Julia London 4 Book Bundle

by The Rogues of Regent Street

  Nonetheless, her rejection of his offer of marriage stuck like a lump in his throat, a constant but dull source of pain. He wondered for the thousandth time if perhaps he had imagined her love for him, if he had somehow manufactured it to match his own increasing ardor. Had she truly lain beneath him, expressing her love for him in the most primitive terms, or had it been a dream? What of the things she had said? Had he misconstrued them somehow, misunderstood her intent? For the last three days he had tortured himself with every distinct memory of her.

  He had thought he knew her as well as he knew himself. Now he wondered if he ever really knew her at all.

  “Milord.”

  Arthur turned around as the maid Julian had sent up to Kerry entered the salon and curtseyed low.

  “Well, Peg? What did Mrs. McKinnon have to say?”

  “She wouldn’t answer, milord.”

  “Nor when I called to her this morning,” Claudia said, sweeping into the room behind the maid. “Julian, I think something is wrong.”

  It was not like Kerry. Arthur was already moving, his mind resisting the jagged edges of fear that tried to stab his consciousness. “Where?” he asked simply, and followed Julian out.

  He rapped hard on the door Julian showed him to, and listened closely. There was no sound behind the door. He frowned at Julian and Claudia and knocked again. “Kerry, open this door!”

  Silence.

  Arthur twisted the knob; it was locked.

  “Through the dressing room,” Julian said, leading the way. Arthur strode through the adjoining bedroom, thrust the door to the dressing room open and walked through it, oblivious to its contents, to Kerry’s room.

  It was empty.

  A window stood open, the long chiffon drapes floating on a cool autumn breeze. The bed was neatly made; there was no sign of anyone having lived in the room at all.

  “Oh no,” Claudia murmured behind him.

  Oh God. She was gone. Kerry was gone. Arthur spun around, looking for anything, any sign that she had been here, was here, somewhere they weren’t looking.

  “Are you certain this is the right room?” Julian asked, obviously thinking the same thing, and receiving a withering look from Claudia for it.

  “Where could she have gone?” Claudia asked.

  Arthur pivoted on his heel, stalked to the dressing room and looked around him. Boxes of slippers and hats were lined neatly on one shelf, some of them with ribbons still tied—never opened. He flung open a wardrobe; her gowns, the expensive gowns he had commissioned for her, were stuffed tightly within. His mind could not absorb it, he whipped around again, strode into her room, glared at the objects on the vanity. Jars of creams—where had those come from?—a handful of ribbons, a comb. A jewelry box sat on one corner of the vanity, and Arthur felt himself moving there through some force that was not truly his own.

  “She could not have gone far. She’s no knowledge of London a’tall,” Julian said as Arthur opened the jewelry box. Everything was there, all the pieces of jewelry he had given her.

  Except the blue diamond.

  He picked up a strand of pearls and let them fall through his fingers. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “After luncheon yesterday. She complained of a headache and came up to rest.”

  “What of supper?”

  “She didn’t come down,” Claudia said, pressing a finger to her bottom lip as she thought. “I had a tray sent up, and the footman returned with it. I believe he said she refused it.”

  “He said she didn’t answer,” Julian clarified, and met Arthur’s gaze from across the room.

  His heart stopped working, laid dead. “She is gone,” he said flatly. Gone. Gone, disappeared without a trace. How could this have happened? Not three days ago, he was happily contemplating marriage. How could it all have unraveled? He had to find her. All right then, think! Where would she have gone? It was inconceivable that she had started for Scotland. With what? She had no money, no means of transportation—

  The diamond.

  The understanding kicked him in the gut. The one thing she had not left behind was the one thing she could easily trade for cash, and quite a lot of it at that. Arthur started for the door, but his eye caught a glimmer of pale yellow on the stand next to the bed, and he paused.

  It was a folded piece of vellum. He changed course, practically lunging for it, tearing it open. It was a note, all right, one written in a shaky hand, the words marred by several inkblots. As the words sank into his consciousness, his vision blurred with his despair, all else settled into a distant noise. She apologized for leaving in such a contemptible manner, of course, but wrote that she had come to realize their lives were vastly different, and that she was too simple to pretend she was someone she was not, too honest to allow Thomas to hang for her crime. As Kerry McKinnon apparently saw things, she no more belonged in his world than he in hers, for she urged Arthur not to follow her.

  There was no hope of that, he thought, crumpling the note in his hand. As stunned as he was, he knew there was no hope of that. How could he? Her abandonment had broken him in two.

  He turned and looked at the stricken Danes. “She has left. Gone to Scotland.”

  “But how?” Claudia exclaimed as Julian put an arm around her. “She can’t simply walk there!”

  “I suspect she found a way to sell the diamond necklace I gave her.” It sounded so ruthless when he said it; he looked blindly around the room, thrust a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly numb.

  “Oh, Arthur,” Claudia murmured.

  Unconsciously, he dropped the note. “I will send someone for her things,” he said, moving for the door.

  “Arthur …”

  But he kept walking, deaf to Julian’s call. Deaf to everything, but the pain of his loss and anger.

  She had left him without so much as a fare-thee-well.

  The first hours following the discovery of that monumental fact passed in a white blur of soul-consuming devastation.

  She might as well have died.

  The end was the same. He had no opportunity to hear her reasoning for leaving him like she did, no opportunity to present his side of things, to try and change her mind. She hadn’t even extended him the common courtesy of saying good-bye. Oh no, she had cut herself from his life without a word, suddenly and completely, without giving him even a single chance to say the things that were in his heart. How could he live without her? How could he pass the days without her smile, the nights without her breath on his neck?

  She might as well have died.

  Arthur slept badly that night, tossing and turning through dreams of Phillip, of Kerry. He was again in the ballroom among glittering objects and people, searching for Kerry, struggling through a sea of dancers, finally finding her in the arms of a laughing Phillip. He grabbed her, pulled her into his arms, but she melted. Just melted into nothing.

  The two days following were the blackest. Her betrayal of his trust and his love was the cruelest thing he had ever known, and it ate away at him like a cancer. He tried to numb it at the Tam O’Shanter with copious amounts of wine, but it had no effect on the pain. Even his mind played tricks on him—she hadn’t really left, she was still in London, and he found himself looking for her in every woman he encountered on the street.

  The worst of it was his body’s traitorous ache for her. He remembered every touch, every kiss, every whisper. He remembered how her eyes would sparkle with desire when he kissed her, how her smile would warm him to the very pit of his soul, often leaving him to grin at her like a lovesick pup. The memories came to him unwanted, uninvited, filling him with perfect misery. In his thirty-six years on this earth, he had never known such personal annihilation. The woman had succeeded in shattering his fool heart.

  A trip to Madame Farantino’s brothel was even less successful than the wine. He sought to erase the memory of her body with that of another, but it was a wholly and humiliatingly futile endeavor. Nothing could take Kerry fro
m his mind. Nothing.

  A week later, Alex returned from Sutherland Hall with his sister-in-law Lauren and their three young sons. It took Arthur another two days to rouse himself from his doldrums to pay a call on his brother. When he arrived at twenty-two Audley Street, it was apparent Alex had already heard the news of his unfortunate bout of love. A copy of the latest Times sat folded on the edge of Alex’s desk. Arthur had seen the on-dit in the society pages that speculated what a certain brother of an influential duke might have done with his Scottish bumpkin after amusing half the ton with her.

  He waited for Alex to chastise him, remind him he was the son of the eighth duke of Sutherland and the brother of the tenth. He fell into a chair, lazily accepted a cup of tea from a maid, and stared at a picture of his father and mother.

  “I ran into Kettering at White’s last evening.”

  Arthur said nothing, waited for the lecture. Much to his great surprise, however, Alex merely studied his French cuffs and remarked, “I gather it has been a very trying time for you.”

  A gross understatement. It had been hell.

  “I was reminded of the weeks before Lauren and I married.”

  Arthur glanced at his brother. “This is hardly the same thing.” That was true—Lauren was a countess in her own right; her family had connections to the ton. And when she had fled home, it had been only miles from Sutherland Hall, a place Alex could easily reach her. Furthermore, Alex was engaged to be married to another woman at the time. He had not given everything he had to Lauren only to have her disappear into thin air.

  Alex shrugged, lifted his gaze from his French cuff. “Isn’t it? I recall sitting in this very room with our mother. Lauren had left; I was engaged to marry Marlaine Reese. They were terribly black days. And do you know what Hannah said to me?”

  Arthur shook his head.

  “She said, ‘the French have a saying: True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have ever seen.’ ”

  Arthur shrugged indifferently. “And?”

  “And,” said Alex calmly, “she urged me to break my engagement and go after Lauren for the sake of true love.”

  Now he was only confusing Arthur, who irritably shook his head. “I know all that, but this is not the same thing, Alex. You would hardly suggest that I toddle off to Scotland—”

  “What is keeping you here?”

  That brought him up short. He stared at his older brother as if he had lost his mind. Alex lifted a dark brow and God in heaven, Arthur wasn’t sure that he hadn’t. “Do you know who she is, Alex? She is the widow of a poor Scottish farmer who tried to dig himself out of bad investments by taking Phillip’s money. Only he squandered that, too, and lost everything. Kerry McKinnon hasn’t so much as a farthing to her name.”

  Alex laughed. “There are worse histories in our family background,” he said with a smile. “If poverty is her only crime, I should think you could easily alleviate that.”

  “What of her lack of connections? Even Paddy was cool to her.”

  “I wouldn’t know what her lack of connections means in Edinburgh drawing rooms, but here? Paddy will accept her once Mother is through with her. Kettering, Albright, our cousin Westfall—Darfield, certainly. They will most assuredly ignore anything as superficial as connections. Who else concerns you?”

  Arthur gaped at his brother. “And what invitations do you think we shall receive at the height of the Season?” he asked disgustedly. “When you and the others are off to some ball, who exactly do you think will want us at their supper table?”

  With a frown, Alex resumed the study of his French cuff. “What does it matter if you are in Scotland?” He looked up, gauging Arthur’s reaction, and quickly continued before Arthur could speak. “Look here, Arthur, you have lived your life in the shadow of others. Don’t deny it—you are the third son of a duke and could not help being thrust into mine or Anthony’s shadow. You were one of the Rogues of Regent Street, true, but you stood aside and watched them live. And you have complained to me on more than one occasion that the Christian Brothers’ Enterprise does not need you. Very well, then. It is time you lived for yourself, high time you sought your own meaning in life and perhaps improved the quality of it. Kettering said you had a fine time of it in Scotland, that you actually liked working the land. What do you have here that could possibly compare?”

  Arthur was speechless.

  He was speechless long after he left his brother’s study. He had offered no answer to Alex’s challenge, and Alex had let it lie. But as Arthur walked home along Audley Street, he was struck with the thought that perhaps Alex was right. He had never really lived, not like the others. He had often thought his life lacking somehow, as if there wasn’t enough to it to justify his existence.

  But to Scotland?

  Ah God, he missed her. In spite of his anger, he missed her. And as much as he was loath to feel so, he was deathly worried about her. The foolish lass intended to hand herself over in some noble gesture to free Thomas. If he had known when she left, or how she left, he might have tried to stop her, but her head start was devastating to any hope of stopping her.

  It was that which he was contemplating when he almost collided with a party of ladies out for an afternoon walkabout. The group of women startled him; he clumsily tipped his hat before he saw Portia among them, smiling up at him beneath her parasol.

  “Lord Christian,” she purred. “What a delight.”

  “Lady Roth,” he responded coolly, bowing, and greeted the three women who accompanied her.

  “I am surprised to see you about. I had heard you were quite indisposed once your little friend had run back to Scotland.” The women giggled as Portia looked at him with a devilish glint in her eye.

  How he despised her. The woman was devious, calculating. He glanced at her three friends, all of whom he knew very well by reputation. They were no better than Portia, all of them sporting identical, knowing smiles. “You should take better care of whom you select as confidantes, Lady Roth. As you can see, I am quite well.”

  “And we are very glad to see it, sir. I should hate to think of you pining away for some poor Scottish lassie.” The women tittered again, and Portia smiled so broadly that it creased the heavy cosmetics she had applied to her face.

  Arthur smirked, tipped his hat again. “You are as considerate as always, Lady Roth. Good day, ladies.” He stepped around them and continued walking, aware of Portia’s low laughter behind him.

  And as he strolled on, he silently agreed with Kerry. She could never fit in this world; she could never possess the gall it required. His world did an injustice to her and for the first time, Arthur wondered seriously why he couldn’t fit into hers. The days he had spent in Glenbaden had been some of the happiest of his life. He had felt like a man there, invincible, strong.

  The idea teased him for the rest of the day. Over a solitary supper, Arthur reached an epiphany of sorts. As much as he was hurting, he truly did understand why Kerry did what she did—her integrity was one of the things he so very much admired about her. And while he might quibble with the how of it, he had not exactly listened to her wishes. He had imposed what he thought was best, assuming she had no knowledge of what was best for herself. How bloody arrogant of him. And he knew of the familial bond that existed between her and Thomas, and damn well should have known that she would move heaven and earth to clear his name.

  The truth was, he thought as he picked at the lamb on his plate, that he would do anything at this moment to have her back, including leaving behind everything that he was and all that he had for Scotland.

  And why not? He had nothing to lose but himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  GLENBHAINN, SCOTLAND

  THE SEASON WAS already beginning to turn in the Central Highlands of Scotland. From the small window of her cell, Kerry could see bright red, yellow, and orange leaves falling and skating across the small courtyard. With each leaf that fell, she wondered if she would live t
o see the trees in Glenbaden again.

  Their trial would occur, Moncrieffe said, when the justice of the peace came through the Perthshire region to hear criminal matters. Maybe a fortnight. Maybe longer. She and Thomas would be tried together.

  Thomas. She had seen him for only a quarter of an hour before they had taken her away. Drawn and terribly thin, he had been shocked to see her, having believed her dead. He had been too overwhelmed with relief to tell her much, other than everything would be all right. At the time, she had believed him, because she had believed that once she explained what had happened, they would free Thomas.

  But no.

  Cameron Moncrieffe had leveled an accusation that she and Thomas were lovers, and had killed Charles so that Kerry would not have to honor her late husband’s agreement to marry the poor, simple lad.

  It was an absurd accusation—there were several people who knew the true relationship between Kerry and Thomas, and furthermore, had seen him leave with the cattle. Unfortunately, most of those people had left Glenbaden for good, and Kerry had no idea where Big Angus and May may have gone. Nonetheless, she naively believed that the truth would prevail, and she had tried to convince the sheriff who had brought her here that she had killed Charles in self-defense. But the more she insisted on the truth, the deafer he and Moncrieffe seemed to be. No one believed her—no one would listen to her.

  So she and Thomas were to be tried for murder and the penalty for their crime was, as Moncrieffe had maliciously delighted in telling her, death by hanging. To emphasize that point, he had put her in the cell of an ancient tower on the Moncrieffe estate that overlooked the site on which they were building the gallows.

  Alone in that cell, with nothing to amuse her but the changing season and the progress on the gallows, Kerry inevitably spent her days thinking of Arthur. She missed him terribly. Oh, she had forgotten all about the eviction—it had not taken her long to see that he was right, that Fraser had lost her land, not him. She believed what he told her about his role in it all.