“We were only in Burma for a short time.” He laughed without humor, running his hands through his hair. “God, I shouldn’t even be telling you this. I could lose my commission.”
“Obviously, you told Jack.”
Richard fell silent. He hadn’t, but Francis had. The two were close mates. Jack, rogue that he was, was also a superb listener to a friend needing to bare his soul. Abby had always been the same, offering an open ear and a sympathetic soul. She knew when to ask questions and when to remain silent. As she was now, knowing there was more to come. It was easy—too easy—to tell her all.
“We, our unit that is, were sent on a ‘fact-finding’ mission—ha, such a political term for what it really was.”
“Spying.”
“Aye, spying,” he acknowledged, sparing her a glance. She turned away without letting their eyes meet. “We were sent into Egypt in search of a band of Ahmed Urabi’s supporters who were trying to resurrect the rebellion there.”
“But I thought the rebellion in Egypt was long dead,” she prompted softly. “I read about it in the papers.”
“It was. Most likely, nothing would have come of it.” He paused, staring with blind eyes off into the distance. His voice was as far away as his thoughts. “But they sent us in to weed them out. Instead of us catching them, they caught us, recognizing us for the spies we were. The fools thought Urabi imprisoned and still in Egypt. They wouldn’t accept that he’d merely been exiled and was living like a king in India.” He fell silent for a long while before shaking his head as if recalling he was in company. “The rebels attempted to persuade us to reveal the prison’s location, the prison they were so sure existed. Of course, we could tell them nothing, there was nothing to tell. Still, they persisted. We attempted many escapes, and after six months as a prisoner, I managed to find freedom with one other of our company.”
When Richard turned to look at her again, he found Abby’s wide eyes locked on him. He could read her concern for him, her worry over the realization that the others had not come home and were, in fact, in grave peril. After a moment, she blinked and looked away once more.
He caught her hand in his. “I left them there, Abby. Jace, Vin, Dewar, Jenkins. I ran like a coward while they were captured again. I don’t even know if they’re still alive.”
“And that’s the worst part. Not knowing.”
God, how could she know him so well when he barely knew himself?
Chapter 17
Perhaps it is our imperfections
That make us so perfect for one another.
~ Jane Austen from Emma
Abby could hear all the guilt in his words. It weighed upon him, giving her, finally, a reason for the haggard look he’d borne since his return. She thought of Vin and Jace. They were such scamps, both of them, and she couldn’t bear thinking them lost and in danger. Squeezing
Richard’s fingers between her own, she assured him softly. “You’re no coward, Richard. I’m sure you know that. Vin and Jace and the others would tell you the same. Someone needed to get away to find help for them, and I’m sure if one of them had managed an escape while you did not, you wouldn’t think any less of them.”
“But they haven’t been found.”
“Someone is looking for them, aren’t they?”
“Only the battalion in Egypt. I’ve been trying to get more help here, but they won’t act. Even Francis cannot get them to act.”
The pain in his words tugged at her heart. Many problems, so much greater than her own. So much more at stake. “But why not?”
“We weren’t supposed to be there. The worst thing we could have done for Britain’s sterling image is get caught somewhere we shouldn’t have been.”
That’s what all his talk was about before, she realized. He was trying to find someone with the authority to expand the search to bring his friends home. Gads, Richard MacKintosh was no coward. A coward would have washed his hands of the entire business. No, he was a fighter and she was certain that he would accomplish his mission, one way or the other.
The silence fell between them, thicker than before. Both lost in their own thoughts as they stared out over the water, the sounds of Sandy’s laughter and Jack’s calls of direction and encouragement muffled as if from a distance.
“You know what this reminds me of?” Richard broke the silence a few minutes later. Abby didn’t answer but rather cast him a questioning sidelong glance from beneath her lashes. “That time you fell out of the old cedar at Glen Cairn,” he said, referring to his family’s estate north of Kirkaldy in Forfarshire where they had spent plenty of summers together. It occurred to her that he was hoping to recall happier times, to dispel the mournful pall that hung over them. “Do you remember?”
Abby nodded, glad for the change of subject, for the happy memory.
And it was one of her happiest. That had been the moment when she’d first developed a tendre for her. From a nuisance of a boy to a charming young man.
“I was watching you the entire time. Did you know that?
She frowned, trying to recall if she had seen him there. The woodlands around Glen Cairn were not thick, but of course, she’d been concentrating on that tree. Her nemesis after a succession of failed attempts at climbing it over the years.
“Were you?”
“Aye,” he affirmed. “Did you never wonder how I got there so quickly? I don’t recall what it was that caught my attention, but I couldn’t stop watching you climb and climb like a monkey, just as I had when I was a lad. Your hair kept catching on tree branches.”
“I tore my dress, as well.”
“But still you kept going and going.”
“Until I came crashing down, of course.”
He nodded slowly, a frown of his own burrowing between his brows. His far hand came up to cover hers where it rested on his arm. Abby wished she weren’t wearing gloves so that she might feel the texture of his hand on hers.
“I couldn’t tear my eyes away as you hit branch after branch on the way down.”
“It slowed my fall, at least.”
Richard laughed hoarsely, and she joined in. He stopped walking and looked down at her. Without turning to face him fully, she cast a sidelong glance. His dark green eyes were tender. His thumb was brushing back and forth across the top of her hand in a way that expressed the caring and worry he had felt for her back then.
His voice, when he spoke, was husky with feeling. “My heart stopped when you fell.”
You’ve stopped mine every moment since then, she thought with a sigh.
If only things were different. But she was glad for these additional moments with him when warmth and affection were all she saw in his eyes. He hadn’t noticed her scar yet, though she’d made an effort to keep her face turned away from him. He would eventually though, then pity would overshadow the caring and tenderness.
“So, there I was,” he went on, unaware of her internal worries, “thinking the worst. I imagined carrying your broken body back to your father, how he’d whip my rear end for not having saved you, then you heaved such a disgusted sigh and said ‘Oh, bloody hell’.”
Abby blinked up at him in surprise. “I did no such thing!”
“I remember it vividly,” his insisted, his eyes dancing with amusement.
She bit her lip to keep from smiling. She had indeed said it, she recalled. She hadn’t even been aware of his presence at that moment but had opened her eyes to find him there looking down at her with worry and surprise before his shock dissipated and he’d burst out laughing.
Of course, she’d begged his pardon for her language, but Richard had shrugged it away as if he knew that such language had merely been the result of so many hours in the lads’ company. She remembered the rest of it like it was yesterday. He’d asked after her injuries.
“I assume you are unhurt then?”
She passively tested each limb and nodded. “Nothing that won’t heal.”
“That tree is nearly impossib
le to climb, you know.”
“I felt inspired.” Brushing the dirt from her scraped knees, she stood with his help. “Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think that inspiration isn’t enough.”
He plucked a red leaf from her tangled hair and twirled it between his fingers as he regarded the large pile of fall leaves on the ground. “I took me many a try to conquer this great beast, but I’m afraid I was never clever enough to cushion my fall with leaves.” He grinned with reluctant admiration. “Not even after a broken leg.”
“A trick I learned after a broken arm.” She smiled in return.
“Would you like me to show you the secret to climbing this tree?” Richard offered impulsively and led the way, after she nodded up at him enthusiastically.
They spent the next hour working their way to the top of the massive cedar together before descending once more. On the ground once again, Abby had looked back up at the tree and thumbed her nose at it before flinging her arms around his waist.
“Oh, Richard! We did it! We bloody well did it!”
He’d swung her around and around before he had set her back on her feet, where Abby had spun dizzily. She’d looked up at him, seen his dazzling smile and handsome features as if for the first time. She’s seen him with new eyes after that day.
He’d kissed her cheek lightly, turning her stomach to crazed butterflies and she’d been lost.
Of course, Richard hadn’t been as lost as she, but she knew that at least she had gone from being simply Jack’s little sister to a friend in her own right. It was an odd thing considering the age difference between them. Of course, he assumed she was much younger than she truly was.
Despite her tomboyish tendencies, she’d loved him from that point on with a feminine heart. She never flirted with him as Moira had with Vin. Never practiced any feminine wiles on him. Fishing and riding kept his interest and allowed her more time with him than any amount of cooing and moony eyes might.
When she stayed with her grandparents for holidays and during the summer after being sent to boarding school, her grandmother would insist Abby behave with decorum. Dress properly, behave properly. Except for those times when Richard came to visit with Jack. Then it was braids and simple lawn dresses. She’d have done anything to be able to spend time with him.
Time that had given her such wonderful memories.
“How old were you?” he asked suddenly.
“Eleven, I think,” she told him, aware of how old he had thought she was. Even now he most likely thought her but fifteen or sixteen years old. “That was the summer before Mama died.”
When he had held her hand and eased her grief. When he had sealed the love within her heart forever.
* * *
Eleven, Richard thought with surprise. Surely not. He’d been close to fifteen or so at the time. Which would make Abby…past her twentieth year already. Two and twenty? Nay, that couldn’t be right. “Eleven? Are you certain? I thought you no more than six or seven. I thought of you as another brother.”
“I know you did,” she said dryly.
He thought about the years since then, the summers he had spent in her company. The rowdy behaviors, the language, all with a lass who would have been a young lady by the time they…
“That last summer I saw you at Rose Lawn, you would have been…”—he swallowed uncomfortably at the thought—“sixteen then?”
“Mm,” was all Abby managed before a tiny giggle escaped her.
Richard could feel the heat creeping into his cheeks, thinking of how he, Jack, and Francis had all stripped down to their small clothes to beat that summer’s scorching weather with a dunking in the estate’s small lake. All that with Abby present. With her, not just a lass of ten or eleven years, but rather a young lady with more delicate sensibilities. “You think it amusing? Jack should have said something.”
“Not at all.” She grinned broadly. “I rather enjoyed the show.”
The tips of his ears burned. Looking back on that day, he realized their wet smalls must have clung to their most private areas. She would’ve surely gotten an eyeful. She had swum as well but in a proper swimming costume. He remembered nothing more than a scrawny, childish body.
Setting his eyes to where her breasts now strained against her bodice, he knew there was no longer any chance of mistaking her for a child.
“Why, Richard!” she exclaimed with laughter clear in her voice. “I do believe you’re blushing!”
Her eyes danced with mischief as they had the previous night. Her smile as broad and teasing as any he’d ever seen. This Abby was the sunshine that had lit his life in so many ways, driving away the clouds. Abby, who had always brought with her warmth enough to fill his soul, enough to sustain him for days afterward. In addition, that sunny demeanor now warmed other parts of him as well.
There was no use denying it, he thought, as heat settled in his groin. He wanted her. He wanted to lose himself in her vitality and verve. She’d lived her entire life with passion, it sent a thrill of anticipation down his spine to imagine that spirit translated into the bedchamber.
Unaware of the turn of his thoughts, Abby laughed once again. The husky chuckle heightened his already growing arousal, leaving Richard with little choice but to ruthlessly tamp it down.
“You must have thought I was a silly little girl to follow you around as I did.”
He looked down at her, so full of life. Logic that told him that this wasn’t the place nor the time for such desire. It was never going to be the right time with a woman like her. He knew that already, but a large part of him could not accept it as truth.
“Silly, no, but little, aye.”
The sun bounced off her pale locks, catching the brilliance of her eyes and the flash of her smile as she shot him that sidelong glance. His chest tightened with corresponding warmth. He’d never known such consuming desire.
Reaching up he brushed his fingers along her cheek before grasping her chin and forcing her face up. Her smile faded as her eyes locked with his.
“Look at ye now, wee Abby. Yer nearly a woman grown.” He didn’t hear her sigh of disgust. “Look at ye. So bonny, so perfect…”
He broke off as she swung away from him.
Chapter 18
May you live every day of your life.
~ Jonathan Swift
Perfect!
Abby spun away, tugging the veil more fully around her, mortified by his words. Sure, they were words she longed to hear, but Richard didn’t know the truth. Her beauty was a fairytale now. She put her hands to her cheeks, silently cursing the fates.
Somewhere in the midst of their reminiscing, she’d forgotten the present and only lived for those moments from the past. Just as the darkness had the night before, that recollection of days gone by had prompted her to forget the problems of today and tease him with relish, as she had done many a time.
He made it easy to forget, but it was all a sham.
She wasn’t that girl any longer. It was easy to pretend, when he was unaware of her true lack of perfection.
But when he finally knew…
Finally saw it. Moments like these would simply disappear. While a part of her longed to take what she could while she could, the other part knew that his rejection, when it came—and surely it would—would be hard enough to bear without the knowledge that this flirtation between them might have been so very different if the past could be altered.
“Abby, my dear.” Concern was plain in his voice. “Whatever is wrong?”
Tell him the truth, her logical mind told her. Just explain it to him.
She’d always been able to talk to Richard about anything. If she told him of the accident, he would react much as Jack had, she was sure. He would comfort her when she spoke of how hard it had been to go into public, to be stared at and whispered about behind her back. Like Jack, he would want to pummel every man who had ever curled his lip in her direction.
In short, he would treat her as a brother.
&
nbsp; That was not something she wanted from him. Of course, she wanted his friendship, she always had. However, there was so much more she wanted. She wanted more and more of the admiring looks he had directed toward her these past couple of days. She wanted that tingle that raced through her all the way down to her toes when he looked at her just so. She wanted to feel his arms around her one more time before the truth was out…and then one more time after that.
Then another and another and another…
Abby took a deep breath, but a shudder of longing raked her anyway. She wanted Richard with all the love of a woman. Just as she always had. His return, the desire in his eyes, the passion of his kiss…it was everything she’d ever dreamed of and more. It broke her heart to know that it might end. That honest attraction, that true passion.
“Abby, what is it?”
Confusion rang in his voice. It wasn’t fair to him to leave him wondering at her dramatic change of mood, but short of whipping off her veil and exposing the truth of the matter, she had no words to explain it to him. She was too much a coward to do it. She didn’t want him to see her.
What a chicken I am, she thought with disgust.
In all honesty, she did him a grave disservice by assuming what his reaction would be. Richard wasn’t a shallow person. He would never recoil. He would never wince. He would never by word or action deliberately hurt her feelings. She knew that in her heart. The problem was her own.
Once he saw the damage the horse’s hooves had done to her, she would forever be watching his eyes, waiting for them to drift to her scars. Waiting for the pity. Waiting for…anything that would confirm what she knew. What hundreds of eyes had shown her over the years.
Pity.
Revulsion.
That was not something she would ever be prepared to see from him.
Ever.
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