Chapter Twenty-one
No one could catch her. She wasn’t running anymore—she was flying.
Charlotte pressed her knees hard against the heaving flanks of the horse beneath her. Sweat gathered in the hair at her temples and even through the heavy skirts of her riding habit she could feel the damp heat of the horse against her legs as he raced across the grounds like a demon turned loose from hell.
Hell, or Hadley House. It amounted to the same thing, didn’t it? Except she was the demon, and she’d never truly be turned loose from her hell. Her freedom was a thing of the moment, nothing more.
She eased her grip on the reins and gave the horse his head, her gaze focused on the distant tree line, but she didn’t see it. She didn’t see anything, hear anything, or feel anything other than the smooth, powerful strides of the horse, his hooves reading the landscape as he sailed over the rocks and the tree roots that grew larger and thicker as they neared the forest.
She was nearly there. A steep incline into the dense ridge of trees, wide open parklands on the other side, and then, at the far western edge of the property the tiny summerhouse at the crest of a hill where she liked to stop and gaze at the sweeping views of the valley below, to remind herself there were still places she found beautiful.
But maybe this time she wouldn’t stop. Maybe this time she would ride over the parklands forever, her hair flying out behind her and the wind whipping color into her cheeks—
Charlotte, stop!
The shout drifted over her, brushed against her, but she paid it no heed. Why should she stop? She was flying, because when the ground collapsed from beneath you, and you could no longer run, you flew.
When Julian walked into her study a week ago, the ground had trembled under her feet, but she’d pulled that lovely numbness around her like a cocoon and burrowed into it, and she’d held her footing. But then they’d walked in the garden, and he’d asked about Hadley.…
An accident… It’s time you stopped blaming yourself for it.
And the thick, dense cocoon protecting her had dissolved like spun sugar on a warm tongue. The ground had given a mighty wrench, and she was left dangling in mid-air, raw, her skin flayed from her bones and her feet scrambling for purchase.
So she ran. But running wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t fast enough.
So she flew.
Charlotte! Stop, stop, stop…
Louder this time, a shout, hoarse and panicked, borne forward by the wind. It was behind her, the sound of pounding hooves drawing closer.
Julian’s voice.
Charlotte brought her arm down, hard and fast. Her crop sliced through the air and her horse surged so violently beneath her she swayed sideways in the saddle.
From behind her came an agonized roar. No!
And then in the next breath he was there, impossibly he was there, beside her, their knees almost touching as his horse paced hers. One of his hands reached for her reins and her heart stuttered to a halt, froze, her terrified gaze on his one white-knuckled hand still holding his own reins.
One hand.
Dear God, he would fall. “No! Let go!”
The wind tried to steal her scream, to silence her, but Julian heard her. He jerked his head hard, once. No.
Panic clawed at her as her horse plunged for the tree line, his head low and his sinewy legs devouring the ground at their feet. Julian couldn’t hold him for long at this pace without being thrown to the ground and trampled to death under his horse, or hers.
Please don’t let him fall, please don’t let him fall, not again, not this time, not Julian…
“Let go! You’ll fall!”
He knew the danger, he must know, but he wouldn’t let go.
The tree line ahead dipped and rose crazily in front of her as it drew closer and closer, and oh, dear God, one of them would strike a tree—him, it would be him, she knew it, and her rein was wrapped so tightly around his gloveless hand the leather must be cutting into his flesh, and yet still he held on.
He held on to her, and wouldn’t let go.
Charlotte wrapped her calves as far as she could around her horse’s belly, threw her weight backward in the saddle, and yanked on her reins. Her horse screeched a protest and pulled viciously on the bit to loosen her hold, but she kept her elbows tight to her body and held on, and miraculously the horse began to slow. His pace slackened until at last, with a toss of his head and a sulky snort he came to a halt.
Julian dropped both reins and leapt down from his horse, but Charlotte remained frozen in the saddle, her fingers curled into claws around the leather in her palms.
Let go. Let go. Let go.
But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t make herself drop the reins, so she sat and stared dumbly at the trees swimming in front of her. Close. So close. If she stretched out her arm, she could almost touch one, but something was in her eyes, black at the edges of her vision, and the trees began to tunnel.…
Hands wrapped around her waist, strong and firm, gentle.
Julian slid her carefully from her saddle, but as soon as he had her safely on the ground he released her and turned away. The world titled sideways without his hands to steady her, but she said nothing, only watched as he retreated a few paces. He kept his back to her, his head down and his hands on his hips, silent aside from the great, ragged breaths he pulled into his lungs.
Charlotte gripped her skirts between numb fingers. Why didn’t he say something? Anything would be better than this awful silence.
He ran a hand through his hair and made a low, rough sound, as if his throat had been scraped raw, then turned to face her at last.
The blood left her head in a dizzying rush. His skin was stretched taut over his white face, his full, sensuous lips tight and grim, and his eyes… Oh, he looked nearly wild, his eyes two burning slits of dark fire.
Dear God. He was furious.
Yet he’d touched her so gently just now, his hands careful against her waist as he lifted her from her horse. No matter how angry he was, he would never hurt—
Charlotte’s breath caught hard in her chest as she stared at him. This man—the one who stood before her now, his eyes tormented and his face twisted with anguish—he didn’t have Captain West’s cold, flat eyes. This man wasn’t a stranger.
He was Julian. And Julian would never hurt her.
“Are you hurt?”
His voice was shaking, but not only with anger. With fear. He was furious, yes, but mostly he was terrified. For her.
“I—” Was she hurt? She hardly knew. “No. I don’t think so. Are you all right?”
He didn’t look it. His hair was damp and tangled and his breath heaved in and out of his chest. He wasn’t wearing either a coat or waistcoat, and his white shirt was transparent with sweat. One of his sleeves was ripped from the cuff nearly to his elbow. Oddly, this was what she focused on, and the longer she stared at it, the harder it became to tear her gaze away.
How had he torn it? He’d torn the flesh underneath, as well. She could see the blood. He was hurt. But torn flesh could be treated, couldn’t it?
Not like a broken neck.
“Why are you trying hurt yourself, Charlotte?”
Her gaze darted to his face. “Hurt myself? I would never… Why would you ask such a thing?”
His shoulders went rigid. “You promised me, that day in the carriage—you promised you wouldn’t pretend anymore. You promised never to hide from me again.”
“I—I’m not pretending—”
“You’d have me believe this was a pleasure ride? It was almost dark when you left the stable yard. No, don’t try to deny it. I saw you leave alone, on a half-broken horse and riding recklessly, as if you hoped you’d fall.”
“No, I—” But no matter how she tried to force it through her lips, the denial wouldn’t come, not when he looked at her with that stark panic in his face, with his torn shirt and bloody arm. Not when it could so easily have been his entire body covered in blood, or his neck broken. “When I left the stable yard I thought only of running away, of escape. I—I’m sorry. It was foolish.”
A dark, bleak looked passed over his face. “Were you running away from me?”
She closed her eyes. It would be easier that way, so much easier, but the truth was never simple or easy. “No. I was running away from…me.”
He stepped close to her and wrapped his hands around her shoulders. “The other night in the garden, with Devon, I thought… But you were saying good-bye to him, weren’t you? I said awful things to you, called you—” He stopped, swallowed convulsively. “What I said, and the look on your face that night—it’s haunted me, Charlotte. I beg you to forgive me.”
Forgive me. But what if it was too late for forgiveness? What if there was no absolution to be had?
Then you lived with your guilt, and you took your punishment.
Something snapped inside her then—not into pieces, but into place, the last piece in a puzzle she’d long since despaired of completing.
All these months, since the moment she’d set foot in London—the scandals, the sneering contempt of the ton, the way she’d refused her family’s comfort, refused to go to Bellwood—wasn’t that what it had been? A punishment. Her punishment for failing Hadley. She’d wanted to hurt herself, as if her pain could somehow make amends to him, or change what had happened.
And everyone else—her family, the ton, even Julian—she’d wanted them to hurt her, too. To punish her. She shrank away from the ton’s cruelty, yes, but even then, even as she’d been desperate to escape it a tiny part of her, a part she’d buried in the darkest recesses of her heart…
That part of her welcomed it. Because a woman like her should be punished. A woman like her deserved to be taught a lesson.
Dear God. She couldn’t look at him.
“I—I should have stopped you from saying the things you said that night,” she whispered. “I didn’t, because…”
Because I didn’t know. Until this moment, I didn’t know.
He leaned closer, tried to see into her face. “Because I wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t let you—”
“No.” She looked down at her gloved hands. “I didn’t stop you because I wanted… I wanted you to hurt me.”
He touched his fingers to her chin to raise her face to his. “Why would you want me to hurt you?”
So gentle, his hands. It was his gentleness that undid her, made the truth stir and rise from that deep, secret place inside of her, the place where she ached and bled, and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t close the hole in her chest, and the truth kept rising, tearing loose until she couldn’t force it back down anymore. All the pain and the secrets and the guilt shoved against her lips, gushed from her mouth, seeped from her pores—all those wet, dark, ugly truths.
“Because I… I deserve to be hurt.”
He sucked in a quick, harsh breath, as if a fist had landed in his stomach. “No. No you don’t, Charlotte.”
“You don’t know. You don’t know what I did. What I am.” She didn’t want him to know, to see it, to see her, because once he saw that ugliness he’d leave her at Hadley House alone, just as she deserved.
He cupped the back of her head in his hand and looked into her eyes. “I do know who you are. It’s you who doesn’t know anymore. Tell me what happened here, Charlotte. To Hadley. To you.”
She drew a deep breath. She’d never told anyone the entire truth, and she wouldn’t tell Julian now—not the worst of it. Not what had happened to her, because it would only hurt him to know, and it was a useless, meaningless pain. There was nothing he could do—nothing anyone could do.
But she’d tell him as much as she could. “Hadley died.”
Julian remained silent, waiting.
“He was about to ride to a hunt. I was standing nearby to see him off when all of a sudden he decided to take a high jump. But his horse balked at the last minute, and Hadley was thrown. The fall broke his neck.”
Julian made a low, pained sound deep in his chest. He pressed his palm flat against the nape of her neck. He didn’t speak, but he held her so she wouldn’t look away from him.
“It was my fault. He was trying to make me look at him, to see him, to…to make me love him. And I wanted to, you know—I tried to. I tried so hard, but it was no use. He knew, and he kept trying to find a way.”
Julian slid his hands into her hair. “It wasn’t your fault. You can’t make yourself love someone, Charlotte, any more than you can make yourself not love someone.”
Tears pressed behind her eyes. “But I promised I would love him. When I married him, I swore it. I thought I could, but it became a lie. I lied to him, and then he died, and now I’m being punished.”
“No.” His voice was fierce. “No. You can’t really believe that, Charlotte.”
She gripped his wrists. “I do believe it. It’s true, Julian. If it weren’t, then none of the rest of it would have happened.”
He stroked her hair back from her face. “What happened after he died?”
The truth tried to rise in her chest again, to tear free, but she forced it back. The whole truth of what had happened—that burden was hers to bear alone.
Tell him what you can, but nothing more. “His mother, she—”
She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to hear the dowager’s screams in her head, but no matter what she did, no matter how many whorehouses she visited in London and how much scandal she courted, she couldn’t silence it.
“The shock of Hadley’s death destroyed what was left of her mind. She blamed me from the first, and she never forgave me. She wept every day after he was gone, right up until the day she died. I tried to comfort her, but whenever I came near her she’d shriek and wail and work herself into a frenzy. She said she wished her son had never married me, that I was a curse upon him. That it was my fault he’d died. That I’d killed him, and it should have been me instead.”
He clasped her face in his hands and looked at her with such tenderness, such grief. “She was mad, Charlotte. You said yourself she was out of her mind.”
“She was mad, but she wasn’t wrong. Hadley was a good man, a kind man—he deserved better than to spend the last months of his life with a wife who didn’t love him, could never love him. He deserved so much better—” Her throat closed on an odd, choked sound. “So much better than me.”
He caught her to him, wrapped his arms around her and held her, so tight and so close she felt every thud of his heart in her own chest. “Let it go, Charlotte. Let it out, or it will keep hurting you.”
No, she wouldn’t let it out, wouldn’t cry, because if she did, she’d never stop. But even as she denied the grief it took her, seized her by the neck and shook her like a ragdoll until there was nothing else she could do but sob against him, great heaving sobs that threatened to tear her apart.
He held her head against his chest and stroked her hair until the wracking cries subsided into quiet tears, and still he held her and murmured to her like a child, his hands warm and soothing against her back. When she was exhausted from the storm of emotion, he gathered her into his arms without a word, lifted her onto his horse, then retrieved her horse’s reins and swung up behind her on the saddle. “Lean back on me.”
She let herself sag against him.
“That’s it.” He settled her so her back rested against his chest and wrapped one arm around her waist. “Sleep.”
Miraculously she did, cradled in the curve of his body, his breath a soft, steady rhythm against her back. She thought she felt his lips at her temple and his whispers in her ear, but then she succumbed to the kind of sleep that had eluded her for months, deep and dreamless.
When she awoke, the sky was dark over her head. Someone was speaking, but she couldn’t quite make sense of the words. “Julian?”
“I’m here, sweetheart. Slide your arms around my neck.”
She obeyed without question. The saddle disappeared out from under her and for a moment she panicked as she became groundless again, suspended, but then she felt Julian’s arms under her, and her cheek found his chest, which vibrated with a low sigh as she relaxed against him. Then he was moving—door, stairs, hallways, and more doors until at last she felt a soft coverlet beneath her and knew he’d brought her to her bedchamber.
She must have slipped into another dream for a while because she lost some time. When she awoke later it was to a hushed argument taking place at her bedside.
“You can’t be in here with her,” a voice hissed. Mrs. Boyle? “It’s not proper, Captain West. I can’t allow—”
“No.” Charlotte struggled to sit up, but her eyes seemed fused shut and sleep threatened to take her down again. “I want him to stay.”
“Now, don’t agitate yourself, my lady.” A soft, motherly hand pressed her back down into the mattress. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal. You can thank Captain West tomorrow—”
“No. Julian.” She forced her eyes open and grasped his hand. “Don’t go.”
His fingers closed around hers. “I won’t. You heard Lady Hadley, Mrs. Boyle. She wants me to stay, and I’m sure you don’t wish to upset her, as fragile as she is right now.”
Charlotte fell back against the pillows and let her eyes fall half closed.
Mrs. Boyle huffed and fretted, but at last she accepted the inevitable. “Oh, very well.” She meandered around the room, straightened a few perfectly straight objects on Charlotte’s dressing table, and then closed the door behind her with an offended click.
For a moment after she left neither of them said anything. Then, because there was so much to say and no place to begin, Charlotte blurted, “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” Julian glanced down at the long, bloody scratch on his arm. “Oh. It’s nothing.”
“It bled quite a lot.”
He smiled. “And now it’s stopped.”
“It looks deep. May I see it?”
“It’s nothing, I promise you.” But he sat down on the edge of her bed, obediently turned over his arm, and held it out so she could inspect the cut. The smooth skin seemed too vulnerable to belong to Julian, too fragile to protect such a muscular limb.
She hesitated for a single moment before she touched him—only a moment, a breath in time, but it lengthened, stretched, became infinite, for surely a mere moment wasn’t enough to hold such emotion, such promise.
Or such risk. Once she touched him, she might not be able to stop.
And yet it was already too late, wasn’t it? She hadn’t touched him yet, and already she couldn’t stop. Her fingertip met his warm skin and stroked lightly down his arm, just to the right of the gash.
His breath caught hard in his throat.
She looked into his eyes—dark and heavy-lidded—drew his hand slowly to her mouth, and pressed her lips into his palm.