Page 85

"What you must think of me," she began brokenly. "Of Papa, and everyone connected with him."

Alec's jaw tightened, then eased. “I’m sorry you were there. Angelique never should have brought you with her."

"Oh!" She waved one hand impatiently, even though she’d been terrified when Morris stepped out of the trees and grabbed her. "At least now I know the truth, not some fairy tale of 'expectations' and other rubbish Papa used to tell us. He was a liar and a thief who lived on other people's sins."

"He was your father."

"And I loved him!" she said hysterically. "I did, and he was so—so—so unworthy!”

"I loved Will," he reminded her. "He was my brother in spirit, closer than Freddie.”

"Papa ruined his life, too!” Tears ran down her cheeks, and she didn’t wipe them away.

He shook his head. "Will was not an innocent victim. I don't for one moment hold your father blameless, but what Will did was unpardonable. He could have refused when your father approached him. I don't know why he didn't, but he wasn’t likely to be swayed by a lowly sergeant to do something so heinous if his inclination had been fixed against it. The French gold was too tempting, and that fault belongs to Will alone.

“What happened to me. . . ” He paused. A misting rain had begun, wetting the shoulders of his coat. "It was all horrible mischance,” he said quietly. “I searched the attics for my trunk because Will gave me some letters the night before the battle. He asked me to deliver them to his father. I didn’t examine them, just put them in my trunk for safekeeping. Will meant those papers to be his confession to his father, who would never believe he’d done it otherwise, and then he went out and made sure he died in that battle.” For a moment his face spasmed, much as it had in the attics as he read that letter. “Will couldn’t know I would go missing for so long that someone would discover his bundle of letters in my trunk and believe I was the French colonel’s correspondent."

Cressida gaped at him.

“If Will had never done it,” Alec went on, raising his voice a little as the wind picked up and more drops spattered down around them, “if he had resisted when your father approached him, he never would have had letters like that to hide. Will might not have got himself killed at all, and he would be at home now with his wife and child. There would have been nothing of note in my trunk. I would have come home to recover, much the same brash, reckless man I was when I left.”

“But that didn’t happen, because Papa persuaded him,” she said wildly. “Papa is responsible for all of this!”

“Not all,” he said over her protest. “My own actions contributed to my situation. I was well-known in the army for being rash and quick-tempered, as bold as brass and daring to a fault. Had I been more restrained, people might not have believed the charges so readily. Had I been more logical and dispassionate, I might have chosen a different course of action. Disappearing for five years doesn’t have the same effect as standing up and shouting my innocence for all to hear, even if in a criminal dock.”

“You should not have needed to!” she cried. “Papa— How can you even bear to look at me after what he did?”

“It is not the adversity you suffer, but how you react to it that determines one's worth. What your father did does not reflect on you any more than Will’s actions reflect on me.”

The rain began in earnest, refreshingly cool after the suffocating heat. Alec pressed his lips to her temple and she leaned into him. “I am so sorry,” she said, her voice cracking.

He rested his forehead against hers. “I’m not.”

Cressida pulled back to look at him in astonishment.

He smoothed a wet strand of hair from her cheek. “If Will had refused him, your father might have found some other desperate officer and persuaded him to do it. He might have tried the same extortion on that man, and moved his family to some other town, and you might be standing in the rain with some other fellow, and I would not undo one moment of the last five years if that were the price of it.”

Her mouth fell open. A brilliant bolt of lightning lit the sky for a moment, with thunder like a cannon shot. They really ought to go inside. “What?”

“I had time to think while I rode to The Grange.” The rain increased, drumming on the stable roof and the paving stones beneath their feet. “About what I truly wanted. I had time to consider if I would rather have never been accused of treason, and come home to go on my way without ever crossing your path, or if this were the happier ending for me. And I knew I would rather have you, whatever else life might bring.”

She blinked, and sniffled. Raindrops clung to her eyelashes. “You’re mad.”

He grinned. “Barking, howling mad,” he said. “For you.”

“Even though⁠—?”

“Even though.” He kissed her until she forgot her question, then tipped back his head and squinted into the downpour. "I don't think we’ll have a walk today after all."

She smiled through her tears. "Not without getting very wet."

Alec laughed. "It feels rather good, to tell the truth. But perhaps it's holding you that feels good, and not even the rain could quench my delight." He cupped her cheek and made her look up at him. "You said something earlier, about loving me." Cressida froze, her eyes going wide with apprehension. "I was wondering. . . or really, hoping," he went on, "that you might love me as much as I love you. Or at least enough to marry me, because I really don't know how I can ever let you go."

For a moment she was too stunned to reply. Then wordlessly, she began nodding, and didn't stop even when he held her close and swung her off her feet.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

To Alec's great surprise, John Stafford himself arrived two days later. He had never learned what Stafford's real interest was in George Turner's disappearance, and could only guess that it was even greater than suspected for him to come all the way to Marston.