He sighed. “Three months, more or less.”
“Why didn’t you come straight home? What were you doing all that time?”
But Eli addressed Geórgios rather than answer her. “I think Jane must be satisfied she’s heard the most damning parts of the story now. Would you mind going back upstairs to leave us in private a moment?”
With a final bite of his food and a wink toward Jane, Geórgios rose to his feet and lumbered away.
“I wanted to tell you,” Eli began, taking a seat beside Jane at the table. It seemed important that she believe him, though there was no way to prove his intentions. If only Geórgios had stayed out of sight. He could’ve delivered the story with greater delicacy himself. “I hated keeping things from you, Jane, only I couldn’t risk anyone else hearing of it.”
“Oh?” Jane’s eyes had taken on the hue of a brewing storm. She’d been a good deal warmer when Geórgios was still here. Maybe he shouldn’t have sent his friend away quite yet. “I seem to recall spending quite a bit of time alone with you at the Lindens’ house, where you might have unburdened yourself of any important secrets you were hiding, if you weren’t otherwise occupied.”
“It wasn’t just a question of whether we were alone,” he tried to explain. “How was I supposed to tell you that I’d befriended a pirate who’d helped me escape and hidden me in France for three months? If you said anything to your uncle, and he’d told Lady Kerr,the whole town would know. I’d be charged with desertion, and Geórgios would be executed. The navy isn’t terribly forgiving toward pirates, even the ones who think themselves to be Robin Hood.”
This seemed to mollify Jane somewhat, though her brows were still drawn in a furrow as she replied, “I could have kept a secret if you’d asked me to.”
“I know you’re able to keep a secret for a friend, I just didn’t know if you’d be willing to do it for me,” he admitted. “It…hasn’t been easy to know where we stand since I came back.”
Jane’s expression softened at this, though it was still reserved. “It might have been easier to sort that out if you’d been honest with me from the start.”
Very well. Maybe he’d gotten everything wrong, but he could do his best to put it right from here on in. He had little to lose at this point. She already knew enough to destroy him, and she was still here, listening. That was a good sign.
“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Those first few months with the pirates, when the crew took ill, I thought I was certain to die without anyone ever knowing what had become of me. I wanted nothing more than to get free, or to get word back to my family, but I couldn’t do anything. I was trapped.
“Geórgios often kept watch over me, and over time we became friends. He was kinder than the others. He was interested in learning English and hearing stories about my home. As we talked, I persuaded him that things might be better for both of us if he helped me escape. The life of a pirate was dangerous, and the Ottomans had retaken his village, so he had no place to return to. He agreed to help me get back to the continent. My escape was much as I’ve said. We took a chance when we were near Corinth and jumped overboard while he was on the evening’s watch, then found passage with some merchants bound for France.”
Jane had been silent while he spoke, but she interjected now. “Why didn’t you present yourself to a British ship in the region?”
“I owed Geórgios my life. I couldn’t abandon him, but he might have been recognized if we’d stayed nearby.” It had been a nerve-wracking time, with no promise of safety ahead.
Eli hesitated. Up to this point, he’d behaved in keeping with his conscience as best he could under the circumstances. He had no cause for shame.
But then came the rest of the story.
“By the time we reached France, and I could part ways with Geórgios without putting him in any danger, I’d already been gone for over a year and a half. I knew that everyone I cared about must think me dead. Not only that, but that all of you must already have mourned me and come to accept my loss.”
Was there any way to explain it so that she could understand? He felt like a liar, trying to make her see things as he had. Perhaps he’d lied to himself when he’d chosen to believe that the worst of the damage was already done. What difference would a little more time make?
“I’m starting to wish Geórgios were still telling this story,” Jane muttered. “He’d have told me what you did in France by now.”
“I waited.” Waited when he could have pressed on. Cost Jane and his family another three months of thinking him dead, when they might have instead known the truth. “Geórgios stayed in Marseille and I went on to Paris and earned a bit of money as an English tutor while I tried to get news from home. Eventually, I discovered that my brother was in the city on his grand tour and I found him—”
“I don’t understand. Why couldn’t you just go back?”
He drew a long breath. “A gentleman can’t end an engagement.”
He studied Jane as comprehension dawned, dreading the next emotion that would cross her face. Would she judge his choice? Would she be disgusted with him?
“You’d rather hide in France than be married to Cecily?”
“I knew we would have made each other miserable.” They would’ve been like his parents, constantly arguing while their children pretended not to hear. Decades of that stretched out before him, with no escape. “I couldn’t refuse the match, having been caught in a compromising position.” At least his service had given him an excuse to postpone the unhappy event, but it had always lingered in the background. “Then the shipwreck came, followed by my captivity. And I got to thinking…if I’ve been dead this long anyway, I may as well wait to have news of her situation before I return. I didn’t think it likely that she would mourn me too deeply.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Jane’s tone betrayed her annoyance. “She cost Uncle Bertie a fortune in crepe, and she used to burst into tears anytime someone mentioned your name. I think she liked the attention. But never mind. So your brother knew where you were? What about Hannah and your parents?”
“I swore Jacob to secrecy. Promised that I would go home as soon as Lady Kerr was safely married. He knew that she’d formed another engagement but didn’t know the date, so I had him write home to ask after her and await their reply before I could come back.” Knowing nothing of her feelings for Sir Thomas, he wasn’t willing to risk the possibility that she might give her first engagement priority over her second. As it turned out, his time in France had been for nothing. Cecily was long-since wed and expecting her son when they’d docked at Marseille, and he might have avoided a great deal of trouble if he’d known it was safe to go straight home.
If only he could do it over. He would’ve returned to England with nothing to hide, no secrets to divide him from Jane. Maybe she would’ve been willing to let her guard down, if only she’d sensed his sincerity from the start.
Jane’s face remained still as she took this in. He wished she would say something.
