He stopped at once, as if she had placed a blade to his chest, and Elise felt a queer, discomposing jolt at the immediate obedience. Gentlemen did not often stop when she asked them to do so. They argued, they soothed, they overruled; they dressed their dominance as protection and called it kindness. Mr. Leigh—no, Cholmely—stood still, as though her words were law.
Elise drew a slow breath. “Holt said—one brother was trying to right the other’s wrongs.”
Edmund’s voice was hoarse. “He meant it as mockery.”
“And yet…” Elise’s gaze held his. “And yet it is what you have done.”
He did not speak. He looked as though he wished to, and could not decide whether it would be theft or gift. Elise saw the restraint in him—not indifference, but the sort of control that had been forged by necessity.
Almost unwillingly, she softened her voice. “You saved me,” she said. She had been strong for so long, it felt as if she were confessing a weakness. “You saved Blake. You prevented Holt from taking what he wanted to use for ill. Those are not the actions of a man like Singleton.”
Edmund swallowed hard. She saw his throat ripple.
“And yet,” Elise added, her voice trembling now in spite of herself, “you watched me, you suspected me, and you let me stand on that wharf not knowing who you were.”
“Yes,” Edmund said again, “and I am sorry I did not tell you sooner.”
The apology sounded small against the weight of what he had withheld, but it was honest. Elise had become painfully adept at distinguishing honest pain from performed regret. His was the former.
She looked at him for a long moment, and in that look she felt herself judging, weighing and—to her own vexation—not finding him entirely wanting.
“Are you leaving?” she enquired quietly.
“I must.” Edmund shook his head once. He looked graver still. “There is… unfinished business.”
Elise considered him, her gaze keen. “Unfinished business?” she asked.
He paused before answering. She could tell he had to force himself to reply. “My father,” he said at last.
Elise could not prevent a gasp. “Your father?”
Edmund’s jaw clenched. “Colonel Renforth has told me—” He stopped. She wondered if it was because to speak of it would poison the air. “He was complicit in the treason. He will not be permitted to go unpunished.”
Elise felt the blood drain from her face. “How will he be punished?”
His voice was grim. “There will be… consequences arranged—quietly.”
She understood then—not in detail, perhaps, but in essence—and her stomach turned over.
“They will kill him,” she whispered.
Edmund’s expression did not change, but Elise saw something break behind his eyes.
“They will hold a funeral,” he said, as if the words were stones he must set in place to keep himself upright, “and I must be seen there. If I am absent, it will be remarked upon. If I do not playmy part, the mercy they are offering—if one may call it that—may vanish.”
Elise bit her lip. “So even in death, you are not truly free.”
Edmund flinched.
“Then you must go,” Elise said quietly, and to her own surprise it was not accusation but realization. A man could not be asked to remain here, on her cliff, in her peril, when his own life was turning to ashes in London.
“Yes,” he said. “I must go very soon.”
The knowledge settled between them like a cold draught. It should have been simple: she had survived loss; she was well acquainted with gentlemen leaving. This, however, threatened to be a different kind of parting. It was not Charles riding out with a promise to return; it was not a commander’s duty. This was a man being summoned to the formal burial of a father he could neither love nor wholly despise.
Elise moved first, though she did not know quite why her feet obeyed her now when they had refused to do so moments earlier. She stepped toward him—not quickly, not boldly, but with the cautious resolve of a woman choosing something in spite of herself. She stopped close enough that she could feel the warmth of him through wool and air.
She raised her hand, holding it near his cheek without touching. It was strange, as if she could not decide whether touching him was comfort or surrender. Then, gathering her courage, she did it, briefly, lightly resting her fingers against his jaw. The simple contact went through her like an alarm. It was ridiculous that she should feel so much from so little, and yet she did.
