Cam was never one to mince words. “Yes. That’s what I’m saying.”
“Jesus, Cam.” Hot anger rushed over Julian. “What do you want from me? I kept my promise to you, and I haven’t lied—”
“Youhavelied. You’re lying right now by charging off to London to marry a woman you don’t love, and leaving behind the one you do.”
Julian jerked on the reins to loosen Cam’s hold. “You’ll have to forgive me for not delivering the happy ending you asked for, cuz, but there’s another story between me and Charlotte—one you don’t know about—and it’s no fairy tale.”
“I’ve never known a true love that was. You love Charlotte—you have since the first moment you laid eyes on her. What else is there?”
Julian couldn’t bear to look into Cam’s knowing green eyes. “What else? Lies, Cam. Betrayals. Distrust. Love doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters, Jules. The rest? That’s what forgiveness is for. Whatever it is, find a way to forgive Charlotte. Not just for her sake, but for yours.”
Forgiveness—so easy, like snapping his fingers. Maybe it had been that easy for Cam and Ellie, but Julian had no forgiveness to offer anymore. This morning, when Charlotte told him the truth about his child, the dark thing with claws and teeth that lived inside him had leapt from his chest. That blackness, that anger and pain—he’d never be able to crawl free of it.
“Maybe I could have forgiven her once, but I can’t now.” Julian took in a deep breath and met his cousin’s eyes. “I’m not the man I used to be, Cam. Something inside me, it’s…broken.”
Cam’s gaze turned fierce. “Bent perhaps, but not broken. Dig down under the rubble, Julian, and you’ll find you’re the same man you’ve always been.”
Julian shook his head. “You see what you want to see, cuz. I’ll be in London for some weeks,” he interrupted when Cam tried to speak. “If you’ve no objection, I’ll stay in Bedford Square. When Miss Hibbert and I have settled the details, I’ll send word.”
Cam hesitated. “I’ve no objection,” he said after a moment, his voice subdued. “Stay in Bedford Square as long as you like.”
Julian nodded his thanks, then kicked his horse into motion before Cam could say another word. Within minutes he was at the end of the drive, Bellwood behind him.
Charlotte behind him.
He rode hard for London. He didn’t look back, as if he were afraid to find she was chasing him. He’d reached the outskirts of the city before he admitted the truth to himself.
She was.
With every mile he put between himself and Bellwood he thought of her. Of her face this morning, the shadows not quite deep enough to hide her despair when she told him about their child. His chest hurt now, thinking of it, of all she’d endured, all she’d lost.
No. Damn it, he wouldn’t think of that.
She’d lied to him—taken something precious from him. He’d begged her; he’d haunted the street outside the Sutherland townhouse night and day just to catch a glimpse of her. He’d sent letter after letter, pleading with her to give him one more chance, but she’d turned her back on him, and all the while she’d known his child was growing in her belly.
But hadn’t she been justified in believing herself the victim of a ruthless rake? He’d been a rogue when they met—not quite a despoiler of virgins, but a rogue nonetheless—and she’d been an innocent. He’d seduced her, and not long afterward she found out he’d lied to her, as well. Was it any wonder she’d turned to Hadley?
The black, ugly thing in his chest gave a few half-hearted twitches of protest at these fevered thoughts, but strangely there was none of the suffocating swell of pain he dreaded. He prodded at it, stabbing harder and deeper to provoke it into a rage, but every time he tried to think of how she’d betrayed him, he could only conjure her face as it had been this morning, her hand as she’d swept his hair back from his brow.
But damn her, what if his child had lived? What if Hadley had lived, what then? If it all had been different, would Hadley be raising his daughter right now?
If, if, if…
Jesus, the insidiousness of that word, the treachery of it. It would drive him mad, imagining what might have been.
Why had she confessed at all? Why not hide the truth from him forever?
Because she wouldn’t live a lie.
Even when it was easier, even when she stood to lose everything, she told the truth and bore the consequences. Her strength, her courage—Jesus, it was a miracle she’d even survived the past year. She could have bled to death when she lost the child, or lived through it only to be worn down by Hadley House, slowly, one day at a time, the regret and guilt scraping away at her until there was nothing left—
She could have died.
Without warning the black thing roared to life inside him, ripping through his chest with such force he doubled over in agony, as if he’d stabbed a blade into a bloody, gaping wound. He tried to twist free of it, gasping with fury and pain, but there was something else, something that held him fast in a relentless grip. Not the ugly black rage so familiar to him, but something softer, gray, blurred at the edges.
Grief.
