A Woman’s Innocence

by Gayle Callen

  “Did he see you?”

  “No, sir. I was coming ’round the corner just as he went inside. He had a wine glass in his hand, which he almost spilled on himself as he tripped going in the doorway.”

  He was drunk, Julia thought desperately. He didn’t know what he was doing, whose room he was entering.

  But no man could be that drunk. He’d spent his whole life at Hopewell Manor, and he knew it as well as she did.

  She just had to know the truth.

  Sam suddenly spoke in his calm voice. “Lucy—”

  Julia held up a hand and shot him a cool glance. “If ye don’t mind, sir, I can handle this.”

  He sat back in his chair and gravely nodded at her.

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Lucy, how long was the general in Mrs. Hume’s room?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I went to bed myself.”

  “Was anyone else with ye when ye saw him?”

  “Why, yes, sir, Florence.”

  Two witnesses.

  “We both backed down the corridor the moment we saw him,” Lucy continued.

  “And in the morning the governess was dead.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lucy’s lower lip trembled, and she blinked her eyes. “I found her when she didn’t come down for breakfast. She looked like she was asleep, but…”

  When she trailed off and sighed, Julia said, “I’m sorry we have to remind ye about such a sad day. But this is important. Was anythin’ out of place in her room?”

  Lucy frowned. “I don’t think so.”

  Julia rose to her feet. “That will be all for now, Lucy. We’ll break for luncheon.”

  Sam came around the desk. “Lucy, could ye please send two trays up to our sittin’ room in half an hour? Fitzjames and I have much to discuss.”

  Julia felt like fragile glass, with a small fracture beginning to spread its destruction. She stood stiffly, waiting for Lucy to leave.

  When the girl was gone, Sam said, “What can I do to—”

  She stalked away from him, not knowing what she meant to do, only that she couldn’t remain in this room. She carefully opened the door, feeling as if she had to control her every movement, or she would be flinging aside everything in her path. She knew Sam followed her, but it no longer mattered.

  Lewis had betrayed her.

  She covered her ears with her hands as if she could make the terrible thought go away.

  But it performed its own echo inside her, hastening the shattering of glass that was her soul. She picked up her pace, knowing she couldn’t remain in a public place much longer. She wasn’t sure where her steps were taking her. She could only look at the marble floor.

  She briefly felt Sam take her arm, slow her down enough to whisper, “You’re almost to the family’s private wing.”

  She’d been heading toward her old bedroom, as if she were still a child escaping the pain of her family’s indifference. She swung about awkwardly and took a different staircase, until she found herself outside their sitting room.

  Her hand reaching for the door looked like someone else’s, as that terrible voice in her head became louder and louder.

  Lewis betrayed you. Lewis betrayed you!

  And then she was inside, and when Sam closed the door she should have felt better, safer, and instead she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She ran to the window, fumbled for the latch.

  “Julia, what are you doing?” he whispered behind her, his hands on her shoulders.

  “Need—air. Oh, God, I c-can’t breathe—” She was gasping, tasting tears she hadn’t known were streaming down her face.

  Her fingers jerked on the window latch, tearing part of her thumbnail. She stared at the welling blood, feeling like her lungs would soon burst.

  Then he had the window opened, and she gulped the cool breeze like a dying fish finally immersed in water.

  A sob broke from her, and she knew it was only the first of many. She covered her mouth, trembling, panting, and then Sam’s arms were around her. He was trying to protect her, but nothing could stand between her and the sure knowledge that her brother was a monster.

  “Oh God, he killed people,” she whispered hoarsely, her face pressed into his shoulder. “He—he did these terrible things, betrayed us all, and—and—”

  She cried, her face buried against him, trying to hush the emotions that poured out of her. Her brother hated her so much that he’d rather see her dead than admit his own crimes. He’d deliberately made it seem like she’d committed them, as if he’d thrust a knife into her himself.

  “Julia, I’m so sorry,” Sam whispered into her hair.

  “You were right, all along you were right.”

  “I take no satisfaction in it, you know that.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it from the beginning. He’s my brother and I guess I always hoped…How can he—how can he live with himself?”

  “Money is more important to him than human lives. Even when he was a child, none of us mattered compared to his status, his position. You felt the brunt of this, Julia.”

  She hiccuped on a sob, buried her suddenly cold hands beneath his coat for warmth. Gradually her cries ceased, and she felt hollow, numb, every other emotion driven out except for grief, as if her brother had died. In a sense, he had.

  She looked up into Sam’s face. “Tell me we’ll make him pay for his crimes.”

  With his palms, he wiped the wetness from her cheeks, then cupped her head and solemnly said, “If it’s the last thing I ever do, I’ll see him beheaded for what he’s done to you.”

  “Not just to me,” she cried softly. “His information murdered thousands, some of whom he’d c-called ‘friend.’”

  But Sam’s face was lined with the pain he felt just for her. He’d been the light of her childhood, and now the only man to believe in her innocence, to risk even his life to prove it.

  She kissed him desperately. Surprised, he stumbled back and fell into a wingback chair. She followed him, straddling his lap, holding his face against hers with a desperation she couldn’t begin to understand. She had nothing anymore but him, no one to want her but him. If she died, only he would mourn. The rest of the world would believe themselves better off with her death.

  And with only a maid’s word as evidence, she was lost.

  He reared his head back, then grabbed her shoulders and held her away. “Don’t assume the worst, Julia,” he said, breathing heavily. “This desperation isn’t what you want—”

  “I want you.”

  Her strength seemed bottomless as she knocked his hands away and rested full against his chest where he lay back in the chair. He smelled of sunshine and flowers and freedom, a man of the gardens who also knew the worst of the world.

  “I’m not asking you to love me!” she whispered. “Just make me—make me—”

  “Forget?” he demanded, his eyes full of compassion. “For minutes, even an hour, you might be able to put it all from your mind, but afterward, you’d feel even worse, for you’d only be using this as—”

  “You mean using you, don’t you?” She sat up swiftly, mortified to find that she was still crying, even as she felt his hips between her thighs. “That’s what I always do, don’t you know that?”

  “Julia, that’s not what I said!”

  She flung herself off him and turned about in the center of the room with no idea what to do next. “All I do is use men, whether it’s for sex or for proving my innocence.”

  “You’re not using me.”

  Her angry glance could have stabbed him. “I’ve used men before you—why should you be any different?”

  He said nothing, just looked at her with sad eyes.

  “I don’t want your pity!” She needed to yell the words, but settled for a hoarse whisper. “Lewis uses people for money, I use men for—for—”

  “Wanting to be close to someone is no crime.”

  His words made her ache, made the tears threaten again. “It is when you k
now you don’t mean it in a permanent way. But I did it anyway. Do you think Lewis is punishing me?”

  She turned to Sam in anguish, but stepped back when he would have come nearer.

  “Maybe I deserve to be punished,” she said. “I was angry with Lewis—angry with you, though years had passed since I’d last seen you.”

  He closed his eyes and lowered his head.

  “I wanted something to make me feel alive, because I wasn’t ever going to have the family I’d always wanted. And this—officer made me feel…beautiful, like a woman should feel. What could a few stolen nights matter? There would never be anyone to marry me.”

  “Julia—”

  “No, you have to hear this! I let him—I let him…have me. I knew it wasn’t love, I pretended that didn’t matter. He was kind to me. It only lasted a couple days, until he left Kabul. And then there was Nick—”

  She saw the wince he couldn’t hide, knew how much she’d hurt him. But she was still in the past, remembering Nick’s passion. “I was still so angered by your indifference, so I used him, too. But I thought I was finally coming to my senses, realizing this pattern I had where men were concerned. I was using them out of revenge, not passion. I stopped things between Nick and myself, and I think I even hurt him, but I had to make things right. I vowed I would never use a man so selfishly again.” With her eyes, she willed Sam to believe her as she said, “I met Kelthorpe, and was shocked to discover his interest. I would have been a good wife! He was my security, my peace, and I would have made him happy, so he wouldn’t know I was still just using him. I would have made myself love him!

  “And now you,” she added brokenly. “When my world falls apart, look what I do, how I treat you….”

  He put his hands on her upper arms, and it was too much effort to hide how she flinched.

  “We all do things we regret,” he said gently. “You’re in pain, and it’s normal to try to escape it. I don’t feel used,” he insisted with a firmness that made her heart break. “Don’t castigate yourself anymore because of me.”

  He tried to hold her, and she resisted, worried that she would embarrass herself even further. But he was so warm, and she was trembling with shock and sadness, and something too deep to even be grief. She sagged into his embrace.

  “It will get better,” he murmured, his lips so close to her ear.

  His chest vibrated with his deep voice, lulling her into that hollow, aching feeling of nothingness.

  At a soft knock on the door, she stiffened.

  Sam cursed and pulled away. He looked down into her face. “That must be Lucy with our luncheon. You can’t be seen like this.”

  “I know.” She wiped at her cheeks, knowing she was making it worse. “I’ll wash up and…fix things.”

  “Will you come back and eat with me?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t eat anything. I can’t even go back down with you.”

  “Then don’t. I’ll tell anyone who asks that you’re resting because you don’t feel well.”

  “Fine.” She pulled away from him, suddenly desperate to escape his compassion.

  “Julia—”

  “No, no, it’s all right. I—I just need to sleep.”

  She closed her bedroom door and rested against it, listening to the murmur of voices in the sitting room, and then finally silence.

  She pressed her cold hands to her face in pathetic astonishment at everything she’d just revealed to—done to Sam. She wouldn’t blame him if he finally deserted her.

  But it was his fate on the line, too; Lewis had made sure of that.

  She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. After touching up her cosmetics as best she could, she waited a half hour until Sam went back down to his interviews, then slipped from her room.

  She didn’t know where she was going. When she saw the occasional servant, she tried to look busy, striding quickly like she had a purpose, casting her gaze down so they wouldn’t see her red-rimmed eyes.

  She found herself in the family wing, where the halls echoed with emptiness. But it had always been empty here, devoid of happiness or hope or the togetherness of family.

  She came to a stop in front of Lewis’s suite, which her parents had once used. He’d had his things moved in when he and Julia returned from India.

  Slowly, she opened the door. The room was awash with sunlight, gleaming dust-free, as if waiting for Lewis to come home.

  She had to make sure he never got the chance to do that. She wanted…justice, even more than revenge, she tried to tell herself.

  But whom was she kidding? He’d betrayed her, sent people to kill her, and this hatred that burned inside her would never be quenched.

  The door suddenly opened, and Julia whirled around to see Frances, whose face was set in stern lines.

  “You promised you would not disturb the general’s room without notifying me,” Frances said.

  She sounded as betrayed as Julia felt, and Julia wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.

  “He’s guilty.” The words came out of Julia’s mouth, shocking them both.

  The housekeeper gasped and leaned back against the door, closing it. “You said you might be able to prove him innocent.”

  Julia shook her head, and it felt as heavy as a piece of old, cracked marble. “I wanted to believe that. I can’t anymore. My only relative is a murderer.”

  “Miss Reed—”

  “I’m Walter Fitzjames!” she said, knowing that she sounded crazy. “I can’t be his sister anymore.”

  “But—Constable, what happened? Sam—Constable Seabrook has said nothing to me.”

  Julia walked to the window and peered out, trying to remember how the garden gave her peace. It was elusive. “Your own sister was the key. She saw Lewis go into Mrs. Hume’s bedroom late the night she died.”

  Frances’s eyes went wide. “He—he never—”

  “He never showed any interest in Mrs. Hume, I remember. She was just a servant, a hated teacher who was making him think about useless subjects like mathematics, when all he wanted was to be on a battlefield like his tin soldiers. Do you know he couldn’t even remember her name? She lived under his roof his entire life, and she was…nothing to him.” Her words trailed off into grief again, and she angrily dabbed a tear at the corner of her eye. “He killed her. All so he could have a reason to send me north, to make it look like I was the traitor. He had me carry her possessions to her son in Leeds. That was the only reason Mrs. Hume had to die. You could almost say it was because of…me.”

  Frances came to her and spoke in a stern voice. “His actions were his own, regardless of the motives. You were innocent.”

  “I don’t feel innocent.” But she did feel angry, and she let the rawness of it flow through her, burying everything else. “He’s not going to get away with this.”

  “Do you have any more proof than Lucy’s word?”

  “Florence was there as well. They both saw him. And Edwin Hume told Sam that he’d been hired by Lewis.”

  “But Edwin is dead.”

  “Yes. Another murder on Lewis’s head. But there’s the money with which my brother slowly paid off his debts. Where has that come from?”

  Frances was obviously at a loss. “He is home from foreign service—perhaps he has investments he’s able to tend now.”

  “Then those investments should have prevented his debts in the first place. No, I know he had little money—before. Eventually, we’re going to find where he’s hidden what the Russians gave him. And that will be all the proof we need.”

  Chapter 14

  Besides Florence, who echoed everything Lucy said, Sam found no other interesting information on questioning half the staff. He’d thought maybe Mrs. Bonham, the crafty old cook, might have remembered him, but in the end, she’d answered his questions without recognition. It would take another full day to interview everyone, and he hadn’t even started on the outside staff.

  He wanted to go up to Julia, but felt he sh
ould eat in the servants’ hall again, to keep up appearances. To his surprise, Julia joined them, and a feeling of relief overtook him. He hated to think of her crying over that bastard of a brother. She looked composed, as if she hadn’t spilled some of her darkest secrets to him hours ago—secrets he hadn’t wanted to hear, but in the end was glad he had.

  It had hurt to imagine her with other men, but somehow, knowing that she’d been confused and unhappy seemed to bring out his protective streak again. Her family had damaged her, left her ripe for seduction by men who cared only for pleasure. And he was throwing his good friend Nick into that group, too.

  But he himself wouldn’t become just another man to her. She didn’t deserve to be hurt, and neither did he. When this was over, she’d go back to her life, and he’d go back to the military.

  And then he thought of her kiss, the way she’d been so hungry for him that she’d knocked him off his feet. Even now he wanted to shudder with how difficult it had been to resist pulling off her clothes and giving in to something he’d dreamed about for what seemed like a lifetime.

  But he never wanted to be another man she regretted. And if she knew everything about him, she would push him away.

  After dinner, Julia seemed in no hurry to leave, and he understood her reluctance to be alone with him again. She talked to Lucy and Florence, and he watched with amusement as a little rivalry for the young constable’s attention sprang up between the two maids. The girls mentioned the annual harvest dance Sam remembered from his childhood, and how it would take place only days from now. His family always attended in force—could he find a good excuse not to? Julia had never gone to the event as a young girl. How could she possibly attend masquerading as a boy?

  The staff began to take their leave. Most had duties to finish up for the night, and he knew Lucy would be turning down their beds and filling their pitchers with hot water.

  With the maids gone, Julia briefly met his gaze, then hurriedly looked away as she said her good nights. Sam followed at a slower pace, letting her have the time she needed.

  As night overtook the big old house, the rooms grew quiet, solemn, depressing. He imagined a little girl living here with no love or warmth from her family. He thought of his own family, of Lucy, who’d tried to make Julia feel better so long ago; Lucy, who during her interview defended her long-lost brother Sam because she thought she still knew him.