“Alex!”
He had mounted again, but sat staring down, still trapped in memory. Rigid and unmoving while the storm lashed about him, rain pummeling his shoulders.
Caroline prodded her mount as close as possible to his, then reached for him, lacing her fingers through his hair. She pulled, bringing his face down to hers, fastening her lips over his cold mouth, infusing everything of life she could into a single kiss.
For a heart-stopping instant there was no response. Then he breathed, lips moving against hers, a spark flashing between them. He lifted his head, his expression alive again. Their gazes met. Midnight shadows speared her through with a look more powerful, more frightening than even the elemental fury unleashing around them. He stared at her a moment longer—naked yearning, soul-searing need.
Thunder coiled through the air. He shouted something, then bolted his horse forward, down the winding road into the valley. Her mount was glad to follow. She gave it its head, barely able to see the dark silhouette ahead in the driving rain. Hoofbeats mingled with the drum of her own heart, the rasp of breath, the gather and release of the horse moving beneath her.
They pelted through the storm for what felt an eternity. She was dimly aware of passing hedgerows but did not consider what that meant until her mount turned off the main track, following Alex’s horse across a plowed and muddy field. Ahead a shadowy bulk revealed itself—a barn. Shelter.
He was already off his mount and shoving the half door wide. He caught her reins as she rode up, and guided her into the dim, hay-scented safety. Outside, the storm flung itself against the building, the wind pressing through the cracks. She slipped down from her horse, the folds of the black dress sodden and dragging about her, and they waited silently, numbly, for the torrent to spend itself. At last she spoke.
“Why have you come back? You fled so far. You said you would never set foot in England again.” She saw in her mind’s eye the wrecked carriage at the base of the cliff. What had he fled from that night—and what was he returning to?
He said nothing, his hands clenched into tight fists.
“You can tell me.” She let the words carry her trust, her promise of understanding. “I know you are a good man—”
“I am not a good man!” His voice was harsh and raw, driving her back a step.
“You are.” Her own heart raced in response. “What could you have done that requires you to live your whole life in shadow? Why must you wall yourself away from those who love you?” She took his hand in hers, cold, unresponsive. “From those you love. Why must this stand between us?”
He jerked his head up. “Can you bear to know the blackness in my heart, Caroline Huntington?” The words were as sharp as broken glass.
“I…” Her throat was dry. “I must know.”
His eyes burned with despair. “Then I will show you.”
Chapter 25
Alex pulled his mount to a halt and stared at the clinic. His pulse clamored in his veins. Dear God. He could not face this. Inside. It waited—his own unforgivable shame. His hands clenched around the reins.
“Alex?”
He glanced at Caroline—the unrelieved black making her a shadow against the evening sky. Veiled and dressed for mourning. He closed his eyes.
Murderer.
The rain-drenched streets had been quiet as they rode into Ravensbridge, lamps in the windows holding back the dusk. And now they were here, the place he had forfeited his soul.
“Come.” He flung himself off his horse, wrapped the reins about the post, and stepped forward.
Since crossing the bridge, the pain had intensified, burning more with every mile. Now his leg was on fire—it could barely take his weight. He half stumbled to the door of what had been his waiting room. Locked. No matter. He wrapped the corner of his coat around his fist and smashed the glass, reached through the jagged hole and turned the lock.
Through the clatter of breaking glass he heard Caroline gasp. Sharp pain in his hand. The door swung wide into the darkened room, revealing the chairs, the fringed lamp, the scatter of newspapers, now yellowed. There was a faint smell of medicines, overlaid by years of disuse. He limped forward, pressure growing as if he were diving deep into cold water. Memory swept in, closing over his head.
That night—the farm family had caught him as he was buttoning his coat to leave. Please help their daughter—she was in terrible pain. The child was pale and clutching her stomach. The wife held out a basket of eggs, all they could offer in payment. But he had never refused those in need.
He staggered down the hall, Caroline behind him; he could not turn back. The paneled door wavered in his vision, seemed almost to expand and contract at his approach. Breath rasped painfully through his throat, the air tasted of powdered iron. Feet unable to take another step. The door. The knob.
He shuddered, frozen in place. What had he thought? That he could will away the past? The girl had had no choice. Why should he deserve one?
Caroline’s hand, gentle on his shoulder. Her calm presence beside him. She must know—she must see him for what he truly was.
Alex set his hand to the cold knob, tightened his fingers, and turned. The metal click and release. He could not force himself to step inside.
“She’s there.” The rough whisper escaped him. “She’s waiting—just as on the night I fled.”
“Who?”
“The girl. She had braids. The family begged me to help her. She was crying from the pain, a bellyache, or worse. We carried her here.”
Hand trembling, he set his palm to the dark wood and pushed. Fear like a noose around his neck. The door opened, revealing what had once been a dispensary, now given over to dust and shadows. Lungs drained of air, he lifted his gaze to the examining table.
Empty.
No white and staring face, no haunted eyes. The pressure around him eased a fraction as he drew in a desperate breath.
“I gave her paregoric, to ease the pain. Told her it would help. I opened a new bottle, fed her a dose, though she turned her head away and had to be coaxed to it. She took it. I promised it would make her feel better. I spooned the medicine into her mouth.”
Oh, God. He hunched forward, head in his hands.
The hush of Caroline’s skirts, a gentle touch on his arm.
“She stopped breathing. I did everything I could to revive her. I thought it had been the pain in her stomach, and there was nothing I could do to restore life to that frail body. It was not until after…until…” His voice broke.
The mother’s cries of grief, the father’s face, ashen, as he had gathered up the limp body of his child and carried her from the room.
He had failed. Despite his skill as a doctor he had not known what was wrong, had not acted in time. There was medicinal brandy in the cupboard. He had drunk straight from the bottle, trying to blunt the edges of his pain. Losing a patient was always excruciating.
But it had been nothing compared to what followed.
“It was later. I drank some brandy and dozed, slumped against the wall. Dark, when I awoke, moonlight coming in. My hand in the puddle of medicine that had spilled. Unthinking, I tasted it. Oh, God.”
“Tell me.” Caroline’s voice, soft and insistent.
He could not stop now. He drew in a ragged breath.
“Laudanum. I gave her laudanum. Twenty-five times stronger than paregoric. The girl did not die. She was killed, killed by an overdose.” He made himself say the word. “Murdered.”
Her indrawn breath. “But, surely the label—”
“It said paregoric. But I should have tasted it to make sure. I had heard the stories. I knew. I always did.” He clenched his fingers through his hair.
The room had turned cold, so cold, as the knowledge of what he had done penetrated. The taste still on his tongue. The back of his neck had prickled, a breath from the grave stealing down his spine. Dream or hallucination brought on by guilt, it did not matter. Her ghost had come.
“I saw her
then. Sitting on the table. Her face, so white. And her eyes…” They had stared at him, wide and unblinking. Devoid of malice, of accusation—of anything human. “She was lost. Lost to the living, and I bore full responsibility. I had snatched away everything from her, through my own arrogance and carelessness. I had stolen her life.” There was no forgiveness, no redemption.
“So you gave up yours in return.” Caroline’s voice was full of horrified understanding.
“What other payment could I give?”
There. She knew.
He steeled himself for her revulsion, for the moment she would rise and flee. It did not come.
“Is there a lamp?” She spoke softly. “Matches?”
He pointed. The stink of phosphorus, the sudden flame steadying as she re-placed the chimney. The light reflected in her eyes.
“Don’t you understand?” His own voice, harsh in his ears. He grabbed her by the shoulders, made her look at him. “I am a murderer!”
“No.”
The quiet certainty in her tone rocked him. She did not flinch away, only gripped his arms, as if her touch could anchor him to the present. “Yes, the girl died. Yes, it was from the medicine. That does not make you a murderer.” Her hands were tight on him, insistent.
“But I—”
“No! Death is not murder.” She released him and whirled, swept the room with one arm. “There is no ghost here—because it was an accident. Tragic, yes. Horrible, yes. But murder?” She shook her head. “No.”
He began to tremble then, shudders wracking him. Could she be right? He bent over the table, bracing himself. The empty table. There was no ghost. Warm arms came about him, holding him. He turned in her embrace, let her strength buoy him up.
“Alex,” she whispered, one hand stroking his hair, “you don’t need to run from it anymore. Don’t let the mistakes of the past rule your future.”
He drew in a shaking breath, bowed his head. He was lost, adrift on a dark sea. But perhaps—perhaps not beyond hope of redemption. Not while her light shone to guide him forward. Not while her calm courage enfolded him.
They stood together for eons. Long enough for his heartbeat to settle to steadiness, for warmth to return to his hands. For a seed of hope to lodge in his heart.
At last he lifted his head. Her amber-flecked gaze, full of understanding and compassion, met his. Caroline.
His love.
He had not been able to think the words, though for months he had known. Known, but could never acknowledge the truth he carried inside him. It had been impossible. He had not had the right to feel, to live.
Did he now?
The idea was so new, so tremulous, he could not absorb it. Not yet. He took up the lamp and held his hand out to her.
“It’s time I went home.”
The storm had blown away. Overhead, clear stars were flung, glittering, across the sky. Alex pulled in a breath of sea-flavored air. Home. He felt curiously free at the thought.
As they rode higher the view unfolded, the ocean winking darkly, the lights of the village sprinkled warm below the ridge. And the manor, perched above it all. It struck him then how his cottage on Crete had mirrored this, a place removed from the village, set on high ground, with the sea ever present in the distance. Slowing his mount, he let Caroline draw even with him.
“Raven Hall.” He opened his hand. Most of the windows were blank reflections of the night, but a half dozen showed light and warmth. There was life within. He had been afraid of finding only a ruin filled with cobwebs and emptiness. “Built by my grandfather after he became owner of the alum works here.”
“Did he have a large family then?” Caroline watched the manor.
“No. Just pretensions to nobility. And too much money to indulge his whims. My brother and I rattled about in there.”
A sudden memory of riding an imaginary war-steed down the long passageways, through the banquet hall, laying about with a sword fashioned from a stout stick. He had not thought of his childhood for far too long—had locked thoughts of his family, that sense of belonging, behind a huge iron door. Then flung the key into the deeps of the Atlantic as he had traveled away, away from England.
His lungs squeezed with misgiving. Would his mother forgive him? Surely she must have thought him dead these years past. In running from what he had done, had he not set ever-widening circles of pain in motion?
But Caroline was beside him now, and he could face anything. The moonlight washed faintly over her face, her straight nose and high cheekbones. She seemed unaware of his regard, still staring at the hall perched above them. Robbed of color by the night, he could still vividly imagine the brown waves of her hair, tawny streaks laid there by the Mediterranean sun, and flecks of sunlight dancing amber in the depths of her eyes. She turned to him and smiled, and the dimness seemed suddenly full of color and rushing light.
He urged his weary mount forward, the last yards home unrolling with a dreamlike certainty. They left the horses standing—he would send a servant out to tend them—but for now he was pulled inexorably forward.
He did not bother with the heavy iron knocker. This was still his home, no matter how many years had passed. He swung the tall front doors open and the scent of his childhood rushed out to meet him, a blend of wax, peat fires, and flowers. Regrets clogged his throat, the grain of the door familiar under his fingers, and then he stepped inside, beckoning Caroline to follow.
The entryway was unchanged, down to the customary vase of flowers beside the door. It felt as though no time had passed. Yet his vision was overlaid with intervening years, the afterimage of loneliness and isolation jarring against the reality of homecoming. He continued on, through the formal receiving rooms, and deeper into the house. Halfway down a long corridor he stopped and drew in a breath. What if his mother was not at home? What if she was?
A hand, warm and confident, in his. He turned, met Caroline’s encouraging gaze, and found the courage to go on, though by the time they reached the family parlor he feared he had squeezed her fingers bloodless. She did not complain, she did not question, only stood beside him, lending him her quiet, unyielding strength.
With trembling fingers, he set his palm to the door and pushed. For a moment the two people inside did not notice the intrusion. He stood, all his attention focused on the woman seated before the fire, lacework in her lap. She looked so much older than three years should have accounted for. His fault—the shockingly silver hair, the lines of grief etched beside her mouth. He drew in a sharp breath. Barely inaudible, but she heard. Her eyes, bluer than his, as blue as the North Sea, lifted to the doorway. Shock limned her face, pulled the blood from her skin.
“Alex?” It was an unbelieving whisper.
“Mother.” He stepped into the room, letting go of Caroline’s hand.
“Alex!” Astonished joy flashed across her expression. She stood, let the lace tumble unheeded off her lap, and opened her arms wide.
He went forward to his mother and held her while tears spilled down her cheeks.
“My son. You are alive. Oh, Alex, I prayed so often for this day….” Her well-remembered hands smoothed his hair, and he was enveloped in the achingly familiar scent of roses. “I missed you so dearly.”
“I am sorry.” He swallowed past the ache in his throat. “When I left…” He had been more than a little mad; he was beginning to realize that now. Crazed with guilt and despair, then after the accident, pain and fever. It had seemed the only thing he could do was run. But the years on Crete had taught him there was no escaping himself—and that had been a bitter knowledge to bear.
He felt his mother’s attention shift to Caroline, watchful and still beside the door. He held his hand out to her, drew her to stand beside him.
“Mother, this is Miss Caroline Huntington. She brought me home.”
In so many ways. Without her he would never have returned to England. To Ravensbridge. To himself.
“You have brought my son back to me.” She caught C
aroline’s other hand in her own. “Thank you, my dear. Thank you.”
Caroline smiled, and despite the ill-fitting black gown, the grinding days of travel, the storm, the clinic, he thought he had never seen a woman more radiant.
“Mrs. Trentham, I am so very pleased to meet you,” she said. “And more happy than I can say that I could be part of Alex’s return.”
His mother beamed at Caroline, then beckoned to her companion, Lucy, who, it seemed, had borne the years with her usual stoic grace. “Fetch the maid. We must prepare rooms. Alex’s suite, of course, and we can put Caroline in the south wing. Have Cook send up a late supper, and…”
Home. Alex glanced down at Caroline and squeezed her hand, a fierce conviction flashing through him, so white-hot he was sure she must have felt it run from his fingers to hers. I love you.
Their gazes locked, and for a moment it was only the two of them, caught together in the huge, still center of the world.
Chapter 26
Caroline barely recalled following the maid to her room the previous night. After they had reached Raven Hall and she had met Alex’s mother, exhaustion had swirled around her, heavy and muffling. She had been so weary she could barely keep her eyes open over the hasty supper prepared for them, and she was certain she had fallen asleep somewhere in between pulling up the sheets and laying her head on the pillow.
Now she felt more rested than she had in days. When she had finally woken, the maid had brought a muslin dress for her—another garment that did not quite fit, but Caroline had been only too happy not to re-don the mourning gown. The time for darkness was over.
Yesterday, learning the dreadful secret that Alex had carried alone for years—her heart twisted at how he had tortured himself for it. He had shut himself away from all joy, all life, in trying to atone. Ah, Alex. She hoped that now…But she hardly dared name that hope.
All He Desires Page 27