by Lara Temple
The words rumbled inside her head, but for once came nowhere near her mouth. Every tumble off a cliff was a lesson in staying away from the edge. She smiled a little sourly at how aptly she’d named him all those years ago. He was her boundary line and now controlled both sides of it.
The carriage door opened and Edge came to sit beside her.
‘It’s done, Sam. Congratulations on our new home.’ His voice was so suspiciously bland she wondered if he’d rehearsed that line. Well, she knew how to knock a few bricks from his walls.
‘I know which room I want for my drawing,’ she challenged and he turned from his contemplation of the passing countryside.
‘Hmm. It is probably the one I wanted for my writing.’
‘If it is, I shall fight you for it.’
‘You will likely win. I had best concede in advance.’
‘No need. You want the one on the corner, with the view of the river, correct?’
‘That isn’t the one you wanted?’
‘No, that is perfect for you. Mine is next to the drawing room, facing south.’
‘Are you only saying that to please me?’
‘Is that likely?’
He smiled.
‘You might, but I don’t think you are. Why did you and your husband have no children?’
Her skin blazed and she stared at him, almost certain she’d misheard. He looked calm and only mildly interested, not at all like someone who’d shoved her off the cliff more effectively than she ever tossed herself off one.
‘If you don’t wish to answer, you needn’t.’ He looked away. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You aren’t...that is...the truth is... Oh.’ She breathed in, gathering herself for the truth. ‘Ricki and I were not...intimate for long. A few months only.’
‘But...you were married for four years.’
‘Yes, but we lived together for less than a year. Less even than you and Dora.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘It is a long story.’
‘Was he not capable...was he wounded?’
‘No, not in body. I did wound him, though. I was young and so, so stupid.’
‘There was another man.’ Edge’s voice was as cold as only he could make it. It sent cracks along her skin like veins forming in the ice. Any moment now the truth would spill out and she still had not the faintest clue what Edge would do with it. And that terrified her.
‘Yes.’
The silence went on and on and she still didn’t know if it was right to tell him. She only knew she was terrified she might chase him away.
‘You were young,’ he said finally. ‘Impetuous. Was that why you left him? For another man?’
‘No, I left him because he killed his daughter, but it was my fault.’
‘What?’
She held out her hands and they were shaking. Edge shook his head, the fury replaced by shock.
‘I don’t believe that. Sam, I know you—you would never ever...’ He touched her face, his fingers sliding down a trail of tears. She was crying and hadn’t even realised. ‘Tell me what happened. Whatever it was, I know you. You would not wilfully hurt anyone, Sam.’
She grabbed his hand. Maybe if she held on hard enough his certainty would counter her guilt.
‘Not wilfully, but because I was wilful. I never, ever should have married him, but I was so lonely.’ The words shook out of her. ‘It’s no excuse, but it is the truth. That year... I have never felt so alone.’
He put his arm around her, very gently, even though her fingers were digging into his hand. Her body shook against the length of his arm, the words rising out of her like bubbles in water.
‘I meant to care for him. But I was never a good actress and when it became...intimate I couldn’t lie. I began hating it and he would become angry and I didn’t know what to do.’
‘He hurt you.’ His arm stiffened, his body going from cocooning to looming. She shook her head. She wanted cocooning back, she needed it.
‘No, not like that. In every other way, though. He was jealous of the other men I had...flirted with, though I told him he had no reason to be. When he asked me directly why I married him I did the worst thing ever. I told him the truth.’
‘What was the truth?’
She closed her eyes, blocking out even the sight of his chest. She’d accused Edge of lying by omission about the books and she was about to do the same, but it could not be helped.
‘That I did not love him, that I married him because I wanted a family, a home.’
Edge flinched as if she’d jabbed him with a pin. Ricki had done the same.
‘Did you tell him...about the other man?’
‘I told him everything, it spilled out of me and I could not stop. I was horrible, Edge, but he paid me back. From that moment he brought courtesans to the palazzo, telling me they were real women and I was nothing but a stupid child, which I was. When that didn’t work he brought Maria.’
‘The little girl you told me about? His daughter?’
Sam nodded. ‘She was barely three. She wasn’t pretty—she looked like a little owl with enormous dark eyes and cheeks that were always a patchy red, but she had a smile that could...melt you. He moved her into the palazzo and said that I would never have a child of my own until I told him I loved him and meant it.’
‘That is ludicrous. Cruel.’
‘It was sad and pointless. He was often out with his friends and I spent all my time with Maria which only made him more jealous. She even slept in my room, but one night I woke and she was gone and I heard Ricki shouting beneath my window. He was in the gondola. Drunk. Holding her in the air and telling me to come get her if I wanted her. By the time I reached the jetty people were shouting and I realised something was terribly wrong. He tried to tell me later he hadn’t meant to drop her, that she’d wriggled out of his arms. I jumped into the water and so did a few others, but we couldn’t find her. They dragged me out in the end, but I don’t remember. I left Venice as soon as I recovered. Ricki drowned three years later when he fell off a bridge during Carnevale.’
The silence this time was different. Halfway through her tale he’d pulled her on to his lap, his hands moving soothingly on her arms, his breath warm against her hair. But she could feel the distance between them. Edge was with her but far away, watching her battle from his moated castle.
‘Did you go to...the other?’
She shivered, the words piercing her like a rapier.
‘No, I returned to live with my mother until she died and then I went to Sinclair Hall. But there was never a question of that. He was married and did not love me. It was all my own foolishness. I told Ricki that, but it made no odds.’
He breathed in very slowly and even more slowly out, as if consciously arranging his words.
‘The pain of discovering you are second best doesn’t fade because the other party isn’t interested in being first. It is a pain that is wholly personal.’
The sting of his thrust was all the sharper because she could hear the echoes of his own pain. He might love Rafe, but the almost-lifelong belief his brother was better loved and valued would never be uprooted by facts.
‘I meant to make him happy. I truly thought I could.’
‘I’m sorry, Sam.’
‘I don’t deserve your compassion. Maria—’
‘Yes, you do,’ he interrupted. ‘We all make mistakes, some of them terrible, but you loved that girl and I don’t doubt she felt it. You aren’t responsible for everything, Sam. You can’t fix everything. You Sinclairs are always trying to arrange the world. It must be exhausting.’
She hiccupped back the tangle of tears burning in her throat.
‘You are the one who is chasing Rafe like he is the holy grail.’
‘True. Sometimes I don’t understa
nd it myself except that when I was at the ebb point in my life he stood by me and dragged me out of my pit. For a long time he was the mirror reminding me I still existed. There was nothing else. When I received the letter he was dead... I need to hear he is well from his own lips. I need to know I tried everything to protect him if he needs it. We may not have grown up together, but we both are shaped by the same forces. He is part of me. Still, if the advertisement doesn’t elicit a response in a week, I’ll concede defeat and wait until he deigns to remember he has a brother who is worried for him.’
His face was still stern, but there was also sadness in his eyes and it deepened hers. If she could only make him happy. Right now that felt impossible—she was not enough. She might never be enough.
He touched the tip of his finger to the aching spot between her brows.
‘Don’t look so worried. I know my limits. I see I shall have to help you brush the sand dunes off yours.’
Sam tucked herself into his shoulder, leaking slowly into his coat while he held her.
* * *
Edge watched London form around them. She’d stopped crying, but remained in his arms and for once the lust that buzzed every time he touched her wasn’t there. No, it was there, but held at bay by a wall of ice. He could feel the cold creeping through him, dousing candle after candle.
Finally, he was beginning to understand what had happened to madcap Sam—her loneliness and need and the almost desperate act of her proposal. He must have been a fool to believe it was only because she wanted a home to atone for the one she’d never truly had. That restless, vivid soul of hers was twisting and turning, trying to fill the pit created by her one-sided love for some Venetian fool. She’d spoken of her love for that other man with an intensity and fatalism that didn’t sound like a love long faded—it sounded alive, with hooks deep in her flesh. She’d turned to her first husband to fill that pit, then to Maria. And now to him.
He could feel the ice spreading again, just like it had after Jacob’s death. But then he’d been numb and had hardly felt it until much later. Now it ripped and stung as it crept through him, like frost crawling over buds and destroying them.
He was tempted to send her to the devil. To give her this house and bid her joy of it. To leave her in the same limbo she was shoving him into. It was contemptible, but he could understand Ricki. Not his actions, but his anger, the need to wound... He wouldn’t do any of that. To walk away was simply not an option. He knew all about living with disappointment, but at least this time there would be the consolation of having Sam in his life and his bed even if he could not be in her heart.
He closed his eyes, tight, waiting out the sharpness of the pain. He very much hoped this was the beginning of a megrim, but it felt deeper than that. It felt as though he was breaking.
Chapter Sixteen
Jephteh’s smile was a crescent moon in the darkness of the tomb. Gabriel could smell his smugness—it reeked of mouldy papyrus and river sludge.
‘Being noble is a bitter brew, is it not, boy?’ the Priest cackled as he raised his staff for the blow.
—Lost in the Valley of the Moon,
Desert Boy Book Three
Edge tossed The Times on to the breakfast table with disgust.
‘It has only been three days.’ Sam felt as though she was watching a tiger pacing its cage—the beast might be confined, but the sense of peril leaked through the bars.
‘I know that,’ Edge snapped and then changed the subject with obvious effort. ‘I must meet with the lawyers this morning, but afterwards we may go to Richmond if you wish. The furniture is arriving today.’
His voice was utterly flat, even that momentary sign of impatience called back. For the past few days this had been their pattern. Every morning he’d glanced at the advertisements, his mouth a straight line, and then put it aside and set about the business of preparing their new home with a single-minded concentration that pushed everything else out of the way, including her.
No, that wasn’t true.
At night in the shared darkness of their bedroom they were still close. At least their bodies were. It was almost a race—every night they honed their skill at making the other moan and beg before joining in release. Every morning he made a conscious effort to be attentive and to anticipate her wishes about the house. But the chasm between them grew.
Since she’d told him the truth about Ricki and Maria a fragile layer of tenderness she’d come to depend on had been packed away and she didn’t understand why. She didn’t know whether it was because of what she’d told him about using Ricki to escape her broken heart or about her role in Maria’s death.
She’d been quite certain he would realise he had been the ‘other man’, but Edge seemed to have no vanity where she was concerned. She wondered if it would be better or worse to confess it all—that she had been in love with him eight years ago and though she’d not fully admitted it to herself, she’d only proposed in Bahariya because she’d never recovered from that heartbreak. Because she’d hoped he would come to love her as well.
She wanted so badly to tell him, spit it all out and have him judge her or condemn her on this truth, but she was terrified and didn’t even understand why. Every new admission felt as though it drove this wedge deeper between them. She was sinking back into timid, tame Sam and she hated it, resented him and despised herself.
Patience.
She kept repeating that one word. Patience. This is Edge. Give him time, give him space and hope he will reward you by sharing his concerns once he has worked them through.
Patience.
She had no patience, none. Only fear that what had barely begun was dying and there was nothing she could do.
She looked across the table at her husband and wished she was brave enough to demand the truth and face it.
Instead she folded the newspaper. ‘Are you placing another advertisement tomorrow?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Though there is hardly any point—no doubt he’s guessed it is I, blast him. I hate that he is one step ahead of me at all times.’
‘Only one?’ With an almost conscious act of will she tried to recapture some of the teasing that had existed so easily between them.
‘You aren’t helping, Sam.’ He looked so disgruntled she had an almost overpowering urge to walk around the table and hug him. But disgruntled was better than cold so she poured fresh coffee into his cup and continued.
‘Fuming won’t help either, Edge. You used to be such a calm, staid fellow, Bunny. What happened to you?’
‘You happened to me. And kindly stop calling me by that ridiculous name.’
‘I like Edge. It is very...edgy—all sharp angles you can cut yourself on if you’re not careful.’
‘I didn’t mean that, I meant... You know which name I meant. It is demeaning.’
‘No, it isn’t, it is adorable. And perfect. You are Edge on the outside but inside there is that little fluffy, darling Bunny...’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Edge pushed away his coffee, but his gaze moved over her with that shade of tenderness she missed, his mouth softening. It was such a small thing, but her heart felt like it was bleeding with relief. She reached across the table.
‘Edge, I—’
The door opened abruptly and Tubbs entered.
‘A gentleman to see you, my lord. He goes by the name of Mr Grey.’
Edge was out the door before the name even registered on Sam.
‘Tubbs? Is it him?’
‘Unless I am very much mistaken, it is, Miss Sam. In a rather disreputable state. I shall go prepare a bath, I think.’
* * *
Edge had seen his brother in various states over the years, but rarely so unkempt. He wore a grimy serge coat and was half-seated, half-prone on a chaise longue, the beginnings of a beard only partially covering the scars along his jaw.
‘Good God, Rafe. You look like hell. Are you ill?’
Rafe’s laugh ended on a wince.
‘Always blunt, Edge. No, I had a little altercation with a cutpurse and his cronies. My mistake, I wasn’t paying attention and one of them stabbed me in the leg. I’m too old for this nonsense.’
‘Do you think so?’ Edge held himself firmly against the need to drag his brother into an embrace. The relief was so overpowering he wanted to break something. He wanted Sam here with him. He pushed that thought away just as he’d pushed away most of this thoughts about Sam these past few days.
Rafe. Concentrate on Rafe.
‘You need a doctor.’
Rafe sighed and nodded.
‘I hoped to get by without a blasted surgeon, but that was probably optimistic.’
Tubbs appeared promptly at Edge’s summons, glancing past him towards the newcomer.
‘We will need a doctor, Tubbs...’
‘I know just the one. What shall I tell Miss Sam? She is worried.’
Edge rubbed his hand over his knuckles.
‘Ask her to wait.’
‘Not your run-of-the-mill servant,’ Rafe commented when the door closed behind Tubbs. ‘I’ve heard the Sinclairs have their little battalion of efficient minions.’
‘Yes. And knowing him that doctor will be here in moments so I suggest you take that time to explain why you have put me through hell these past months. I thought you were dead, Rafe.’
‘Don’t look like that, Edge. Damn this leg. I knew it would take something drastic to drag you back into the land of the living. Every time I told you to return to Egypt you told me to jump off a cliff. So I did, figuratively. A contact of mine forged that letter from the embassy. I knew you might not believe it, but you couldn’t ignore it. I planned to leave clues along the way and wait for you in Luxor and have you finally show me this precious Egypt of yours.’
‘You amaze me. So what happened to that charming little plan?’
Rafe shifted his leg with both hands and wiped his forehead.
‘I came across someone who’d become separated from her family in a very inhospitable corner of the world.’