Collector of Hearts

by Cassandra Samuels

  ‘You’re crushing my clothes,’ he said to John, and was surprised it came out in a slow drunken slur. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised.

  ‘Sorry, old chap.’ John released his hold on him as two footmen, half dressed, rushed up to help.

  ‘Where is... bastard... Barton?’ Robert was swaying on the spot and trying to tug at his coat sleeve and swatting at the hands of the footmen trying to help him.

  ‘Asleep I suspect, it’s nearly dawn,’ Quinn replied surely more amused by the state of his friend than he should be.

  ‘Noooo. He’s... he’s making... stanzas to my... Bella. Thinks she’s a water nymph or... a mermaid. She’s not. She’s mine.’ His words came out bitter and unsteady. He took a few wavering steps towards the staircase that would take him to his room but then stopped abruptly.

  ‘Shacklesbury...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Tell Barton …’ Robert swayed on the spot and Quinn, John and the butler hovered behind him. He leant against the wall to rest a moment and that was the last he remembered.

  Now, as he arrived at Quinn’s town house at two the next afternoon, he felt as wretched as he could ever remember being.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he stated as he came bursting into the room, his mood as dark as thunderclouds.

  Quinn leaned back in his chair.

  Robert paced about the room for a full minute. He twisted his signet ring on his finger and he wasn’t sure where to place himself. What he was sure of was that the ache in his head pounding out a merciless rhythm was not helping his situation.

  Halting in front of the window, he tugged at his cravat that his valet Berkeley had taken so much pleasure in tying earlier, and tried to order his thoughts. He turned to regard Shacklesbury.

  Quinn sat with fingers steepled and elbows on his desk. He looked entirely too smug. ‘What is it you wish to speak to me about?’

  ‘Barton,’ Robert spat, the word like acid in his mouth.

  Quinn looked disappointed. ‘What about him? He, at least, conducted himself with all the manners that you seem to lack,’ Quinn chastised. ‘You have no claim on Arabella, after all.’

  Robert stared out the window, his mind again, perplexed. Last night he had come close to knocking Barton on his smug arse and blacking his eyes. After Arabella had left him on the dance floor, Barton had cornered him again. Robert had been forced to listen—with clenched teeth—as he again spouted about the wonderfulness of her being and the flutters of his heart. His continuous prattling had grated on Robert’s nerves, so much that he snapped and before he knew it had a fist full of Barton’s cravat. He had acted like the jealous fool he was, like a cuckolded lover, and it disturbed him more than he cared to admit.

  Bella’s words rang through his head. It has to be given freely and completely. Did she know what she was asking of him? You’ve already collected and discarded the one heart you should have kept.

  God help him because the devil had seemingly abandoned him when he needed him most. He could not run away from her. Not this time.

  ‘Just keep Barton away from her!’ Robert snarled like a caged beast.

  ‘I can’t do that, Robert. Justin is not mine to control. He likes her. You of all people know her appeal, and if it’s any consolation, he will at least do right by her. If it comes to that.’

  ‘Do well by her? What the hell does that mean?’ Of course, he knew exactly what Quinn meant, but seeing Bella wed to Barton only made him want to empty his boiling stomach.

  ‘Robert, for God’s sake, man, why won’t you just admit that you love her, marry her and get on with your life?’ Quinn’s tone was as exasperated as his expression.

  It was a brave move for Quinn to put his thoughts so bluntly, for Robert’s fists were already clenched. He stared at his steadfast, sensible friend. Pulling a hand over his face, Robert deposited himself heavily in the nearest chair, pressing two fingers to his forehead in despair.

  Quinn rose from behind his desk, went over to the small table on his right and poured them both a drink.

  Robert looked at the glass that had been pressed into his hand and knew it would do no good. Drinking hadn’t done any good for the whole week he’d been in London. The whole interminable time he had been away from her. ‘You seem to think this a simple act.’

  ‘It is. You just need to be honest with yourself, and be honest with Arabella.’

  ‘I can’t … risk it.’

  Quinn’s face softened. ‘Can’t risk what? Loving her?’

  He wanted to cast up his accounts. ‘Letting her in. Telling her. She will know my weakness, my sin. My worthlessness.’

  Quinn sighed and for some reason, this only made Robert more depressed.

  Quinn put his hand on Robert’s shoulder. ‘Arabella is not Catherine. You can trust her.’

  Robert’s face blanked at the mention of Catherine and Arabella’s name in the same sentence. He closed his eyes and fought for control. Thoughts and images flashed through his throbbing head, his hands gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles turned white.

  Catherine had played him like a harp, pulling and plucking at his heartstrings, stomping all over him and grinding his face into the ground for all his effort. Oh, but she had been so beautiful, everything a healthy young male in the prime of his life could have dreamt of.

  Her features had been so angelic, her complexion flawless, her voice sweet, her eyes a strange and hypnotic violet, a body that epitomised the female form. Everyone was in love with her and yet she had picked him. He had been the luckiest man in the world. Until Faulkner had revealed that he was engaged to her as well and the bubble had burst.

  He turned towards Quinn.

  ‘What if she is? Catherine was all sweetness and light, in the beginning, until she had what she wanted, until she had my confession of undying love. Until she knew I would do anything for her. She controlled me like a puppet on a string.

  ‘For God’s sake, I killed a man over her, Quinn. An innocent man! My... friend. I have to live with that consequence every day and it... haunts me. I can’t let myself be at the mercy of a woman again, not like that. No matter how much I may love her, Quinn, I... I can’t.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you so distraught since that very day that had so changed you.’

  Robert didn’t reply for he was lost in a sea of misery and guilt, of anguish and despair, and of unbelievable pain.

  Quinn sat with him for a long time before daring to speak again. ‘Love is risk. It’s true. I was afraid Isabelle would laugh in my face as it was only a few weeks since we had met, but I had to trust my heart, and hers. Yes, there was a possibility of rejection, of my heart being broken. But, Robert, you already know Arabella loves you. Why else would she have put up with your nonsense for so long? You have to entrust your heart to her and believe in her love for you. It’s the only way.’

  Robert rubbed at his forehead and nodded. Quinn was relieved that he may have finally gotten through to him. ‘So I’ll fetch the carriage and we’ll take the girls to the park and then you and Bella can slip away for a while and—’

  ‘Quinn.’

  ‘Not too long, mind you, but—’

  ‘Quinn.’

  ‘Bella will be so happy—’

  ‘Quinn!’

  He stopped his excited pacing. ‘Not the park? Well, no matter I—’

  ‘Quinn please, stop your infernal chatter, you’re making my head spin.’

  ‘Oh, sorry, forgot about your head.’ Quinn smiled.

  ‘I will not be collecting Bella to go to the park or anywhere,’ Robert explained.

  The smile fell away. ‘Why not? It will not be dark for hours yet.’ Quinn looked out the window at the weather.

  ‘I need time. I... I can’t go to her like this.’ Robert ran his fingers through his hair and rubbed his eyes. ‘I have to have all my wits about me. I have to be sure this is the best decision, for both of us.’

  Quinn agreed. ‘She is mad for lovi
ng you, you know.’

  ‘Yes. That is the only deficiency in her personality, I’m afraid. Even I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Perhaps we are not meant to understand how love works.’

  Robert stood and shook Quinn’s hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll call your carriage around. Go home, sleep, and tomorrow things will be clearer.’

  ‘Do not say anything to Arabella. I mean it, Quinn. Let me be the judge of the when and where.’

  ‘I can’t say I won’t be sorry to see the back of the Collector of Hearts and the return of my friend Robert Mallory. Just do not be late for the wedding.’

  ***

  Robert swung around and brought his arm up, intercepting the other man’s sword then circled him, thrust, riposte, parry and lunge. They had been going at it for nearly an hour and although every muscle in his body was screaming at him, he ignored them and carried on.

  He would beat this confusion that had taken over. Perhaps if he worked his body to exhaustion, he could think. Think how he was going to deal with Catherine and finally put her behind him.

  Robert tried a moulinet, his circular action touching his opponent on the upper arm and causing him to acknowledge the point. The fencing master put up his hand, breathing heavily.

  ‘Your determination is commendable, Lord Shelton. Your skill level has improved with it. Are you to take up swords instead of pistols?’ he asked in a subtle French accent and wiping the sweat from his brow with a snowy-white handkerchief.

  ‘No, but I find it a much more satisfying exercise,’ Robert replied, wiping his own brow.

  ‘A woman will do strange things to a man’s mind if he lets her,’ Monsieur le Marque replied with a smile. ‘Sometimes we try to exhaust our bodies in order to exhaust our brains, but it seldom works.’ He must have seen Robert’s frown because he chuckled.

  ‘I have worked here long enough to know the signs. Your heart and your head are in a corps-a-corps and you know as well as I that the only way out of crossed swords is to step back and reposition. Life is a little like fencing, don’t you think? It is all about strategy, defence and attack, studying your opponent and finding his weakness.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill her, le Marque, I just don’t want to think about her the whole damn day.’ Robert put his sword down next to the fencing master on the small table and accepted the glass of wine that le Marque always offered after a session.

  ‘Do you try to trick yourself?’

  ‘Trick myself?’ Robert asked. He knew le Marque to be an intelligent man. A man who Robert respected for his wise words and excellent tuition.

  ‘You think one thing, but you want another. You are playing one against the other, trying to trick yourself, but I ask you, how can this work? To ignore one in deference for the other is folly.

  ‘I am not a romantic man. I do not enjoy poetry, musicals and the arts. I like my swords, but if I had the chance to choose between my ability to kill a man with them, or teach them not to be killed, I would choose this every time. My head and my heart know this to be right, just as yours knows what is right for you in this case, or in any other.’

  Robert started to shake his head but le Marque only smiled. ‘You show me a man who has lived through more than ten duels without a scratch. Your aim is the most accurate and deadly I have seen for many years. You are a man who chooses not to kill. In this, your head and your heart agree, no? The wounds you inflict are clean and safe and I know that you have made the decision for it to be so, but why? I know the answer and so do you. Stop punishing yourself and others for an injustice that happened so many years ago.’

  Robert looked up at le Marque with a stunned look.

  ‘Yes, I know about the duel in which Lord Faulkner was killed. I was there. Do you wish to repeat your mistake?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I did not think so, but not forgiving yourself for it is just as foolhardy. He was a man, full grown. He knew the risks, as did you. He died an honourable death. You yourself made sure of that. Your actions could not have been more honourable towards him. You asked him to forgive you and what did he say in return?’

  Robert had fallen into a chair. Everything he had said was like a drape being drawn back to let in the sun. ‘He forgave me.’ Robert shook his head. ‘He said it was not our fault that we loved her, for we could not have known what she was. She had abandoned us both.’ Robert’s voice wavered slightly. Silence reigned for several minutes with le Marque sipping his drink quietly and Robert looking down at his hands. Hands that could kill so easily, but hadn’t.

  ‘Let me tell you something, monsieur, when you first came here I told you I had requested to be your tutor.’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘The truth is the others would not take you on, despite your deep pockets. Your reputation preceded you, you see?’

  ‘I see, thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you to get thanks. I tell you because I saw something in you. Something I had seen before. In myself. I see ghosts in your eyes and I know why those shadows are there. Have you told your young lady you want her?’

  ‘Oh, yes, plenty of times.’

  ‘I mean with this.’ He jabbed Robert in the chest. ‘You can want to love her with your body. You can think it with your head but you must mean it with your heart. You understand?’

  Robert nodded.

  ‘You have outgrown the Collector of Hearts. Like an old pair of boots, the title no longer fits; it has worn thin. You must wear a new pair and start again.’

  It was an odd metaphor for his life but he understood what le Marque was saying. Could life with Arabella be like getting new boots? A chance to start over? To walk another path? To be the man he could be?

  ‘True love comes but seldom our way,’ the Frenchman said. ‘Do not disregard the power of a woman in love, or the power she gives to you when she gives her life into your hands, to protect and cherish.’ With that, le Marque rose, sketched a bow and left.

  Protect and cherish. It was time to close the book on that part of his life and start a new one. One with Bella, if she would still have him. They had parted badly and he had acted worse; he had disregarded her feelings, only thinking about how he felt. Could she truly love him despite how he had behaved, despite what he had been in the past?

  Freely and completely?

  ***

  He felt odd, standing there, hat in hands, talking to a headstone. He remembered everything that happened the day of the duel. How angry he had been when James claimed to be Catherine’s fiancé. Impossible. When he was. How he had confronted his friend. How he had challenged him. They had picked seconds out of the crowd. He had picked Quinn.

  Robert ran his fingers through his hair and looked at the engraving on the headstone. James Anthony Preston, Viscount Faulkner IV, died May twenty-fifth, 1798. Had it been that long since he’d killed his friend? What had he done with his time, with his life? He knew very well what he had been doing and suddenly it all felt like such a waste.

  ‘I am so sorry.’ His voice was raspy and low. ‘For both of us. For you because you died. And for me, because I didn’t appreciate the time I have been given. I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself I forgot to be grateful I was still here. I plan to do something about that though, James. I vow I will not waste a minute more.’

  A gentle breeze flowed around him and he closed his eyes, let it embrace him. Was it forgiveness he felt in the air? He hoped so. Robert placed his hat back on his head, bowed to James’s headstone and got back in his carriage.

  Finally, he smiled. He felt energised, eager to get home, eager to get on the road, eager to be with Bella and just, well, eager. He had the urge to leave the carriage and run back to Shelton House. He thought with a laugh of irony that this must be what it was like to be Barton.

  The thought struck him like lightning. Barton and Bella. Good God, he’d left them together in Hastings, with all that wedding rubbish going on around them. Barton, with his boyi
sh good looks, charming facade and gilded tongue was no doubt making her head spin with all his references to water nymphs and comparing her to Greek goddesses and such. Then there was Bella, who disliked him immensely at the moment and who probably thought Barton was the most wonderful human being ever born.

  What a travesty he had created for himself, and of course there was no one to blame but his own stubborn, stupid self for the way things had turned out. If he knew Bella even a little bit, he knew it would take more than him going down on one knee and proposing to bring her around. This would require a plan of some sort and, most probably, the eating of more than one piece of humble pie. Nothing less than the whole horrid story would be enough to purge his soul and hope she could still love him.

  Suddenly the trip to Hastings was not looking quite so rosy.

  Chapter 19

  Arabella sat on the sofa by the parlour fire surrounded by chaos. Servants bustled in and out with gifts, vases of flowers and other decorations for the wedding breakfast. Isabelle and Quinn only had eyes for each other, ignoring the goings-on around them. Justin told amusing stories of his travels, making her mother laugh. But Arabella pretended to read quietly. She didn’t have the heart to participate in the happy excitement that had taken over the occupants of the room or to make their day dreary by her lack of enthusiasm. It was better that she simply stayed out of the way.

  Having not seen Robert since their argument in London, she was all at sea. Desperately she clung to the familiar around her so as not to plunge into an abyss of misery. She had wanted so desperately to be home so she wouldn’t be reminded of everything that had happened to her since going to London. She’d wanted her things around her, her brothers to cuddle, her horse to ride and her cat to stroke, but even with all these comforts it hadn’t helped her aching heart. Although she participated in all the family meals she still felt strangely on the fringes, not quite herself.

  Why had she fallen in love with him? She knew what he was, knew his motives, his views on all things love-related and still she had let herself fall hopelessly in love with him. Worse, she had let hope fill her, convinced that he too was in love with her. And while he’d had always been completely honest with her regarding his intentions, he’d never revealed his true feelings to her.