“Please, Nora, don’t dismiss me like this.” His eyes pleaded.
“I think it would be better,” she rasped without dropping her eyes. She couldn’t bear to have him in her bed, not after all his lies. “Go to your friends.” She began to pull the door shut.
“Where is Isabella?”
“With me.” Nora put Isabella to sleep in her room. She needed her close, needed one more thing to put distance between herself and Jamie.
He walked into Nora’s bedroom before she could stop him and lifted the flickering candle from her bedside. Books lay scattered across rumpled covers still warm from Nora’s body. He gave her a look of longing and regret that tore her heart to shreds before moving to the foot of the bed.
Isabella lay there on a little cot. He knelt and tucked the covers up snuggly around the dainty face.
“Sleep well, Princess,” he whispered. “Uncle Jamie has to leave for a while, but he won’t forget you.” He kissed the top of her head without waking her.
He took a scrap of paper and a piece of the child’s charcoal from Nora’s table and wrote:
Goodbye,my princess. I have to leave you for a while. Care for Aunt Nora for me. I know you can, for you are strong and brave.
Uncle Jamie
Nora huggedthe ends of her wrapper tightly, watching his every move.Be done with it Jamie,she thought,before I shame myself by begging you to stay.
He put the note on Isabella’s cot.
“That’s it then,” she said. “You’re leaving her—leaving us.”
“Nora—” he began, but no words came. He stared at her for a long moment. “I will come back. We’ll fix this.” He took her mouth in a fierce kiss before she could deny him.
She turned her face away when he released her. He left her with no words to say and only the slightest hope to cling to. She gave herself over to grief and wept.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“What else could there be?”
Will Landrum, Earl of Chadbourn, and the third of Jamie’s dearest friends, sat in his dark paneled library, redolent of beeswax and brandy, with an air of absolute contentment.
The Cohort, the old friends who were now his creditors, had been busy since they dragged him back to London. Richard, Andrew, and Will owned all of Jamie’s debts and had settled the matter to their own satisfaction.
“What else?” Will repeated. His uncharacteristic inebriation might have amused Jamie if the question hadn’t crushed him. They still knew nothing about his most shameful secrets.
“Sister married,” Will enumerated on his fingers, “mother as content as those creatures can be. Mortgages consolidated. Tattersall’s paid. Tailor satisfied.” Will smiled foolishly into his brandy. “Done,” he said.
Jamie put his name to the last of the legal papers that transferred all the income from his crumbling estate to these, his closest friends, (all, that is, but a small quarterly allowance for his mother) until all debts were satisfied. He refused to take any income for himself. The papers designated Chadbourn, the most honest man Jamie knew, as executor. Will had reason to be pleased.
“Don’t forget Waylon’s gambling den brought low,” Andrew, the steadiest one in the group by the fire, pointed out. “Waylon’s utterly destroyed, with your testimony,” Andrew repeated with aflourish of satisfaction. “No one lamented the demise of that nest of low-living cheats.” Bob Waylon’s dishonest tables had drained much of Jamie’s father’s pockets.
“No,” Jamie replied. A moment later he added, “But those who need to gamble have plenty of other places to go.” His father would have.
“Hph.” Will gave a drunken belch and continued their inventory on his fingers. “Waylon’s. Tenant houses well on the way to repair, north fields?—”
“Spare us the agricultural detail, Will, before you begin to enumerate the turnips, the drainage ditches, and the wool production.” Andrew had no interest in farming. “Let’s all agree the estate escaped the brink.”
“Decent little estate. Crime the way old Ross ran it down.” Will lamented. “Recovering though.” He should know; his steward managed the miracle.
“Old Ross depleted everything and everyone to feed the tables. Old Ross was a pig, and his son hasn’t done much better,” Jamie answered bitterly.
“Lord, Jamie, give it a rest!” Andrew broke in.
Will spoke at the same time. “Ridiculous, man! Mumford’s in fine shape. It should start producing again this year. Better next.”
