How long, he wondered, had she been waiting for him?
*
How long I have waited for him…and for this moment.
She could see him standing in the shadowed sitting room, still clothed in his workaday chamois and linen, and knew he’d foregone the evening meal. His shirt was partway out of his breeches, and his hair had fallen down. How she wanted to smooth it back and press her lips to that furrowed brow.
His eyes pierced the gloom, impaling hers; her heart slowed to a dull thud.
“I’ve but one question.” The words were just slightly slurred. “And then I shall leave you to sleep…if you can.” With the painful dignity of a man trying not to appear drunk, he stood taller, and she knew he was bracing himself.
She managed little more than a whisper. “Ask away.”
He clutched the archway drapery in a white-knuckled fist. “You are not who you claim to be. Your name,” he avowed with a visible shudder, “is not Combs.”
Slowly she shook her head, her breath suspended.
“You are, in fact,” he said, his voice gone hoarse, “The Lady Madelena Harrison Hargrove, daughter of Lionel Stanford Hargrove, eleventh Earl of Whittingham…are you not?”
Her reply stuck in her throat, but she knew she must breach the awful silence—it was killing him, she could see it in his face.
“Yes,” she cried, the breath bursting from her lungs with a sob. “Yes, Thorne, yes…I am Lena.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Through the solar windows, Thorne stared absently at the woolly sheep in the northwest pasture. Lambing season was well upon them, and then would come shearing, but this morning his thoughts were of more human matters—as Arthur had discerned in their brief meeting, judging by his wry looks. Instead of lingering, as he usually would have, over this year’s strategy to net more of the salmon running up by the thousands from the Nene, Thorne had practically hustled him out the door.
He paced to and fro, glancing frequently at the library door he’d left ajar. Would she ever come, he wondered for the umpteenth time. Surely she hadn’t fled again. He was relieved beyond measure to see her fingers slip around the jamb.
She closed the door softly and crossed the room with quiet grace, her eyes downcast.
Aye, and well they should be, after the farce she’s played on me. On all of us! Yet his heart was in his throat. To see her again in this, their favorite room, was far more than his hopes had allowed for some time.
“Please, Lady Hargrove, do take a chair.”
She complied, but not so quickly as to please, and perched on the edge of the seat as if awaiting dismissal.
“I trust you’ll forgive me if I continue to pace. That sheepdog in yon pasture could keep still longer than I at the moment.” His scowl was lost on her as she stared out at the dog. “I’ve much to say, but more to hear,” he warned, and, as her eyes met his, nodded toward the table beside her. “There is water in the pitcher, brandy in the decanter. Help yourself. For myself I must decline, thank you, I’ve consumed more than my share of distilled spirits since yesterday.” He saw her swallow hard. Good, she was nervous. Or perhaps consumed with guilt. She ought to be both. He stopped his pacing. “You look rather pale this morning, Lady Hargrove. Not bad, though, for a woman who is dead of jungle fever.”
“What?” Her eyes widened.
“Lord Whittingham told us you had died in the tropics. Malaria.”
“Oh dear God.” She shook her head. “I am so sorry, Thorne…I thought he would say I’d eloped, or some such. No wonder you didn’t know me!”
“I knew you,” he groused, and took up his pacing again. “Or at least my heart did. My head, however, had no room for such foolishness. So you’re not dead, we’ve established that. But you are—pardon me, were—living, working, in my house under an assumed name. Some trouble with the law, perhaps? You’ve killed someone?”
She met his glittering gaze gravely. “I’ll let that pass. You’re angry, and rightfully so.”
“Ah, so you’re not a fugitive, or a gaol escapee? You’ll pardon my considering it, but you have been known to fly the coop, and quite successfully.”
She bit her lip. Was she trying not to laugh? God, he hoped not. He was in anything but a laughing mood.
“You were employed as a governess to a family in Sturbridge,” he said tersely. “The Etheridges.”
“Yes, I was.” She looked surprised and somewhat wary.
“You came to them with only one reference, compliments of a titled gentleman from the midlands.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
Thorne halted in mid-step. “Well, who the devil was he?”
He saw her hands clench involuntarily. “Your father,” she whispered.
“My…my father…?” He gaped at her for a moment, then swore under his breath. “My father.” His eyes narrowed. “What in blue blazes would my father have known of your qualifications as a governess, Lady Hargrove?”
“He did it as a favor to me,” she said calmly, though the knuckles of her clenched hands were white. “I had written of my…of some difficulty with my father…and Lord Robert, as I called him, was quick to act.” She looked steadily at Thorne. “I shall save you the trouble of asking. My father was endeavoring to seduce me.”
Thorne forgot to breathe. I should have killed the bloody bastard the night he assaulted Caroline. He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead. “Did he…violate you?” The tremor in his voice conveyed only a little of the sickening fury in his gut.
“No, but not for lack of trying. My days were typically spent inside my chambers with the door bolted, except for those times he went to London for gaming and whoring…then I was able to breathe, eat and sleep normally.
“Eventually I reached my rope’s end. I wrote to your father. I was nearly eight-and-ten,” she said with a faraway look. “I’d no prospects for marriage. My father’s possessiveness was too daunting an obstacle to any would-be suitors.” Her cheeks grew rosy. “There was a time when you and I were promised to one another.” She nodded as Thorne’s face betrayed his surprise. “Aye, but that was nipped in the bud when your father saw mine forcing unseemly attention upon me. I was of a tender age, and Lord Robert was absolutely livid. Out of my sight, but within earshot, he ordered my father to leave and never to cross his threshold again.”
Thorne’s jaw sagged. No wonder Robert had been so vague about the cessation of Lord Whittingham’s visits.
“My situation with the Etheridges was arranged with utmost secrecy. I took on a new name, and Sturbridge is far enough away from my home that I was able to maintain my new identity. My father hadn’t the least notion where I’d gone, and for the first time in years, I began to feel again…to live, and to quietly enjoy life.”
“Why did my father not arrange to bring you here?” Thorne demanded, though not unkindly, as he pulled a chair up to hers. For the first time that morning, he sat down.
Lena’s smile chided him. “Wycliffe Hall was one of the first places my father inquired, just as Lord Robert predicted. Too, I think your father feared you mightn’t attend University were I to come live here…and by that time,” she said with a sigh, “you were promised to Radleigh’s daughter.”
Thorne felt the blood drain from his face.
Lena looked at him sadly. “Your father had to pretend ignorance, Thorne, for your sake and mine.”
“Yours, aye, but for mine?” he croaked.
“He loved you, Thorne.” Lena was firm. “He wanted Whittingham out of your life, and the only way to keep him out was to break all ties and betroth you to someone other than myself.”
“Yet you sought employment here after my father died!”
She nodded, acknowledging the irony. “Three years after the Etheridges employed me, I was needed no longer. The girl was to marry and the boy to follow in his father’s profession.
“I learned through an acquaintance that you had recently enrolled at Oxford, and I…o
h Thorne, I couldn’t resist applying for a situation in this house.” Her voice faltered; tears filled her eyes. “I love this old place. My best days were spent in this house and on its lands. And I thought that when you returned, I’d be able to…”
“Deceive me,” Thorne supplied bitterly.
“No. To make you believe I was but a simple servant, and an orphan.”
“A simple servant? God’s bones, Lena, there is naught simple about you! I give myself credit for at least knowing that.”
“Well,” she admitted, smiling through her tears, “the transition from governess to chambermaid was not as effortless as I’d hoped.”
“Ha.” It was all he could say at the moment.
Her expression turned grim. “Now you might imagine how I felt when, after seven years of anonymity, I discovered that Whittingham was a guest in this very house.”
“Not by my choice, damn him!” Thorne raked a hand from hairline to crown. “But why leave? Why not simply stay topstairs ‘til the brute was gone?”
“I panicked, Thorne. Completely and utterly flew apart. I’d no idea how long he would stay, especially as he’d arrived with your fatherin-law. You might recall that my reputation was already in shreds. You were my sole champion, else I’d have been thrown to the wolves long since. And I knew—as you do, Thorne—that if my father happened to see me and recognize me, he would have every legal right to haul me home. Worse yet, I was quite obviously with child, and unmarried to boot. Oh, he would have reveled in teaching me a thing or two!”
“Say no more,” Thorne said hoarsely, “or I’ll be the fugitive from justice, because I’ll have murdered the bloody cur. Let’s move on.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and tried not to look as eager as he felt. “Where did you take refuge when you left? Hobbs and I searched high and low for the better part of a day.” A day, he was tempted to tell her, which had only been the start of a desperation and desolation he had never before experienced, even upon his father’s death. And never mind the other days, the other odd moments that he’d kept his eyes peeled and ears open for any hint of her whereabouts, or the discreet inquiries he had put about in writing.
Lena looked wryly amused. “I don’t think Hobbs was all that eager to find me, Thorne. He rode by the shack twice without stopping. You can’t imagine how relieved I was for that! Two nights hence, I came to your kitchen and helped myself to an old kettle and some threadbare linens, and who should cross my path but young William.” She smiled at the recollection. “He was in quite a dither, knowing you’d combed hill and dale to find me, but I convinced him of the need for silence. He is a rare gem, that boy, and he’ll make a wonderful husband in time. He saw to all my needs. How he managed to do his chores and get any rest is beyond me.”
Thorne was ashamed of the tightening knot in his gut; after all, William was a mere youth! But he knew that at the heart of his jealousy was a fervent wish that he himself had been the one to provide for Lena. The thought of her living in such crude surroundings still made him furious. He reminded himself to reward William for his kindness.
He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “But surely William told you Lord Whittingham was gone—I threw him out, you know! But that’s another story, for another time. Why didn’t you come back then?”
She smiled sadly. “Thorne, your influence is far-reaching, your opinion highly regarded, and your charity well-known, but despite all that, you couldn’t have defended me any longer to your wife. I imagine she considered your household well-rid of me, and there would have been the devil to pay if I’d had the gall to reappear at your door…especially,” she added wryly, “after absconding from a situation that had been so generously created for me—yes, Thorne, you’ll never convince me otherwise. At any rate, I was loathe to cause further trouble between the two of you, having already been, shall we say, a catalyst…in your past disagreements.”
He arched his brow.
“Surely you know how the servants talk, Thorne. Elaine Combs took a few arrows, both in the heart and the hindquarters.”
Thorne sat back, falling silent. He’d now come to a point in his inquiry where the asking would take more courage than the answering. He got up from his chair and strolled back to the solar windows. Behind him, Lena was patiently silent.
“Why,” he began after a moment, then swallowed hard and tried again. “Why did you let Hobbs…” Damned if he could say it.
“Take my maidenhead?”
He flinched, although he appreciated her unwillingness to sugarcoat the facts. However, it seemed she was not about to say more until he turned around and faced her.
“I can’t excuse myself, Thorne,” she admitted, her gray eyes soft on his. “My only defense is that I was starved for affection—true affection, not the tawdry impostor that my father had always tried to foist upon me. Hobbs’ attentions seemed genuine. He had charmed me and tried to court me for months, and…well, God’s teeth, Thorne, I was a maiden of four-and-twenty, with no prospects and no one to care for. Yet I’d a hopeful heart. And a weak moment…one in which my life was changed immeasurably.”
“I came home only a fortnight or so later,” Thorne grumbled.
“Meaning?” Her eyebrows took wing.
“Meaning…” He thought better of the truth, knowing how ridiculous it would sound, and settled for a lesser issue. “Meaning that you might have confided in me, and taken refuge under my roof with your true identity.” He knew he was pouting, loathed it, and yet had to have it out.
“Thorne.” Her look reproached him. “I couldn’t risk anyone’s discovering my identity, for rumors spread like wildfire from the Hall to the village. Whittingham would soon have been at your door with the constable to claim his ‘chattel’.”
His expression remained sullen. “You could have trusted me.”
“And continued in my guise as a maid? Would you have been able to sustain the charade? A single lapse—a familiar word, a glance, the unintentional use of my name—any number of things might well have been my undoing.”
He sighed as he came back to his chair and sat down. Leaning forward again, he looked into those guileless eyes. “Very well. And now that the ruse is up, what do you intend to do?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Byrnes says you want to keep my child, to raise her here.”
“Aye, if you’ll allow it.”
“Because she is your sole blood relative at the moment?”
He hesitated, nodded. “She is that, but-”
“And what becomes of her when you decide to marry, and sire children of your own?”
The words had cost her, despite their gentleness—she’d blinked thrice rapidly. Thorne fought to keep a passive mien. “And whom would you have me marry, my lady?”
Lena’s sudden smile was like bright sunshine on frosty ground; Thorne nearly lost his composure. “It has been years since anyone has addressed me as ‘my lady’,” she reminded him sheepishly.
“A wretched injustice to one so deserving of the title.” Thorne studied her face, then let his gaze wander to her slender throat and linger on its slow, steady pulse. God, what he would give to press his lips there. “You were going to tell me whom you’d have me marry,” he prodded. When Lena only bit her lip, his manner turned cool. “No doubt you’re thinking that any woman in her right mind would be wary of me. That my one attempt at marriage was a miserable failure. A fatal one.”
“It takes two persons to make a marriage, and two to destroy it,” she said almost angrily. “You did not drive her to suicide, Thorne, regardless of how you see it.”
He smiled briefly. “You and Arthur would have me utterly absolved from guilt, which is something only my Maker and I can accomplish. But again you dodge my question…whom shall I take to wife?”
“‘Tis not my place to say, or even to speculate,” she retorted. Her composure seemed to be crumbling, too. “Besides, neither did you answer my question. What shall be my daughter’s fate, once your wife ha
s borne you a child?”
“I’d like to think they would be siblings.” He made his tone as even as possible, but his heart had started to pound.
Lena sighed, shook her head. “‘Tis a noble sentiment, Thorne, but not at all practical. She would always be second-”
“Listen to me, Lena. I said siblings…not cousins.” His pulse was hammering in his ears now.
Her eyes darted to his. “Siblings,” she echoed, a tiny furrow forming between her delicately winged brows.
“Aye.” His voice vibrated with emotion he could no longer conceal. “Both children of your loins…both of Wycliffe blood.”
Her mouth opened, but before she could utter a word, he was on one knee before her.
“If you will have me, that is.” He gathered her hands, nearly crushing them in his. “Say that you’ll marry me, Lady Madelena Hargrove. Tell me you will be my wife.”
She hesitated, looking down at the hands that gripped hers.
“Ah.” Thorne’s smile was grim. “You fear that I ask for the wrong reasons…obligation to my niece, protection from your father.” His throat constricted. “By God in Heaven, I love you more than life, Lena Hargrove…have always, and shall always.” He tipped her chin up to make her look at him, to show her the truth in his eyes.
“I’ve been a hollow shell of myself since you left me last autumn. I grieved in silence, night and day, hating this house, hating my life, and marking every accursed hour of each passing day as another wasted, lost, without you.” His fingers caressed her jaw, his thumb spreading the warm wetness of a tear across her cheek. “I would have given up my fortune to know your whereabouts, even just to know that you were safe. You took,” he told her in a ragged voice, “the very life out of me.”
Lena briefly bowed her head, then sniffed her tears back and said low, “And now that Elaine is gone…forever…how do you feel?”
The Heart Denied Page 38