“Let’s hope it’s not a decision we must make.”
“What are you going to do about…your brother?”
“I’ve yet to decide”
“What if I could convince him to give all this up, and he and I could go away—”
He released a brittle laugh. “He’d not give all this up, not even for you.”
“He told me that he loves me.”
“He also told you that he was Robert, the duke. Lies flow from his lips like wine from a bottle. You can’t trust him, Torie.”
“I don’t know why you had to lock him in the mausoleum.”
“It was either that or the village jail.”
“What will you do about him? You can’t leave him there forever. It’s a cold, cold place.”
“He’ll only stay there until I decide how best to handle him.”
He shoved himself away from the window, reached down, and cradled her chin. “He had no right to you. The dukedom, I could forgive him for taking that from me. But you. That I shall never forgive him for.” He leaned down, his face close to hers. “Because you see, I love you as well.”
Releasing his hold on her, he straightened. “Now let’s go dine.”
He said it as though her heart hadn’t been devastated, her world crumbled.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You must keep up your strength. Our ordeal has only just begun.”
Robert barely felt the biting cold or the hunger gnawing at his gut. His bound hands and feet had grown as numb as his heart.
He lay on his side, where he’d been unceremoniously dumped by his brother’s henchmen—how was it that John could always manage to find the dregs of society?
At least there had been light at Pentonville. Now there was nothing but the bleak darkness of despair.
Torie doubted him, and the pain of that doubt was like a finely honed sword stabbed through his heart. It had taken more strength than he’d known he possessed not to cry out his anguish as he’d watched John lead her away.
If Torie doubted him, what did it matter if he proved his claims?
The dukedom, the estates, the titles…none of them seemed important anymore.
He caught sight of light wavering on the stained-glass windows at the front of the mausoleum. He heard a grinding of the key into the door. It opened, and he heard his wife’s soft voice.
“Thank you, I’ll be fine. The duke told me to tell you to go up to the house and have yourselves something to eat. I’ll stay until you return.”
Torie stepped into the chamber and closed the door. In one hand she held a lantern, in her other arm a bundle of blankets, as though she didn’t realize that physical comfort no longer mattered to him.
He cast his gaze downward to the floor, preferring to stare at it rather than her. He heard her footsteps echo hollowly around him, then a clatter as she set the lantern down.
“I brought you some blankets,” she said quietly, as though she feared disturbing him.
He shifted his gaze over to her, then turned his attention back to the floor.
“Would you like me to help you sit up?” she asked.
“No.”
“I hate the thought of you being kept here,” she said, “but your brother fears that you’ll try to usurp his authority—”
“As well he should, as he has none.” He glared at her. “He tells you stories and you believe them.”
Hugging the blankets closer to her chest, she knelt on the hard stone floor. “I was in shock. Do you have any idea what it is like to discover that you’re not married to the man you thought you were?”
“You thought you were marrying the Duke of Killingsworth and that is exactly who you married.”
“Not according to your brother.”
“He lies, Torie. Why are you so quick to believe him and not me?”
“Because he never deceived me—”
“But he did deceive you, he deceived all of London, pretending to be me.”
“And you could have righted that by telling me the truth in the beginning, but you didn’t. You knew you weren’t the man who proposed to me. Why didn’t you cancel the wedding?”
“Because I couldn’t fathom that it would be anything other than a marriage of convenience. That you wished to marry a title, not a man.”
“A title can’t warm me at night.”
“At the time, I didn’t know you well enough to know you felt that way.”
“And now?”
“I know you very well, but you apparently don’t know me.”
“So tell me what I don’t know.”
He didn’t want to tell her anything. He wanted her to believe him based on what she did know now. That should be enough. If she truly loved him, it should suffice. But he also recognized that in her mind, her request appeared reasonable—because it was.
“I’ve decided I’d like to sit up after all.”
She set the blankets aside, took hold of his arm, and struggled to pull him into a sitting position until he was resting his back against his mother’s tomb, his knees raised for balance as much as comfort.
“Would you like me to wrap a blanket around you?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“You’re trussed up like a holiday hog and yet you state that you’re fine.”
“Trussed up thanks to your suggestion that we take a walk farther into the garden.”
She looked down at the floor. “I didn’t know he was going to—” She shook her head. “He told me he wanted to talk.”
“And yet still you believe he is the true Duke of Killingsworth.”
She raised her gaze to his. “Tell me what I should know.”
“You should know without me telling you that I am Robert.”
“Let’s say you are. You still deceived me. You’re not the man who asked for my hand in marriage.”
He sighed. “You’re right. I’d not planned…” To come to love you. But he left the words unsaid for they, too, no longer mattered.
“You asked me to tell you what you don’t know. I don’t know what you do know so I’ll simply tell you what I know.
“Shortly before we were to turn eighteen, John suggested that we have one long celebration that would begin at dusk on my birthday and end at dawn on the day of his. We mapped it out: the establishments we would visit, places he assured me we would be welcomed. I should have suspected something then. I’m not sure why, but I should have.
“We traveled around London, drinking whiskey in the coach. We went to a house on the outskirts of the city. I wasn’t familiar with it, but apparently John was because everyone seemed to know him. Inside there was more drinking, revelry, and ladies. I remember John giving me a glass of whiskey, slipping a lady’s hand into mine, and telling me to drink up and leave the work to her.” He shook his head.
“I remember going up the stairs, going into a room…my next memory is waking up in a cell, wearing prison garb, calling out for help, and receiving a beating because of it. I was Prisoner D3, 10. And when I realized that I was at Pentonville Prison, I knew I was in a great deal of trouble.
“I thought perhaps John was there as well, in another cell. That we’d stumbled onto some sort of slave trade or something. Or that the people in the house we’d visited were using us to replace their friends who were to be sent to prison. Any and all explanations seemed ludicrous, but then so did the entire situation. I was stupid, naïve, and unable to comprehend why any of this was happening.
“As you know, we had to wear hoods when we walked in the exercise yard, but I would try to look in the prisoners’ eyes, find eyes similar to mine. Sometimes I tried to whisper to the man in front, but that only got me complete isolation for a time.
“Then one day, I have no idea how many days had passed, but one day I received a letter. Inside was a clipping from the Times. It was the obituary for the Duke and Duchess of Killingsworth.”
“Your parents,” she whispered.
He nodded. “The letter simply said, ‘Thought you should know.’ It was signed by Robert Hawthorne, the Duke of Killingsworth. And that’s when I knew that I wouldn’t find John in the prison. That our birthday celebration had been an elaborate ruse to get rid of me.”
“But why that night when you weren’t yet duke? And surely someone would have noticed that one of the sons wasn’t around.”
“Countless times John had told our parents that he wished to travel to America. I think, pretending to be Robert, that he might have told them that John had followed his dream and gone across the Atlantic, following our birthday celebration. Maybe he’d told them that he’d gotten a bit drunk and taken off. But that is only a guess on my part.”
She began briskly rubbing her arms, and he didn’t know if she was cold from the air surrounding them or his chilling tale.
“You don’t believe me,” he said.
“He said your father had made the arrangements because he knew you would try to take what wasn’t yours.”
“What did my father stand to gain by doing that?”
“What did your brother stand to gain?”
“The dukedom.”
“But not for years. He had no way of knowing that your parents would succumb to death so soon.”
Robert swallowed hard, forcing himself to say the one thing that had haunted him the most all these years. “Unless he knew that the dukedom would soon fall to me.”
She stopped rubbing her arms. “But the only way he could know…”
Robert nodded. “Was if his plan included killing our father.”
Torie suddenly felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold marble surrounding her.
“Why didn’t you cancel the wedding?”
“I’d thought about it, but you must realize that I’d been isolated for so long, unable to share my thoughts with anyone save myself, and I found myself standing at the altar trying to determine the best course of action. I didn’t know how to prove I was Robert, and I feared that if I didn’t go through with the ceremony, questions would be asked that I wasn’t yet prepared to answer. After the ceremony, I couldn’t tell you the truth because you told me that you cared for me desperately, and I thought confessing would result in your going to the authorities before I had a chance to determine how best to prove my claims.
“I planned to never touch you, and once John could be freed, then I planned to find a way to undo the marriage and some way to circumvent the law—even if it required an act of Parliament—to see to it that you were able to marry the man you’d planned to all along.”
His voice held such sincerity, such desperation to believe him, to trust him, to understand.
“How did you escape?”
She listened in silence, spellbound and fascinated as he described his daily routine, the continual isolation, except for the walk in the exercise yard and the walk to chapel. But even during worship the isolation was there, the silence surrounding them except when they sang. And how he’d worked to loosen the floorboard and make his escape.
He told her about Matthews and how he’d had John returned in his place.
“Although it really wasn’t my place. I should have never been there to begin with.”
She saw the tears spring to his eyes, watched as he blinked them back. He averted his gaze, and she saw the muscles of his throat working.
“Torie”—his voice was rough and scratchy—“you can’t imagine what those eight years were like. To never be touched, except when being shoved, to never be able to talk to someone about the most inconsequential of things—the weather, the color of a woman’s eyes, the grace with which she walks—let alone the momentous yearnings of your heart, your hopes, your dreams.”
“And yet you held your distance, until the night of the storm when I asked you not to.”
“You were not mine to touch.”
“And yet you did.”
“If you want an apology—” He shook his head. “Whether or not you want it, you deserve it. I’m sorry, Torie. For whatever hurt I caused, whatever damage I’ve done that can’t be undone—”
“How will you prove your claims?”
“Do you believe me?”
His voice contained such hope, such desperation to be believed.
“I know only that I love you,” she admitted.
Releasing a deep sigh, he lowered his head. “That’s not enough.”
Her heart twisted painfully with his admission. But she suspected that her reluctance to recognize him as the duke was equally painful to him. If she loved him, shouldn’t she believe him?
Searching through the blankets, she pulled out the knife she’d hidden within the folds. “Regardless of who you are, you don’t deserve this treatment.” She began sawing on the rope binding his legs. “Go to London and find out to whom lords are supposed to talk when there is a dispute over their claims.”
“The Lord High Chancellor.”
With his feet freed, she stilled and glared at him. “If you knew, why haven’t you already spoken to him?”
“Because I can’t prove my claims. It is John’s word against mine.”
“And you think this is better? To play a game of tag imprisoning each other?”
“No, you’re right. I must trust the courts.”
She scooted up while he twisted around, giving her access to his hands. When she’d cut the bindings, he groaned and began rubbing his wrists, flexing his fingers.
“Go to London,” she ordered.
Reaching out, he cradled her cheek. “Will you go with me?”
When her love wasn’t enough for him? With tears burning her eyes, she slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”
Hearing the door open, she spun around, her heart leaping into her throat at the sight of the other man who claimed to be Robert.
“Thought I’d find you here,” he ground out. “Imagine my surprise when I saw my guards trudging toward the manor.”
Torie’s husband grabbed the knife from her hand and struggled to his feet.
“What are you doing to do with that, brother?” the man by the door asked.
“It depends on what you force me to do with it.”
“It seems we are at an impasse. I’m curious, though. How did you manage to escape from Pentonville?”
“Through the flooring in the chapel.”
“Ah, clever.”
“And you?”
“I didn’t escape. I was released. Once they let me out of solitary confinement, I insisted on speaking with Matthews—”
“The warder.”
“Yes. Fortune smiled on me the night I met Matthews. He liked his drink and he liked his gaming hells. Unfortunately, cards seldom favored him. He owed a few unsavory men a good deal of money. He was only too willing to take what coins I offered. He also has a secret he wishes kept—the fact that I knew what it was caused Matthews to realize he’d made a dreadful mistake. He arranged for my release. And now he’s on his way to America.”
“Convenient. The only witness to your scheming is gone.”
John smiled. “I must do what I must do.”
“What of Mother and Father? Did they never question only one of us returning that night?”
John rolled his eyes. “Brother, they never knew only one of us returned. It was quite tricky, my pretending to be both of us…never at the same time, of course. And only for a few days, only until John convinced them that he would be leaving for America to seek his fortune.”
“And Weddington?”
“He was a bit of a bother. Always hinting that he thought I might be John—you. I had to sever that friendship. It was some time before I could sever it completely, though. Not until he got involved with that little trollop.”
“You’ve been so diabolically clever.”
“I had no choice. You kept claiming to be the heir apparent.”
“Would you have ever released me?”
“I don’t know. Matthews was terribly good at the task I g
ave him. I’d only expected you to be there for a few months. Until you were to be transported, but he feared moving you out of isolation would bring with it the risk of his actions being discovered.” John shrugged. “Or so he confessed when faced with his benefactor. And now you are once again trying to usurp my place.”
“You have me at a disadvantage, but I’m willing to let you have it all.”
“Including your wife?”
“No, not her.”
“But if I am Robert, then she is married to me—”
“Grant her a divorce.”
“A divorce is so scandalous. Besides, even if she’s free of me, she can’t marry her husband’s brother.”
“In America she can.”
John arched a brow. “Are you going to America?”
“Yes, I think we shall.”
“Will you send me letters? I so like reading of your adventures. I think you should travel west, though. Virginia’s growing boring.”
“I shall write you letters from wherever you like.”
Torie watched as the man by door slowly shook his head. “Unfortunately, brother, I don’t trust you.”
She watched in horror as he leveled a gun—
“No!” she shrieked, rising to her feet, lurching in front of her husband. She felt fire pierce her body and explode within her, heard an echoing bang that she thought might cause the ceiling to cave in, found herself back on the floor, darkness creeping in along the edges of her vision.
Had someone extinguished the lantern?
“Oh, dear God. Torie? Torie?”
She felt warm fluid seeping out of her, pooling around her. Everything around her was fading to black; even the voice calling to her was growing distant. She felt herself being wrapped in blankets, felt herself being lifted into strong., steady arms.
“For God’s sake, man, don’t just stand there! Get to the village and fetch a physician. Now!”
As she succumbed to the welcome abyss of oblivion, she realized she’d just heard the voice of the true Duke of Killingsworth.
Chapter 21
S he sat in a field surrounded by raspberry bushes in bloom, the tiny flowers calling to her. Her husband was stretched out beside her, his head resting in her lap. He plucked a flower free of the thorny bramble and handed it to her. Resting in her palm, she watched as it miraculously turned into a raspberry. She placed it against the lips of the man she loved…
A Matter of temptation- The Lost Lords Trilogy 02 Page 23