Elizabeth Thornton (41 page)

And she’d seen him in the worst possible light.

El Centurion. Gladiator. Barely civilized
. Maybe he was all these things, but couldn’t she see that he’d had no choice?

She would be home by now. He could imagine the joy at Vayle House. And so there should be. They’d lived through hell, and George most of all. He’d spent weeks in a windowless cellar that was heated only at night so that the smoke escaping through the makeshift chimney could not be detected by outsiders. There had been a straw pallet on the earth floor, a table and chair, a commode, and that was all. Most men would have gone mad. What had kept George sane was hope. He’d known that his family wouldn’t let him down.

Good had triumphed over evil and that didn’t happen very often. Then why the hell was he so glum?

He thought of his own house and how Harper would growl at him again because he’d missed the action. He’d been in no shape to dress himself, let alone take part in anything. He would be waiting up for him, wanting to know how everything had turned out. They would commiserate, and maybe get drunk together, but they would both know that there wasn’t enough whiskey in the whole of England to blot out the memory of what Langley had done.

He wondered what Richard Maitland had to go home to.

He opened his eyes. “Why don’t you come home with me and we’ll crack open a bottle or two? This has been a god-awful night, and I feel like drowning my sorrows. And Harper will be there.”

“How is Harper?”

“Cantankerous, but he’ll live.”

They both smiled.

Maitland said, “I’ve always envied you Harper. Loyalty like that is priceless.” He laughed mirthlessly. “That’s where I went wrong with Langley.”

“Then you’ll come?”

“Won’t you be going to Vayle House?”

“I’m not in the mood for it. They didn’t know Langley. They won’t understand how I feel. Hell, even I don’t know how I feel, and I’d only be a damper on their high spirits. I’ll wait a day or two before I drop in on them.”

“In that case, I accept your invitation. There’s nothing and no one waiting for me at home.” Maitland stretched out his long legs. “He was the best, wasn’t he? I mean, before this happened. He was an excellent commander.”

“None better. He trained us well.”

“They shouldn’t have forced him into retirement.
That was not well done.” He sighed. “But that doesn’t excuse what he did.”

“No,” said Hugh.

“I had to be the one to put him down.”

“I never doubted for a moment that you would do it.”

“I had a dog when I was a boy. We were inseparable. I even took him to church with me. Then he got rabies. I didn’t want to kill him, but I had no choice. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“I understand.”

After a long interval of silence, Maitland said, “I hope you will accept my apology for being such a jackass.”

“You mean for suspecting me? Well, if it’s any consolation, I suspected you too. So our apologies cancel each other out.”

“I hope Miss Vayle is as forgiving as you.”

“Miss Vayle is more forgiving than I am. Which puts me in mind of something. She said that you showed her my record as an agent, but there are no records, so what exactly did you show her?”

“When I began to suspect you, I made up my own file, tracing your career from the beginning, trying to spot when you had turned bad. There was nothing, of course. You were an exemplary agent, one of the best.”

“An exemplary agent? I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You’ve always made it clear that you dislike me intensely.”

Maitland’s Scottish brogue rolled off his tongue. “That was on a superficial level. I knew you were good at your job. That’s why I was so bloody minded when I began to suspect you were a traitor.”

Hugh let out a laugh. Maitland folded his arms across his chest and glowered at Hugh.

Hugh said, “Richard, you’ve just restored my faith in human nature. No, I mean it. I was more prejudiced
than you. I allowed my superficial dislike of you to cloud my judgment of your abilities, and in an agent, that is inexcusable.”

He held out his hand. Maitland looked at it suspiciously, but after a moment put his own hand in Hugh’s and gripped it.

Hugh said quietly, “Friends?”

Maitland stopped glowering. “Friends,” he said at last. “Now take that silver spoon out of your mouth, Templar, so we can get drunk together.”

O
n the day after George’s rescue, the papers carried the shocking news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba and his subsequent landing on the coast of France. On the second day after George’s rescue, it was reported that Colonel Langley had been tragically shot dead by housebreakers whom he had surprised in his magnificently refurbished house in Chelsea. On the third day, Hugh and Maitland called at Vayle House.

They were shown at once into the family’s private sanctum, the upstairs parlor overlooking the Thames. Harriet and Giles were out walking in Hyde Park with their two infant daughters, but everyone else was there.

George was the focus of attention. With his calm gray eyes, light blond hair, and slightly squared chin, he closely resembled Abbie. His clothes were hanging on him but he looked relaxed and happy.

As the conversation went on around him, Hugh’s eyes frequently strayed to Abbie. She didn’t appear to notice. She had eyes only for George. Every once in a while, she would touch him, not obviously, but as if by accident.
Then her eyes would fill with tears and she would look away, but she would not look at Hugh.

George said, “I never really thanked you for rescuing me, Mr. Templar, and you, too, Mr. Maitland. I never completely gave up hope, but I knew that my life was hanging by a thread. Bea has told me how much I owe you both, and I shall be forever in your debt.”

“As we are in yours,” said Maitland. “It was a brave thing you did, a very brave thing, returning to that hole in the ground so that we could catch Langley red-handed.”

Everyone in the room knew what part Colonel Langley had played in things, and everyone knew they could never speak of it outside these walls.

George said, “I never saw him. It was the other one who would visit me from time to time.”

“Nemo?” said Hugh.

“I think so. When I first met him, he said his name was Ashton. He was supposed to be taking me to Chatsworth to talk to the duke’s gardener. He drugged me, and when I awakened, I was in that hole.” He looked at Abbie. “I didn’t want to write those letters, Bea, but he told me if I didn’t, he would kill you.”

“It’s all right,” she soothed. “I understand.”

“He told me he’d killed Colette. She was the girl in the bookshop, wasn’t she? The one who passed you the book?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” he said fiercely, “I’m glad you and I did our part to bring Nemo and Langley to justice. I’ve thought about it constantly, and it feels right to me that we completed what Colette started. She chose us, and we didn’t let her down.”

Lady Clivendon began to weep, and to cover the awkwardness, Daniel began to pass around glasses of sherry “We’ve been reading the papers,” he said. “I can’t say we were surprised to hear that Napoleon has landed in France. But the question that everyone is asking is, Does this mean war? Maitland, Templar, what do you think?”

Maitland looked at Hugh, and when he saw that Hugh was looking at Abbie, he answered the question. “I don’t think there’s any doubt of that.”

“Then I suppose you’ll both be rejoining Wellington?”

Again Maitland looked at Hugh, with the same result. “I think I can speak for us both when I say that if the call goes out, of course, we’ll rejoin Wellington’s staff.”

“You mean,” said Abbie, “behind enemy lines as spies?”

Maitland smiled as he shook his head. “I’m afraid, Miss Vayle, I’m not at liberty to answer that question.”

Abbie jumped to her feet and ran from the room. Hugh went after her.

He caught her on the landing. There was a brief struggle, then he grabbed her arm and half dragged, half propelled her into a small book room. When he shut the door and let her go, she rubbed her arm and backed away from him.

“Abbie,” he said, “I want to apologize for what happened at Langley’s place.” When there was no response, he exhaled a long breath. “I don’t know how much you saw or heard outside the icehouse—”

“Plenty!” she retorted.

This time, he
inhaled
a long breath. “I know I must
seem hard to you, but we couldn’t refuse George’s offer. We had to make Langley show his hand. It was the only way to prove his guilt. And George was willing. He understood.

“As for Langley—” He was forced to clear his throat. “I’m sorry you had to witness that scene. But try to see it from my point of view and Maitland’s. Langley had recruited us; he’d trained us. He was our mentor. We trusted him implicitly. And he betrayed us. We did no more than Langley had trained us to do. He deserved what he got.” He paused. “Did we seem brutal to you? Well, this is war, and war makes brutes of men. Sometimes only brutal methods will do. But I’m sorry you had to witness that scene.”

He had rehearsed in his mind how he would defend himself. All the same, he was taken aback when she walked to the window and stood staring out with her back to him.

“It’s all a game to you, isn’t it, Hugh?” she asked tonelessly.

“What is?”

“Chasing down spies; gladiator fights to the death.”

“You ought to know me better than that.”

“Oh, I think I know you.” She gave him one swift glance over her shoulder, then looked out the window again. “I’ve read your file, remember?”

“So we’re back to that, are we?”

He stared at the rigid line of her back, and he felt utterly defeated. This was one battle that would never end, one battle he did not think he could win. She had seen him in the worst possible light, and he did not know how he could erase the memory from her mind.

As hope died, anger began to rise in him. He had waited for three days and had received not one word from her. A fool would have known what to make of it. He’d
made excuses, told himself that she deserved time alone with her family and George. But he’d known, deep down he’d known, that she’d shut him out of her life.

Mortified pride ripped through him, savaging his control. He tried to hang on to it, but she turned to look at him, and her cool-eyed stare snapped the last shreds.

“There is never any pleasing you, is there, Abbie? You wanted a gladiator to save your brother, but now that George is safe, I’m not fit to kiss the hem of your gown. You read the file that Maitland kept on me, and now I can do nothing right in your eyes. Well, I am more than the man in that file, and if you can’t see it, there is no hope for us.”

She swiveled to face him, shock and disbelief mirrored in her eyes. He did not see them. He was riding the wave of all the pent-up doubts that had made him writhe since she walked in on Langley’s execution.

“Yes, I became a gladiator again, but with the best reason in the world. I would have done anything to protect the woman I love. Do you think that anything less than fear for your welfare could have dragged me back to the kind of life I loathe? I don’t deny that I handed you over to Maitland. But I wasn’t thinking like an agent. I wasn’t doing my job. I was thinking like a man. I loved you, and you had betrayed me. What did you expect me to do? I was bitter. I wanted to punish you. I tried to apologize, to make amends. But you wouldn’t listen, not until you needed me again—to save your brother.

“Now, I begin to comprehend.” His eyes moved over her in a slow, insulting appraisal. “That’s why you gave yourself to me, isn’t it? It was in payment for services rendered. My God, what kind of man do you think I am?” He strove to control his breathing. “That’s a stupid
question! You’ve made it abundantly clear what you think of me. By damn, no woman will ever have such power to hurt me again.”

She stood stock-still, incapable of movement or speech. Tears of contrition blinded her eyes, and she covered her face with her hands. One of those horrible aching lumps was lodged in her throat. How could she have hurt him like this? But he had misunderstood. She wasn’t looking down on him because he was a gladiator. She was mortally afraid that he wasn’t enough of a gladiator to stand up against someone like Nemo. It was fear that had made her lash out at him. She wanted to keep him safe. She loved him.

And it seemed that Hugh loved her too.

“Hugh, forgive me,” she whispered brokenly, and blinking away tears, she reached for him.

But Hugh was no longer there.

She picked up her skirts and dashed through the open door. Down the stairs she raced, taking them two at a time, screeching his name like a banshee. She caught up with him in the front gardens. She grabbed for his wrist and tugged with all her might. Though he shook her off, he turned to face her.

Her words were punctuated by the harsh sound of her breathing. “Just where do you think you’re going, Hugh?”

The sneer on his face shook her confidence, then she saw the pain in his eyes, and her heart seemed to break open.

“Don’t worry, Abbie,” he said. “I realize Bath is too small for both of us. I thought I might retire to Oxford, or maybe Endicote. I’m thinking of buying Mrs. Deane’s house. And there are plenty of Roman ruins around both areas to keep me out of your way for years to come.”

“But … I thought you were going to rejoin Wellington. It’s what Maitland said.”

“Contrary to what you think, I don’t burn with the lust to kill my fellow man. I never did. All it ever was to me was a job that someone had to do. When I got out of the service, I promised myself that I was never going back, and nothing has made me change my mind.”

He turned and walked away from her.

She held up her arms, hands fisted, as though beseeching the heavens to help her with this stubborn man. “Hugh Templar,” she cried out. “Don’t turn your back on me now. I love you, Hugh. I love you with my whole heart.”

He stopped walking, but he kept his back to her.

She cried despairingly, “As God is my witness, I love you, Hugh.”

It was only a coincidence, Hugh told himself, but as Abbie’s words died away, the heavens blazed with an explosion of warring thunderbolts and the earth shook. Before he had captured her in his arms, the rains came down like a river in spate.