Angry color rose up the man’s cheeks. “There is little point to it!” he growled. “He’s gone. When will you get used to it?”
“You have no right to anger on my behalf. I’ll thank you to remember that,” she snapped.If I didn’t need him, I would throw this impertinent man out.
He looked as if he wanted to argue. She rushed on. “I have to try. I need him. Isabella needs him.” Nora hated the catch in her voice. “We are fortunate that you have access to diplomatic couriers and grateful for your help,MisterCampbell.” She held the letter pointedly in front of her.
Campbell stared at it for a moment, before he finally took it from her. “Very well. One more. But he won’t respond,” the clerk sniffed.
“What my husband does or does not do is not your concern. Will you or will you not send my message?” Nora snapped.
He took the letter and took his leave.
Come back to me, Jamie,she prayed.
Chapter Forty
Rain, cruel and unrelenting, pounded on the windows and on Jamie Heyworth’s heart. It fell in torrents against soot-darkened glass and trapped him in a third-rate inn an hour from the ship that would take him to Rome.
“They approached you at a dinner party?” Mr. Emmet, the honorable MP from a district near Whitby exclaimed. His cheeks shook with outrage.
“Yes.” Jamie responded as Andrew had instructed. He focused his tale on the duplicity of the slavers and not his own guilt. “They became aware of my financial difficulties, and they sought me out. They knew precisely how to gain my interest.” Jamie had become the poor helpless victim of his own story. It didn’t seem fair.
“My dear sir, that is outrageous!” Emmet reacted exactly as they hoped.
Andrew, Jamie’s partner in storytelling, moved in for the kill. “You see, sir, how insidious it is? The very nature of slavery, even in the colonies, brings out the worst sort of greed and abuse.”
Greed paled next to the horror of the slave ships. Jamie wanted to howl about the far greater evil, but they needed Emmet’s vote. Outrage, however justified, wouldn’t influence the votes they needed.
“They withheld the purpose of their voyage? What sort of man deceives a gentleman?”
“They did not conceal their purpose.” Jamie corrected grimly. “They admitted their purpose was to make money—lots of money. They didn’t say how.”
“Yes, yes,” Emmet replied. “Of course, flattery and the promise of profits, but they never revealed the risk, man, did they?”
“No,” Jamie admitted, the word catching in his throat.They didn’t tell. I didn’t ask.
Emmet launched into a tirade about the respect due a gentleman and honor among peers. Jamie let Mallet nod politely. He moved to the window where the rain continued its relentless assault.
Rain held Jamie prisoner halfway between London and freedom, forced to endure one more telling of his shameful story.
He had recounted the story of his sad victimization by slavers through six dinner parties, one interminable reception, and an awkward interview with the Colonial Office Secretary. He had done it all, and yet England held him in a strangle hold. He wanted to go home to Nora.
“You can’t make it stop by glowering at it.” Andrew’s voice broke through Jamie’s grim despair. “You did manage to drive Emmet away with that face, however.”
Andrew limped to a wingback chair close to the fire and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “Come, look at the changes we discussed.”
“Give it up, Andrew. You heard the story enough times. Write what you wish.” Jamie stared out the window.
“It’s your story,” his friend said.
“No.” Jamie looked back over his shoulder and choked on a laugh. “I gave it to you. Write whatever will do the most good.” They had fussed over Jamie like mother hens until he could tell it over and over, the way they wanted it said. It was no longer Jamie’s story. “Write what you wish.”
“Then sit with me, and tell me about your Nora.” Andrew removed his spectacles and rubbed his nose.
Nora.Why hasn’t she written? Why hasn’t she responded to my letters?Grief clawed at him. “I prefer to repeat my tale of woe,” he said. “Where is Emmet?”
“He found pressing business in the taproom,” his friend said.
“Was I that bad?” Jamie asked.
