“She never said so.” He stepped away. That was what had tormented him most for three days. She had never said the words—not once. Neither had he, until a few days ago, but he would have sworn on his life that her feelings for him were as potent as his for her. He must have been wrong. “I am not running away. I am removing myself from the place where myheart would be mutilated repeatedly and regularly until I could no longer survive it. Perhaps I will return to Zürich for a while.”
“Don’t! No, I need you,” Clemency pleaded. “The boys need you! Please don’t leave, how will I get on without you?”
Richard paused in the act of reaching for his coat. He had given his word not to stir this particular pot, but... He also had nothing left to lose. He turned to face his sister and took her hands in his. Tears sparkled in her eyes and she looked utterly woebegone, her face splotched with pink.
“Gerhard will stay,” he said gently. The big oaf must be lurking about somewhere, after sending in Clemency to assault him with tears. “He will help you. You have only ever to ask, and Gerhard will always leap to assist you.” Her lips quivered, and he threw caution to the wind. “He adores you, Clemency. He has for years.”
Her mouth opened in shock. “How dare you say that, Richard. He doesn’t... no. I am like a sister to him! Don’t be cruel.”
“Cruel?” He smiled sadly. “It could only be cruel if you cared for him.”
Now she was pale, and tried to pull her hands from his. “I— Oh, it’s too humiliating— Don’t make me say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I... I... That I have come to care for him a great deal!” she hissed, her eyes darting nervously from side to side. “Agreatdeal. But he only visits me when you do. He barely speaks to me at other times.”
“If you claim to know a woman’s heart, allow me to assure you that this is how gentlemen behave when they are besotted beyond reason but too tormented by nerves to profess it.”
Her mouth sagged open, and she blinked several times, now fully diverted from her tears.
“Ask him,” added Richard. He doubted Gerhard would even try to deny it. “Better yet, tell him you care for him. It may untie his tongue.”
She turned scarlet. “Very well. If you will stay, I will tell him. But you?—”
He released her to put on his coat and pick up his hat. “I must go, Clem. I cannot bear to be near her and to know?—”
That all my hopes and dreams are dead. That the great love of my life is over.
“I have to go,” he finished, and was out the door before Clemency could muster another protest.
Had she really been longing after Gerhard for years? While Gerhard pined forherin silent longing? God save him from people too stubborn to admit their feelings, he thought—and then reconsidered, remembering how his own profession of love had turned out. At least Gerhard hadn’t been foolish enough to get himself banned from Clemency’s presence.
If onlyhehad said nothing. If only he hadn’t enticed her to come away with him for just a few minutes. If only that young ass Burke had been able to keep his bloody breeches fastened for one godforsaken hour. If only Lady Bennet had been just slightly more ill and unable to return to London at the worst moment. If only... If only...
He stopped walking when he reached the pond. He had taken the house because of this pond, which had brought her into his orbit again. That day the water had glittered like diamonds, as one might imagine the air would shimmer before a goddess appeared—and then one had, rising from the water like the answer to his wildest dreams. It had seemed like a blessing, a sign from heaven.
Today the water was flat and black under the gloomy sky. Nothing stirred the becalmed surface. Perhaps that, too, was a sign. Today it looked more like the River Styx.
He walked back to the house, into his study, and took out a piece of paper to write to the estate agent.
Chapter 34
Evangeline felt every one of her fifty-two years in the days following The Debacle. She waited, sleepless with anxiety, for news. She heard nothing from George, let alone from Marion or Joan. Every morning she sent her groom into London with orders to buy every newspaper and gossip rag he could locate, and she read every one of them from front to back. For a few days there was ominous silence, then a small announcement of the wedding of Miss Joan Bennet to Viscount Burke.
That eased her most crippling fear, that she’d been entirely wrong about the viscount, but as the days dragged on and still no letter came from her brother, or his wife, or Joan herself, she realized her other fear had been well-founded.
Joan had been rushed into marriage because of the scandal, and they blamed Evangeline. It was a hard blow, even though she knew it was deserved.
That week, Wyndham House might as well have been a mausoleum. She couldn’t summon the energy or will to go outside, not into the garden where she and Richard had sat so many times together, nor to the bathhouse where he’d made love to her in the steam and heat. It was all she could do to walk from her bed to the table, to the sofa in the drawing room, and backto bed. Deprived of his usual walks, Louis added to the misery by being anxious and troublesome. Evangeline walked in on Solly scolding the little dog, who was replying with sharp, angry barks of his own.
“What’s he done?”
Solly held up the shredded remains of a straw bonnet. “He has destroyed it. I left it out to replace the ribbon, and I return to find it so.”
Louis darted up to Evangeline’s feet and licked her ankle, whimpering.
She sighed, stooping to pet the dog. “My poor pup,” she murmured. “I’m making you miserable, too.”
