She was quiet for a moment, then, “You mean to say it’s not my fault he died.”
“Ah, sweetheart. A tragedy like that is no one’s fault, no matter what Hadley’s mother said. It just…is. You must know he never would have blamed you.”
“No. He wouldn’t have. But I blame myself.”
The break in her voice cleaved his heart in two. “You have to make peace with it. Don’t you see, Charlotte? Nothing will ever be right again until you forgive yourself.”
She curled her fingers into his palm. “How do you know so much about forgiveness?”
Because I’ve denied it to myself, just as you have.
That hopelessness in the face of unbearable pain, that crushing guilt—he knew it as well as she did, and he couldn’t outrun his demons any more than Charlotte could. He’d realized that yesterday when he’d flown across the grounds after her, his panicked heartbeats echoing in his head as she wobbled in her saddle, one breath away from being crushed under her horse’s hooves.
He drew a deep breath and met her eyes. “You were right all along, Charlotte. I’m no hero, despite what all of London thinks. The soldiers I dragged from the battlefield to the field hospital? I left someone else behind.”
She said nothing, only squeezed his hand.
“My best friend,” he said after a moment. “Colin Hibbert. He was killed by a French Dragoon—the sword passed clean through his chest and out his back. If I’d been there, I might have done something, fought beside him, but I was too busy being the hero. I left him to die alone on the battlefield.”
Tears rushed to her eyes, and Jesus, it was bitter to see her cry tears for him after all she’d had to bear. Tears he didn’t deserve.
“You blame yourself for his death.”
He ran a weary hand down his face. “I do. Or I did. I hardly know anymore.”
“Young men die in war, Julian. They die, and it just…is,” she whispered, giving his words back to him. “It’s no one’s fault.”
Fault, blame—the words felt meaningless to him now, even selfish. What did it matter who was at fault? It didn’t change anything. “Colin’s dead either way, and I’m still London’s conquering hero.”
He heard the bitterness in his voice, and she did too, because something flickered in her dark eyes. She reached for him, but after a breathless moment he gently pulled away from her. “My betrothed.” He cleared his throat. “Her name is Jane. Jane Hibbert. She’s Colin’s sister. Aside from an elderly aunt she’s alone, and I—”
“You have a chance to make amends.”
“Yes.”
She let out a long sigh, then reached out and took his hand. “Julian? You weren’t being a hero when you saved those soldiers.”
He flinched. It was true, but it hurt like the devil to hearhersay it. He looked away. “What was I, then?”
She turned his face back toward hers. “Don’t you know? Don’t you recognize yourself? When you saw those men struck down, you couldn’t have behaved in any way other than you did. In that moment you were, down to your soul, just who you are. You weren’t a hero that day—you were more than that. You were Julian.”
Her faith in him, her kindness, after all he’d said to her, all he’d done—it shamed him. His throat went tight and he reached blindly for her. She opened her arms to him and drew him down beside her, touched her lips to his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids, and he didn’t think of Jane, or what he owed to Colin. He thought only of Charlotte, of finding her mouth with his so they both could know what forgiveness felt like.
They woke much later. She was cradled in his arms, her back pressed to his chest, their legs entwined. He tightened his arm around her waist and cupped his hand over her belly. “Charlotte? Will you let me take you to Bellwood?”
She hesitated, then threaded her fingers through his. “Yes.”
There was more to say, but he didn’t say it. He buried his face in her hair, inhaled her sweet lemon scent, and he couldn’t even remember what it was.
Chapter Twenty-three
As the carriage slowed Charlotte roused herself and pushed the curtain aside to glance out the window. Sometime during the past few hours while she sat in her solitary corner, daylight had given way to a dusky purple twilight. She watched out the window as the carriage drew to a stop in front of tonight’s inn.
The Liar’s Arms. Well, that seemed appropriate.
They’d reached Oxted, then. They’d arrive at Bellwood by luncheon tomorrow. The familiar panic began to well in her throat, but she took a deep breath and swallowed it back down. She couldn’t stay at Hadley House—she saw that now. Later, yes, in the future, but not yet.
She let the curtain fall back across the window. Three days to make the journey from Hampshire to Kent. It was more than they needed, but Julian insisted on setting a leisurely pace to Bellwood so as not to exhaust her—frequent stops for rest and refreshment, no travel after the sun set—yet despite his careful attentions, weariness gnawed at her bones.
