“You’re here, Charity,” Kit said, his expression impatient now. “And I don’t think for one minute he’s forgotten about you, or that he’s angry, or he’s given up. Well,” he added, his tone thoughtful. “He might be angry. I know I damned well would be if my beloved had pulled such a trick with me,” he added with asperity.
Charity shot him an impatient glare, sorry now that she’d confided her fears in her letters to him. Except there was no one else to talk to. She’d refused to discuss it with Mrs Baxter, simply saying she had thanked Lord Devlin and they’d parted as friends. Batty had given her a look that said she didn’t believe a word but had at least held her tongue.
“Just because he’s back here… it means nothing, Kit.” She shook her head, able to think of many reasons he might have returned, none of which had anything to do with her, though her heart was hammering in her chest all the same. “If he’s here for me, why not come and see me? Why not get in touch?”
Kit snorted and threw up his hands. “Because you won’t listen to him,” he said, frustrated. “You’re a pig-headed, stubborn, wilful—”
“Yes, thank you, Kit,” she retorted, the words tart as she pursed her lips at him. “Any one of those insults could perfectly describe you and you know it.”
“Of course,” he said, shrugging, before turning and winking at her. “You’re my twin.”
He reached over and tugged her hair and she couldn’t help but smile at him.
“Seriously, Kit. Please, don’t make anything of it,” she said, her voice low now, a pleading note to the words she hoped he would heed. “I’m sure it’s nothing to do with me. That part of my life is over.” She smoothed a hand over her flat stomach. Her courses had begun again, much to her relief. Why that relief had made her weep as though her heart was breaking all over again she couldn’t say. “I must get on with things here, now we know we are staying. It’s not as if there isn’t plenty to keep me busy, is it? I was thinking about the roof of the smaller barn,” she said, determined to move the conversation to safer ground. “It’s about time—”
“He’s building a house.”
Charity stopped in her tracks, staring at her brother.
“Oh.” She breathed. None of her affair. It was none of her affair. “Well, good for him.”
“It’s between here and Plymouth.”
Suddenly her heart was beating in her throat.
“What?” she demanded, her voice at once squeaky and alarmed.
Kit nodded, his eyes gleaming. “Less than an hour’s ride from here, I reckon. Good farming land he’s bought, by all accounts. I heard he had his surveyor working all hours. He instructed the man to find good farmland and a suitable site for a grand house, but it had to be within an hour’s ride of a certain spot.”
She couldn’t breathe. Her chest had pulled tight and the knack of her lungs expanding as she inhaled seemed to have escaped her.
“Want to know what spot?” Kit demanded, waggling his eyebrows at her.
Charity shook her head. No. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do this. She couldn’t see him every day, couldn’t face him every single day and keep saying no to him. Damn the man. He knew she was in love with him, why did he have to go and make such a grand gesture. He’d come to hate her for it when she’d never asked it of him. She knew he would.
“We’ll have to sell the farm,” she said, panic surging through her blood, as she gasped for air.
“What?” Kit said, his eyebrows hitting his hairline. “Don’t be ridiculous! You love it here, your heart and soul is here, same as mine is. Where would we go? Besides, it’s ridiculous, Charity. You fought to be here, and now, he’s fighting for you.”
Charity paused, shaking her head. She was trembling, and she didn’t know why. Was this trembling anger at him turning her life upside down again fear because she believed he was angry and punishing her, or excitement and hope because… because he wasn’t giving up?
He wouldn’t give up on her.
She took a deep breath and then hitched up her skirts. “Help me up, Kit,” she said, lifting her foot to the stirrup.
“What?” he said, his eyes widening as he realised her intention. “No! Lord, Charity. I’ll take you over there tomorrow, first thing.”
“No.” Charity replied, shaking her head, dizzy with anticipation. “I’ll go mad if have to wait that long. I must see him. Now. I need to know what he’s doing, what his plans are. I… I have to.”
“But it’s a man’s saddle. You’ll have to ride astride,” Kit said, scandalised despite often declaring himself the most open minded of men.
“So be it.” Charity glared at him. “Help me up, damn it.”
Kit did, knowing all too well that Charity in this mood could not be reasoned with.
“But you don’t even know if he’s there. The place will be alive with workmen. It’s no place for a lady, Charity.”
“I’m not a lady, Kit,” Charity shot back at him, shaking her head. “That’s the whole point.”
“Damn it, Charity, I’m going to the farm and getting Goliath and then I’m following you, hear me?”
“If you must,” she said, gathering the reins. “Now, where will I find this building site?”
“You know the old shepherd’s hut where we used to picnic as children?”
Charity nodded, remembering the spot well.
“About three miles after that, as if you were heading towards Plymouth. Stick to the track and if you get lost go back to the hut, I’ll find you.”
She didn’t wait to hear any further instructions, her heart and her emotions too jittery to stand still another moment. Kit’s horse seemed to pick up on her urgency and allowed her to ride hard. At least Kit hadn’t come far today, and the horse was fresh and eager to stretch its legs.
The shepherd’s hut came into sight about forty minutes later and Charity paused to get her bearings. What was she doing? If he was here for her, why hadn’t he come to her? Why hadn’t he said anything?
Because you’re pig-headed and stubborn and wilful.
She gave a little laugh, hearing the truth in Kit’s words and torn between terror and hope. Yet she didn’t know what she would say to him, or what she was hoping for when she knew there was no hope but see him she must. She couldn’t bear another day of not knowing. So, gathering her courage, she urged the horse on.
Chapter 23
“Wherein confessions are made … and a proposal.”
Dev stared at the hundreds of men at work on his land. Carts moved back and forth, the horses weary now after a day of shifting tons of earth. The workmen sweated although the heat had left the sun and a cool breeze stirred the grass at his feet.
It was happening. His vision for the future set in motion, the foundations being laid not only for a new home, but a new beginning. He only hoped it would not become a monument to his foolishness, to hopes and dreams built on sand when he’d thought there was rock beneath his feet. Dev let out a breath, wishing he knew Charity would believe in him, take a chance on him, and—as if he’d conjured her with the thought—he noticed a figure riding towards him.
He knew it was her even before she was close enough to be certain of whether it was a man or a woman. She was riding astride, galloping across the expanse of flat land the surveyor had chosen for the building site. Her hair flew out behind her, her body in perfect accord with the huge horse thundering towards him. He should have known she would ride like that, without fear, with absolute control.
Dev watched as she eased the horse back into a canter and then stopped right in front of him. Both horse and rider were breathing hard, the horse blowing, nostrils flaring, excitement still shining in its dark eyes. Charity’s chest rose and fell as she stared at him, her cheeks flushed with exertion, exhilaration, and something in her eyes that he could not read.
He stared at her, all the words he’d hoped to say when she eventually came tangled and snared up, caught in his throat.
“What are you
doing?” she asked, not taking her eyes from his.
“Building us a house,” he said, at a loss for anything less direct.
Charity took a deep breath and stared around at the work already done. Carts of stone were being hauled in now, the foundations beginning in the morning.
“But… I left you,” she said, and he saw the tears glittering despite the way she held her jaw taut, trying to keep her composure. He heard too, the anguish in her voice. “It’s not possible,” she said, the quaver behind the words audible now. “I explained this, you must see—”
“Charity,” he said, and his voice was harder now. He wouldn’t let her throw him over a second time. “You’ve had your say. Would you be so kind as to let me have mine now?”
She bristled a little at the autocratic tone of his voice but gave a stiff nod as he held his hand out to her. He helped her dismount, longing hitting him hard and fast as his hands rested on her waist, memories of the last time he’d touched her all too easy to remember. The blush tinting her cheeks told him she remembered it too and he smiled, taking her hand.
Once he’d given her horse into the care of one of his men, he guided her away to a rocky outcrop where they could sit and talk undisturbed. They sat side by side, silent, as Dev’s heart beat in his throat. She wouldn’t make this easy for him, he knew that, so he would be blunt. He would make her see how everything she’d said and assumed was wrong.
“You hurt me, leaving as you did.” The words were raw, exposing his heart to her and he didn’t try to soften them. They were too true.
She darted a look at him, her expression appalled before she turned away again, hiding her face from him.
“No more than I hurt myself,” she said, and he knew that was true too. “But there was nothing else to be done, nothing else to say.” He knew she’d intended those words to sound hard, fatalistic, but he wasn’t fooled. She longed for a way forward just as he did.
“Oh, there’s plenty more to say, my love.” He reached out and put his hand to her cheek, turning her face to his. As he’d suspected, her tears had already begun. He sighed, hoping she would listen to what he ought to have said when she came to London, if he hadn’t been so blinded by desire. “You made a great many assumptions about my life, about what I’d be forced to give up if I married you. So now I’d like to tell you the truth, and then you can tell me if you still believe I’m about to make some heroic sacrifice at the altar of our love.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and she frowned but nodded, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.
“My father was a great man, I think you know that?” he said, watching her nod before he carried on. “He did a great deal of good for the country, fighting for the welfare of those less fortunate than ourselves. He was not so supportive of his own family. I now think all the good he did was incidental if you want the hard truth, and yes, I am aware how bitter and selfish that sounds. Yet I know it’s true, he did it for the adulation, because he loved to hear what a good and kind and big-hearted man he was, when in fact he had no heart whatsoever.”
Dev rubbed a hand over his face. He had never spoken of such things, not to anyone, and it was hard to keep his anger at bay.
“My mother was a society beauty. She lived to be seen, to go to parties and be admired. From everything I now know of her she was vivacious, funny and full of life. Father married her and buried her here in the back of beyond. She hated it here, but he was jealous of everyone and so he kept her isolated and she saw no one. I think she rebelled against him and her behaviour became erratic and so….” Dev swallowed hard, the bile and bitterness of his emotion flooding him. “I cannot prove it, but I suspect my father gave her laudanum, in a hope to control her. However it began, she became addicted. My only real memory of her is one of her screaming because her room was filled with spiders. I must have been four I think. She died the following year.”
“Oh, Luke.” Charity was watching him now, her eyes filled with compassion as she threaded her fingers through his. “I’m so sorry.”
He smiled at her. “I feel like someone new when you call me that,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Like I can begin again and be someone worth loving, worth fighting for.” She bit her lip and he looked away, the desire to kiss her so strong he had to fight to keep talking, but she must hear this. All of it. He wouldn’t allow her to distract him again.
“Father didn’t know what to do with me. He was too busy, too important to have time for his son. He didn’t believe in spoiling children, by which I mean he wanted absolute control over me. I was not to be hugged or shown affection, which would make me weak. I was to be beaten if I was naughty or disobeyed an order.”
Dev kept his gaze on the ground, trying to tell her without letting the truth of his words get under his skin, to overwhelm his emotions. He’d spent long enough wasting his life on anger and regret; he’d get this out and over and done, and then she would see she was saving him, not ruining him.
“My behaviour became worse, so he sent me away to school. I was five. At school I was bullied until I learnt to fight back, and I did fight back. I was threatened with expulsion at least once a term, but my father would simply pay them more to keep me. I would receive a lecture from him about how disgusted he was with me, what a disappointment I was to him, how I would never amount to anything. I soon realised it didn’t matter what I did, nothing would ever change.” He swallowed, knowing that this had been the pivotal moment in his life, the only way he’d been able to take back some control. “So, I became the boy the others were afraid of and I learned to use that fear. If I disgusted my father, I decided that was the only way to get to him, to hurt him. It was the only power I had, and I used it.”
Dev cleared his throat, aware that his hopes of keeping his narration unemotional were failing miserably.
“I became a man worthy of his disgust. I was cruel and selfish and indulged all of my baser instincts.” He looked up then, wondering what Charity made of his confession. Did she despise him for being weak? There was only compassion in her eyes, though, such warmth and such love and understanding that a lump rose to his throat. He forced it down, needing to finish this, to ensure she understood. “I didn’t realise how much I despised myself, though. I never stopped to wonder what my life might have been if I hadn’t been so hell bent on hurting him, on destroying everything his good name stood for.” He reached out then, touching his hand to her face. “I didn’t realise until I met you. Pretending to be someone else, it… it freed me. It let me see I could change, I could be different… better. If I just had someone who would give me the chance to be that man.”
Charity opened her mouth to speak, but he pressed a finger to her lips.
“Selling Devlin Hall was the first step and it was like cutting a cancer from my soul. I’ll never regret it, Charity, not for a moment.” The words were hard and full of certainty and he held her gaze now, willing her to acknowledge the truth what he’d told her. “You think I’d be giving up my life, that I’d be losing friends, losing my self-esteem.” He gave a laugh, shaking his head at the idea. “I had no life before you. Do you know that no one… no one came looking for me when I disappeared? No one cared, and I can’t blame them for that. If you married me, you’d not be condemning me to a life I will come to regret, love, you’d be giving me a life. If not for you I’d have drunk myself to death in a year or two or been killed in a duel or some back-alley brawl.”
He heard her sob, and she covered her mouth with her hand as he reached for her, grasping her arms and nodding towards the house he was building. “I’m building a future for us here, Charity. The land is good, I had it surveyed. It’s rich, and there’s healthy grazing land too. This will be a farm, you see, except… except I barely know what a bloody potato looks like and I can’t do this without you. I don’t want to do it without you. Not without you, or John and Jane and Kit and Mr and Mrs Baxter. Please love, say you’ll marry me. Don’t condemn me to that life again. I won’t survive it.”
; She didn’t answer, tears streaking down her face as she stared at him. Dev held his breath, waiting, hoping and praying he’d not just exposed his heart and soul only to have it trampled underfoot.
Charity launched herself at him, throwing her arms around him and unbalancing him so he slid from the rock and landed in an awkward sprawl on the floor. She was laughing and crying and clinging to him and Dev found himself unable to speak, to ask if this was a yes. He tumbled her onto her back, pushing the curls that had fallen over her face away so he could look at her.
“I hope this is a yes, love,” he said, the words breathless and anxious. “As you’re in a very compromising position now, and quite thoroughly ruined.”
She laughed, a slightly hysterical sound as much a sob as amusement.
“Yes,” she said, reaching up and tugging at the back of his neck. “Yes, yes, I will, because if you’re foolish enough to want to marry such a pig-headed, stubborn, wilful creature, then you only have yourself to blame.”
Dev made a sound of triumph that echoed over the land, and if anyone hadn’t seen them sprawled on the ground together, they had certainly noticed now. Determined not to give her any grounds for wriggling out of her acceptance, Dev submitted to the pressure on his neck and bent to kiss her.
“Hey!” An angry shout had him looking up, finding Kit’s furious countenance above them as he swung down from his horse. “Get your hands off my sister, you bloody bastard. What the hell are you thinking? Have you no sense of honour, propriety?”
Dev eyed Kit with caution and got to his feet, tugging Charity with him and holding her close. “We’re to be married,” he said in a rush, not wanting to start life with Charity with her twin enraged with him. “She just said yes.”
“Oh.” Kit’s face cleared, and he grinned at them. “Well, that’s all right then. Mind you, she’s got a shocking temper.”
“Kit!” Charity exclaimed, glaring at her brother, who merely winked at her.
Charity and The Devil (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 11) Page 21