His head dropped forward as he fought the vicious lump expanding in his throat.
“Look at me, Gareth.” The quiver in Nicolina’s voice told him she was fighting tears.
The floorboards creaked as she took another step backward.
His eyes closed and he tried to inhale, the air going nowhere. He couldn’t turn. Couldn’t look at her face. Couldn’t acknowledge the end.
“Of all the moments to face me, Gareth. This. This is the one time you need to.”
His grip on the doorknob tightened, his knuckles turning white.
“It isn’t me who can’t look at you, Gareth.” Her voice had gone soft, a mere whisper. “It is you—you who can’t face me on this.”
The lump in his throat finally broke and air made it into his lungs. It still took him moments to form words, his voice like gravel as he spoke to the door. “I failed you, Nic. I failed him. Why is that hard to understand? I failed and I could not put myself in front of you. I could not bear to see your face. To see my failure in your eyes.”
His eyes squinted shut, his grasp on the doorknob the only thing grounding him to the room.
She exhaled, long and low. “You cannot move on.” The words slipped into the room, laced with consternation.
He had no reply.
“Gareth, I can live in that moment when the missive from the crown arrived. That moment I cracked that seal. That moment I learned Pippin was dead.” Her words started low, stuttered. “I existed in that moment for a long time. But I did so not because Pippin died, but because that was the moment when you truly abandoned me. The funds you sent—yes—the money still arrived during those months, so I knew you were alive. But the letters. Your letters. They stopped, Gareth. They stopped the moment Pippin died. I just needed something—anything from you. Pippin died, under your watch, and you could not even write me of the news. Do you know how that destroyed me more than anything?”
“I could not face you, Nic. I could not write you. Not with my failure. Not with what I cost you. Not with how you would look at me.”
“So face me now.”
“Nic…”
“You need to turn to me, Gareth. Face me. Come what may.”
Her words—not brittle, not a command, just a soft request—sliced into his gut. If he was ever going to do anything right by his wife, this was it. This was the moment.
His fingers unclenched from the doorknob and he turned, his eyes opening, lifting to her face.
Come what may.
She stared at him, the green of her eyes glossy with welled tears that didn’t fall. Pain. Regret. Frustration.
And then he saw it. One more thing in her eyes he barely recognized, but never should have forgotten.
Love.
“It was unfair of me, Gareth.” Her hand flattened against her stomach, holding herself steady. “I never should have put that responsibility upon your shoulders. Pippin was the one determined to join the army. He was the one determined to fight for the crown. And I made you go. Made you watch over him, because I knew he would need it. I knew you could handle it. You were always a warrior, Gareth. Pippin wasn’t. But that was his choice. And it was my demand of you to keep him safe.”
Her head dipped down for a moment as she took a deep breath. Her eyes lifted to him. “But it was never your heart. You never wanted to fight a war. And I made you. I made you because I had no other choice.”
“Nic—”
Her hand flew up to stop him. “I am sorry, Gareth. So brutally and wholly sorry I put that upon you. You never deserved it. But you let me put that upon your shoulders regardless.”
He took a step toward her, his hands itching to grab her, drag her to him.
But he held back. Held space between them as his head shook. “No, Nic. I take that responsibility. Pippin was my family. My brother just as much as yours. When my mother sent me to Felix after she died, I had nothing left in this world. And then suddenly I had all of you—your family became my family.” His look centered on her. “Pippin was going regardless of how every one of us tried to convince him not to. So that meant I was going regardless. There was no other choice.”
Her lips drew inward, two drops of her unshed tears spilling over her lower lashes. “It wasn’t your fault, Gareth. It never was.”
The air left him, nearly sending him to his knees.
Those words. Those words from her lips.
His entire existence shook, shattering.
She didn’t blame him.
He moved toward her, not fully believing it—not believing it until he could touch her. Feel it within her.
“No, wait.” She jumped a step backward, her hands flying up between them. “I still need to know. Pippin, I understand—how you took his death upon yourself and what that must have done to you.” She stopped, her head shaking as her eyes went to the upper corner of the room.
“But me, Gareth. Me, I don’t understand.” Her look dropped to him, piercing him. “When you came back—did you never think of me? How could you come back to English soil and never…never…” Her voice dropped off, her gaze slipping to the floor by his feet.
This was it. This was where he had truly failed her.
And he had no excuse for it.
He braced himself. He was so close to touching her. To holding her. To having her back. To truly having his wife back. To seeing the love and only love in her eyes.
And it could all slip away in this moment.
He inhaled, gathering his breath. He was done with avoidance. Done with weakness. Done with cowardice. He had to move forth, regardless of the consequences.
This, he owed her.
“I don’t know what to say, Nic.” His fingers ran through his hair. “I dream about you every night. I dream about you walking away from me. My hand outstretched to you. And you walking away. Not looking back. And I am screaming at you to not leave me. Don’t leave me. And you keep walking. Walking away, ripping my heart from my chest. Every single night since Pippin died I have had that dream. And it always ends the same. You are gone.” His head shook slightly, his words soft, the intensity of them vibrating throughout the room. “That is why I could never bring myself to face you, Nic—I could never bear to let my dreams become reality.”
A frown, near to horror, etched into her face. “How could you possibly think that of me—have so little faith?”
He exhaled, his eyes closing for a long second before he forced himself to look at her. “I never thought I would fail Pippin—but his death destroyed everything I thought I knew, every belief I had. The belief in us. I couldn’t trust myself…much less you.”
Her lips parted in a slight gasp.
For the longest heartbeats, she stared at him. Searching his eyes, his mind, his very soul.
And then she ran.
Ran straight at him, tackling him, her arms wrapping about his body.
The force of her sent him flying backward, slipping, and his back slammed into the wall behind him. Grabbing her, he managed to keep them upright. Upright and steady.
“I am not gone, Gareth.” She craned her neck so she could see his face, capturing his gaze. “I am here and I want my husband back. I want us in the same bed. I want us going to sleep together and waking up together. I want you to laugh with me again. I want you to hold me. I want your hands running along my body. I want you in every way possible.”
She untangled her arms from his body and set her hand along his jaw. “I want you back to love.”
For the second time that night, the air left him and he nearly let the two of them topple to the ground.
After everything—after Pippin’s death, after the lives he took in the war—somehow, somewhere he had been granted a reprieve. A reprieve that had given him his wife back. Had given him the one thing in the world he needed. Her love.
His hands trembling, he captured her face between his palms and he kissed her. Hard, full of possession and fire and devotion, yet gentle in gratefulness.
&nbs
p; Her lips molded under his. Undeniably, she was his once more.
She pulled away, her eyes wide as her eyebrows arched. “What is that?”
The erratic pounding that he hadn’t heard through the blood pulsating in his brain filled his ears.
Blast it.
Her head turned as she looked at the side wall of the room. “Gareth, who is pounding on that wall?”
He sighed, loosening his hold on her face. The very last thing he wanted to do was let his hands leave her body. He glanced at the wall, watching it shake with each brutal hit. “That, unfortunately, is my ticket to the rest of our lives.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “What?”
“My replacement here on the guard. He’s locked in there.”
“Locked in there? In that room? Whatever for?”
“He is a raging drunk that is sobering up. Or rather, he probably is sober and is desperate to change that fact. It does not sound as though sobriety is going well. Don’t mind him.”
She gasped, jumping back from him and her hand went to her throat. “Norton. I cannot believe I forgot.” Her fingers went to his forearm. “I need you to help me save him, Gareth. He’s the last brother I have.”
The pounding on the wall grew frantic and Gareth glanced at it, his lower jaw shifting to the side. He looked at his wife. “Can he even be saved, Nic?”
“Yes.”
His eyebrows cocked.
“At least for now.”
Gareth exhaled a long sigh as his look went to the vibrating wall. “I will help.”
“Thank you. We need to go now.” She smiled. A genuine, grateful smile that he wanted to capture and hold until the end of his days.
A scream bellowed from the next room.
Gareth shook his head. “But I cannot leave in this moment—I have to take care of this man, Nic. An hour—give me an hour and I will go and get Norton out of whatever mess he is in. Where is he?”
“At the Joker’s Roost. And I am coming with you.”
“No. You are not going into St. Giles at this time of night.”
“I lived in St. Giles for months, Gareth.”
His head snapped back. “Blast it, Nic—you did?”
“Yes, but that is done and past. I am coming with you to get Norton. He is expecting me—not you.”
“No.”
“Fine. I won’t come into the alehouse. But I am coming in the hack. I will wait inside with the curtains drawn.”
The screams grew louder in the next room. Damn Greyson. They would be able to hear him below at any moment. Logan and Lady Vandestile would not be pleased.
Gareth growled. “Fine. But only because there is no more time to argue.” He caught her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “And I put the utmost importance on this—you are staying in the hackney coach, Nic. Nowhere else.”
She nodded, her cheeks rubbing against the palms of his hands.
His hands aching to remain on her, to start stripping her clothes off, to dip into all the crevices that made her writhe against him, he instead forced his hands to drop to his sides and he turned to the door. “You can slip down the way we came up. I will pick you up in Lord Samport’s mews in an hour.”
She nodded, and Gareth slipped out the door, his annoyance at a peak.
This drunk had better be worth the hassle he was causing.
{ Chapter 12 }
Nicolina tightened her black cloak around her chest. She wasn’t cold in the brisk evening air, but she did feel the distinct need to cover her body as completely as possible before she stepped through the door in front of her.
She took a deep breath and the stench of rot and refuse so prevalent in the area sank into her lungs. Instead of fortifying her, the breath weighed her down, her stomach turning over. For a second she considered turning back to the hack she had waiting for her. Go back to Lord Samport’s townhouse. Wait for Gareth.
But she had already waited two hours, and Gareth hadn’t shown.
Two hours Norton didn’t have, and she knew it.
Norton needed her—her specifically he had said—to come to the Joker’s Roost.
She stared at the haphazard door cocked crooked in the frame, blood red paint peeling in long strips from the wood. She couldn’t afford to wait any longer. If Norton lost any more coin, he would be indebted to Bournestein forever—if he wasn’t already.
One hand clutching the wool fabric on the front of her cloak together, she reached out with her other and pushed open the door of the alehouse. A quick glance around the main space of the drinking room—a worn, squalid mess of a place—told her that her brother was not in sight, and that she was not the only woman in the place. A small favor.
She was, however, the most fully dressed woman within a quarter mile.
A robust waitress with her bosom spilling out the top cut of her apron walked past Nicolina carrying a tray of mugs.
Nicolina jumped to her. “Pardon, can you tell me if Norton Billington is here?”
The woman paused, looking Nicolina up and down—exasperated but not unkind. “Norton?” She shook her head, then her eyes sparked. “Oh, ye mean Skinnies? He be in back with Master Bournestein.”
Nicolina looked over the woman’s shoulder, searching the wide dark room. She spotted a doorway with a black curtain hung across it and pointed. “Through there?”
The woman nodded and then moved to the table nearest her, clanking the mugs from her tray onto the round table.
Nicolina started to quickly weave through the rough tables to the back of the room, wishing she had pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head for all the stares that were currently trained on her.
Head down. Eye contact with no one. That was how one survived St. Giles. Become nothing. A shadow.
Tugging the curtain to the side, she slipped through the doorway and immediately bumped into the back of a very large man.
He turned, his large paws of hands landing on her shoulders before she could even take a step back to look up at him.
“Ox. Stop. That’s my sister.” Nicolina could hear her brother’s slurred words, but couldn’t see him past the wide trunk of the man pressing her into the floor.
“Ox.”
The brute shifted his hands, grabbing her upper arms and lifting her, then turning and setting her down in front of him.
His hands left her body and Nicolina was acutely aware that the beast was now between her and the doorway. She attempted to ignore the chill running down her spine.
Her eyes quickly scanned the space. Twelve men in all. Six men—brutes, all of them—standing along the walls, one holding her captive. Six men sat at the round table centering the room. Four she didn’t recognize. Her brother. And Bournestein—him she recognized from when Norton and she had lived in the area. The man spent his days strolling down the street—his overcoat always in an outlandish purple and orange and glittering above the dirty squalor around him—offering a friendly smile to everyone. As friendly as a snake mesmerizing its victim before striking.
Yes, she remembered Bournestein well.
She pinned her brother with her gaze. “Norton, I have an emergency. We need to leave. I need you.”
Norton’s look skittered from her to Bournestein, a nervous chuckle escaping his lips. “I can’t—not now, Nic. I almost have it. You came just in time.”
“Have what?”
He collapsed the cards he had in his hand into a neat pile curled under his palm. He threw his free hand up at Bournestein to pause the action at the table.
Bournestein nodded at him.
Norton scampered from the table, rushing to Nicolina. The thick smell of whiskey came with him, permeating the air around her. “The foundry—I almost have it back. Please, Nic.”
The foundry? That was what he was working on?
Her brother had asked her to show up and claim she needed him in order to get him free of the place. That was what he had said. What he had planned.
He had said no
thing of the foundry.
She glanced at the pot on the table. Paper, coins, and notes were piled high. She looked back at Norton, grabbing his arm and stepping close to him as her voice dropped to a stern whisper. “Whatever you think you have here, Norton, you don’t. You will not win. I guarantee it. You need to walk away with me now. We will figure out a way to cover whatever you have lost, but you need to come with me now. I need you.”
“No, Nic. Don’t you see? We can have it all back.” His hazel eyes were wide, his hand jerking away from her grip and swinging around him.
She leaned into him, trying not to breathe in the air of whiskey that burned her eyes, making her gag. “What will this cost you, Norton? Everything?”
For a moment he paused, stilling, and his eyes went sad. But in the next moment he blinked and looked away from her to Bournestein. “Acceptable?”
Bournestein bit down on the end of his cigar, chomping it as he stared at Norton, and then Nicolina for an elongated moment. Too long. He grabbed the cigar from his teeth. “It will do.”
Norton jumped, a crazed smile on his face as he ran back to the table and took his seat, tapping his cards on the table.
Nicolina rushed after him. “Norton, what do you mean, will what do?”
She only made it two steps before the paw hand landed on her shoulder from behind, stopping her so fast she lost her balance. The thug’s meaty fingers gripped into her shoulder and started dragging her backward.
“What? Let me go, you boor.” She twisted, clawing at the back of the brute’s hairy hand. “Norton—”
“Not now, Nic.”
“Norton.” This time she screamed his name.
Her brother looked up at her. “Don’t worry, Nic. I won’t lose this.”
Her eyes went wide. “Lose what? What are you not going to lose?”
His eyes twitched at her and he turned back to the table.
She yanked her body forward, trying to break the clamp on her shoulder. The brute’s grip only went tighter, reaching her clavicle, pressing the bones near to snapping. “What are you not telling me, Norton? Norton? Norton?”
The brute grabbed her free upper arm and yanked her backward, pulling her to a corner. A rabbit in a trap, she wrenched herself sideways, kicking, scampering, trying to free herself from his hold.
To Capture a Rogue_Logan’s Legends Page 7