He nodded. “Yes. It was a slap in the face of everything I’d told everyone that I was over it. That I didn’t care. But there it was. Things were bad, she needed help. She cried and begged, and what could I do?”
She flinched, for that was the same way she’d justified smoothing over all her father’s messes over the years. What could she do but help?
And yet when Ellis said it, she wanted to save him from that notion. To take away guilt that his mother hadn’t earned. To take away pain.
“I kept coming back, sneaking her money and things I stole for this horrible baby I hated. Except when you see a baby…how can you hate him? To keep hating him would have made me as bad as his bastard of a father. I looked into his eyes, Gabriel’s eyes that are just like mine, and I…”
“You loved him,” she whispered as she thought of how many times she’d looked into her own sisters’ eyes over the years and felt that swell of love and connection and adoration.
He nodded slowly and his expression crumpled. “It was the damnedest thing.” He sighed. “I kept coming back. Visiting when Gabriel’s father wasn’t around. Bringing him gifts and money for what he needed when that bastard she married couldn’t or wouldn’t provide. I paid for his education.”
She smiled. “When I saw you, it was obvious you two are still close.”
“Not too close,” he murmured. “Being near me could be poison. He already had a brief time when he got ideas. He wanted to run with Rook and me, but I wouldn’t let him. No, he’s going to be a barrister. Or a merchant. I’m making sure he has anything he needs. I’ll do anything that will give him a good life.”
“Anything,” she repeated slowly, for the way he said it was so forceful. She saw the way Ellis’s chin hitched up, like he was ready to defend that desire for his brother’s future to the death. A fissure of worry made its way through her. “What does that mean, Ellis? Because I don’t like the way you say it.”
Ellis turned his face, and the fire glowed against his skin as he stared down into the flames. “When Harcourt’s brother Solomon and I double crossed Leonard a year ago, his rage was palpable. He killed Solomon. He has chased me across England, threatening and destroying anything in his path. Rook was safe, since he bolted the moment he knew a man had died due to my bad decisions.”
“When did Leonard find out about your brother?” she asked, clenching her hands in front of her as she stood.
He looked at her, and there was the desperation, only this time it wasn’t a fleeting moment of the emotion. No, all of it was utterly alive and utterly terrifying on his beautiful face. She saw his deepest fears and his most painful regrets. She saw his guilt. His shame.
And all she wanted to do was comfort him. But when she moved toward him, he held up a hand to stave her off.
“A few months ago,” Ellis whispered. “It took him a while because we don’t share a last name. Once he knew, he had my brother roughed up by his lackeys. And he told me if I didn’t get him what he wanted, he’d do worse. Worse than what he’d done to Solomon even.”
She flinched. Torture. The monster was talking about torture before he killed. “Oh, Ellis.”
“I want to be clear,” Ellis said, his jaw clenching. “That’swhen I went after your sister. I went after Anne to get to Harcourt because I would rather hurt them than let Gabriel suffer for the crime of being my blood.”
Her lips parted at the way his voice broke when he said those terrible words. He bent his head, and now she couldn’t help but go to him. She clasped his hand between hers gently and lifted it to her lips.
As she brushed her mouth against his knuckles, she sighed. “You didn’t hurt them, not really. You freed Harcourt to marry Thomasina, who is the one he truly loved. And you took Anne…that was wrong. But if you hadn’t, she never would have met Rook, and both of them would be lonelier and emptier for it.”
He shook her hand away. “I don’t want your false absolution,” he snapped. “Don’t you see? You cannot make me into a hero. I’m the villain of this piece, Juliana. Even if I make you come.”
She flinched. “You think it’s because of the pleasure that I have empathy for you? I can make myself come, Ellis. I’ve been doing a perfectly good job of it for a while now.”
His eyes widened, but he folded his arms and she felt the wall come down between them. The one she knew now was a way to protect himself, and to protect her. But she didn’t want the wall. She didn’t want to be protected because what he was turned out to be exactly what she wanted.
She recognized, in that moment charged with frustration and desperation and pain, that she loved this man. She loved Ellis Maitland, despite all he’d done and because of all he was. She loved him.
And she didn’t want to lose him. Not now, not in a week, not ever. She wanted a life with him that was like the one her sisters had found with their husbands. She wanted the private smiles and the gentle support and the loving whispers.
She wanted to save him, not just because that was her nature, but because he was worth saving. And so was she, or at least the version of herself she had found when she spent time with him.
“I feel for you,” she continued, this time gently, because she realized she was dealing with fear now, disguised as anger, and one had to be careful with fear. Tender. “Because I understand the drive to protect those around you at all costs. I’ve done it all my life. You and I are so alike.”
He held her gaze for a moment, his nostrils flaring, his fingers flexing like he wanted to reach for her. She thought he might. Then he clenched them at his sides and turned away.
“No, we aren’t,” he said.
“Yes, we are,” she insisted, and moved to catch his arm and turn him back to face her. “We are. And now everything is changing for us both. Everything is threatened, and we are drowning because neither one of us knows what to do.” She felt the tears in her eyes and didn’t fight it as one slid down her cheek. “I don’t know what to do and I amlost, Ellis. I’m lost.”
He reached out and his fingertips crested over her cheek, tracing the line there, catching the tear that had fallen and wiping it away with his thumb. She leaned into his rough hand and prayed he could feel all the things she couldn’t say.
“I’m not the one to find you, angel,” he said, his voice rough. Then he backed away a long step. “I’ve always been lost.”
