A Sinner No More

by Kelly Boyce

  “While employed by Lord and Lady Ravenwood, I discovered your family’s extensive library. When everyone else had turned in for the night, I would sneak in and read the books.”

  She smiled. Being away from her father had made her miserable and the hours spent in the library had been the only time of the day she’d been happy, as if a light shone in the distance and with each page she read she grew closer to its brilliance.

  Lord Hawksmoor glanced down at her. “That was rather risky of you. Had you been caught, you would have been sacked. Likely without reference.”

  “I was caught,” she said, meeting his gaze. She refrained from raising the fact that she was sacked without reference regardless, but for reasons that had nothing to do with her sneaking off to the library. “You caught me. You came stumbling in early one morning and found me huddled behind the desk.”

  “What did I do?”

  She couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped at the memory. “You scolded me for taking such a risk and made me promise not to do it again. Then you sent me off to my room.”

  His shoulders slumped and he let out a rather despondent sigh. “That hardly makes me sound like a kind man.”

  “That is what I thought, as well. But when I returned to my room the following night, the book I had been reading was hidden beneath my pillow. When I finished reading it, I returned it to the library. The next day, another book arrived. For as long as I remained employed with your family, you ensured I had books to read and by doing so, my education continued to flourish.”

  The memory warmed her. It had been a long time since she had allowed herself to think of her time at Raven Manor. A long time since she had been able to separate the goodness she found there from the horrible events that eventually followed.

  “Only a kind man would have done such a thing,” she said.

  Lord Hawksmoor stopped walking. Part of Madalene was tempted to continue on without him. The path they had wandered onto was precarious and fraught with danger. His questions invoked too many emotions she had worked hard to hold at bay. But as she watched his sharp profile while he digested her remembrance, the tension about his eyes eased and when his gaze met hers, the thought of continuing on without him vanished.

  “I had a fondness for you, didn’t I?” He quickly waved a hand before she could answer. Not that she had an answer, not one she was willing to admit aloud. “No, forgive me. I should not have asked such a thing. It’s just that—”

  “Just what?” She should let the matter drop, but suddenly she longed to know.

  He set the basket on the ground next to him. “Since the first time I awoke and sensed your presence you felt…familiar. As if whatever existed between us had been there for some time. The feelings I experienced had roots. Roots that reached far deeper than that of employer and servant. Were we friends, then?”

  She hesitated. To admit such would be folly. They’d had no business being friends. But to deny it would be a lie and she did not want to lie to him. She did not want to leave him feeling alone in a world that he had turned his back on.

  “Yes. In time, we became friends.”

  After he’d found her in the library, he had made a habit of speaking to her whenever he saw her. He would go out of his way to make her smile, ask her about the books she’d read. After a time, he would show up in the rooms she’d been tasked to clean and simply sit there reading a book and making comment on it, or writing in his journal, which he did often.

  It did not take long before she grew quite fond of those moments and looked forward to the next, which never seemed to come soon enough for her liking. In short, she had become sweet on Lord Thomas, though she had recognized the foolishness of it. He was eight years her senior, a man in every sense of the word, while in his eyes she was just a young girl he was kind to. He was a lord, and she but a servant in his home. Nothing would ever come of it.

  Lord Hawksmoor interrupted her memories and when she glanced at him once again, his hand clutched his chest and a look of horror filled his handsome features.

  “I did not…that is to say… Please tell me I did not do anything inappropriate.”

  She shook her head. Not that she hadn’t dreamed he would in her foolish girlhood fantasies. “You were ever the consummate gentleman.”

  But her answer brought him no peace. He reached out and took her hands in his. “Then what changed? The man you describe hardly seems evil enough to have killed his own brother.”

  “You were not evil!” She squeezed his hands, hoping the pressure of her fingers could convey the truth of that statement.

  “Then I had a reason for what I did? Please tell me this is so, that I am not a monster! Since awakening, I have not been able to shake the need to protect you. Was that it? Was that what I was doing?”

  He wanted to hear her say the words, to absolve him. Perhaps protecting her had been his only motivation for killing Phillip. It certainly had been the impetus that night. Though a part of her believed that the two men had been on that tragic course well before she’d arrived at Raven Manor. Phillip had been forever baiting his younger brother, putting him down, reminding him of his place as the second son. Lord Hawksmoor had always walked away, but there was something in his eyes after each encounter. She’d seen it. An erosion of sorts, made worse by his parents’ belief that the things Phillip said were true. And the warnings from their youngest son nothing but the false ravings of a jealous brother.

  “Madalene, please!”

  The use of her given name again pulled at her. He’d used it on that fateful night, too, the shock and horror of what he had come upon in the larder laced through the word, yet to her the sound of his arrival had sounded like a benediction. A reprieve.

  Despite the doctor’s insistence that he would be better off remembering the events on his own, Madalene could no longer stand by and watch him struggle to stitch together the torn pieces of his memories. Memories that left more questions than they did answers.

  “The altercation between the two of you was the result of your protecting me from your brother’s advances. I believe you meant to take me from the room. You reached for me, but then your brother said something—” She stopped. How she hated reliving that horrid night, even in words. The shadowy evil reached forward from that small room and bled through her like the worst kind of poison.

  “What did he say?”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head. No amount of begging would make her repeat it. Phillip was dead. Buried deep in the ground where he could no longer hurt her. “It matters not. Leave it be.”

  Lord Hawksmoor ignored her plea. His breathing grew labored and he pulled her closer, his hands moving to her upper arms as he searched for the elusive memory. “He said…” he closed his eyes and muscles twitched near his jaw, in his throat as he swallowed. “I can hear him. It’s like a whisper.”

  He released her and pressed his hands against the sides of his head. She should stop him, chase the memory away. It was better left forgotten.

  “You can’t save her, it is all a game.” The words strangled out of Lord Hawksmoor, filling her with cold dread.

  “Lord Hawksmoor.” She said his name in the hopes he would stop, but it was too late. He was lost in the past, the awfulness of that night washing over him like an old nightmare that had come to visit one last time. Madalene placed her hands upon his face, attempting to wrestle him away from its shadowy tentacles.

  He covered her hands with his, holding them there. “He said I wouldn’t always be there to protect you. That you were part of the game and if he did not get to you, Lord T would.” He made a bitter sound. “What game? Who is Lord T?”

  “I don’t know.” Madalene pulled his forehead to hers, wishing she could steal the memory away before he remembered the rest of his brother’s vile proclamation.

  But it was too late. The memory had returned and grown roots and she was helpless to stop it. All she could do was stand with him, and pray the rest of that h
orrid night would fade into oblivion forever.

  “He said—” He choked, as if the vile words she knew were to come had lodged in his throat, resolute in their purpose.

  “Please stop,” she begged. “This serves no good.”

  But he was lost somewhere inside his mind. “He said if I was lucky, maybe there would be something left over for me.”

  Chapter Seven

  Had he remembered correctly?

  But, yes. He must have. Because when he opened his eyes he could see it in the clear, pale blue of hers. The truth reflected there, its damage imprinted into each lovely feature.

  Hawk remembered now. They had been in the larder. The space dark, the only light from a lamp resting on the floor and tilted against the wall at an odd angle. Carcasses of freshly killed game hung from the rafters waiting for Cook to determine they had aged the appropriate amount of time before being served in some delectable dish.

  Strange, the things you notice, the odd thoughts that go through your head when you are faced with such horror. And it had been a horror to see her like that, her hand clutching the bodice of her dress where it had been torn, the predatory expression on his brother’s face as she cowered in the corner, all avenues of escape blocked by Phillip’s ox-like frame.

  Terror stabbed through him. Had Phillip dragged her in there or had she been there already, going about her duties when he found her? Hawk tried to force the memory but it would not come. Nor could he remember what had brought him there. Had she screamed for help? For him? Yes! She had called for him by his given name.

  Thomas!

  Even now, the panic in her voice shook him to his core and he pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her, needing to keep her safe even though the danger had long passed.

  The rest of the memory came in disjointed flashes. Yanking Phillip away from her. A brief scuffle had left his brother lying on the floor near the table. Madalene was right—he had reached for her. He’d meant to take her away, to keep her safe.

  But then Phillip had spoken. Threatened. Promised she would never be safe. That she was some part of a game. That Lord T would get her if his brother failed to.

  Lord T.

  The letter Mr. Bowen had given him! What had he done with it? He could not recall, not now. His mind sped onward, past his questions to the memory of his hands on his brother’s neck. Fury had poured out of him through his fingers as he squeezed, determined no harm would come to Madalene. To save her. And then…then…what? Nothing.

  As the images in his mind faded back into the darkness, he was left with sweat dampening his shirt beneath the coat he wore. His hands shook, as if they still held his brother’s life within them.

  “Lord Hawksmoor?”

  The whisper of his name brushed against his bare throat and anchored him to the present. A present where he held Madalene in his arms, safe and solid and lovely. He shivered, though it had little to do with the cold air and everything to do with the effect having her close wrested upon him.

  How long had they been there, standing like this? Why had she not run from him? He could have taken her from the room that night, to safety. Instead, he had let her go and murdered his brother in a rage fueled by the fear Phillip would make good on his threat. That he would hurt this beautiful girl who had captivated him with her curious mind and sweet nature. The horror that if he did not stop his brother, Phillip would find a way to snuff out the only light and goodness that had come into Hawk’s life.

  “I remember,” he said, taking a deep breath. Her hair smelled of sweet honey and wild roses, a balm to his rattled nerves.

  It had been Madalene who had made his days at Raven Manor bearable. When he had let her go from the library the first night he found her reading, she’d gazed upon him with gratitude. And when he began delivering books to her room, that gratitude turned into something else. He’d become a hero to her. It was the first time in his life anyone had made him feel that way. Useful. Worthy. He recognized her feelings had turned tender and that he should not allow such a thing, but in his selfishness, he could not let it go. He could not let her go. Her friendship had come to mean too much to him.

  And then it had all came to a crashing end in a blaze of violence he could not take back.

  He pulled away, hating how the cold rushed in to fill the space where her body had been. The loss was too much too soon and he grasped her hands before they slid away. She did not pull back and Hawk found himself stunned by the small miracle.

  “What happened? After…” He didn’t want to say the words, not now that he had the full mental image to wed it with. But he couldn’t avoid it. He must know. “After my brother was dead. Then what?”

  “You carried me to my room and told me to stay there. You promised that everything would be fine, that you would ensure I was safe. You locked the door to my room as you left and then I suspect you went to tell Lord and Lady Ravenwood what had transpired, but I cannot say for certain. When you left my room, it was the last time I saw you until Mr. Bowen brought you to Northill.”

  “Then I broke my promise, didn’t I?” He had vowed to keep her safe. What had he done instead? Run off like a coward? Left her alone without his protection? His family had cast her out and covered up what he had done. What Phillip had done. They told the world his brother had died in a hunting accident. Trampled by his horse. The lies sickened him. The truth even more so.

  “You were not responsible for my safety,” she said and he hated how easily she let him off. He did not deserve it. Did not deserve her. Yet he remembered her. When he awoke, with no memory, not even his name, she was the one that instinct pulled him toward. Somewhere, deep in his bones, he had remembered the importance of her. The importance of what he should have done for her yet failed to do.

  It was the memory of her that drew him in, held him fast, and gave him somewhere to go when the road back to his memories became too dark to navigate on his own.

  “How much time passed after my family dismissed you before you found suitable employment?”

  She held silent a moment. A slight breeze rattled the brittle branches in a thin copse of nearby trees that blocked the view of the main house. “Before my father and I came to Northill last year, we found work wherever we could. I worked as a shop assistant for a seamstress, took in sewing and laundry.” Her voice drifted off but she didn’t need to say more. The picture she painted was dismal enough. They had struggled, likely often going hungry. This lovely woman, the granddaughter of a baronet, toiling in poverty for five long years.

  How did she not hate him for that?

  “Why did you not come to me? Surely you would have known where to find me. I would have helped. I would have made things right.” Wouldn’t he have?

  Her hands slid from his grasp. He was losing her. “You had changed. You were no longer the man I had known.”

  Her claim squeezed his heart in a painful grip. “In what way?” When she hesitated, he urged her on. “Please, I need to know.”

  She let out a slow breath. “Once upon a time, you were a man of character and great promise. Even if your parents never saw it, I did. But you changed after that night. Though I did not witness it first hand, I heard the rumors. Your reputation made you rather infamous in London. It seemed you were determined to embrace every horrible thing your parents believed about you, and make it truth.”

  “My parents said horrible things about me?” But of course they had. These people who did not even see fit to inquire upon whether he would survive his injuries. These people who had tossed out the victim of Phillip’s evil and cast Hawk out of their lives as if he meant nothing. Was nothing. It didn’t seem to matter to them that he was now heir to the earldom upon his father’s death. But perhaps that was the crux of it. It wasn’t supposed to be him. It was never supposed to be him. He had stolen Phillip’s life and his place in the world and they were determined to punish him for this.

  “Did they not see the type of man Phillip was?”
<
br />   “They thought the sun rose and set on your brother.” She tempered her words as if to soften the part left unsaid. That they did not feel the same way about him. They hadn’t covered up Phillip’s murder to save Hawk. They had done it to preserve Phillip’s reputation. And their own.

  It filtered back, slowly. Not so much specific events but feelings. Feeling of being left out. Ignored. Barely tolerated. Often despised. What was it about him that had turned his family away from him? Had he known of Phillip’s predilections? That he preyed on women? Surely Miss Cosgrove could not have been the first. How many others had suffered at his hands?

  “She’s part of the game now… She’ll never be safe.”

  But his brother had been wrong. She had been safe. Whoever this Lord T was that had penned him the short letter had not come after her. Had Phillip been wrong about the man’s devotion to whatever game they played? Or had her departure from Raven Manor saved her in the end, making it more difficult for Lord T to find her? And what about now? The letter he’d received made it clear his whereabouts were known. Did the author of the letter also know of Madalene’s whereabouts?

  Had he brought danger to her doorstep once more?

  The question swirled in his head, refusing to be ignored. He didn’t have the answer, but he sure as hell would not rest until he did.

  “I have done you a great disservice.” His words were beyond inadequate.

  “You did no such thing,” she said, stepping closer and taking his hand.

  He stared at her for a long time, far longer than was appropriate, but he could not look away. Everything about her called to something deep inside of him and in that moment he wanted her with a sudden wildness he did not have the strength to tame.

  He lifted his hand and touched her face, then lowered his mouth to hers, hesitantly at first, waiting for her to deny him, to bring them both to their senses. But she did not. God help him, she did not and he fell into her silence with the desperation of a dying man grasping his last chance at salvation. He slid his arm around her small waist and held her tightly, intoxicated by the closeness and the feel of her molded against him. He cursed the cold and the barrier of their clothing and everything that kept them where they were instead of somewhere else, where this could be more than a kiss and become everything it deserved to be.