The Widow Wager

by Jess Michaels

  “Where are we going now?” Kate asked, wary as the carriage returned to receive them.

  “Annabelle’s house,” Gemma said, nodding to the driver until he acknowledged her request. “I have a husband to find.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Gemma could hardly breathe as she entered Annabelle and Marcus’s foyer a half an hour later. Their butler, Green, smiled at her as he took her wrap.

  “Have you come to join Mr. Flynn, Mrs. Flynn?”

  Her heart jumped. “So he is here?” she asked, unable to keep the relief and the fear from her voice.

  Green took a step back, but quickly regained his composure. “Indeed, he is, Mrs. Flynn. He has been working away in Mr. Rivers’ study with Mr. Abbot for hours. But Mr. and Mrs. Rivers just joined them, so their business must be concluded.”

  “Show me,” Gemma managed, her voice trembling.

  She followed the servant down a long and twisting hall until he stopped at a door and knocked. He opened it and she stood just behind him, out of view, as he announced, “Mrs. Flynn is here.”

  She moved around him and stepped into the room. Crispin slowly rose from behind Marcus’s desk, his gaze locked on her as she walked inside. The others in the room also rose and greeted her, but she was too driven by her need to talk to Crispin to be polite.

  “I need to speak to you,” she said to him. Annabelle and Marcus exchanged a glance from the corner of her eye, but she refused to acknowledge that humiliating fact. “Now.”

  Crispin did look at the others. “Would you excuse us for a moment?”

  Abbot nodded. “I need to get back to the club anyway.”

  “Thank you, Abbot,” Crispin said, shooting the man a very genuine expression. “Truly.”

  Annabelle stepped forward as Abbot left the room. “Is everything well?”

  Gemma forced herself to look at her sister-in-law. “I just need a moment with my husband. I am sorry, this is your house and your study, but—”

  “There is no need to apologize,” Marcus said as he stepped forward and took Annabelle’s hand. He began to move her toward the door. “We’ll be in the parlor when you have finished. Join us for tea.”

  As they exited, Gemma thought she heard Annabelle say, “The hell we will be. I’m going to list—”

  But she was cut off by the shutting of the door.

  So they could very well have an audience outside. There was nothing to be done about it. This was the moment Gemma had to face, one way or another.

  “You are pale,” Crispin said, though he stayed behind the desk, as if it offered him protection from her. “Will you sit?”

  “No,” she whispered. “You left this morning without a word.”

  He flinched, as if caught in a lie. “Yes. I had an appointment with Abbot.”

  “You said nothing, you left no indication. I wasn’t even certain you would come home again.” Her voice broke and she turned her face so he wouldn’t see how hurt she was.

  But she obviously didn’t hide it well, for he came around the desk in three long strides. “Of course I was coming home. I wouldn’t just disappear, Gemma. You must know that by now.”

  “I don’t know. After all, so much has changed in less than twenty-four hours.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Everything has changed,” she argued, her voice elevating a little even as she desperately tried to rein in the emotions that had begun to bubble over the weeks they were married, had boiled at the ball and were now threatening to overflow. “There has been a wall between us from the beginning, but for the first time I know why. Now I know there was an Alice. And that you blame yourself for her death. And that you feel any tenderness between us is proof of a betrayal.”

  “But we never wanted love, Gemma, either of us. Why does it make a difference?”

  “It does,” she said, unready to tell him the truth that was in her heart. Not until he could separate himself from the past and hear her without Alice’s voice, her lies, in his head. She cleared her throat. “I also went out today.”

  He shifted at her change of subject. “You did?” he asked with an uncertain tone. “Where did you go?”

  “I visited a man,” she admitted, her hands beginning to shake.

  “A man?” he repeated, his expression growing guarded. “I don’t understand. Your father?”

  “No.” She focused on remaining calm as she said, “I called on Lord Woodley.”

  His face drained of all color and when he staggered back he hit the desk with his legs and sent the items on it tumbling. He didn’t seem to care, didn’t even notice the ink that splashed across the wood behind him.

  “Lord Woodley,” he repeated, his voice raw with pain. “You did not.”

  “I did. He received me. And then he told me his side of the story of Alice and you and her death.”

  He moved on her, his expression wild. She expected him to grab her, but he never touched her. He just stood in front of her, face twisted in betrayal and anger. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I think that you are caught up in a fairytale, Crispin. You were designed to believe yourself her savior and to blame yourself for her death. But I knew that couldn’t be true. That there was more. And there was, Crispin. So much more.”

  “What more?” he barked as he all but shoved past her and walked to the other side of the room. As if he couldn’t get far enough away. “You want to believe she was a liar, but you didn’t know her.”

  “But he did,” she insisted. “More than you, even. Woodley told me that her pursuit of you was as a revenge on him. He knew about it, she bragged about it, Crispin. It was leverage for her to control him. And she threw herself down the stairs for the same reason.”

  “How could you know that? How could anyone know her heart?”

  She dug into her reticule and pulled out the items Woodley had shared with her. “I read several entries of her diary on the way here and I examined her note to Woodley on the night she died.” She winced, her stomach turning as she remembered the woman’s poisonous, hateful words. “She is not what she seemed, what she made you believe she was.”

  He stared at the objects in her hands and slowly reached out to take them. He said nothing.

  “Crispin,” she whispered, meeting his stare, hating the pain and the anger she saw there. “I care for you. I more than care for you. But your beliefs about this woman and the situation you shared with her are what drove you to the edge. And they are what keeps you there now, balancing between an attempt to better yourself and a desire to remain in a pit of despair that is endless and destructive. Read what she wrote. Hear the truth of it as it rings in your head. Please. Please don’t throw yourself away, throw whatever life we could share away, for nothing.”

  He stayed motionless, still empty in every way but his flashing, emotion-filled eyes. Then he turned away and crossed the room. At the door, he stopped.

  “I can’t believe you would do this behind my back.” His tone was filled with betrayal.

  She winced. “I did it because—because I love you.”

  He didn’t recoil from the declaration. But he did turn away, open the door and leave.

  The moment he was gone, Gemma’s legs went out. She collapsed onto her knees, shaking, unable to cry, unable to move. She just stared at where he had been. Where he had left.

  Annabelle rushed in, and she stopped at the sight of Gemma’s form on the floor. Gemma looked up at her and at the kindness in her sister-in-law’s face, her tears began to flow.

  Annabelle didn’t hesitate, she didn’t speak. She just sank down on the floor next to her and held her as she wept.

  “What did you hear?” Gemma asked between sobs.

  “Enough,” Annabelle whispered. “Marcus went after him, but he will not be able to stop him. When Crispin runs, he runs.”

  Gemma’s heart hurt. Like someone was inside her chest, squee
zing with all their might, trying to steal all her blood and her love and her life.

  She looked up at Annabelle. “Did I do the right thing?”

  Annabelle cupped her cheeks. “You tried to set him free,” she said. “And if he can manage to see that, if he can truly believe it, that is the best chance you have at doing what we’ve all been trying to do for months.”

  “What’s that?” Gemma asked, beginning to regain the composure that had been destroyed by the confusing hours that had passed since the ball.

  Annabelle looked toward the door, looked toward where Crispin had gone. “Save him.”

  It was dark by the time Crispin turned his horse up the drive to Rafe’s home, but he had no idea of hour. He also couldn’t have reasonably told someone how he came to be here. All he knew was that he’d looked up and there was his brother’s house, bright and filled with light, waiting for him like a beacon.

  And here he was, swinging off his horse, hoping he would find Rafe home. Hoping he would be the only one there since he didn’t want anyone else to see him as he was.

  He’d sat in the park to read Alice’s letter. He’d sworn he wouldn’t read the diary, wouldn’t invade her personal thoughts. But the poison she had spilled in her letter to her husband forced him to do the thing he had promised not to do.

  And now he knew the truth. And everything in his life had been blown apart like he was a battlefield causality.

  The door opened before he could knock and he was shocked to find it was Rafe himself who greeted him.

  “What are you doing?” Crispin asked.

  Rafe’s smile was very small. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He stepped aside and motioned for the foyer. “Come in.”

  Crispin staggered through the door and Rafe caught his arm, supporting him even as he shut the door. “Are you drunk?”

  “No,” Crispin said, his voice cracking.

  Rafe steadied him, then released him to lead him to the study where he grabbed a bottle of whisky and handed it over silently before the brother’s took the chairs beside the roaring fire.

  “I thought you believe I drink too much,” Crispin said, eyeing the bottle with both desire and disdain.

  “You do. But I think you’ve earned it.”

  Crispin swallowed hard, struggling with the urge to drink coupled with the urge to be set free from his past. Slowly, he set the bottle down. His brother knew something. Which meant Gemma must have been here. Was she still?

  “Where is Serafina?” he asked. “The baby?”

  Rafe took a long breath. “They went to your home with Annabelle and Mama. To comfort Gemma.” Rafe arched a brow, as if daring him to respond.

  Crispin draped his arms over his legs and put his head in his hands. Thoughts of Gemma had been confusing to him since he left her that afternoon. Since she told him she loved him.

  Hadn’t she? Or was that a falsehood his mind told him? Kind of like the ones he had believed about Alice.

  “Is Gemma well?” he finally asked, looking up from his hands at his brother.

  Rafe leaned back in his chair. “She is upset. Very upset. She wanted to go look for you, but we managed to convince her to stay where she was. And I came back here because I hoped that you would come to me, as you once did, to discuss your pains.”

  Crispin nodded. “I found myself here. I don’t know how. But it sounds as if you already know my pains.”

  “I know a little,” Rafe said. “But why don’t you tell me the whole story?”

  Crispin’s breath eased out of him in a shuddering burst and he struggled to find words.

  “Just start at the beginning,” Rafe said, his tone kind.

  Crispin struggled, but somehow he found the words. He spoke for nearly forty-five minutes, spilling his heart about every secret he’d kept from Rafe. About meeting Alice, believing he loved her and she him, her marriage, her death and the violent, destructive thoughts that had plagued him in the months since. When he finally stopped speaking, his brother leaned forward and took the bottle Crispin had left untouched. Rafe uncorked the bottle before he took a long drink.

  “It is quite a story,” Rafe said. “Worse than what Gemma told. She obviously tried to protect you…and us.”

  He thought of Gemma’s giving spirit. Her need to save everyone else around her. “That would be like her.”

  Rafe smiled, but it wavered almost immediately. “Why didn’t you talk to me before this, Cris?”

  Crispin got to his feet and paced to the fire. He stared into the flames as he tried to find the answer. “At first, I couldn’t believe I was being seduced by the charms of a lady, of all things. Once I discovered she was engaged, I think I didn’t tell you to protect her reputation. By the time she had married, you were knee-deep in your inheritance of your dukedom, in your own situation with Serafina. I didn’t want to lay it at your feet.”

  “And?” Rafe asked softly.

  Crispin turned, smiling even though his heart hurt. His brother knew him too well. “And a part of me hated you, even as I tried to help you win Serafina, for having what I believed had been stolen from me. Once Alice was dead…well, I was no use to anyone. I wanted to punish myself.”

  “You certainly did that,” Rafe said with a shake of his head. “Almost to your own death.”

  “And yet it now turns out that everything I built my love and guilt around was nothing more than a lie.” Crispin faced the fire again and the anger in his chest burned even hotter than the logs before him. “And perhaps part of me knew that. Maybe I reacted so strongly to Gemma pointing out the unfairness of Alice’s behavior because I already knew she was untrue. But to admit that meant admitting I was…wrong. So wrong.”

  His brother was silent for a few moments, allowing Crispin his reflection on the past. Then he cleared his throat. “Do you love Gemma?”

  Crispin stiffened. That was the question he had been trying not to answer for weeks. To have it asked now, in this moment, was like a kick to the gut. He faced Rafe with a frown.

  “We’re talking about Alice,” he said.

  “No. We were talking about your past. Now let’s talk about your future. Do you love her?”

  Crispin stared at Rafe. Despite their difficult beginning, he knew Rafe adored Serafina with a dedication and passion he never would have thought his brother capable of. And she felt as strongly about him. Their love was obvious. But his…he didn’t know what it was. Especially now when he feared he couldn’t trust himself to know his own heart.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  Rafe stood. “When you want her happiness more than your own. When you would die to give it to her. And before you died, you would only want to see her face. But you also want to live for her. To create a future. A life. A family. A home. To see her through her darkest times and celebrate her best. And she’s the only one who you want by your side at your own darkest and best times. That is love, Crispin.”

  He shut his eyes. Rafe was describing exactly how he felt about Gemma. In so short a time, she had so fully inserted herself in everything that mattered to him and he wanted her there. Forever.

  “I love her,” he managed to choke out, the words seeming thick and heavy on his lips.

  “Of course you do,” Rafe said with a laugh. “But if you don’t say it and show it soon, you will lose her. And I think you have lost more than enough already.” His brother moved on him. “Go home. To your wife.”

  Crispin nodded as he reached out to clap Rafe’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Gemma sat on the bed she had shared with Crispin for such a short time, yet it felt like home being here in the space. Still, she was watching the dismantling of this home as she watched Kate slowly pack her things. The maid would look up at her from time to time, questions in her eyes.

  But they weren’t questions Gemma could answer. Not to her servant. Not to herself.

  The door behin
d them opened and Gemma slid from the bed to her shaking feet as Crispin stepped inside. He looked disheveled, tired, raw in a way she’d never seen before. He stared at her for a long, charged moment, before his attention was caught by her trunks and Kate’s presence in the room.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  She took a step toward him and immediately regretted it. It was silly, but she felt like she could feel his body heat, even from so far away.

  “I-I—” she began, trying to find the words.

  He turned to her maid. “Kate, please leave.” Kate looked at Gemma, but he raised a hand and pointed to the door. “Don’t look at her, just step out. Go downstairs and eat something. Please.”

  Kate ducked her head and all but ran from the room, leaving Gemma alone with her fate. Crispin looked at her another moment before he stepped back and closed and locked the door in one smooth motion. He dropped the key in his pocket and turned toward her once more.

  “Where is everyone else?” he asked, changing the subject. “My sister and mother and Serafina?”

  She shook her head. He must have gone to Rafe’s home, for he was the only one who knew the entire family had come to sit and wait with her, offering their comforting platitudes about love. Except Crispin didn’t love her. And the more she thought of it, the more oppressive their company had become.

  “I managed to convince them that I could be left on my own,” she whispered. “And finally got Mary to believe I didn’t need her to stay with me.”

  “And then you came up to our bedroom. And what are you doing?” He repeated his first question, and there was a strain to his voice that she had never heard before.

  She turned away. There was no hiding now, but at least she wouldn’t have to look at him when she said the next thing. “I-I went too far.” Her voice broke and she swiped at the tear that tried to wend its way down her already tear-streaked cheeks. “I went too far. I pushed you and—”