Lady Harding! Surely she was the one who had persuaded her husband to send a man all the way to America to find Callie. As act of expiation, perhaps.
The butler admitted them to the foyer, but didn’t invite them to sit. Rather than waiting in the front hall, Richard quietly followed the butler, taking Callie by the hand to draw her with him.
The butler opened the morning room door and announced, “A person claiming to be a long lost relative is here and says she wishes to surprise you, my lady.”
The elegantly dressed young woman on the sofa looked up, her fair hair pulled back primly. The very image of a proper young matron, just as Callie would have expected of Jane.
Lady Harding saw her visitor and leaped to her feet. “Catherine, you’re here!”
Callie blinked. Not Jane, but Elinor, the next youngest sister. Most of the Brookes had the same shade of blond hair. Only Callie had inherited the red-gold color that her father had claimed was the mark of the devil. Though Jane and Elinor had similar coloring and features, Ellie was shorter and slighter than Jane. Sweet and shy. She’d been Callie’s shadow, following her around adoringly, sometimes to the point of being a nuisance. She was the sister who would have missed Callie most.
“Yes, it’s me, home from the wilds of the New World,” Callie said lightly. “You’re the one who sent a rescuer to save me from the war?”
As Elinor nodded, Callie stepped into the salon and drew Richard forward. “I imagine you’ll recognize my husband since he was our neighbor.”
“Dear God, Lord George!” Elinor stopped in her tracks, her face going dead white. Then she folded onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she began to sob uncontrollably.
Shocked, Callie plumped down on the sofa beside her sister and put a comforting hand on her back. “Darling, what’s wrong? Since you went to such efforts to bring me home, I’d have thought you’d be glad to see me.”
She patted her sister gently when the tears didn’t abate. “I thought Lady Harding would turn out to be Jane, trying to make amends for past sins.”
Richard said coolly, “Do you think if I slapped her she might snap out of her crying fit?”
Callie scowled, surprised by his lack of sympathy. “You will not slap my sister!”
But the words must have reached Elinor. She lifted her face and produced a handkerchief, blotting her eyes and blowing her nose before crumpling it in one hand. “I . . . I’m sorry.” She gulped. “I was so glad that Andrew was willing to try to find you, but I didn’t really think the search would be successful. And I . . . I thought Lord George was dead.”
“Alive and well and happily married to your sister.” He was leaning against the door, his arms crossed on his chest and his narrow-eyed gaze assessing. “But given your reaction, I’m wondering if you might have something to feel guilty about.”
Elinor’s face twisted and she began crying again. She’d always been a watering pot, Callie remembered. A little impatiently, she said, “Why not tell us what’s wrong? Clearing the air is generally a good start.”
Elinor gazed at her with pale, watery blue eyes. She still had her delicate porcelain prettiness, but she looked twenty years older than her actual age.
“I . . . I was the one who told Papa that you were running away with Lord George,” she said starkly. “I peeked out of my room when you were leaving and guessed what you were doing. But I never, never expected the results to be so ghastly!” Her gaze moved to Richard. “I thought you had died, and it was all my fault!”
Callie drew away from Elinor, horrified. “I thought you liked me! Why did you do something so hateful?”
Elinor began crying again. Richard said in a conversational tone, “Are you sure you won’t allow me to slap her, my dear? Not too hard, just enough to get her attention.”
This time Callie was tempted to let him, but she really couldn’t. Maybe if it had been Jane, but not Elinor. Still, she did want answers. She stood and gazed down at her sister. “Why, Ellie? Just explainwhy.Or I might slap you myself!”
Elinor swallowed hard. “I loved you, but I also envied you dreadfully. You were so beautiful, so brave. So confident. You never backed down, no matter how horribly Papa treated you. You were everything I wanted to be. I wanted tobeyou.”
Her agonized gaze shifted to Richard. “And . . . and I fancied myself in love with Lord George. I desperately wanted him to look at me the way he looked at you. When I guessed that you were running off with him, I impulsively told Papa. I never imagined the consequences.” She gazed down at her knotted handkerchief. In a whisper, she finished, “I’ve never forgiven myself.”
His voice surprisingly gentle, Richard said, “You couldn’t have been above thirteen or fourteen. Very young, and many would say that what you did was right and proper. But you’ve earned your guilt because you acted from spite. Your actions did very nearly get me killed and forced your sister into exile and a marriage to a stranger old enough to be her father. You came close to destroying us both.”
“That’s more than sufficient reason for you to be racked with guilt,” Callie agreed with barely suppressed fury. The image of Richard crouched in the hay with his arms wrapped over his head to protect himself against her father’s killing rage made her want to vomit. Theblood! Her father’s bellowing insults and threats, the certainty that her best friend was going to be killed right before her eyes . . .
And all because her favorite sister was suffering from calf love. Feeling kicked in the stomach, Callie crossed the room to Richard. He put a comforting arm around her. “Yet we both survived and we’ve found each other again, Catkin.”
His gaze moved to Elinor. “Obviously I didn’t die as reported on the voyage to New South Wales. There’s profound irony in the fact that it was your desire to rescue your sister from the war that brought us together again. I was the man sent to find her and bring her home. That’s some compensation, though accidental.”
“Perhaps God has an appalling sense of humor.” Callie turned back to Elinor, feeling weary. Her sister looked as if she was expecting their father’s horsewhip, though he never used that on his daughters. He preferred the traditional method of punishing his oldest daughter with his bare hands. Very powerful hands driven by rage . . .
She swallowed hard and reached for her better self. “I accept that you never meant to cause the harm you did. But it will take time for me to get over being angry.”
Elinor nodded bleakly. “I understand. Perhaps . . . perhaps someday we can be friends again?”
