The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

by Stephanie Laurens

  He managed a sneer. “Some men prefer not to live under a cat’s paw.”

  “And some men are blind beyond reason.”

  There was hurt as well as fury in her voice.

  He shackled the emotions that tried to erupt—to respond, but in what way he wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t about to trust what he felt. Not about her.

  It was she who flung away and started to pace. “You’ve been shown the right path, and you have seen it—you’ve recognized it.” She tossed a raking glance at him. “Don’t bother to deny it. I can see. I can tell.”

  Lucilla stalked back, trying desperately to harness her temper, her fury—and her fear. The words that fell from her lips came from she knew not where, yet still they came, tumbling free. She had no idea if they were what she should say—if they were the wisest response she might make. So much hung on this, yet she couldn’t seem to think; she’d so rarely felt uncertainty, much less real fear.

  She’d done everything she could to make him see, given him all she could—everything, every last piece of her that she had to give—and she’d succeeded in doing what she was supposed to do, yet still…he was refusing. Her, the position of her consort. All.

  Her lungs had locked; she could barely draw breath. Her mind seemed on the brink of true turmoil. Yet she had to speak—had to try to reach him and make him rethink.

  Make him change his mind.

  “If I have it right”—she kept her eyes on the floor, heard her rioting emotions still straining her voice—“despite understanding—as inside you truly do—that remaining here, by my side, is the right path for you, because that isn’t a path you have fashioned for yourself but one offered you by another—by me, by Fate, by the Lady—you refuse to take it.”

  Swinging to face him, she met his amber eyes; they were agate hard and unyielding. “Do I have that correct? That it’s your pride that rules you in this—even in this?”

  His face hardened; his expression closed. She saw a muscle in his jaw tighten.

  An instant passed, then he stated, “You can analyze all you like. I am not going to change my mind. Allow me to repeat—being your consort is not a position I wish to fill.”

  Something inside her fractured; emotion geysered. Inside, she trembled with the force of it, yet she stood rock-steady. She breathed in, deeply, then raised her head and, still holding his gaze, replied, “You can fight Fate all you want, but it will not end well.” She’d let all the considerable power at her command infuse those words. She continued with the same deadly calm. “Allow me to make something perfectly clear. There isn’t anyone else for me or for you—and there never will be. If you turn your back on me, on us, on all we might be, there will be no other chance—not with anyone else, not in any other place.”

  His features impassive, he held her gaze for a long moment, then, with apparently dismissive nonchalance, quirked a brow. “Is that a curse?”

  Her control very nearly ruptured; curling her fingers into fists at her sides, she fought to hold her fury back. Eventually, in a voice every bit as cold as his, she replied, “By asking that, you show how limited your understanding, how little you’ve thought this through. Fate is not something anyone can run from—no matter your desires, no matter how immutable your determination, you will not escape.”

  She paused, then remembering that, regardless of his pigheadedness, he was still her consort, made one last bid to sway him. “I cannot stop you—your life is yours to live. Yet it’s one thing to condemn yourself to lifelong misery, but in this, you condemn me, too.”

  His gaze had been stony, but at her last words, the amber of his eyes fractionally softened. She saw, dared to hope—but then he looked past her, at the bed. When he returned his gaze to her eyes, everything about him was granite again; although he hadn’t moved, she could see he’d stepped even further back—putting even more distance between them.

  He was leaving her.

  Panic clutched her chest. What else could she say? He was locked against her—against her and everyone else and everything else in the Vale; she could all but feel him holding her and them back, pushing them all away. Rejecting and refusing to hear. To believe—to even consider.

  She had no idea where such a ruthless, almost violent, and comprehensively adamant rejection sprang from. She had no notion of what might be behind it, what gave it such power—yet the force of it had hardened his heart as well as his face, and had set an impenetrable shield behind his eyes.

  There was nothing more she could do.

  The realization closed like an icy vise about her heart.

  In brutal reality, free will trumped even Fate.

  It trumped even the Lady.

  The bottom fell out of her world.

  When he spoke, his tone was distant, as if he was already viewing their association as something in his past. “Our time together hasn’t been what I thought it was. I was honest about how I saw my future—you knew what I thought—yet against my wishes, you sought to change my path. You and your Lady failed, and you will have to live with that.” He tipped his head a fraction—a travesty of a bow. “And now, I’ll bid you goodbye. I’ll be leaving at first light.”

  She said nothing; there was nothing she could say.

  She watched the only man for her turn away, open the door, and leave her room.

  He pulled the door closed behind him.

  She stared at the panels. She had to let him go. Even through the turmoil raging inside her, she knew that. Understood that.

  Even accepted that.

  Regardless, she still felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest, sliced, and stamped on.

  And that, she was quite sure, she would never forget.

  CHAPTER 15

  She stood at the window of her room and watched him ride away. Dawn was still streaking the sky when he set out, riding his gray into the future. His self-determined future, the one that didn’t include her.

  She had no tears left to shed—either of fury or of pain—not even in anticipation of the misery she knew now hovered on her horizon. If this was how it was meant to be, then it was; ranting and railing wouldn’t change anything. As he’d said, she’d failed to convince him to turn aside and take the right path with her.

  In the way he looked at things, that was her loss and his gain.

  She watched him go until he rounded the curve in the drive and she could see him no more.

  Only then did she draw a deeper breath. Folding her arms across her chest, she stared out unseeing and, finally, allowed herself to look inside.

  Desolation lay heavy on her soul. A barren wasteland littered with powerful yet powerless feelings stretched, unending, inside her.

  She breathed in, out. Waited.

  Nothing in life was set in stone, not if it involved people. Every single soul possessed free will; every person, no matter how weak, was entitled to choose their own destiny.

  He had chosen his self-determined path with deliberation and intent, and in repudiating so adamantly the alternate destiny she and the Lady had laid before him, he had, at least in part, rescripted her future.

  Irreversibly.

  So where did that leave her? What about her right to define the life she wanted—to claim the life she’d grown to adulthood expecting would be hers?

  What now for her?

  For long moments, she stared out at the land she had accepted as her birthright, to which she remained committed to protect and to nurture. Eventually, she exhaled and, closing her eyes, reached…and to her surprise, found the usual calm waiting. Waiting to enfold her and draw her in, to center her, to anchor her…

  She’d expected to feel far less sure, far less stable.

  Life, apparently, went on—and she was strong enough to endure. She breathed in again and felt steely resolve infuse her. She came from a long line of women who had found their way through turbulent times—through emotional storms and defeats as well as physical ones; no more than they would she give up, woul
d she eschew her duty.

  She would endure.

  She’d been born to this—however it played out—and she would go forward.

  More assured, she allowed herself to examine her emotions, recognizing and acknowledging them before setting them aside. Yes, there was hurt, layers of it, and beneath that a level of devastation—a disbelief that he truly had gone without even making any real attempt to understand—and beneath even that, beneath all, lay a yearning. A hollow core of emptiness; that was something she had expected to feel, along with the nagging, useless thoughts of whether she could have—should have—done this or that, something else, something other, to hold him and bind him to her.

  From the first, she had understood that this decision had to be his. Entirely his, without undue influence from her.

  Without the full impact, the full pressure, of her love.

  Did he love her? She doubted he did, not as he might have—not as he would have if he’d claimed the position by her side. Acknowledging a possibility gave that possibility the potential to become a reality, but he’d turned away without giving love a chance, without even considering doing so.

  Did she love him?

  Her mind balked, unwilling to delve deeper.

  She opened her eyes, stared outside, and forced herself to acknowledge even that. “Yes.”

  The truth resonated inside her, inviolable, immutable.

  She had loved him for years; a quietly patient, undemanding kernel of unconditional love had been planted in her soul so long ago that she’d fallen into the habit of taking it for granted. But her love was no longer that gentle bud. Although she’d been aware of gradual changes through the years, until that moment she hadn’t truly appreciated how much had altered over the last days, how their constant adult interactions had nurtured that long-buried seed to rampant, full-flowering life.

  Love wasn’t something one commanded. It came on its own terms, was governed by its own rules, and needed no permission to grow into a force that compelled, and held, and never, ever, let go.

  Such was her love for him now, and all she could do was feel it, acknowledge it—honor it and herself and hold true to it, and wait to see if he ever rode back to claim it and her.

  Time would tell.

  So she was back to waiting again, to relegating her heart and her private life to the back of her mental shelf again.

  She dragged in a breath—forced air deeper into her lungs. Then, exhaling, she lowered her arms and turned to the door, to her day.

  Life went on.

  She accepted that she’d had to let him leave, that she had to wait for him to reach understanding and acceptance on his own…but for the first time in her life, she no longer had faith that through following the Lady’s dictates all would eventually be well—not in this case. Not for her and him.

  He’d taken that faith from her when he’d ridden away, and she didn’t think she would ever get it back.

  * * *

  Thomas hadn’t even reached Ayr before the feeling that he’d made a horrendous mistake engulfed him. He felt it like a weight crushing his chest, making it harder and harder to breathe with every mile that fell behind him.

  He refused to acknowledge the nonsensical feeling, gritted his teeth against the sensation, and rode doggedly on.

  * * *

  In the cool of the evening four days later, he pulled the door of his lodgings shut behind him, settled his hat on his head, gripped the head of his cane—once again more fashionable accessory than required support—and set off to walk the short distance to his uncle and aunt’s house in Stirling Street. His aunt was holding a soirée and had, as usual, insisted he attend; she’d dropped in at the office to make sure he’d received her invitation, and with patient reasonableness had pointed out that he couldn’t hope to marry well if he didn’t properly pay attention to the available young ladies.

  He couldn’t argue that. Indeed, he now saw the sense in making up his mind sooner rather than later. The sooner he chose the young lady he would make his wife, the sooner Lucilla and her enduring temptation—that relentless tug on his soul—would fade.

  Pausing at the corner to let a carriage pass, he flexed his left leg. He’d called on his doctor the day before and had had the stitches removed; Henderson had spent most of the session waxing lyrical over Lucilla’s exquisite stitchery and the apparently marvelous efficacy of the salve she’d used. He’d shut his ears; he’d just wanted the stitches out and gone, the last physical reminder of Lucilla and his time in the country eradicated.

  Would that he could wipe his mental slate clean as easily.

  With night slowly falling and deepening the dusk, the residential streets lay largely quiet. The rattle of carriage wheels came from here and there as ladies traveled to their engagements, the strengthening glow of the gaslights setting the brass and silver on harnesses and carriage bodies gleaming. A brisk shower earlier had washed the air clean and slicked the pavements and streets, making them appear darker than they were, yet glistening where the light played in the tiny puddles between the stones. Like him, a few gentlemen had grasped the opportunity afforded by a nearby social event to stretch their legs, but otherwise, this section of the city was sliding into its customary evening repose.

  A repose that invited introspection; although the last thing he wished to dwell on was his recent past, as he turned up Candlerigg Street and continued strolling, he couldn’t—simply couldn’t—stop his mind from reviewing and reliving the past few days.

  After riding—fleeing—from Lucilla and the Vale, he’d reached Glasgow by late morning. He’d blamed the continuing heaviness in his chest on the sulfur-laden atmosphere of the city—the wind had been absent, and the smog had been hanging heavily, after all.

  So very different from the crystal-clear air of the Vale.

  He’d thrust the comparison aside and had ridden Phantom to the stables where the gray was quartered, then had limped to his lodgings carrying his bag and trying to ignore the renewed throbbing in his calf. He’d had to leave the Vale—had had to leave immediately without risking seeing Lucilla again—and at least he’d reached there and was safe in Glasgow, once again focused on following his own path.

  With that justification firmly fixed in his mind, he’d walked into his lodgings only to realize it was Sunday. So he hadn’t been able to immediately lose himself in work. He had a key to the office; he could have gone in, but the offices would have been cold and empty—no distraction. He’d debated calling on his uncle and aunt to let them know he’d returned, but given the hour, that would have meant sitting down to luncheon and having to describe his time at Carrick Manor and the Vale… He hadn’t been up to that—not even up to evading the questions.

  He’d gone to a nearby tavern for a pint and some food, then had settled to spend the rest of the day and evening in his lodgings. His rooms were by any standards well-appointed and comfortable, bordering on luxurious, yet the walls had suddenly seemed too close, the rooms too dark, and an unexpected coldness had sunk to his marrow.

  Writing to Manachan that he was now back in Glasgow had been his only occupation, and even that, involving as it did an acknowledgment that he hadn’t succeeded in resolving whatever it was that was afflicting his clan, had scraped at several raw places inside.

  He’d told himself that all would be well as soon as he settled back into his position as principal partner of Carrick Enterprises and immersed himself in his usual routine.

  Despite the tiredness brought on by the long ride, he’d slept poorly.

  He’d risen early and, with his goal of reclaiming his true life in the forefront of his mind, had gone into the offices. He’d needed to re-establish his norm, find his previous anchor, and feel his world steady beneath his feet.

  He’d walked through the door with its gilded logo. Mrs. Manning and Dobson had already been at their morning tasks; both had greeted him warmly, and he’d responded as usual and waited for a sense of coming home to embrace him. />
  But it hadn’t.

  Suppressing his disquiet, he’d walked down the corridor to his office. He’d gone in, shut the door, walked to his desk, and sat behind it. He’d looked at the files and documents waiting there and had felt…nothing.

  Just a horrible gaping emptiness where he’d expected eagerness and some semblance of relief.

  Shaken, he’d stared at the files and letters, unable to accept that he couldn’t summon any degree of enthusiasm for what previously had so effortlessly commanded his attention. For what previously had been the cynosure of his existence, the focal point of his life.

  Reliving the moment, he drew in a tight breath and, head rising, cane swinging, paced slowly on. He wished he could haul his mind from its newfound obsession—from reliving the recent days and all the shortcomings that he was determined to excuse and put behind him—yet his recollections rolled relentlessly on, refusing to let him bury them as he so desperately wanted to do.

  That first morning back, he’d been forced to face a realization he still refused to accept as anything like a final truth—a momentary truth, a passing state perhaps, but no more than that. He wouldn’t let it be more than that. He’d spent a decade and more crafting a life for himself there, in his office as the principal partner of Carrick Enterprises, and now he was supposed to believe that it no longer meant anything? That he might, all along, have been misguided in pursuing that path?

  That it didn’t hold his attention because it didn’t hold his heart?

  You need to learn to think with your heart as well as your head.

  That morning, sitting behind his desk, shaken and shocked, he’d heard Manachan’s voice in his head. Manachan was as wily and as cunning as they came, but how could his uncle have known about this? About the situation he now faced?