Destined to Last (26 page)

“Yes, most often because they haven’t any other choice.” She shook her head slowly. “I am sister to the Earl of Thurston. I’ve more wealth and status than I shall ever need, and a family that would never insist I sacrifice my happiness in a bid to acquire more.”

“You think there is nothing I can offer you that you don’t already possess?”

“There is nothing you are
willing
to offer that I don’t already possess.”

“What of children?”

“Children would be wonderful,” she admitted. “And Whit and I are both testimony to the fact they can be happily raised in a home with only one loving parent. But the possibility of that is not sufficient reason to enter into an ill-advised union.”

“It bloody well isn’t ill-advised.” He threw his hand up in an impatient gesture. “And you may very well already be with child.”

She rose slowly from her seat, as if she ached. “Should that circumstance arise, I may have to reconsider matters, but unless it does, I’ll marry for love, or not at all.”

“You love me. That is more than most in the
ton
can claim. Can’t it be enough for now, and—?”

“If it were enough to earn your love in return, it would be.”

“Kate, you have to understand—”

She didn’t, apparently. She’d turned and walked from the room before he could finish his sentence.

K
ate wondered a little that she was able to walk down the hall, past staff and guests as if nothing was amiss. She wondered that she was able to walk at all. The hurt was enormous. It sat heavy in her chest where her heart ought to be and beat out a steady rhythm of pain in time to the rushing of blood in her ears. It bloomed out from there—sharp tendrils that wound through her belly and out to her arms and legs down to her very toes. Her head hurt. Her eyes burned. Even her jaw ached from clenching.

Hunter didn’t love her. He’d all but promised he never would.

The burn at the back of her eyes increased as she dragged herself up the back stairs.

Was it irony that she should have spent so much time dreaming of a prince who loved her without bounds, only to have fallen in love herself with one who would not love her in return? That he
could
not, she refused to believe. At least in the sense that he was incapable of love entirely. Everyone was capable of love. It was Hunter’s choice to keep his heart locked safe behind a wall of mistrust.

She couldn’t blame him for having constructed the wall, and a portion of the pain she felt now was not only for her,
but for the hurt boy he’d been. But he was no longer a helpless boy. He was a grown man of wealth and power. He made his own choices. And he chose to keep the wall.

Though he’d assured her otherwise, Kate couldn’t help wondering whether he would have chosen to take the wall down if she’d been a different sort of woman. Someone less stubborn, or less distracted, or less clumsy. Someone he thought was worth the risk.

The first tear fell as she pushed through her bedroom door. A half dozen more fell before she closed the door behind her.

Hunter didn’t love her. He never would. She’d mistaken the wrong man for her prince, again.

She made it to the bed, crawled atop the counterpane, found a pillow to bury her face against, and began to weep in earnest.

“Kate?” Lizzy’s soft voice filtered through the sound of her own crying. “Lady Kate?”

“I’m sorry, Lizzy.” She managed to turn her head from the pillow and choke the words out between the sobs. “But please go away.”

“It’s Mr. Hunter, isn’t it?”

She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t do anything but turn her face back into the pillow, and cry harder.

Hunter walked along the beach, oblivious to the seagulls swooping overhead, the golden light of morning dancing across the waves, and the salty breeze that blew off the water. He was oblivious to everything but the thoughts and emotions simmering in his mind. Uncomfortable with the latter, he focused his attention on the first.

It was for the best that he fought back the urge to follow Kate after she left the sitting room. The woman was being stubborn and unreasonable. A few hours to herself would be a more effective remedy for that than a few hours spent listening to him demand she
cease
being stubborn and unreasonable.
Furthermore, giving Kate a bit of time to think provided him with time to develop a new strategy, or at the very least, figure out what had gone wrong with the first.

He’d been so sure telling her the truth would work to his benefit. It should have. It
would
have, if she’d given him a chance to convince her he’d make a fine husband. They’d have a good marriage, no less happy for not being a love match. What the devil was wrong with a match made out of fondness and respect?

I’ll marry for love or not at all.

He grimaced at those words.

Obviously, he had misjudged what it was about her novels that captured Kate’s interest. She wasn’t merely a dreamer. It wasn’t just a life of adventure she wished for. It was love. The woman was a hopeless romantic, with a very heavy emphasis on hopeless. She fancied herself in love with
him
, after all.

You’re a good man.

That’s
who she was in love with—the good man. The charming gentleman who made her laugh, brought her thoughtful presents, and offered her adventure. She hadn’t the first inkling that he’d done those things for himself, hadn’t the slightest idea that the charming gentleman was nothing more than one of many personas he’d created over the years.

She hadn’t the foggiest notion that the man she loved didn’t exist.

If she even suspected half the things he’d done in his life, she’d have nothing to do with him now. He wasn’t a good man. He wasn’t a prince from one of her books. He—

Something small and sharp caught him on the side of his head. He whirled around and found Lizzy standing not ten feet away, her eyes red and her face set in mutinous lines. She wore a full apron covered with pockets and held a decentsized seashell in her hand.

She’d hit him with a shell?

“Lizzy? Why the blazes are you tossing shells at me?”

“You’ve hurt her. You made her cry.”

Kate was crying. And Lizzy had been as well. Oh, damn. “Sweetheart—”

“You’ll not call me that!” She hurled the next shell and hit him on the shoulder, as soon as it left her hand another appeared in its place.

“All right. I’ll not call you that.” Hunter held up his hands in surrender and eyed her warily. “You’ve a great many pockets on that apron. How do you keep the contents straight?”

“I fill them all with the same thing.”

He’d been afraid of that. “I see. Lizzy, try to understand—”

He ducked before a particularly sharp half shell could take out an eye, then ducked again.

“Pax!”
He dodged the next projectile, braced as she raised her arm to hurl another. “Titania,
pax
!”

She froze in place, her eyes wide. Slowly, ever so slowly, she lowered her arm. “What did you say?”

He ran his tongue across dry lips. Why should he be nervous? He’d intended to tell Lizzy at some point. He’d known he’d have to once he told Kate. He just hadn’t intended to tell her quite so soon, and he hadn’t thought to tell her like this.

“You called me…” Lizzy opened her mouth, closed it again. “You called me Titania, didn’t you?”

He nodded, and waited for her to remember. Heart in his throat, he waited to see if she
would
remember.

“Titania. I’ve not been called that since…” She stared at him, her eyes narrowing. “Since I was a very little girl.”

“You were five. We were in London.”

The shell she’d been holding fell to the ground with a soft thud. “Puck?”

The distance from the shore to Pallton House was no more than a hundred yards, but to Hunter it seemed a hundred miles. He was, in a word,
exhausted.
He’d been up for more
than twenty-four hours. He’d completed a mission. He’d offered for, and been denied, the hand of the woman he wanted to marry. He’d informed a grown woman that, as a child, she’d been the nearest thing he’d ever had to a sister, and then discussed that exceptionally uncomfortable topic for well over an hour, which left him no further along in his strategy for winning Kate’s hand than he had been an hour prior.

By the way his mind and body dragged, Hunter imagined he’d be no further along an hour hence. He needed sleep—a brief nap to clear his head.

He had time enough, he told himself as he climbed the steps of the terrace. Kate wasn’t going anywhere. The house party wasn’t over yet. There was a fortnight left for him to put a new strategy into play.

He could make her come round in a fortnight.

She wasn’t going to come round.

Hunter stood next to Kate on the front steps of Pallton House and watched as trunks were loaded onto the Thurston carriage. He’d woken to the sound of it—the hustle and bustle up and down the hall. He’d followed the noise and movement and found Kate standing in the midday sunlight, watching her mother, Lizzy, and Lord Brentworth give directions to the footmen loading the carriage that would take them back to Haldon Hall.

He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it, simply could not grasp that Kate was leaving. He turned his eyes from the drive and stared at her profile. Neither had spoken when he’d come outside. He’d been unable to find the right words. He’d been unable to do most anything beyond stare and wonder at the sudden ache in his chest.

The ache grew, spurring him to say
something.
“Don’t do this, Kate.”

“It’s for the best,” she replied softly, keeping her gaze straight ahead.

“Running away is never for the best.”

“I’m not running away. I’m going home. To Haldon.” She fiddled with something on the front hem of her gray spencer. He couldn’t see what, because she wouldn’t turn to face him. “You’ll be welcome there, should you decide that is what you want.”

He hadn’t a response. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, the offer meant. So he changed the subject, and his tactic.

“The other guests will talk. They’ll speculate Miss Willory scared you off and—”

“Let them.”

Kate’s mother called up as Lord Brentworth took her hand to assist her into the carriage after Lizzy. “When you are ready, dear, the carriage is prepared.”

Kate nodded in acknowledgment. She barely turned her head to speak to him. “Good-bye, Hunter.”

She stepped forward and suddenly the ache gave way and a panic unlike any he’d ever known raced through his veins. Chasing close behind was fury. His arm shot out to grab her elbow. “I’ll not come for you,” he growled. “I’ll not bloody beg.”

She looked at his hand a moment, and then for the first time, looked at him.

“Would it change anything,” she whispered, “if I did?”

It would change everything.

I’ll beg.

I love you.

Say the words. Even if they’re lies,
say them.

He dropped his arm.

She nodded, turned, and walked away.

H
unter had a new strategy. He was going to win Kate back with flowers, presents, charm, and an adventure or two. He was going to convince her by using every means at his disposal that she couldn’t live without him. It was, he could admit, a rather uninspired strategy, but it
was
a strategy.

He reminded himself of this as he sat in his room at Pallton House, staring into a glass of brandy he hadn’t a clear memory of pouring. At a guess—a highly inebriated guess—he had reminded himself of his strategy every half hour for the last eighteen hours, which also happened to be the frequency at which he envisioned getting on his horse, riding to Haldon, and begging Kate not to leave him. It was humiliating how strong the temptation was to chase after her. But he wasn’t going to give in, he told himself and took a long swallow of his drink. He wasn’t going to make a terrific ass of himself—women weren’t charmed by asses, terrific or otherwise—just because he couldn’t stop thinking of her. Or because he missed her smile, and her laugh, and the damn dimple at the end of her nose.

He wasn’t going to make an ass of himself just because he hurt.

He rubbed the heel of his hand against his chest. Shouldn’t
not
loving the woman hurt less? Hadn’t that been the point of not falling in love—to
not
hurt?

He glowered at his drink. Hadn’t not hurting also been the point of getting foxed?

“Waste of perfectly good brandy,” he grumbled and set the glass aside.

He glanced up at a knock on his door, and the sound of Whit’s voice coming from the other side. “You decent, Hunter?”

“Haven’t you heard?” he asked, letting his head fall back against the chair. “I’m better than decent. I’m bloody good.”

Whit opened the door. “What?”

“Nothing.” He waved a hand impatiently. “Come in, then.”

Whit frowned at him a moment before crossing the room to toss a letter in Hunter’s lap. “Mission’s over. William wants you in London.”

“Can’t ride. Drunk.”

Whit stepped closer and bent forward to sniff. “You do smell flammable. Hell, man, it’s eight in the morning.”

Hunter glanced at his window. He hadn’t noticed the sun had come up. “What of it?” he groused. “I’ll go to London when I’m sober. Anything else?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Whit took a seat across from him. “I wish to discuss Kate.”

“Why? Mission’s over, as you said.”

“This doesn’t pertain to the mission,” Whit replied. “Do you know the excuse she gave for leaving the house party early?”

“No.”

“She said she was homesick. Said she couldn’t compose properly in an unfamiliar room.” Whit snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Chit’s not been homesick a day in her life.”

“Is there a particular reason you’re telling me this?”

“There is.” Whit tapped his finger on the edge of the chair. “Your mission required you to spend a good deal of time with my sister while she was here. I saw the looks that passed between you at meals and over games of chess in the parlor. I know my sister. I know her heart.” He stopped tapping. “I know you broke it.”

A demand of satisfaction from Kate’s brother, Hunter
thought with resigned disgust; it was a fitting end to the courtship. “Took you long enough to seek me out.”

“I wanted to think the matter through, and give you time to do the same.”

“Time changes nothing.”

Whit surprised him by shrugging. “I’m not quite as eager to call you out as I was eighteen hours ago.”

“Generous of you.”

“Not really. Mirabelle promised to take our son and emigrate to the Americas should I try it.”

“Ah.”

“She did give me leave to bloody your nose a bit, though.”

“Have done with it then,” Hunter invited with a wave of his hand. He didn’t bother getting up. No point, really, if he was just going to fall back down again.

Whit sat up in his chair, and his voice grew cold. “Is there a
particular
reason I should?”

Hunter was just sober enough to know when a diplomatic reply was in everyone’s best interest. “Broke her heart, didn’t I?”

Whit, apparently satisfied by that answer, snorted and leaned back once more. “By the looks of it, she broke yours as well.”

“Don’t have one to break.”

“If I believed that, even for a moment, I’d not have let you within a hundred yards of my sister.”

“You don’t know me as well as you think.”

“I do.” A small smile pulled at Whit’s mouth. “You’ve what—five, six months left of your obligation to the War Department?”

Hunter bolted upright, waited for his vision to catch up, then demanded, “You know? You know and would allow me to have anything to do with your family?”

Whit’s smile grew. He motioned toward the decanter of brandy. “May I?”

“What? No. Yes. I don’t care.” What the devil was the man talking about?

Whit helped himself to a small drink and returned to his chair to sit back and let out a long contented sigh. “I’ve been waiting a good while to have my revenge on William.”

“Revenge?”

“You’ll be wanting your own soon enough.”

Hunter was vaguely aware of grinding his teeth. “What do you know?”

Whit took a sip of his drink. “I know you financed, among other things, a very successful smuggling operation for a time.” He took another sip. “I know you were apprehended with some of your goods, and that among those goods was correspondence between a French patriot and an English spy.” He took yet another slow sip. “I know those letters were planted.”

“They bloody well were,” Hunter snapped. At least, they had been in the sense that one of his men had acquired them without his permission or knowledge.

Whit’s smile grew into a positively wolfish grin. “They were planted by William.”

A long period of silence followed that announcement. Whit continued to sip his drink. Hunter stared at him, his sluggish brain struggling to catch up to his hearing.

“You lie,” he finally managed.

Still grinning, Whit shrugged and finished his drink. “Ask William yourself. He intended to tell you in a couple months’ time.”

Hunter went back to staring as Whit set his glass aside and rose from his chair to take his leave. He paused at the door and turned back. “Regardless of your reasons for working for the War Department, you’ve been an extraordinary agent, Hunter. The best…aside from Alex and myself, of course. And you’ve been a good friend.”

“Because I helped make you rich.”

“That didn’t hurt. Neither did stepping in front of that bullet for me.”

Hunter resisted the urge to shift in his seat. “Just a scratch.”

“Sober up. Get to London.” Whit’s grin returned. “Give William my regards.”

The ride from Pallton House to London took six hours by horseback. Hunter’s head throbbed as every hoof beat against the road. He’d averaged it out to be roughly three hundred sixty beats per minute, sixty minutes an hour, for six hours. That was roughly one hundred thirty thousand throbs. And he was going to bloody William’s nose for each and every one of them.

It mattered little to him that William hadn’t been the reason he’d reached for the brandy, nor that it hadn’t been William he’d thought of while he’d spent half the day trying to undo the damage that brandy had done, nor that it hadn’t been William he’d thought of during the vast majority of the long ride. It was William who was going to pay.

And now that he was perfectly sober, he decided to make Whit pay as well. The man had known of William’s treachery and not said a word until now. What sort of good friend kept secrets such as that? It was possible, of course, that Whit had only recently learned of the deception, but that minor detail wasn’t going to save him.

Fuming, throbbing, and eager to make William pay for both, Hunter climbed the front steps to William’s town house, lifted a fist to pound on the front door, then paused.

There were questions he wanted answered and if those answers turned out to correspond with what Whit had told him, he wanted satisfaction. The latter was easily obtained with his fists, but the first would be troublesome to acquire from an unconscious man. Even a man with a broken nose could be difficult to understand.

He’d give William a chance to explain himself, he decided as he pounded on the front door. Perhaps he’d have a little fun with the man first—let him squirm a bit.
Then
he’d bloody his nose.

A maid showed him in and ushered him down the hall to the study where William sat working behind a desk piled with paperwork.

“Mr. Hunter to see you, sir,” the maid announced before taking her leave.

“Hunter, my boy.” William barely spared him a glance. “You’re late. And you look like hell.”

“I was drunk.”

That got the man’s full attention. “Were you?”

“Very,” he assured him and took a seat in front of the desk.

“Any particular reason?”

“None whatsoever.” He stretched his legs out before him. “Just fancied the idea.”

“I see, and did this idea occur to you before or after your mission was officially over?”

“Before,” he lied. “
Well
before,”

“I see,” William repeated and narrowed his eyes. “Habit of yours?”

“I wouldn’t call it a habit, not really. I’m more of a dedicated hobbyist.” He raised his brows. “Problem?”

William set his pen down, hard. “Have you forgotten your obligation to me? To the War Department?”

“No. But I have decided to no longer meet it.”

“You’d risk the hangman?”

“No,” he said clearly. “
Apparently
, I wouldn’t.”

William opened his mouth, closed it, and sat back in his chair with a disgusted grunt. “
Damn
Whit. I should never have told him.”

“Damn you!” Hunter snapped, straightening in his chair. “You
lied
to me.”

William heaved the sigh of one very much put open. “Yes. Yes, I did. Extensively, in fact.”

“You planted evidence that marked me as a traitor.”

“Strictly speaking, it wasn’t planted. Never left my pocket. I just pulled it out—” He broke off at Hunter’s narrow-eyed glare. “Very well, I planted it.”

“I thought I’d been an unwitting traitor.” That had eaten at him, the notion someone had gotten the better of him, that someone had used him. “I thought I’d hang.” That hadn’t sat well with him either. Nor did the realization that someone
had
used him sit well now.

He jabbed his finger at William. “I should call you out.”

“You’d certainly hang for shooting me.”

He jabbed his finger again. “I should beat you senseless.”

“Might want to hold off on that until I explain why. Or don’t you want to know?”

Hunter snarled but dropped his finger. “Why, then?”

“Because I wanted you as an agent and, at the time, it was the only way to gain your cooperation.” William gave Hunter a pointed look. “Would you have come to work for the War Department simply because I had asked?”

“No.”

William nodded. “I needed you. You are one of very few who can move about in every level of society as if it was his own, because at some point, every one of them was your own. You’ve been, among a multitude of other things, a pauper, a thief, a merchant, and by the time you were brought to my attention, a guest at some of England’s most elite tables.”

“Is that why you didn’t confiscate my wealth?” Hunter demanded. “Because you knew I’d need it to find any level of acceptance in the
ton
?”

“Well, that, and because I do have
some
sense of fair play. It was never my intention to punish you, merely make use of you.”

“Do you expect me to express gratitude for that?”

“For that, no. For giving you the opportunity to prove yourself, yes.”

“Sanctimonious ass,” Hunter snarled. “Prove myself to whom? You? The Prince Regent?”

“To yourself,” William informed him. “Admittedly, it wasn’t for your own well-being that I planted the letters, but it worked out to your benefit all the same. Your obligation to me—”

“There was no bloody obligation.”

“Your perceived obligation, then,” William corrected. “It gave you time away from your less savory pursuits. It gave you a chance to become the man you believe you’ve only pretended to be.”

Hunter gave himself a moment to try to decipher that last bit. “What the devil does that mean?”

“It means you’re a good agent, Hunter. One of the most reliable I’ve ever had.”

“I haven’t had a choice, have I?”

“Certainly you have,” William countered dismissively. “You could have left. Nothing stopped you from simply disappearing years ago.”

“And have your men hunt me down like a fox run to ground?”

William waved that argument away. “You know how to stay hidden, how to evade.”

“From the likes of McAlistair?” The man had been an assassin. A highly successful assassin.

William seemed to think about that, scratching at his nose before his face split in a sudden grin. “I’d have paid good money to see a contest such as that. It would have been epic.”

It would have resulted in the death of one or both of them. “You’re positively macabre, aren’t you?”

William shrugged. “It’s the nature of the business. Speaking of which…I’m retiring from it.”

“I…” Hunter bent his head to pinch the bridge of his
nose. Just like that, the man wanted to change the subject. “I’m delighted for you. Or I express my deepest condolences, whichever you prefer. May we return to the matter at hand?”

“It is the matter at hand. I’m naming you as my successor.”

His head snapped up. “What? Me? What the devil for?”

“Because you’re a good man, a trustworthy agent. Didn’t I just mention that?”

“I…” He held a finger up. “A minute.”

He needed a damn minute to wrap his throbbing head around the bizarre conversation. William had planted evidence, misled and used him, and was now offering him a position of exceptional prestige and power. There were, he decided, only so many surprises a man could absorb in a short amount of time. William, no doubt, was aware of this.

“Make no mistake,” Hunter said in a cool tone. “We’re not finished with the matter of the planted letters. But to address your attempt at changing the subject—Whit, Alex, and McAlistair are fine agents as well.” They were also better men, but he wasn’t about to begin a discussion on that. “Ask one of them.”