Authors: Victoria Dahl

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

It's Always Been You (2 page)

BOOK: It's Always Been You

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Gulliver Wilson’s gaze slid over her shop, over the long oak counter, the smooth, dark wood of the floor. “You should be more careful,” he intoned in his stuffy drawl.

Kate looked down and studied the green wool of her sleeve, willing herself not to lose her temper. “As you say, Mr. Wilson.”

“This town is not so quaint as it seems.”

“So you’ve told me.” Her wry tone must have bounced off the man’s thick head. He only nodded soberly and stroked his chin, eyes still crawling with that assessing squint she’d come to recognize.

“There’s no reason to go about town by yourself, Mrs. Hamilton. I’m happy to escort you anywhere you have need to go.”

Kate didn’t reply to that, she only stared flatly at his pursed lips and wondered when he would leave. These visits were usually mercifully short.

“You may simply send a note ’round.”

She continued to ignore him.

“Well . . .” He twitched down the hem of his red coat. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

“I assure you that won’t be necessary. I am quite capable of looking after myself.”

“A woman alone can never be too careful, Mrs. Hamilton.”

“My husband would not have sent me ahead if he wasn’t sure of my safety. Good day.”

“Good day,” he snapped before stomping away.

She watched with narrowed eyes until he stepped into the street and closed the door behind him. Irritating little bug. He owned the tobacco shop across the street and kept an eye on her from his desk in the window. Worse, he’d dropped in almost every day for the past two months, looking over her property and her person with an arrogant air. Her nose crinkled with distaste at the thought of his shiny eyes resting on her bosom.

What did he want from her? Perhaps he suspected that there was no Mr. Hamilton and hoped to marry her himself one day. Or he believed that she and her husband were permanently separated and he could become her lover. Whatever he imagined, in his eyes Kate was a woman without a man, and he meant to step in and fill the breach.

“I think not,” she muttered with a humorless smile. Gulliver Wilson didn’t stand a chance of even taking her for a stroll on the street, much less a run to her bed. The mere thought made her shudder as she went to the counter and pulled her ledgers from their perch beneath it. Freedom was finally hers and she intended to keep it.

She was no longer helpless. She’d opened this store with help from no one—and had turned a profit in less than three months. A soft feeling bloomed inside her at the thought.

She’d never dreamed, not once in the past ten years, that she could be this content. This . . . happy.
Happy
. Was that possible? She hadn’t even bothered dreaming of happiness for so long. But she now had a home. She had peace. Self-sufficiency. And
anonymity
. That was a sort of peace in and of itself.

Kate inhaled deeply, savoring the aroma of roasted beans before letting her breath out in a rush. She loved this place, loved the sharp scent of the room and the rays of the sun creeping over the hard-worn floor. The silence of late-day also gave her time to check her figures and make plans for new shipments.

A few more weeks and winter would arrive. She hoped it would be cold. A bad winter would be good for sales, but that was not the sole reason she wished for cold. It had been years since she’d seen snow—ten endless years—and she’d almost forgotten it. A small flutter touched her belly at the thought she might never have seen winter again. Just the idea of a long life spent in Ceylon disturbed her enough to dry her mouth and tighten her throat.

But there was nothing to fear. She’d left the strange shores of Ceylon far behind her and returned to England as soon as was possible. She’d taken only the money that belonged to her, and a knowledge of coffee she’d managed to gather up in her decade on the island.

Now Ceylon was a world away, and she could only pray it would stay that way. Actually . . . she could pray, and she could take every precaution.

She’d lost so many pieces of herself over the years. Some in small bits, and some in great cataclysms that had rocked her to her core. It was as if the very things that made her a person had been removed. Nothing so metaphorical as her heart or her soul, but a very real foundation of stones that held her up. And now, she was carefully piecing those stones back together, with her own hands and her own hard work.

Reassured by the thought, she glanced down to the book she held.

H
AMILTON
C
OFFEES
, the engraving read in gold script. The lettering had been a luxury, but she was so pleased with it. She was only Mrs. Hamilton now. She was not Katie Tremont. She was not Katherine Gallow. Just Mrs. Hamilton, an unknown woman with no Christian name. She had no family, no past, no lover, no coffee plantation burying her in heat and deceptions. And no husband who’d ever show up and reclaim her. A perfect life, as far as she was concerned.

And she would let no one take it away from her.

Aidan stopped just inside the doorway of Hamilton Coffees. The afternoon sun shone warm and high, casting the interior of the shop in shadow. Standing silent for a moment, he let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the building and inhaled. The rich scent of coffee gave him a comfortable feeling—a reminder of countless damp days as a child spent watching his father drink his coffee as he reviewed the daily papers and planned his morning.

As his eyes adjusted, Aidan looked about the place. He’d expected a typical coffeehouse, full of tables waiting for customers to stop in and enjoy company and biscuits. Instead, the small space was lined with lidded bins. Labels were attached to each, no doubt a description of the contents. Hamilton Coffees was a coffee merchant, a very profitable position if one knew the market well.

The room seemed deserted, but once he took a step inside, Aidan saw it was actually L-shaped. A small wing extended to the left of a door on the far wall. And there sat the mysterious woman, bent over a workbook and completely absorbed in her task. He took the chance to study her. She was absolutely unremarkable. Light brown hair pinned up beneath a small white cap. Green dress completely free of any adornment.

He couldn’t begin to guess her age—she was angled a little away from him—but even as he thought it, she turned slightly, allowing him a good view of her profile, and his world lurched with a violent shudder.

It was not her, could not be her, but his heart began a slow, hard thump of recognition. The street sounds filtering in from the open door faded to a dull buzz in his ears.

Her nose was straight and fine. Her lips full and rose red. She was older, certainly. Thinner. But . . . Holy God.

“Katie?” The word escaped his lips before he could form the will to stop it.

She stiffened. It was a subtle movement but obvious to him, he watched her so intently. Odd, though, she did not turn toward him, did not glance up. In fact, she bent a little more closely over her ledger.

“No.” He heard the low word but did not see even a small parting of her lips. Then her chest moved as she drew a deep breath. She closed her eyes. “I am Mrs. Hamilton.”

He felt strangely calm, looking at this stranger, hearing Katie’s voice in her words. Time slowed, allowing him to notice all the small details of the moment. The way her hand curled tightly around a pencil. A strand of nut brown hair that had fallen free of its pins to rest against her cheek. The stiffness of that lush, unforgettable mouth.

“Katie.”

Her lips fell apart just a bit then as she inhaled sharply. “No,” she said again, finally lifting her head. Her closed eyes opened slowly, unwillingly, and met his.

The world sped up with a terrifying ferocity when he caught her brown gaze and knew, finally, that it was her.

“Katie,” he breathed again, the only word he could think past his confusion.

Her face was a terrible mix of emotion—grief, yearning, fear. Before he could speak, that glimpse of turmoil was gone, closed behind a rigid wall of polite indifference. “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave, sir.”

He stared at her, drank in the sight of her—her slightly square jaw, her lovely skin, the thick hair held back in a merciless knot. An hour seemed to pass before he realized what she’d said. “Pardon?”

“The shop is closing early. You’ll have to leave.”

“Leave? It’s
me
. Aidan.”

“I know who you are.”

He frowned, blinked, then felt a veil of shock begin to lift from his mind, exposing a maelstrom of anger and excitement. “What the hell is going on here?”

Her expression did not budge. “I am closing the shop early.”

“Closing the—?” The words evaporated in his mouth, leaving a gritty film. He could only stare at her, openmouthed, utterly stunned at her calm. Perhaps he had lost his mind. Perhaps she was only a stranger and he was imagining that she looked like his dead lover. But she did not look confused. She knew him.

“How can you be here?”

Her eyes blazed with fear, only for a moment, then she turned on her heel and walked toward the doorway in the back wall.

Aidan’s mouth numbed. “You were dead.”

She stopped, spun around and pinned him with a glare. “Dead? What do you mean?”

“They told me you were dead.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your parents. Your parents, of course.”

“My
parents
. Well, that is not surprising, I suppose, though I cannot fathom their reasoning. I am not dead,” she added needlessly. “Please leave my shop.”

“The hell I will.”

Her eyes narrowed further, but her breath shuddered so hard in her throat that he could hear it.

“Please don’t . . .” he started. His mind was spinning, spinning. This was Katie. His lover. The girl he’d meant to make his wife. The woman who’d
died
ten years before.

“Katie, damn you. You’d better start explaining.”

“Damn me?” she ground out behind her teeth. “Damn you, you cold bastard.”

He took a step toward her, reaching out blindly, meaning to touch her, to shake her, but she jerked away from him and bolted into the dark room behind her. He heard her ragged breath, heard the slap of her shoes on the floor, then a bright shaft of sunlight pierced the dim as she opened a door to the alley.

By the time he recovered himself and followed, she was gone, the alley deserted. He stood there in the shadowed air and wondered if he’d gone stark, raving mad.

Chapter 3

Oh God, oh God, oh God
. Her feet kept time with the beat of the words in her head.
Oh God, oh God
. She rushed down the alley, trying not to run, trying to suppress the urge to fly into the road in sheer, blind panic. The alley spilled into the bright sun of the street. Kate looked back, saw that no one followed, and pushed into the flow of traffic.

What were the chances? What were the chances he would wander into her shop?

Turning left at the next lane, she found a deserted alleyway and stopped to lean against the rough stone. Sounds flew from an open doorway further along, the clinks and clanks of the printer’s shop jostling her nerves.

Her face began to crumple, her eyes stung, and the loss of control set off a rhythm of panic in her veins. Terrified at the rush of feeling, Kate raised her head and forced her face to be still. He was nothing to her, nothing. He’d sent her away long ago. He’d forgotten her until it was too late.

He was nothing to her. And yet she’d run from him. Fled from her own home as if he could harm her. It had taken her years to build up some semblance of her old courage, and now she’d dropped it and run as if her hard-won bravery was a worthless rag.

What was he doing here? What did he want? And most importantly,
how had he found her?

Her legs weakened. She slid down the wall and crouched there, listening for pursuing footsteps.

He could ruin everything.

She took a deep breath and told herself not to be a coward. He knew nothing of her life. In fact, he seemed to think she should be dead.

Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath and tried to still the hundred questions swirling madly about her head. None of that mattered right now. She only had to think what to say to Aidan York.

Rubbing her forehead lightly, she cursed herself. She should not have reacted to him so, should have been cool and calm and completely at ease with his presence. Should have acted as though his appearance meant nothing whatsoever to her. Because it meant nothing, surely. He’d set her aside. She’d been given to another. It was as simple as that.

But how disturbing to see him again. He did not look the same. He was older, and his body was larger or harder or simply more intimidating. She might not have recognized him if not for his voice shaping her name.
Katie
. It sounded like an old secret. Or an old betrayal.

“Faithless wretch,” she whispered, pressing a handkerchief to her hot face. She had loved him so much. With every fiber of her earnest, eager heart.

“Missus?”

Kate jumped, pushing herself up along the wall at the man’s graveled voice.

“Be ye all right, missus?”

“Oh, yes.” She tried to smile at the hunched figure of the local rag picker, tried to remember his name. “Yes, um. I’m well, thank you.”

“Ye look a mite bloodless.”

“The sun. I think I shall return home. Get out of the heat.”

The man glanced around at the shadows of the lane. “You do that, missus.”

Kate set her teeth and pushed away from the wall. But she didn’t turn back toward her shop on Guys Lane. Instead she walked. Walked for blocks until the pain had numbed. Until she’d calmed down. Then she headed back to him.

She had a masquerade to maintain, after all. She could not back down from it now. Not even for Aidan York.

Aidan stared out the small front window before resuming his pacing. He felt like a wild animal, wanting to growl, to snap at someone or something.

He could not get his mind around the situation. She had not died ten years ago and seemed not to even know she should be dead. Unless that was just part of the lie. Where the hell had she been? His confusion made the specter of madness more real.

Through the glass of the front window, Aidan watched a woman stop and peer curiously at the closed door. After the first customer had come in and asked after Mrs. Hamilton, Aidan had turned the lock. He was in no mood to act as substitute shopkeeper.

This woman put her hand to the glass to peer blindly around. Her round face and the avid curiosity in her eyes reminded Aidan of his mother. My God, his mother was going to love this story. She wasn’t an unkind woman, but gossip was gossip after all, and the story of Katie had always been a delicious one.

Mrs. Hamilton. Was she married then, or had been? Had she run off with someone else, leaving her parents to concoct a story to cover her indiscretion? The possibility stunned him.

He glared out the window for the hundredth time, watching for her. He would have some answers, if, of course, she hadn’t disappeared again. The thought turned his blood cold, stopped his heart completely.

Just as his hand curled into a fist, he heard a small sound from the back room and twisted to find her standing there, smiling tightly.

“I apologize for walking out.” She jerked her fingers vaguely toward the alley door.

“What happened?” he snapped.

“I . . . I just . . .” She paused to swallow. “I was only surprised to see you. Of course I was.”

“No, not that. I don’t understand what happened. To you. What
happened?
”

“I have no idea.”

“No idea? We argued, Katie, and then you disappeared.”

Her smile slipped and she glared at him. “We argued, and you told me to go.”

“I was angry!” he shouted, but Kate cut him off with a sharp wave of her hand.

“There’s no point in discussing this. All that matters now is you’ve found me.”

For a moment, the clouds of confusion parted, and Aidan caught a brief moment of hope.

But Katie shook her head as if to warn him away from such foolishness. “How did you find me? How did you track me down?”

“What?”

“I need to know. I . . . I have no wish to present myself to my family. Do they know I’ve returned?” Her fingers twisted nervously together, and anxiety tightened her brow.

“Returned from where?” he asked before shaking his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“How did you
find
me?”

Aidan threw his hands up. “I saw you on the street! I followed you here.”

Every muscle in her body seemed to freeze solid. “That’s it?”

“Yes! A ridiculous happenstance. Meaningless and random.”

She looked thrilled by the circumstances, but Aidan felt only a growing horror. If he’d left that office a few minutes before, or a few after, Katie would’ve walked on, unnoticed.

“Katie,” he said on a strangled breath. “You still haven’t told me what happened. Did you . . . the ship . . . did it sink?”

She spared him a distracted glance. “The ship?”

“To
Ceylon
.”

“Oh, that. No. But it hardly matters now.”

“Don’t be absurd. Of course it matters.” He took a step toward her but was stopped when she raised a hand.

“It was a lifetime ago. What story could I tell that would make any difference? I can’t . . . I can’t think. And I wish you would just
go
.”

Strange that words could cause such stunning hurt. Aidan drew his shoulders back in an attempt to hide the force of the blow. She wanted him to go. And he could only imagine staying. For hours. For days. Staying until he’d satisfied himself with every detail of every second of her life since she’d left.

“Did you mean to leave?” he asked softly.

Her mouth twisted into a grimace for a brief moment, but she stayed silent.

He tried again. “You said you would marry someone else.”

“You told me I
should,
” she whispered.

Weariness seeped into his limbs and muffled his brain. It had been an argument between children. Had she really married someone else because of their foolish, angry words? She must have. Her name was Mrs. Hamilton now, after all. And of all things, she was a coffee merchant.

His shoulders felt too heavy as he glanced helplessly around the small, spare room. “You’re married?” he asked.

“I am,” she said quickly and without emotion. Her hands tightened their grip on each other.

“Your husband?”

Her eyes fell to the floor. “He’s not in England at the moment.”

Aidan ignored his unfortunate relief. He studied her, taking in her patent discomfort, her downcast eyes, and he could not identify the emotions scrambling inside him. “Do you really want me to go?”

“Yes.”

“How can I?”

“I have a shop to run,” she said simply.

“The door is shut. Leave it for the day.”

He knew her answer when she met his gaze. When had her eyes ever been so cool? “There are deliveries to be made. I cannot ignore them.”

But stubbornness was new to her, and Aidan had worn stubbornness like a skin since the moment he was born. “Fine. But I’ll come back.”

“But . . . why?” she asked, though resignation was writ clear on her face. Whatever she was feeling, she could not imagine he would leave this be.

“We owe it to ourselves to figure out what happened, don’t we?”

She shook her head. “I don’t see what difference it could possibly make.”

“Don’t you?” Aidan’s hand lifted the barest inch, wanting to reach out to her, to pull her against him and feel the realness of her body. Her eyes flew to that small movement and widened in alarm.

“Tomorrow then,” she blurted, taking a small step back. “There is a strolling park—”

“I’ll come for you.”

Her eyes flew to his before skittering away. “Good afternoon, Mr. York.”

BOOK: It's Always Been You

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