more uncertain than she’d ever seen him in all the time they’d known one another. How perfect that the stables should be the last place she ever saw Calum Dabney. It completed the circle of their meeting and relationship.
“I thought you knew better than to let someone catch you unawares.”
She sought out a clever quip and came up empty. “How did you know where to find me?”
He gave a wry half grin. “If I were honorable, I would tell you I’d knocked at the front door as any gentleman would do, and was shown out here by your obliging brother.”
A little smile hovered on her lips.
Calum jammed his hat back on. “But I was never, and will never be, one of those fancy lords. I knew after you’d gone, I’d eventually find you here.”
Of course. This was where she and Calum had always been meant to be. Only he was so very wrong.
“You were always more honorable than any man with a title affixed to his name.” His willingness to help so many people served as testament to that. Then reality intruded. “What are you doing here?” she asked hesitantly, trying to make sense of his presence.
Calum shot a hand out, and she automatically placed hers in his large, naked, calloused palm. He guided her to her feet. “In your haste to leave this morning, my lady, you left something behind.”
“I did?” His words were starting to penetrate the haze cast by his unexpected arrival.
“You did. Very many things.”
That is why he’d come. “Oh,” she said blankly. Her valise and bonnet and belongings. “You needn’t have come for that.” The cramped stalls suddenly too small for the volatile figure simmering beside her, Eve started past him. She made it no farther than one step outside.
“Me.” Calum shot an arm around hers, capturing her wrist in a tender yet determined hold. He brought her around to face him. Some indefinable emotion glittered in his eyes. “You forgot me, madam.”
Her heart caught. “I don’t . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.
The column of his throat moved. “I returned to find you’d gone, and with you went my heart.”
She gasped and clutched at her chest, searching for words.
“My every happiness. My reason for smiling.” He continued over her breathy exhalation. “I believed you cared for me.” His throat bobbed. “Mayhap loved me even.”
“I do,” she whispered. “I’ve always loved you. It is why I left.” Surely, he understood that? “All you ever dreamed of was that club—”
“Do not presume to tell me what I ever dreamed of, Eve, for if you indeed knew that, you’d know that you were the only dream I’ve ever had.”
Her heart caught.
“And you do not get to decide what is best for me or my club. You don’t get to simply walk out as though nothing mattered,” he said on a harsh whisper, releasing her quickly.
My God . . . He was hurting because she’d left. “I love you,” she tried again, needing him to understand. “But—”
“Do not mention the bloody club now or the next breath, madam.”
She promptly closed her lips and tried again, needing him to understand. “I could not let you sacrifice everyone for me.” She loved him too much to ever have him abandon his dreams for her.
“Oh, Eve,” he said hoarsely. “You have always thought of others. I have loved you since you were a girl taking care of a street urchin—”
“You were never an urchin.” She had never seen him in that light. “You were my—”
“—to when you stole my books.”
“—friend. You were my friend.” She paused. “I did not really steal them,” she said achingly. “Your books. I more borrowed them.”
“To when I followed you to the Salvation Foundling Hospital.”
“You followed me because you didn’t trust me,” she pointed out.
“Eve?” he said on a ragged laugh. Blinking tear-filled eyes, she lifted her gaze to his. “Can you let me please do this?”
“I don’t know what . . .”
“Because I’m not a gentleman, no doubt. Because if I were, I wouldn’t make such an absolute bumble of asking you to be my wife.”
Eve pressed her palm to her mouth.
“I’m desperately trying to do this properly and making a blunder of it.” He reached inside his jacket and fished out a candle.
She cocked her head.
Silence lingered in the mews, broken by the whinnying of horses. “You once told me that the Greeks placed candles upon cakes at the time of their birthdays,” he said solemnly.
“And blow those flames out to send their wishes to the heavens,” she finished for him, reverently gathering the narrow white wax. He recalled still all these years later those stories they’d shared and read together.
“I rejected that offer so many damned times. I want it now.” Her heart squeezed at the emotion in his pronouncement. “I want that damned cake, and I want that wish, and I want it to be you.”
Eve leaned up and placed her lips to his. “Oh, Calum,” she whispered when she drew back. She captured his cheek in her palm. “You never needed a wish. I was yours since you stumbled into those stables, and I’m yours forever.”
“I love you, Eve Pruitt.” He caught her wrist, dragging it to his mouth for a lingering kiss. “And when I am with you, I am home.”
She twined her hand with his. “We are home, together.”