Bolt grinned, lit a cigar, sucked it into life. And then he leaned down and gently tucked it into Hugh’s hand.
Hugh gripped it as though he’d been thrown a lifeline.
“She’s a beautiful girl, Cassidy, and if you’ll forgive the Delacortian bluntness, she looked as though she knew what she was about. Once the children come along you’ll be kept so busy you probably won’t have time to be miserable.” This was Bolt.
Oh, God.
“Children,” he repeated hoarsely. In incredulous horror.
“Stop torturing him, Bolt,” Captain Hardy interjected. There was a pause. “It’s my turn.”
He took the empty glass from Hugh and poured another from the flask in his coat. So that’s where the whiskey had come from. The ladies were wise enough not to stock anything much stronger than brandy in the smoking room.
He planted himself in front of Hugh and saidslowly, “Cassidy, did you consider how this dalliance of yours could reflect on the reputation of The Grand Palace on the Thames should it become discovered? Because it wasveryclear this wasn’t the first time you and Lillias done that.”
For the first time he realized that Captain Hardy’s silence, all this time, was really a sort of simmering anger.
“All I can say, Hardy, is... I saw the lay of things at once, as if I was floating up over my body. The people standing in front of me. The woman with me. The circumstances. The consequences for everyone, for me, for Lillias, for her family, for The Grand Palace on the Thames. I knew I needed to act immediately and decisively in order to shape a story and so I did.”
Hardy studied him. “I think that was some of the quickest and bravest thinking I’ve ever seen a man do. And all without firing a shot.”
Hugh thought, but didn’t add, “...and with an erection, to boot.”
He smiled faintly, humorlessly. “You should have seen me in the war.”
“I wish I had a man like you when we’re running smugglers to ground.”
Hugh nodded once at the high compliment this was, which was probably much more than he deserved in the moment.
All the men were somberly quiet a moment.
He’d so hoped that life from now on would be free of battles.
“Every moment of my life has been considered. But with her... when I’m near her...”
Her.Even now the word caused an anticipatoryripple along his traitorous nerve endings; even now his muscles were tightening in anticipation, bracing for the glut of pleasure.
She was no safer than opium. Opium only led to disaster.
And what was this if not a disaster?
All three pairs of eyes aiming at him were now sympathetic and thoughtful. Both Bolt and Hardy understood that any man, no matter how formidable, could become Achilles when the right woman—or the wrong one—came along. Delacorte only wanted a cozy domestic life and a woman who adored him for who he was.
But no one was offering suggestions for a way out of this. And that was because, given the facts at hand, therewasno other way out of this.
He unconsciously gripped the edge of his chair, as though if he held on strongly enough he could keep the life he’d imagined for himself from snapping its tether, sailing away from him, lost forever. Cornflower-blue eyes and corn silk hair and a gentle laugh seemed like an echo now.
“Cassidy...”
Hugh looked up at the sound of Hardy’s voice. “There’s no shame in wanting to lose yourself for a little while.” He said it quietly. “We could all use a little forgetting now and again.”
Hugh locked eyes with Captain Hardy. He was surprised but he didn’t let it show. He didn’t much like being seen so clearly. He wasn’t certain he liked knowing that he’d destroyed his entire future for something so human, so universally banal, as lust and... forgetting.
“I probably have a thing or two in my case that’llkeep you from thinking, if you’d like.” Delacorte said. “I’ll have a look!”
“Thank you, but no. I don’t run away from consequences. I will see this through.”
“Weren’t those the last words of Big Bartholomew Bellamy before he went to the gallows?” Lucien mused.
