‘There. I think you shall pass inspection, from a distance,’ she said. With a piece of her petticoat folded into a pad, she placed it over the large cut on the top of Alex’s left eyebrow. ‘You may need to get that stitched. It is quite a deep gash.’
‘I miss you,’ Alex murmured.
Millie looked down at the pile of bloodstained rags in her hands and blinked hard. She had never thought she would be this close to him ever again. His cologne reminded her of that fateful night at his house. At a distance, she could summon her resolve and push him away. Being so close to him now left her soul naked and vulnerable.
Bloodied and beaten, he was still the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes upon. The one man she had ever loved. She watched as one of his bandaged hands took hold of hers and held it.
‘Don’t,’ she pleaded, her voice breaking. ‘I beg of you, please don’t.’
He cleared his throat, and with longing in his voice replied. ‘I love you.’
She dug her teeth into her bottom lip and closed her eyes as she fought to maintain her composure. She sucked in a deep breath. ‘No. No you don’t, Alex, and if this afternoon has not shown you the error of your ways, then you had better choose the next miss you cross in love more carefully. Because I can tell you, there are some men who would risk the hangman’s noose for the sake of their family’s honour.’ She lifted his hand and pulled hers away. ‘You are a liar and a fool, Lord Brooke, and I don’t know which of those is worse. But, for what it’s worth, I gave you my heart and you crushed it, without mercy. So, apart from the shreds of my underskirt, I have nothing else to give you.’
A weak smile came to his lips, and he leaned in close so only she could hear. ‘You are everything that I want, Millie, and I will never be done with you,’ he replied.
She turned to check on her brother, but Charles still stood with his back to them at the end of the path, keeping watch. ‘What else could I possibly give you?’ she replied, staring at her brother’s back.
‘Your nights and your babes,’ Alex murmured, his voice full of longing.
A trickle of blood escaped from under the cotton pad and began to run down Alex’s cheek. Millie replaced it with the last clean folded cloth she had. Placing it in Alex’s hand, she made him hold it to his head. She bundled up the rest of the rags, and stood.
Turning to face him, she shook her head. ‘You tell me I am yours and want me for your wife, and yet you wrote a love letter to another woman. A fact you cannot deny. If you really did love me, Alex, it would have been sent to me, not to Clarice. As I said, you may be a fool, but I most certainly am not.’
She screwed up the sodden rags and dumped them in a pile next to him on the bench. ‘I wish you a speedy and full recovery, Lord Brooke, but as far as I am concerned, we are estranged and shall remain so. Goodbye, Alex.’
‘I didn’t write the letter,’ she heard him utter as she walked away. But with her heart so close to breaking again, she couldn’t bear to turn around and go back to face him. By sheer force of will, she managed to keep going until she reached Charles’ side.
‘As soon as David returns we shall have to leave. My outfit is no longer presentable,’ she said, and took hold of her brother’s hand.
With Alex laid low from the events of the garden party, Millie felt it safe to venture out for her walk the following morning. It was only on the return leg, that she realised how much she had missed the exercise. Upon her return, she handed her coat and gloves to Grace. Standing in the front entrance of her home she considered the quandary that had kept her from sleep nearly all of last night. Should she confide in Charles what Alex had said in the maze, or simply go and buy a passage back to India?
Still in two minds as to what she should do, Millie walked towards the staircase. As she passed the door of her father’s downstairs study, she noticed it was open. She poked her head inside and was surprised to see her both her parents sitting on the small leather couch that faced the window.
‘Hello,’ she said, giving them a cheery greeting.
Her father turned to her. ‘Good, I am glad you’re finally home. Close the door and come and sit with us,’ he said.
Millie closed the door behind her and came around to face her parents. The first thing she noticed was the distressed state Violet was in. Tears poured down her mother’s cheeks and she shook all over.
‘Mama, what’s wrong?’ she said, kneeling before her mother and taking her hands. She had never seen her mother so distraught and it frightened her. ‘You are not ill, are you?’
Violet shook her head as her bottom lip quivered.
Millie looked to her father, seeking an answer. ‘Your mother is not ill, Millie, she is heartbroken. I have told her what I have long suspected, and which has kept me up many a night. That you intend to leave England and return to India,’ James replied.
In his hand he held the list of scheduled departures for India that Millie thought she had hidden so well. The breath caught in Millie’s throat and her face crumpled as she burst into tears. How foolish had she been not to realise her father would have known. James reached out and lifted his daughter onto his lap. She flung her arms around her father’s neck.
‘I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted to go home,’ she sobbed into the lapel of his jacket. Violet stroked Millie’s hair as both mother and daughter continued to cry. ‘You are home, darling. This is where your family and your friends are, and where your future lies,’ Violet whispered.
Millie shook her head. ‘I just wanted to get away; I just wanted to be happy again. As I was in India. Every time I think I might be able to live here, it all comes crashing down around me.’
Her father held her tightly. ‘I will not lose my daughter,’ he replied, his voice full of conviction. ‘I stood by once and nearly lost you; I will not do that again.’
Millie pulled away and sat staring at him, searching his face. ‘What do you mean, you nearly lost me?’ she asked.
James looked at Violet, who nodded her head.
Her father sighed. ‘We have never told you this before, but as it seems pertinent to the current situation, it is only right that you should now know. The year after we arrived in Calcutta, your mother told me she was leaving me and going back to England. She intended to take Charles with her.’
Millie gasped and looked at her mother, who held her hand over her eyes as she sobbed quietly.
‘I didn’t argue with her. I just stood and let her go. Ours was an arranged marriage and I knew she didn’t love me. That no matter what I said, it wouldn’t make a difference. The morning she was due to take the ship to England, I left for work and we didn’t even say goodbye,’ James continued. He bowed his head in silence and Violet took hold of his hand.
‘I was a shrew, Millie, so full of anger and resentment at being made to go to India. I couldn’t see what I had. That my husband loved me and I would destroy him by leaving,’ Violet said. She reached over and gave her husband a gentle kiss on the lips.
Millie looked at her parents, stunned by the shock revelation that her parents’ marriage had not always been a happy one. ‘But you didn’t leave him, you didn’t go back to England,’ Millie replied. ‘Why?’
Violet took hold of Millie’s hand and placed it within James’ hand. She then laid her own hand on top. ‘I actually got as far as the dockside, but when I saw the ship I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t take Charles from his father, they were devoted to one another. I also couldn’t take the child he didn’t yet know existed within my womb and keep it from him. A child he would likely never see. You.’
‘So what did you do?’ Millie replied.
Her father raised his head and looked lovingly at his wife. ‘She made an incredibly brave decision and decided to give happiness a chance. Millie, I cannot begin to describe the despair I felt when I returned home that evening, expecting to find an empty house.
‘But from the moment I opened the bedroom door and saw your mother’s
things on the dresser and her standing in the evening light, I knew I would never let anything so precious escape again. I’m sorry, Millie, but you are going to have to make a life here in England. You cannot go back to India. I will not allow you to marry anyone who takes you from us.’
Millie bit her lip and nodded. She had known in her heart she couldn’t ever leave her family; that a life in India was only a faraway dream. A fantasy.
‘Promise me you won’t ever go back. I couldn’t bear to know we would never see you again. Charles would be crushed to lose you, as would we,’ her father said, as he put an arm around Violet and pulled her into his embrace.
‘Yes, Papa, I promise I shall stay,’ Millie replied, and gave both her mother and father a kiss. She shook her head and wiped away her tears. How could she ever have entertained the thought of leaving her parents and brother?
‘May I go now?’ she said. She needed to be alone.
Her parents both nodded. She stood up and took a deep breath. It was liberating to finally have the air clear with her parents, for them to know how she truly felt.
As she reached the door, Violet rose from the couch and came to her side. ‘I don’t fully understand what has happened between you and Lord Brooke, but as one who nearly walked away from the love of her life, I would counsel you not to be too hasty in pushing him away. There are things that don’t make sense here, and I suspect Lord Brooke is in a purgatory of his own creation, but you may wish to give him one more chance to make matters right,’ Violet said.
Millie nodded. After Alex had returned to London he had made repeated attempts to speak to her, but she had refused to hear him out. Once his injuries were healed and he was back in society, she would give him the chance to explain himself.
‘Sort it out with Brooke, or I shall pay his father a visit when he returns to London,’ Mr Ashton added.
Millie smiled, her mind now clear on what she had to do. ‘Thank you, I will, and thank you both for understanding how hard this has been for me. I appreciate everything you have done for me, and Mama, I am especially grateful you didn’t get on that ship back to England. We would have all lost so very much if you had.’
After leaving her father’s study, Millie went up to her room, where she sat on her bed and tried to recall every word Alex had said to her in the maze. She went to her desk and pulled out a piece of paper, writing down her recollections of their conversation.
‘One more chance, Alex,’ she whispered, as she put down her pen and stared at the written words.
Chapter 22
Alex’s late-night dream was of a squirrel.
A tall one, which for reasons unknown to him kept throwing stones at his window and calling his name. He rolled over onto his back and tried to find a new dream. The insistent squirrel, however, would not go away.
Finally, he opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. The low-burning embers in the fireplace danced shadows across the ornate plasterwork.
Thunk.
A real stone hit his window, followed by a voice that called out ‘Alex.’
Some fool was in the laneway at the back of his house, tossing stones against his bedroom window. ‘Go away, whoever you are; I am not in the mood,’ he moaned, running his hands over his face and touching where the stitches still held his eyebrow together.
Another stone hit the window and he heard the glass crack. He was out of bed in a flash, grabbing a woollen blanket from the fireside chair and wrapping it around his shoulders as he crossed the icy bedroom floor.
‘Steady on,’ he yelled angrily at the stranger in the darkness as he threw up the window sash and looked down. ‘You nearly broke the glass.’
‘Thank God; I thought I was going to run out of stones before I found the right window. Let me in, it’s freezing out here,’ came a distinctly female voice from below.
He pinched himself – surely he was still dreaming. There was no way on God’s green earth that Millie Ashton was standing under his bedroom window in the middle of the night.
‘Millie?’
She let out a frustrated growl.
‘I don’t see any other girls down here. Well, except for the orange-seller back on the corner, but I am certain she doesn’t make house calls. Now, will you please come downstairs and let me in at the kitchen door before I freeze to death?’
Alex let the window drop back down and hurriedly began searching for some clothes. In the days since the attack in the maze, he had stayed at home and mostly slept. Naked. He pulled open the top drawer of his tallboy and quickly put on the first shirt and trousers he found inside. With Millie waiting outside in the dark, he didn’t stop to consider shoes or a jacket.
‘Finally. I was beginning to think you had gone back to bed,’ she grumbled, as he opened the door and let her inside. ‘There’s certainly no such thing as a balmy English night.’
She was wearing a black greatcoat, which must have belonged to her brother, and had a gentlemen’s tall hat pulled down low to hide her face. With pair of ladies’ boots and a skirt on underneath, she would only pass for a young man at first glance.
‘Millie?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t start that again, or I shall go straight out the front door and hail the nearest hack.’
He laughed. She was such a tiger when she was angry, and so bloody sexy. He felt his manhood go hard. Luckily his shirt was long enough to cover all evidence of his desire. He closed the door.
‘You do know it is the middle of the night?’ he asked.
‘Actually, it’s around one o’clock,’ she replied.
‘And yet you have come unaccompanied to visit a single man while he is still abed?’
The frustration in her voice lifted a notch. ‘Yes. I couldn’t wait any longer.’
He scowled and shook his head in disapproval. Millie raised her head and stared hard back at him. As he followed her gaze, he saw her making a careful study of his bruised and cut face. When she got to the large cut above his left eye, her hand began to reach out. His breath caught as she stopped, curled her fingers back into a gentle fist and let her arm drop to her side.
‘Nice stitches. I do hope you have been putting a cold compress on those bruises. I’m not surprised I haven’t seen you in the park these past few days. You may be interested to know, Lady Clarice and her father are not on speaking terms, so I think word of what he had done to you got back to her,’ Millie said.
Alex attempted to raise his eyebrows, but a sharp sting above his eye made him think the better of it.
‘To be honest, I have pretty much slept since David brought me home from Richmond. Fortunately, the face is the worst of it. Whether by design or good luck, the earl’s thugs only managed to wind me, rather than break my ribs. And by the way, thank you for coming to my rescue. I still owe you for your ruined clothes,’ he replied.
They walked into the hallway and Alex motioned towards the kitchen door. ‘Can I make you some tea?’ he offered, remembering the cosy evening they had shared in the warmth of the tiny kitchen.
She shook her head. ‘Thank you, no. I have not come for tea, I have come for answers. And I would rather we were not disturbed by any of your household staff.’
Before he could stop her, Millie had climbed the stairs, and when she reached the front hall, she continued on up the main staircase, turning left towards his bedroom. The room where he dreamed nightly of her.
‘Corner window, corner bedroom,’ she muttered.
He caught up with her at the top of the stairs and, taking hold of her arm, he attempted to steer her away from the bedroom door. ‘I think we should go into one of the sitting rooms, I don’t think you want to end up in my bedroom.’
‘Really?’ she replied, with a grin. ‘Are you certain?’
His breathing faltered once more. Who was this girl, who looked just like the new Millie, but was standing in his house in the middle of the night, making suggestive remarks?
‘I think your bedroom is perfect for talk
ing, and also for when we are done with talking,’ she added. She pulled out of his grasp and with a confident wag of her hips she strolled into his bedroom. He followed behind, his mind in a whirl. In the centre of the room, she stopped and turned to face him.
He closed the bedroom door behind him and locked it. He doubted very much that anyone would come looking for him at such an hour, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He pointed towards the locked door and Millie nodded her assent.
‘We won’t be disturbed that way,’ she said.
‘All right, what do you want to talk about?’ Alex said, as their gazes met and he fought an inner battle with the most private of his sexual fantasies. Any moment now, it would win and he would be powerless to stop it. He wondered if she realised the danger she had placed herself in by coming to his room, and if so, did she care?
She put a gloved hand inside the pocket of the greatcoat and after digging deeply, she pulled out a piece of paper and unfolded it. Then holding it in her hand, she gave a flick of her wrist and the paper opened fully. ‘Do you know what this is?’ she asked, waving the paper towards him.
Alex shook his head, and prayed she would not ask him to read it.
‘It’s a passage to India on the merchant ship Apollo, which sails from London a week on Sunday. If you look closely, you will see the ticket bears my name,’ she said, her expression suddenly turning grim.
A thunderbolt of shock hit him and coursed violently through his body. He swayed on his feet.
Millie was leaving!
While she remained in London, he still had a chance to repair their relationship, but if she took her place on board the ship, all was lost.
‘No, you cannot leave! I won’t let you,’ he shouted, not caring whom he might wake.
A wicked smile appeared on her lips. He had not seen this coming, and she knew it. She wagged a finger at him and stuffed the ticket back into her coat pocket. ‘I thought that might get your attention. Now listen, Alex Radley, and listen well, for this is the very last chance you shall ever get with me. You are going to tell me the whole truth about you and Lady Clarice. The moment I suspect you are lying to me or have left out an important detail, I shall walk out that door and you will never see me again.’
Letter From a Rake: Destiny Romance Page 27