by Renee Ryan
“No.” This from her grandfather, the force of the word at odds with the pained, hollow despair in his eyes. “I wish to speak with my granddaughter alone.” His gaze landed on Montgomery, then slid to the right to encompass Lucian Griffin as well. “Both of you leave us. Now.”
Montgomery spoke up. “I’m not leaving you alone with this woman.”
“She is no threat to me.”
“I beg to differ.” Montgomery kept his gaze fixed on Caroline as he spoke. The tight, flat grimace indicated he was engaged in a careful assessment of her. Of all the people in this room, she sensed he could cause her the most harm.
“Is your name Caroline Harding?” he asked.
Caroline stiffened her spine. There was no need to lie anymore. “No.”
“Are you related to Patricia Harding?”
“No.” She ground her teeth together to quell the swift kick of fear, an emotion she could not afford at the moment. “My name is Caroline St. James.”
“St. James? How . . . convenient.”
No, not convenient. Tragic. The source of her mother’s greatest shame, and perhaps Caroline’s as well. “Back down, Mr. Montgomery, I have not come to harm my grandfather.”
Much to her surprise, she realized she spoke the truth. How wrong she’d been about herself and her motives, thinking she could come to America for the sole purpose of ruining this man, her grandfather. Her reasons had been far more complicated than that, something she would explore in greater depth when she was alone.
Of course, none of that meant she was through with the notion of seeking retribution for her mother’s death. She had questions. Questions only one man could answer.
Montgomery set his hand on her arm. “Assuming you are who you say you are, then you—”
“I am.” She had proof, undeniable proof.
His grip tightened, not enough to hurt her, but enough to make his point. “Assuming your story is true—”
“It is.”
“Time will tell.”
“Yes, it will.”
Montgomery was trying to call her bluff. Except, bad news for him, Caroline wasn’t bluffing. She was no imposter trying to con an old man. She didn’t want a dollar of her grandfather’s money. She didn’t want his love, either, or his acceptance. She wanted justice. Justice for her mother.
Lucian Griffin made a sound in his throat, reminding all of them of his presence. “I see I have interrupted a private matter.” He turned to face her grandfather. “If you will excuse me, sir, I will make myself scarce.”
“Take Jackson with you.” Not a request, a command. The harsh tone was Caroline’s first glimpse of the real man beneath the pallor, the one who ran a business empire that spanned three continents.
Lips flat, Lucian Griffin grabbed Montgomery’s arm and yanked, hard.
The stubborn man didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving.”
“Yes, you are.” Though her grandfather’s voice was low and strained, the words brooked no argument.
A silent battle ensued between the two men. Montgomery broke first. Letting out a short huff of displeasure, he turned to go but stopped himself and leaned toward Caroline. “I’ll be just outside, waiting for you to finish in here.”
She felt a little shock at the prospect of facing him after she was through with her grandfather. “Do what you think you must. As will I.”
He wanted to respond to her challenge. She saw the truth of it in his narrowed gaze. But he held his tongue, proving himself to be a man of phenomenal restraint.
Impressive.
Terrifying.
She had the sinking feeling she’d just grabbed a tiger by the tail. So be it. Keeping her chin high, she waited for him to quit the room with his friend. A moment later, the soft click of the doors indicated his departure.
Silence fell over the room.
Caroline took the opportunity to study her grandfather. He appeared . . . crushed. There was no other word for the man’s complete physical transformation. Was the knowledge of his daughter’s death all it had taken to bring him down?
This was not the victory she wanted. Her grandfather should be fighting her. At the very least, he should be proclaiming that he didn’t care what had happened to his wayward daughter.
“Come with me, young lady.”
Giving her no chance to reply, he headed toward a door at the back of the room. Not sure what he had in mind, Caroline obeyed the curt command and followed him into what appeared to be a private study.
The masculine scent of aged leather and wood confirmed her suspicion. She took in the room with a single glance, her heart sticking in her throat at what she saw. Bookshelves. Rows and rows of them lined the entire wall in front of her, from floor to ceiling, containing books and books and more books.
Caroline felt a moment of joy, followed by such longing her knees nearly gave out. Her mother had taught her to read. But there hadn’t been money for books. Libby had saved three of her favorites from her previous life. Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and, of course, the Holy Bible.
Caroline had read the Bible with her mother most evenings of her childhood. But on her own time she’d devoured the other two stories over and over again.
Until the pages were in tatters.
What she wouldn’t give to explore the titles on the shelves before her now. Her fingertips itched to run across the multicolored spines, to discover the treasures within the pages.
Forcing herself to look away, Caroline turned her attention to her grandfather. His gaze was focused above her head. The same longing she harbored in her own heart was reflected in his eyes.
Intrigued, she spun to see what had him in such a state. Before she could check her reaction, a gasp flew past her lips.
Words failed her, completely and utterly failed her.
She was staring at a life-size painting of a young woman in a white dress with silver-and-blue lace, the garment much like the one Caroline wore now. If she didn’t know better, she would say the painting was of . . . her.
“It can’t be,” she whispered. “I don’t understand.”
But, of course, she did. She was looking at a painting of her mother, a younger, prettier, happier version of the broken woman who had raised Caroline as best she knew how.
Caroline had always known she favored her mother. Their eyes were the same unusual color, the tilt the same upturned angle. But she had only known the woman who’d given up on life. Not this carefree, smiling girl.
“I had that painting commissioned the year before we sailed for London.” Her grandfather’s voice turned gruff and shook slightly as he spoke. “Your mother had just turned seventeen.”
Drowning in grief and sorrow, Caroline drew in an audible breath. “She looks so young. And happy.”
“You are the very image of your mother.”
“Not the mother I knew,” she said, unable to stop the bitter words from slipping past her lips and skidding through her soul.
“I have missed her every day since she left us.”
The sentiment was uttered with such sadness, such pain, that Caroline couldn’t reconcile the man in this room with the one she’d planned to destroy. Could he truly be grieving for his daughter?
If that were true, why had he not accepted her back into his home? “So you say—yet you returned her letters, every single one of them, all but ignoring her pleas for forgiveness.”
“I received no letters.” His confusion appeared real, as did his skepticism. Did he think Caroline was lying?
“She sent at least three dozen.”
He shook his head, refusing to admit to the truth. “No.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head again, then redirected the conversation as if staying on the same course would completely do him in. “Tell me what happened to my daughter. I need to know. How did she die?”
“She contracted pneumonia.” Caroline said the words without inflection, determined to hold back any emotion that would g
ive away her motives.
“How did she become ill?”
Caroline frowned at the question. What did it matter how? It was the story of her mother’s life before she died that Caroline had come to tell. She’d made the arduous journey across an ocean for this very purpose, to toss Libby’s tragic tale in this man’s face, to demand he . . . he . . .
What? What had she wanted from him? Had she come so he would beg for her forgiveness? To watch him crumble in pain and remorse?
Whatever her original reasons had been, she realized now that her ultimate goal had always been to tell her grandfather what had become of his daughter.
This was her chance.
She glanced back at the painting and sighed. She didn’t recognize that innocent girl above her head. An image of the last time she’d seen her mother alive materialized. There’d been so much blood, and Caroline had been too late to save her.
Furious at the reminder of her own helplessness, she turned her back to the painting. “You had better sit down for this.”
Nodding, he lowered himself into a nearby chair.
When he indicated she take the one beside him, Caroline refused. She couldn’t sit and tell her tale. She needed to move as she spoke.
Feeling like a caged animal, she paced through the room. The fancy rug beneath her feet had an intricate design of flowers and coiled branches. A kaleidoscope of color danced before her eyes, blurring her vision.
“Before I begin with my end of the tale, I need to know what took my mother to London in the first place.”
His shoulders slumped forward. “When that painting was complete, and I looked at it, really looked at it, I realized my daughter had grown into a woman and would soon have to marry. I decided to take her on a trip to Europe, before I lost her completely.”
Caroline glanced at the painting, thought of the young girl in the picture with so much promise before her. “Go on.”
“London was our first stop. Your mother had heard about Hyde Park from her friends, and she wanted to experience it as they suggested, on horseback.” He clutched the arms of the chair with a hard grip. “She’d never ridden a horse before, so I thought it would be wise to purchase a few lessons for her, before we set out for the park.”
Again, this portion of his story matched the one Caroline had heard from her mother.
By all accounts, Richard St. James had doted on his daughter. Why, then, had he refused to open her letters year after year? For that matter, why bother sending them back? Just to be cruel?
“Your mother fell in love with riding. After that first lesson, she returned to the stables whenever our schedule allowed.” A smile spread across his lips, the gesture making him look like the loving father after all. “Libby made friends everywhere she went. Everyone adored her, including the boys in the stable.”
Caroline’s father had been one of those “boys.”
“It didn’t take long for me to discover there was something more drawing her to the stables besides the horses.” Caroline didn’t have to check his gaze to know it had grown dark. She heard the sorrow in his voice. Not rage, not judgment, but genuine, heartfelt sadness. “No, not something—someone.”
“My father.”
“I thought it was just a mild flirtation.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “When I realized it was more, I, of course, had concerns. I—”
“Forbid her to continue seeing my father.”
“Yes.” His head snapped up. “And I would do so again, given the same circumstances. They came from two different worlds. What kind of life could that boy offer her?”
“One full of love,” Caroline whispered. That’s what her father had given her mother. Love. The kind of all-consuming passion that had made her reckless, forsaking everything she’d ever known. Caroline would never allow herself to feel that kind of destructive emotion. Never.
“I refused to relent. I thought I was protecting her.” The regret in him was palpable, as though he was reliving every argument he’d ever had with his daughter. “One day, after a particularly heated discussion on the matter, Libby went for a walk with a friend, a young woman of good family I thought I could trust. And . . .”
When he didn’t continue, Caroline urged, “And?”
“She never came back.”
Caroline could feel the rage she’d harbored in her heart all her life dissipating into something far more dangerous. Sympathy. Sympathy for the man she’d come to destroy.
He wasn’t so formidable now. In fact, he looked in need of compassion. Her compassion.
She shook away the ridiculous notion and focused on the memory of her mother’s last years of life. Most days, Libby had been unable to pull herself out of bed, leaving her young daughter to fend for them both. The memory was enough to harden Caroline’s heart. “The day she went for this walk. That was the day she ran off with my father?”
“That’s correct.” A slow breath of air wheezed out of his lungs. “I immediately hired a private detective to search for the couple. They were never found.”
Caroline took over the story then, disregarding the agony she sensed in her grandfather. “My father was far quicker and sharper than any of your hired detectives understood. He knew how to hide in plain sight. He and my mother moved around the streets of London unnoticed.”
She paused, gave her grandfather a chance to interrupt or perhaps ask a question. When he remained silent, she continued.
“They were deliriously happy. Unfortunately, my mother wasn’t prepared for living on the run, and my father wasn’t much better. When they found out I was on the way, they decided things had to change.”
This next part of the story was the hardest to tell. “He found work wherever he could, but it wasn’t enough. He wasn’t educated and had no family connections. Eventually, he went to work with a street gang in Whitechapel.”
Her grandfather shuddered but wound his wrist in the air, indicating she carry on.
“As it turned out, Jonathan Archer wasn’t cut out for a life of crime any more than my mother was cut out for life on the run.” Neither had been like their daughter, Caroline realized, cringing at the reality of who she’d become in order to survive. A liar, a cheat, a woman bent on revenge. “My mother always said my father was a good man, full of honor and integrity.”
And that was his downfall, in the end.
Instead of scoffing at this, her grandfather nodded. “My Libby was always a good judge of character.”
Not the Libby Caroline knew. Her mother had been a terrible judge of character, as evidenced by the place where she’d died, a dirty, rundown shack in the most disreputable section of London. Bad company corrupts good morals. Had that been the true tragedy of her mother’s life? The loss of who she was, at the core, because of the company she’d chosen to keep?
“My father was killed several months before I was born, by the man he was supposed to be working for.”
Her grandfather’s eyes flew open. “You never met your father?”
“No.” She held the old man’s gaze. “He died, and as far as I’m concerned, abandoned my mother as surely as you did.”
“Why didn’t Libby try to come home?”
“She did. By the time my father died, you had already left the country. As I told you, she sent letters, the ones you returned unopened.”
He rose quickly and stalked toward her. “Where are these letters now?”
At last. This severe, furious man was the one Caroline had expected to meet here tonight. Now they were on common ground, engaging in the battle she’d come prepared to fight.
“I have them tucked safely away.”
“I demand you show them to me.”
“I thought you might say that. But as you can see, I am dressed for a dinner party.” She twirled in a slow circle to make her point. “Where exactly would I stash three dozen letters in a ridiculously overpriced gown worth more than my mother scraped together in a year?”
He ignored the question.<
br />
“You will retrieve the letters.” Not a question, or even a statement, but a command. “And bring them directly to me.”
Caroline bristled at the commanding tone that didn’t match the grief she saw in his eyes. Her own emotions ebbed and flowed in several directions, making her dizzy, making her question her goals, her very purpose for being in this room.
She let none of her internal conflict show on her face. “Of course you will want to read them. However, I find this conversation has exhausted me beyond my endurance. I will return tomorrow morning with my mother’s letters.”
“You will return with them tonight. And then you will tell me the rest of your story, leaving out no detail, no matter how large or small, terrible or tragic.”
“And if I don’t return?”
“You will.” He strode to a door near the bookshelves and pulled it open with a hard tug. “Jackson,” he called out. “A word, if you please.”
Montgomery materialized in the doorway, his immediate presence indicating he’d known her grandfather would take her to his study rather than remain in the blue drawing room.
So the man was able to anticipate his business partner’s actions. A valuable piece of information Caroline tucked away.
“What can I do for you, sir?”
“Escort my granddaughter to her place of residence, wait for her to retrieve what is mine, and then escort her back here at once.”
“Very good.” He nodded, acting compliant and biddable as any lackey. “I’ll have her back within the hour.”
“Whatever you do, do not let her out of your sight.”
Turning to face her directly, Montgomery displayed a predatory grin. “You may count on it.”
Chapter Twelve
Jackson made no effort to speak to Caroline as he escorted her through the St. James home. Soon enough, they would be alone in his carriage, where no one could overhear their conversation. For now, he kept to the less traveled hallways, in the express hope of avoiding an encounter with the rest of the family. Or Luke.
Shoulders tense, Jackson shot a quick glance at the woman by his side. There was something akin to despair showing in her small frame, a look that might be defined as dejection. He should be pleased. Instead, he felt a swift kick in his gut, followed by a desire to ease her sorrow.