Chapter 22
William awaited a meeting that was long overdue.
To be precise, nearly a year overdue.
He should be thinking solely of the exchange to come, and yet, William’s gaze went to the slumbering dog on the Aubusson carpet at the center of his library.
She’d left her dog.
Nearly a week after she’d gone, Elsie haunted his memory and thoughts still… and her dog served as an eternal reminder.
That beloved pup had been part of her life and household for nearly fourteen years. And just as important, the dog had provided her, a woman on her own, some degree of protection and companionship.
He slid his eyes closed as a familiar cold swept through him.
Images flitted forward of Elsie alone in a cottage that Stone, upon his return, had reported was modest. Beyond that, he’d said little more.
She’s returned, safely, and was polite at our parting.
That had been it. The first and only report he’d ever sought on Elsie Allenby, and it had offered none of what he’d truly sought from Stone.
Had she been happy to return? Sad at her departure? Fearful? What had she been? What?
I’m going mad.
Only, this—he swallowed hard—this jagged hole that had been ripped open wide came not from mere worry, but because he missed her. He missed her clever wit and her unabashed challenges at every turn. And the gardens. He missed their time spent there, too.
And what was worse? This misery? This emptiness? No, the fact it was all a product of his own making. He’d sent her away. He’d made the decision for her to leave, when everything within her eyes had indicated she’d wanted to stay.
Or had she? Had he merely seen what he wished in a woman he’d come to love—
His body jerked ramrod straight, much the way it had when he’d been run through with a blade in his earliest training for the Brethren.
He couldn’t… It wasn’t possible… He missed Elsie. He enjoyed her company. But love? He’d vowed to never again give in to that dangerous emotion.
“I love her,” he whispered. He’d thought there was nothing left in his heart to give or receive and that he was destined to a fate of deserved misery. Only to be proven so very wrong. He loved her. He loved her for her wit and talent and ability to talk on topics that no woman or man of any station in his whole existence ever had.
Bear rolled onto his back and wiggled on the carpet, emitting a forlorn whine that cut across William’s panicky musings.
With a sigh, William joined the dog on the carpet. “I miss her, too,” he confided, running his fingertips through the gray fur.
Bear stared back with wide, accusatory brown eyes.
“Yes, yes. I know. It’s quite my fault. But I’ll have you know… it is in her best interest.”
It was.
Or, that was what he’d told himself with her departure. No matter what became of William’s role with the Brethren, the threat of danger would remain for all those who were in his life. There would always be enemies lurking and peril for the work he’d done on behalf of the Home Office.
And he’d been selfish enough before that he’d taken what he wanted and put those desires first before another’s well-being—his late wife’s.
William sucked in a shuddery breath. Knowing all that didn’t do anything to ease the ache that had come with Elsie’s leaving.
Bear nudged at his hand, and he resumed stroking the dog in the way he so favored.
Rap-pause-rap-pause—rap-rap.
William found the ormolu clock atop the fireplace mantel and shoved to his feet. He is here.
Clasping his hands behind him, he called out for the expected pair to enter.
His brother came in first, a boy following after him. Somber, with too-serious-for-his-age eyes, his nephew who was never without a book cautiously came to a stop.
Another swell of emotion crested and threatened to pull William under.
Leo.
Only somehow more serious. More guarded.
Unable or unwilling to meet his gaze, the gangly boy shifted on his feet. “Uncle…” Then Leo’s eyes formed round circles. “You have a dog!” he exclaimed, rushing over. Several curls tumbled over Leo’s brow, giving him the look of one so much younger than his fourteen years.
From over the boy’s head, William and Edward shared a smile before his brother backed out of the room. “I do. He’s a loyal fellow.” And Elsie had left that cherished gift for him. Emotion balled in his throat.
“When did you get him?” With an uncharacteristic excitement, Leo wrapped the surprisingly compliant dog in a tight embrace and continued before William could answer. “What is his name?”
“Just three weeks ago.” Had it really been just twenty-one days in which Elsie Allenby had entered his life and upended his world in the most splendorous way? And I sent her away? William briefly closed his eyes. “His name is Bear.”
“That is a good name,” Leo was saying. “He looks like a Bear. Is that why you named him such?”
“Is that why…?” he echoed. I don’t know why she chose that name. He knew the creature’s history and how beloved he was, but he knew nothing more. I want those pieces. I want every last detail about Elsie and her life and…
“Uncle William?”
“He was named before he came to me,” he offered.
Leo stared blankly at the dog. “They die, you know. Best not get yourself attached. Especially to an old one like this fellow.” With that, his godson stood and backed away from Bear.
The last dog he’d had the boy’s devil father had wrapped in a sack and tossed out into a lake on one of his many properties. William had beat the marquess senseless for the cruelty to the dog… and child.
The heart that Elsie had put back together splintered all over again under this display of cynicism from a child who’d been almost like his own. And I failed him. I failed him. I failed him.
The same guilt that had controlled him this past year reared its head once more, and he fought back the overwhelming sense of failure that gripped him.
Elsie’s singsong voice drowned out the litany in his mind.
What happened to your wife, the fault does not lie with you. It lies with soulless men who carry out that evil. Your guilt… nearly destroyed you, and it will once more, if you let it.
William drew in a steadying breath. I am here now. He urged Leo to the leather sofa at the center of the room. “You’ve no books tucked under your arms,” he noted once they’d sat. “Or in your ha…” As one, their gazes went to Leo’s fingers. Oh, God. It was a prayer and an entreaty. “Hands,” he forced himself to finish as rage spiraled through him. Vivid purple and blue bruises stood out upon the boy’s pale skin.
Belatedly hiding his hands behind his back, Leo stared intently at the floor. His bent head and hunched shoulders, along with the fingerprint bruises, marked the child as one who still bore the abuse of his hateful father, the Marquess of Tennyson.
“He did not heed my warning,” William murmured in quiet tones he used for the most skittish of men and women he interacted with through the Brethren.
Leo lifted his spindly shoulders in a little shrug. “He did… for a while.” Until William had disappeared. His godson shot his head up. “It is not your fault. No matter what you’d have told him, it would not matter.”
He seeks to reassure me. The boy was remarkable, and he’d deserved more in a father, and in an uncle.
“Not really,” Leo went on. “It never did. Just for a bit, but he never stopped. Not truly.” Despair clouded the boy’s eyes. “And he never will. So… yes… that is the way it is, and I’d really rather we not speak any further on it.”
They would. In time. But William wouldn’t spend their reunion forcing his godson to relive all the horrors he’d endured. “I have something for you.”
Leo sat up a little straighter. “Oh?” For, despite the horror that was his life, he was still a boy.
Reaching for the small leather volume on the rose-inlaid side table, William handed it over to the child.
“The Poetical Works of the Late Mrs. Mary Robinson,” Leo murmured, turning the pale green leather tome over in his hands.
“It contains pieces that have never been published before.”
Leo glanced up. “Have you read it?”
“I have.” Bear trotted over and rested his giant head alongside William’s thigh. He absently patted the dog. “I believe it bears the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.”
“My father says women are empty-headed twaddles who should open their legs and not their mouths.”
Hatred descended like a black curtain over William’s vision, and he forced himself to speak calmly. “I know a good many women who are cleverer and more skilled than most men.”
Leo puzzled his brow. “Indeed?”
“Your mother was one of them.” His heart spasmed with that loss.
“Hmph,” Leo said noncommittally.
“She could speak Latin and French faster than even her tutors and would debate them with such skill they often fled their placement.”
A rare smile ghosted his nephew’s lips. “You’re just partial because she was my mother.”
“Perhaps a bit,” William conceded. “But she was clever.”
“Was Aunt Adeline?”
Leo’s question gave him pause. She’d been gentle and polite and proper and skilled at ladylike pursuits. But she’d despised reading and scholarly topics. “There are different kinds of knowledge,” he settled for. “Your late aunt had different skills.”
“You know one scholarly woman, then. My mother.” His godson gave him a pointed look. “Who was also your sister.”
The boy had a tenacity with debating suited for a barrister. William dropped his hands atop his knees. “Do you know why I’ve not”—he grimaced—“left the house in a year?”
“Because you were hurt in the carriage accident?”
He nodded. “Because I was hurt here.” He touched his jawbone. “And here.” William pressed his fingertips against his heart. “My soul was hurt, and I was lost. Your uncle Edward, he did not accept that as my fate. He brought doctor after doctor. Some of the most skilled men and minds in London. And do you know who healed me?”
Wide-eyed, Leo shook his head.
“A young woman,” William said, his voice hoarse. “A woman who possesses more skills than could ever be taught in a classroom, but who also has an understanding of ancient texts, and she is more remarkable than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“You love her,” Leo said with a dawning understanding.
Of course, even a child should see.
“It is hard not to admire such a woman.” Nay, I do not just admire Elsie Allenby. I love her.
“She’s the woman you sent away?”
William opened and closed his mouth several times. “How…?”
“I hear more than people credit,” Leo said dryly. “Uncle Edward was speaking briefly to Stone about it when I arrived.”
God, with Leo’s wit and skill, the Brethren would one day likely call him a member of their ranks.
His nephew persisted. “If you love her, why isn’t she here?”
William shifted awkwardly on his seat. In sharing what he had with the boy, he’d not intended for this to be the direction of the conversation. “Life is complicated.”
“You worry she’ll die like Aunt Adeline?” the child correctly surmised.
William rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Yes. There is that.”
His nephew scoffed. “Fear seems like a silly reason to send away the person you love. I’d never do that.”
The air left him on a whoosh. The boy was… correct. He had sent Elsie away in fear, with her safety and well-being the motives for doing so. He’d never allowed her a choice. Just as he’d not shared with Adeline the threat that marriage to him represented. In the end, he’d chosen… for both of them. Reeling, he squeezed his nephew’s shoulder. “You’re right.”
Leo smirked. “Of course I am.”
There was a quick rap at the door.
Edward ducked his head in. “The marquess wanted him returned by the top of the hour.”
His fingers curled around the boy’s shoulder in a light squeeze. Bloody controlling bastard.
Leo’s expression fell, but then he quickly composed himself in a way that no child ought and stood.
William came to his feet beside him. “Just a moment more,” he commanded, waiting until Edward backed out of the room. “Leopold?” he urged in grave tones.
“What?” the boy mumbled, avoiding William’s eyes.
“Look at me.” He waited until his sister’s child slowly lifted his gaze. “I’m going to do better to be the uncle you deserve. I won’t leave you again. From now on, I’ll always be there. Do you hear me?” Leaving a person… did not sever the bond or eliminate the danger or peril presented by life. It only left a different kind of hole in one’s heart.
“Yes,” Leo said, his voice threadbare. He started for the door with long, loping strides and paused in the doorway. “You’re going to her, aren’t you?”
For the first time in the whole of a year, the chains of guilt he’d donned were finally cut free.
William smiled. “I am.”