by Darcy Burke
Percy mulled this over as they crossed a stream, the cold water splashing into the air. “So, loving Anna got you where you are now?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Do you still love her?”
Henry sighed. “It’s a very complicated answer, one that I don’t fully understand myself.”
Percy nodded again. “It probably wouldn’t do well to tell me of your feelings before you’ve told her.”
“Probably not.”
Stratford Castle was before them, the cream stone sparkling gold in the morning sunlight. They followed the other riders into the courtyard and dismounted, handing off the reins to the flurry of stable hands.
Percy stood beside him as their horses were led away. “I thank you, Carrington, for your candor.”
Henry nodded. He’d enjoyed his talk with Percy, despite its intrusive nature. “You are welcome to ask me anything you’d like. And please, my given name is Henry. Carrington still makes me look for my father.”
Percy grinned. “Me as well, every time someone addresses me as Rycroft. I should like to be Percy with you.”
Henry smiled at him. “Then Percy you shall be.”
Chapter Ten
Anna was grateful to find the time to sneak away to a distant corner of Stratford Castle with Henry, even if it was to search through dusty cabinets and crates.
As it was, she had to escape under the premise of needing to rest before dinner. It was the day before the Twelfth Night Ball, the second to last day of the house party. Two more days and nights was all she had remaining with Henry.
After breakfast, she had walked into Bumpstead Hollow with Millie and Mr. Pennex. After a morning shopping along the High Street, a nap might have done her some good. Her evenings spent with Henry stretched late into the morning hours. She would sneak away from his bed in the middle of the night, or he from hers, but either way, she wasn’t sleeping near enough. Not that she could complain. Needs she only ever dispensed with on her own were being well met.
She found the room Henry had described to her without difficulty. It was on the first floor, tucked between a music room and a sitting room. Convenient to store things, perhaps, but not convenient if they did not want to be caught.
Arms snaked around her waist from behind and she jumped.
Henry laughed. “Lost in thought, love?” He bent and pressed his lips to her neck.
Anna laughed and wiggled out of his grasp. “Don’t think because we’ve enjoyed each other’s company each night that is all we will ever do.”
His eyes shone with amusement. “I don’t think that. I just missed this. I missed you. After so much time apart, I want to soak up as much time together before...” His voice trailed off, but he didn’t look away.
“Before you leave?”
“Something like that.”
She rolled her eyes and moved further into the room. “Your time can be spent right now by searching through these trunks.” She surveyed the trunks and crates stacked like stalagmites across the room. She supposed it could have been a sitting room should it ever be emptied.
“This room isn’t hidden all that well,” she commented as she worked the stiff buckle on the trunk. “Someone could wander in at any time.”
“We are safe from discovery. I locked the door behind me.”
That shouldn’t have excited her, but it did.
“I’m surprised Lady Stratford has any more of these hiding places. There cannot be much more to search.”
“There isn’t.” He’d moved to a crate stacked with books.
She watched him for a moment, marveling that he was here with her. The past days had been something out of a fairytale, though that only meant her fairytale standards had been lowered significantly. It wasn’t the searching for letters or the kissing, though the second was enjoyable to be sure. It was just being in his presence again, watching the way his mind worked over a problem, hearing about his canals or the things he’d constructed during the war. She almost hoped they wouldn’t find the letters and he would have reason to delay.
A thought occurred to her and she narrowed her gaze. “You didn’t find the box of letters already, did you?”
He looked up and frowned. “If I had I wouldn’t still be looking for them.”
“You didn’t find them without me and you’ve not admitted to it in an attempt to spend more time with me?”
He chuckled. “The time with you has been a perk of the endeavor, but no. If I’d found them, I’d have been too excited to hide it. I would want to share them with you.”
“You don’t even know what they are.”
He shrugged. “I want to share everything with you.”
“Since we speak of letters, why did you never write me?”
He looked up at her again. “I did write you.”
She hadn’t expected that answer. “I never received them.”
He looked back at the crate, pushing things aside till he reached the bottom. “I wrote you every day for a year, until I learned of your marriage to Rycroft.”
She sighed and looked back at the trunk. Rycroft most likely intercepted his correspondence, which made sense. She’d married the viscount less than a month after Henry had left her.
They set to work in a pleasant silence, except for Henry’s humming, which Anna found soothing. It was reassuring to hear he’d written to her. She’d not written to him, resigned to her fate after he’d left with her father’s money. It had seemed pointless to hold a candle for someone who clearly didn’t feel the same way. But if he’d truly written her, he had cared. That was something she’d not considered. Would she have embraced Millie and Percy as strongly had she thought Henry would come back for her? Would he have accomplished what he had if he’d known she was still in love with him?
She realized Henry had gone silent. She found him halfway across the room, hunched over something. Her heart sank as she moved closer and could see what he held.
“Is that what I think it is?” It was a familiar-looking leather portfolio stamped with her father’s family crest. She’d last seen it a decade earlier when her father thrust it into Henry’s hands.
He didn’t meet her gaze but he nodded. “It’s empty.”
She’d thought as much. “I wonder why it’s here?”
Henry rolled it back up and returned it to the crate. “No doubt my father wanted to erase all proof of my existence and removed everything I’d ever touched from Carrington Manor.”
His tone was hard, but there was a sardonic lilt that made her pause. “Surely your father didn’t hate you as much as you think he did?”
He lifted the crate and moved it aside. “Likely more.”
Anna crossed her arms. “If he hated you as you think he did, he would have burned everything. Instead, he sent it here.”
Henry laughed darkly, sweeping his arms wide across the room. “Yes, to be cherished amongst all the other oddities my aunt and uncle have collected.”
She doubted he realized the truth in his statement, but she didn’t comment. The appearance of the portfolio was curious, but it also brought up the one thing they’d avoided discussing.
He glanced at her and watched her for a long moment. “I see the question lurking behind your eyes. Ask it, Anna, so you may have your answer after all these years.”
“You took my father’s money and left me.” Anna regretted the words the moment she said them, despite the truthfulness of her statement.
“Yes, I did.”
But that wasn’t the question she needed answered. Her heartbeat echoed through her mind as a dozen questioned swirled about, but only one mattered. “Why?”
Henry’s expression was guarded, but he answered. “Because I didn’t have anything to give you.”
Anna frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
He sighed and ran his hands over his head as he leaned against the crates behind him. “I was the third son of an earl. I had no prospects aside from living off
my father’s allowance, and that was no life for you. Your father made sure I knew I was not worthy of you. He offered me money to leave you behind, and I took it.” He met her gaze, and he wasn’t angry or frustrated. He was resigned. “I thought I would use it to make something of myself, to find a way to provide a life for you. I only ever wanted to come back to you, beg for your forgiveness, but I couldn’t until I’d proved myself worthy of you. Until I had something to give you other than my name.”
She moved towards him. “Henry, your name and your love would have been enough.”
He shook his head. “For you, perhaps, but not for me. Can you not understand that? I needed to prove something to myself, and perhaps to your father and mine, that I was not the fop of a younger-born son everyone thought me to be.”
She set her hands on either side of his face. “Henry, we could have done that together.”
“I was a boy, and I needed to grow up before I could expect to be a husband.”
“Why could you not tell me this?”
Slowly, he pulled her hands down. “You would have stopped me. You would have said the right words, and held me tight, and made me believe we could be happy. But we were young and impulsive, and our life together would have been miserable.”
“Why didn’t you come back for me?”
“I did. I went to your father after a year, and repaid him what he had given me, plus interest. I told him my affection for you had not waned and I would like to renew my suit. That is when I learned you had married Rycroft after all.”
“I had no other choice. I returned ruined and mired in scandal. Rycroft saved me from it.”
“I am grateful to him for it. He took care of you and provided for you in a way I could not.”
Anna’s brows furrowed as tears filled her eyes. “Do you think my life with him was domestic bliss? That he showered me with affection?”
“I’ve no idea what your life with him was like, but he was in a better position to give you a better life.”
“Financially, perhaps.” Anna laughed humorlessly and swiped at the tears that had started to slip over as she thought of her marriage to Rycroft.
“Was he... did he...” Henry couldn’t seem to find his words.
“He did not hit me, if that is what you’re asking. He wasn’t rude or mean, and he never forced himself on me. He was simply... empty, disengaged from his life. His heart died with his first wife and he was an unfeeling husk of a man.” Anna sat down on a crate across from Henry, hating the tears but needing to feel them all the same. “He ignored me. We never shared a meal, a carriage, and even when he came to my bed, he left in tears. I was an unworthy replacement for his dead wife.”
“Anna--”
She shook her head. “All I had to keep my sanity were those children. Millie and Percy were my saving grace, for they needed the love and affection their father was unable to provide, and I was in need of someone to love. When you say I was better off without you, you could not be more wrong. You would have loved me, Henry. You would have held me when I was sad, and made me laugh, and we would have created a life together, built something for ourselves together. Instead, you believed our love was not enough and you left.”
He did not meet her tearful gaze. “I am sorry, Anna, for the hurt it caused you.”
“But you are not sorry you left?”
His head rose but his gaze was hard to read. “No. I cannot regret my decision.”
“Because it gave you what you always wanted.” It wasn’t a question. He’d prospered more from their heartbreak than she had. “Your training as an engineer. This canal in New York. Our parting brought you opportunities you might not have had had we married.”
“Perhaps. But our parting also gave you Millie and Percy.”
“I cannot be sorry for that, but Henry, I wouldn’t have sought love and affection and acceptance if I’d had it from you!”
He shook his head and looked away. “It is futile to argue this. We have both suffered, though it is not possible to compare and measure our difficulties.”
“How have you suffered?”
His head snapped up. “How have I suffered?” He snorted in disbelief. “I went to war, Anna! I might not have been in the middle of the battles, but I saw the aftermath all the same. I was the one who coordinated the removal of bodies from a battlefield. I built the bridges that allowed troop movements, and I dismantled field hospitals. When I left you that fateful night, I ruined what remained of my reputation and broke what lingered of my family’s trust. I wasn’t there when either of my brothers or my father died because I was not welcome in my own family home. I can’t even be the earl without everyone second-guessing my every move. You say I got what I always wanted, but what I wanted was you, Anna. I wanted a family, but I wanted that to mean something. I wanted to mean something.”
“And now? What is it you want now?”
He looked at her, truly looked at her with such an intensity she couldn’t bear to look away. It was a soul-baring, wide open expression, and she could feel everything he was feeling. The hair on her arms and neck rose with the understanding of the answer she saw in the depths of his blue eyes.
Her. He wanted her.
She was relieved, elated, but it terrified her, because there was nothing to be done about it.
He moved until he stood before her. Taking her hands, he pulled her to her feet. His gaze dropped to her lips for a moment before recapturing her eyes, the intensity not waning, even as he spoke. “The hurt I felt when I realized you’d not waited for me was something I got over long ago. I’ve only survived this long without you by pushing you completely from my mind.” His hands rested against the sides of her head and he kissed her. Her eyes fluttered closed and she breathed him in, the spice and earth mulling through her senses. His kiss was firm, meaningful, but filled with tenderness. She felt cherished.
It lasted two... three heartbeats before he pulled away. “And then here you are, at my aunt’s damned house party, and it’s like ten years hasn’t passed us by. Everything I’ve worked for years to deny myself is here again, hard and heavy, and you ask me what I want now?” He chuckled and kissed her lightly again and she lost herself in the moment. It felt so good to just feel and not think, for when her thoughts started running, she would spin herself in circles trying to find the end. He’d always been able to pull her out of her head, make her feel things she’d never thought possible.
He released her and took a step back, watching her, but his expression had closed itself off. “You know what I want.”
She nodded. She wanted the same thing. She just didn’t think it was possible. It wasn’t the physical relationship they’d rekindled, but the rest of it. The laughter and the companionship, and the opportunity to build a life together as they’d planned all those years ago. She feared the idea was too good to be true.
“Your brows pinch together adorably when you are over-thinking.” He leaned forward and kissed where her brows furrowed together. “I know you are poking holes into the hull until it sinks. Tell me why it won’t work.”
He would know what she was thinking. “A few days in each other’s company does not erase the ten years we’ve spent apart. How do you know we will still even suit?”
“A few days with you was all the reminder I needed.” He shrugged. “Besides, I’m not saying we should marry right away, only that we should give ourselves a chance to find out.”
Anna laughed. “You want to be with me, but not marry?”
Henry’s teasing grin was answer enough. “I’d marry you today, if you’d have me.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “You are impossible.” But she sensed the serious undertone of his words. He meant every word of this insane idea. “And you won’t stay here? Even if I asked you to?”
Slowly he shook his head. “There is a solution to this you haven’t thought of: come with me.”
Her breath caught. She hadn’t thought of that, so focused she’d been on him staying i
n England that she’d never thought about running off to America with him.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t leave Millie and Percy. And I’m not their guardian, not legally. They’d need their uncle’s permission to travel. And while he and I get along, he won’t be keen to have his niece and the new viscount traipse across the world on a whim.”
“What if I still loved you?”
Henry’s declaration rang through her thoughts like church bells on a crisp Sunday afternoon. Loud, echoing, reverberating down to her toes. Heaven help her, she felt it too.
Her attachment to Henry had returned in full force, but the innocence of her youth was replaced with a rationality only maturity could bring. She fought for a way to make this work; to join him in America would be the greatest gift she could ever receive. Such a declaration, even one phrased as a question, sent a jolt of excitement through her core but it was tinged with lingering fear. The last time she’d given in to this man’s love, it had ended in heartbreak. Despite how she might feel towards him, she didn’t know if she could give in to this again.
He took her hand in his. “There was never a chance of falling in love with you again, because I never fell out of love. I know this was not what you expected from your time here; you didn’t expect me. Perhaps our chance encounter is a gift, and not something to cause distress.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed light kisses across her knuckles. “If you truly think love would be enough, and you would take me as I am-- a bit damaged by my family, I prefer spending my days solving problems in the mud and not in Parliament or a ballroom, and I’m a bit heavy handed when I’ve made a decision.” He looked at her again. “I know your life here has its entanglements, but please think about it. We’ve been given a second chance, Anna. I couldn’t leave again without asking. But if you do not feel the same or—”
She cut him off with a kiss. She didn’t have an answer, and it wasn’t because she doubted her feelings for him. Hearing the doubt creep into his voice was too much. She couldn’t allow him to think she didn’t care.