The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

by Stephanie Laurens

  He’d closed his eyes—then, jaw setting, he’d shaken his head, opened his eyes, and got down to business.

  He’d told himself that the distraction caused by his time in the country would fade.

  Quentin and Humphrey had arrived, and for the first time in his life he’d had to deploy, strengthen, and rely on his façade to greet them, to talk and exchange news with them, all the while hiding the deadening numbness inside him.

  It had quickly become apparent that the business had run smoothly without him there. Quentin knew the guiding framework Thomas and he had set in place as well as Thomas did, and Humphrey had stepped up and filled Thomas’s shoes in terms of his day-to-day role, and had done very well.

  Why Thomas had done it, he didn’t know, but he’d used his injury as an excuse not to take back all that Humphrey was now handling.

  More than any of his reactions, that one had rocked him to his foundations.

  What am I doing?

  He’d asked himself that through the rest of that day and into an evening spent with a bottle of whisky.

  At some point during that night, he’d found himself staring at the prospect that, deep down, he didn’t really want his old position back.

  Carrick Enterprises didn’t need him—indeed, could function perfectly well without him. He didn’t need to be there, in the office, for it to flourish.

  And if that were so, then his position there couldn’t give him what he needed, couldn’t ground him, anchor him, ultimately wouldn’t satisfy him. It wouldn’t—couldn’t—fulfill his deeply rooted need for his place—the right place for him, with the right passion and with people who needed him in a position he and only he could fill.

  Despite his long-held belief, his position as principal partner of Carrick Enterprises hadn’t sunk its talons into his soul and refused to let go.

  Yet something—someone else and another place—had.

  He’d drained his glass and had refused, outright, to believe that. Any of that. Not wanting his established position back equated with him not wanting his carefully constructed life back, and that couldn’t be—wasn’t—true.

  He’d decided it had been the whisky talking. He’d stoppered the bottle and had gone to bed.

  Not that he’d slept, not even after the whisky.

  Since then, he’d steadfastly lived as he had before, done all the things he’d done before, exactly as he had before, and had waited for the effect of his sojourn in the country to fade—for the talons to loosen and slip free.

  They hadn’t.

  Yet.

  He remained adamant that, with time, they would. That with time he would reclaim his passion for this life, and be able to go forward as he’d always intended, following his carefully defined, self-determined path into the future.

  Attending his aunt’s soirée that evening was to be his first new step along that path since he’d returned.

  He hadn’t wanted to arrive too early and have to stand in any receiving line, chatting with matrons and their hopeful daughters while waiting to greet his uncle and aunt, so he’d taken a roundabout route from his lodgings in Bell Street; he’d headed north along Candlerigg Street, then had crossed the road to amble about the gardens surrounding St. David’s Church. Stepping out along Canon Street, he walked east, intending shortly to veer south to Stirling Square, and so on to Stirling Street and the Hemmingses’ house.

  Unfortunately, the diversion also gave his mind the perfect opportunity to remind him of all he was striving to forget.

  Like the need he’d sensed—had been so openly shown—by Lucilla, and also by so many in the Vale.

  He hadn’t immediately understood what it was that had so called to him; in her, he’d seen it as simply another emotion in her mesmerizing emerald eyes, another element of her fire, another aspect of the fierceness of her loving.

  Only now, with his mind so insistently revolving about his own need—a need to be truly needed by others—did he finally recognize that emotion in her eyes for what it was—for what it had been.

  She had shown him, had exposed and put on display, her deepest vulnerability, and had trusted him to see it, to recognize and honor it.

  He had seen, but he hadn’t…allowed himself to know, to consciously recognize the reality for what it was. Because that reality—being needed by her—was a large part of what powered the talons that were still sunk so very deeply in his soul.

  His mind had refused to accept, but his heart, it seemed, had known. Not allowing himself to register the truth hadn’t saved him from it—from its effect, from its power.

  And it wasn’t only from her that he’d sensed the tug; the lure of being needed—of being wanted—had been so pervasive, coming from so many people and directions in the Vale, that he’d been drunk on its seduction.

  Lips thinning, he flexed his shoulders as if he could thus dislodge the memories.

  Regardless of all temptation, regardless of all the potential benefits, he couldn’t give in. His jaw clenched; despite the clear assumptions of Lucilla, Marcus, and all in the Vale that, having seen and appreciated the role they believed he was fated to fill, he would surrender and stay, he couldn’t. He couldn’t, in effect, bend to their Lady’s will.

  He’d made up his mind long ago that nothing else in his life mattered—could ever matter—more than that he remain in control of it, that he defined and directed his path without interference from any other source.

  When he’d finally understood what had been happening in the Vale—the trap that had been set for him, however well-meaning—he’d felt…in essence, betrayed. He hadn’t seen until his eyes had been opened—and it had almost been too late to wrench back. He’d almost been unwittingly press-ganged into a life quite different from—and far more dangerous than—the one he’d set his mind on.

  His mind on—not his heart on.

  The words whispered through his consciousness as he reached the railings of Stirling Square; he didn’t remember turning south, but his feet had carried him along by rote. As he paced along the wrought-iron fence, he reminded himself why following one’s heart wasn’t a wise thing to do. Wasn’t a safe thing to do. Why following the directions laid down by a cool and calculating mind was far better.

  As he turned into Stirling Street, he squared his shoulders in preparation for the ordeal ahead.

  Ordeal by young lady and matchmaking matron; he really would rather be somewhere else.

  A fleeting image of that somewhere else, with Lucilla, flared in his mind. In hindsight, his anger—all the righteous anger he’d felt when he’d realized just what she’d done and why—had been misdirected. And overwrought. A concurrence of Fate and some villain’s machinations had delivered him into Lucilla’s hands, and although she’d manipulated the situation, she had done so purely to show him the possibilities, the prospect that lay before him and her, giving herself and all in the Vale a chance to lay the full gamut of their temptation before him. Yet, at the last, she hadn’t tried to hold him against his will. She’d let him go—she hadn’t wanted to, but she had, as if she’d understood that she could never bind him, not against his will and not counter to his commitment to self-determination, to his own way forward.

  He had to give her that, had to credit her—and her Lady—with that much understanding and integrity.

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

  Manachan, again.

  Reaching Quentin and Winifred’s open front gate, Thomas shook off the yoke of his memories and climbed the steps to the front door. It was opened by their butler, who smiled in welcome, took his hat and cane, then showed him into the drawing room.

  The cacophony of dozens of voices, all striving to be heard through the babel, washed over him. Winifred, standing a few steps from the doorway, saw him; she beamed with genuine delight as he bowed over her hand. Straightening, he leaned in to kiss the cheek she tipped his way. “A very good crowd, dear Aunt. Are you pleased?”

&
nbsp; “I’m more pleased to see you here, dear boy.” Winifred waited while he exchanged a nod with Quentin, who was having his ear bent by one of the local politicians. “Now!” Winifred tapped his sleeve with the furled ivory fan she was carrying. “There are several young ladies you should meet.”

  He inwardly sighed but didn’t try to resist; when it came to his aunt’s matchmaking aspirations, he’d learned that it was better to surrender gracefully. Now that Humphrey was settled with his Andrea, Winifred had turned the full focus of her attention on settling him respectably—and as her goal was, in this case, aligned with his, he did his best to be grateful.

  Winifred introduced him to a Miss Mack, who had recently arrived from Perth to visit with her sister. As soon as he’d exchanged a few words with her, Winifred drew him on to make his bow to Lady Janet Crawley, whom he’d met previously, but who, this evening, had a cousin, Miss Vilbray, in her train.

  After several such introductions, he felt a deep ennui descending over him; the faces of the ladies seemed to blur—they were soft, charming, sweet, shy, or coy, yet none seemed able to hold his attention for longer than the few minutes he spent conversing with them before Winifred whisked him on.

  This was, in reality, no different to other soirées he’d attended, but for some reason, it felt more oppressive.

  More senseless.

  Winifred finally released him to his own devices, and he was standing for a second in the middle of the room, with streams of conversations swirling around him, yet, for all that, he was essentially alone…when the truth struck him.

  And that sense of having made a cataclysmic mistake rose up and nearly choked him.

  To you, I will always bring life.

  Every young lady he’d met that evening had lacked precisely that—life. True vibrancy, the sort that welled from the soul and set fire flaring behind clear eyes and added a tangible glow to their presences.

  Lucilla embodied the quality, at least to him. And with her life, she brought him alive. Fully alive in a way that nothing and no one else ever had.

  And with his eyes now fully opened to what might be, to what he might have—to what waited for him in the Vale—he could no longer pretend that any other, here or anywhere else, would ever hold a candle to her.

  She had brought him life, exactly as she’d promised, a deeper, truer appreciation of what life might be—what his life could be.

  His eyes had opened, and he wouldn’t ever be able to close them again.

  He was no longer able to pretend that any lady there would suit him.

  In his heart, he knew only one ever would.

  The epiphany—its depth, breadth, and completeness—left him reeling.

  This was the trap—the real trap—one fashioned by his own self-will, his own…cowardice.

  His head spinning, he managed to maintain a mask of languid bonhomie while he made his way out of the crush to the side of the room. He found a small space on the edge of the crowd where he could expand his lungs and drag in a tight breath.

  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.

  She had warned him, but he’d thought she’d overstated her case.

  Now he knew she hadn’t.

  It was impossible to even think of spending more than a few minutes with any other woman; the thought of being intimate with any of them simply left him cold.

  Chilled and alone.

  She’d warned him that misery would dog his steps; he’d thought she’d been indulging in hyperbole.

  And, indeed, it wasn’t so much misery as emptiness—a widening, deepening pit of lonely yearning that nothing, it seemed, could ease, much less fill.

  He’d left his heart and soul behind when he’d ridden out of the Vale. Standing in the middle of Glaswegian society, he had to face the fact that that was what it felt like—that that was how leaving the Vale had affected him.

  This wasn’t his place; there was nothing for him here. His true place, the role he needed to fill—for his own sake, let alone anyone else’s—was not here.

  That role, his rightful role, the only one that would satisfy him, lay south, in the Vale. By her side.

  Along with his soul that the land had claimed and the heart he now realized he’d left behind.

  Did he love Lucilla?

  He honestly didn’t know.

  Did he crave her unrelentingly?

  Yes.

  She’d been a potent lure hooked under his skin and deep in his psyche for over a decade, and as they’d matured, her attractiveness and his awareness of it had only grown.

  Could he, in all honesty, envision a life—a future—that did not include her?

  The answer to that, a resounding negative, resonated through him.

  He refocused on the crowd before him; regardless of how sophisticated, elegant, beautiful, charming, and powerful they might be, every minute he spent in their company only served to emphasize the truth. To him, they and their community were without substance; they didn’t matter to him. And more, here in their company, he was a mere shadow of who he could be.

  If he wanted the chance to live a fulfilling and meaningful life, if he wanted to reclaim his heart and his soul, he would have to go back, face Lucilla, and do whatever he had to do to reclaim the position she’d offered him and that he’d so arrogantly and misguidedly spurned.

  He had to change his course.

  Now, tonight.

  He dragged in a huge breath.

  From the time he’d left the Vale, no matter what he’d tried, the power behind that urge to return had been growing, minute by minute, hour by hour, until now, nothing but that urgent need to return seemed important.

  He couldn’t stand against it any longer. He no longer had the strength to deny that power, that compelling force.

  Something inside him broke. Gave way.

  And the man he could be, the man he had tried so hard to corral, to deny and never risk being, broke free of all restraint and took charge.

  He searched the room and spotted Winifred and Quentin. Cloaking his near-desperation to be gone, he tacked though the crowd to their side.

  Quentin looked inquiringly at him.

  Winifred smiled. “Any possibilities?”

  His mind was already racing ahead. Despite his inner grimness—how could he have been such a fool?—he tried for a smile, but from Winifred’s fading delight, it wasn’t much of one. He turned the expression into a grimace. “My leg’s playing up. I took the long way here, and I think I overdid it.”

  “Oh.” Winifred’s concern was immediate; he felt small. “But,” she said, patting his arm, “at least you came, and you did meet some new ladies. Next time, you’ll have more time to talk.”

  He couldn’t force a nod. Instead, he held out his hand to his uncle. “Sir.”

  “Take care, my boy.” Quentin’s grip was strong. “And don’t come in if your leg needs more rest.”

  He nodded, then he gave in to impulse and bent and kissed his aunt’s cheek. She’d been as much of a mother to him as he’d allowed, yet he doubted he would share much of their lives from now on.

  Winifred blinked up at him, trying to read his face and failing. Again, she patted his arm, but this time in benediction. “Yes, Thomas—do take care.”

  With a half bow, he left them, left the room, collected his hat and cane, and quit the house.

  On the pavement, he glanced back, then looked around at the quiet streets. He might visit, but this would never be—could never be—his home.

  He set off to walk back to his lodgings by the shorter, more direct route.

  About him, the heart of Glasgow thrummed, but this wasn’t where his heart was, nor his soul.

  His heart was someone else’s and his soul had found its true home.

  He would be leaving in the morning, and he wouldn’t be coming back.
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br />   * * *

  He had a lot to arrange—an entire life to restructure. He sat at the small desk in his lodgings, and with the lamps turned high, worked steadily through each aspect.

  Carrick Enterprises was surprisingly straightforward, up to a point. That point being how much involvement he wished to retain in the years ahead. He wasn’t sure; when he looked inside and examined the new prospect, the new landscape of his life taking shape, he could see a place for the firm, see a value in retaining his interest and keeping a connection in the importing and exporting trade. The Vale was largely an agricultural concern, and some of its produce could easily be exported.

  He was somewhat surprised by how readily the decision about the firm came; now he’d faced his reality and, guided by said reality’s harsh light, had revised his direction, he felt little lingering attachment to the firm, much less than he’d expected. Carrick Enterprises had been his father’s dream; Thomas had assumed it was also his, but it wasn’t. It never had been, because his heart had never been involved. The people, he would miss, but the firm itself?

  All of which underscored that he’d made the right decision and was, finally, marching down the correct road.

  His goodbyes would initially have to be made by letter. The compulsion to return to Lucilla and the Vale was now full-blown; he wasn’t prepared to dally in Glasgow a moment longer than absolutely necessary. He—perhaps with Lucilla by his side—would return at some point, to visit and explain in person, but for now, the written word would have to suffice.

  Nib scratching, he penned letters to Quentin, Winifred, and Humphrey, and short notes to several others in the firm, and still briefer notes to Mrs. Manning and Dobson, wishing them well until next he saw them.

  His landlady, his banker, his solicitor—to them, he wrote that he was heading into the country and expected the change to be permanent, but that he wished his current arrangements to stand, at least for the time being.

  Then he threw himself into cataloguing the many and various deals and potential contracts and contacts he hadn’t yet passed on to Humphrey. It was like emptying his mind, clearing out the past and creating space for his true future.