“Please d-don’t quote S-Sun Tzu at me t-tonight, C-Captain, as he really won’t make me f-f-feel any bet-ter.” Georgie was snorting now too. Like a pig.
A hysterical, short-legged, probably blotchy, orange-haired pig.
“Then I shall simply quote me then—from the heart. Thank you, Miss Rowe. For refusing to stay at the inn while we searched despite all my stupid orders to the contrary. Thank you for refusing to abandon me when everyone else did and thank you for falling over in such a timely manner, as if you hadn’t, Felix would still be at the bottom of a gully.” He waved the handkerchief again. “Now please stop crying. I beg of you. It’s killing me.”
When she still failed to grab it, because taking the handkerchief meant removing her hands from her blotchy face and allowing him to see the unattractive snorting and the hiccuping rather than just hear it, he grabbed her by both shoulders instead. Then, to her complete surprise and utter humiliation, instead of shaking her out of her hysteria as she had fully expected and doubtless deserved, he immediately gathered her into his arms, where she collapsed in a wailing heap against his chest.
ChapterNINETEEN
To say that she was inconsolable was the understatement of the century. He had never witnessed a woman cry so hard and so much in his life—and he had grown up with the overemotional and theatrical Flora, who could cry at the drop of a hat over nothing. “It’s all right.” Because it was.
And it very definitely wasn’t.
As much as his heart bled for her, and as much as he was prepared to do whatever it took to get her to realize that she wasn’t to blame, the last thing Harry wanted to be doing at this precise moment was holding the siren in his arms. Yet here he was, holding her tight and trying his hardest not to enjoy the way her petite but curvy body fitted so perfectly against his. “Nobody died. Nobody was seriously hurt and certainly, nobody needs to resign.”
As none of his words seemed to be penetrating her guilt, he gave up trying and simply held her for as long as it took for the worst of her tears to subside. It was every bit the hellish torment he had known it would be, but it couldn’t be helped. He couldn’t leave her like this. It really was breaking his heart.
As the sobs finally turned to sniffles, she stiffened in the cage of his arms and lifted her head, but flatly refused to remove her hands from her face. “I’m sorry for… carrying on so. I am not usually one for tears.”
Somehow, he knew that was the case. Just as he knew she was now hideously embarrassed to have shed any. “It’s quite all right. It has been a particularly trying evening.”
“It’s all your fault that I cried—you were too kind.”
“It’s a dreadful flaw of mine.” He chuckled at her reprimand, relieved that she was more her tart self again. Yet he was still reluctant to let go of her, even though holding her wasn’t the least bit sensible. “You have my solemn pledge that I shall behave like a beast the next time my idiot nephew decides to disobey orders, get himself lost, and make you upset.”
“Thank you.” He could hear her smile, even if it was still hidden behind her hands. “I’ve always fared better with shouting and insults and blame.” Unaware that in one sentence, she had told him something unsettling about her background which he knew he would not be able to forget, she wiggled the fingers of one hand slightly. “If I could trouble you for that handkerchief now, it would be much appreciated.”
Harry released his arm only enough that he could pass it to her, then hugged her close while she blew her nose into the linen and dried her eyes. So proud, and yet still so clearly riddled with guilt, it physically pained him to witness it.
“If anyone needs to do better, going forward, it is me.” It wasn’t fair of him to allow her to carry the burden of guilt, and it definitely wasn’t fair not to acknowledge his own. “I am the one who dragged the children on this trip. And while I did my best to convince myself that I was being an excellent uncle for putting their needs first, I am also aware that I didn’t so much delegate the responsibility of lookingafter them to you on this arduous journey, as abdicate allmyresponsibility to them to you too.”
She glanced upward, blinking, and he couldn’t even bring himself to spend longer than a moment looking in her red-rimmed, tear-swollen eyes because he had had a big hand in putting those tears there. “I’ve forced everyone into the carriage at dawn every single day, then pushed through on the road for longer each evening than was either reasonable or necessary, and left you to entertain my charges and suffer the consequences. When I know that Grace gets fractious cooped up inside for more than two hours at a time without a decent opportunity to expel some of her boundless energy. When I know that Marianne gets sick with the constant motion of the carriage, especially after luncheon. Just as I also know that Felix needs to be outside almost as much as he needs air and water. Not only did I purposefully ignore all that, not once in the last six days have I joined you in the carriage to help. I am heartily ashamed of myself.”
“But that is silly.” He did not dare look at her, so rested his chin on her head instead, trying not to enjoy how well it fit there. “You hired a governess, Captain Kincaid, at great expense I might add, to take care of the children, and despite all your doubtless justifiable reservations about me, you still gave me the choice to accompany them. Please do not feel guilty for expecting me to do my job.”
“Now you are being too kind, Miss Rowe, but I will not let you.” If an apology was due, he might as well do it properly. That meant some honesty was required, although not complete honesty for obvious reasons, and some humbleness would not go amiss either. “When we both know that I haven’t merely left you to do your job, I haven’t done more than say good night to my nieces and nephews since I left them with you to go to Portsmouth, and for all their many faults and foibles, you are right, they adore me, so they do not deserve that. Iam their uncle. Their only uncle, and I used to be a really good one. I still am because I adore them too and should have tried harder. Especially in Flora’s absence. Yet I have gone out of my way to give three innocent children—my own flesh and blood—the cold shoulder for weeks now, and all to indulge my own pathetic and selfish desire to wallow in my own deep well of irrational, miserable self-pity.”
She deserved that much honesty. “I was wallowing in it up to my neck when Felix wandered off, when I could and should, as an officer or a gentleman or an uncle or, most especially, a decent human being, have taken him to walk his dog while you dealt with his clearly distressed sisters. And for all of that, I am truly sorry.” From this day forth, he was going to do better. Much better. His solemn pledge to her. To the children. To himself.
Miss Rowe had gone still in his arms, and as the silence stretched, both things gave him no choice but to look down at her to see what she thought about his confession. But where he expected irritation or judgment or, miraculously perhaps, even some forgiveness, all he saw were two furrowed ginger eyebrows, a much-too-pretty tearstained face, and the wrinkled, perturbed nose that never failed to charm him.
“Why on earth are you wallowing up to your neck in a well of self-pity, Captain Kincaid?”
“Well, I…” Her green eyes were stormy, concerned, and so compelling, he answered before he had the wherewithal to censor himself. “I know that I should be ecstatic about this promotion but… I am not and I do not know why.” Any more than he knew why he couldn’t seem to let go of her.
Apparently, content to remain in his arms, she gave his response some thought and then searched his eyes again as if they held the answers he could not find. “Could it be because you prefer the work you do at the Admiralty over sailing the seven seas in search of trouble?”
He shrugged, then reluctantly let his arms fall to put a sensible foot of distance between them. “My dissatisfaction beganatthe Admiralty, and I’ve always loved the sea but…” Harry threw up his hands. How to explain something he didn’t understand himself? “I feel ambivalent about going back there.”
“An ambivalent man doesn’t look as miserable as you have this past week. You’ve resembled one headed toward his own execution rather than one looking forward to his next great adventure.”
A perceptive comment that was likely closer to the truth than he was comfortable admitting, even to himself. “Perhaps I looked miserable because I loathe Plymouth and all its environs with every fiber of my being?” He tried to smile but couldn’t when he knew Plymouth was just one of the symptoms of his current malaise and not the root cause.
“What’s wrong with Plymouth and all its environs?”
“I grew up there.” As much as he seemed incapable of not revealing his ludicrous and self-indulgent disquiet to the vixen this evening, he had no intentions of telling her everything. Certain uniquely Plymouth-based things, like all the bailiffs and Elizabeth and the rescinding of his first captaincy, were too private and painful and humiliating to admit aloud. “And found it… suffocating.”
“Ah,” she said as if she understood that cryptic answer entirely. “I only have to hear the dreaded wordsIpswichorPrestonor, heaven forbid,Newcastle, and a part of me dies.”
