Patrica Rice (17 page)

Something Amy was chirping caught his ear, and he turned his attention back to her. "What was that, love? Lynley said what?"

"Don't break it, she said," Amy gave him a look of disdain at his lack of attention. "You got to keep it forever and ever and ever," she admonished in a tone that reflected the adult she mimicked.

Don't break it. Jack thought of the torn pieces stored all these years in an ivory music box of his mother's. He had carried that broken heart halfway around the world with him as a reminder of how low he had fallen. If only he could put those torn pieces back together again and start all over.

The vague stirrings of an impossible idea came to mind, but nothing was too impossible to try in this desperate gamble for a love he had lost and wished to win back again. Giving Amy a kiss and thanking her with a hug for his beautiful valentine, he rose and went in search of the music box.

Many tedious hours later he had pasted and pieced dozens of torn bits of lacy paper on a large sheet of vellum. Giving the ragged result a wry look, Jack admitted to himself that his chance of winning this gamble with such feeble backing was slim, but it was all he had.

Forgetting cloak and hat, he set out into the fast-growing darkness of the winter streets, gripping the forlorn fragments of an old valentine. He carried no roses or candy or trinkets as a proper valentine lover should. Instead, he carried his heart in his hand.

When notified she had a visitor, Carolyn refused to see him, as she had refused all visitors this day. She didn't have the heart to exchange witty sallies with friends or suitors on the state of her love life on this day for lovers. Tomorrow, maybe she would venture out again. George had been remarkably silent this past week, but the combination of the scandal and his mother's arrival would explain that. He had sent another reassuring note, but it hadn't reassured. She hadn't even finished reading it.

The footman returned some minutes later with a large bit of paper on his salver. Carolyn gave him a look of irritation for thus interrupting her morose thoughts, but she took the awkward message he offered. Her eyes widened in surprise and she rose to carry it to a brighter lamp to better peruse what she wouldn't believe she was seeing.

Carefully pieced and pasted back together was the valentine she had created five years ago for the man she had meant to marry. The faded ink still bore the words of the poem Jack had written for her when he had asked if she would marry him, the same poem she had written on the valentine she had left downstairs in the library, remembering the words as if it had been only yesterday when last she heard them.

Tears poured down Carolyn's cheeks as the feelings of that long-ago time flooded through her, unlocked by this tattered heart that Jack had so painstakingly recreated. He had kept it all those years. Why?

Without a word to the waiting servant, Carolyn swept out of the room and half-ran to the front salon, where visitors waited, the tattered valentine clutched in her hand. She had to see him face-to-face, to hear his reply. She had to know why he had kept this shattered heart for all these years. And why he had put it back together now.

Jack glanced up as she ran into the room. His weathered face had a lined and harried look to it, and there was a wariness in his eyes at her abrupt entrance, but he moved toward her as steel draws toward a magnet.

"Why?" She waved the forlorn heart beneath his nose.

He didn't need to understand the question. The answer was in his heart. "Because I love you. Because I've always loved you. Throw it back in my face if you will. I deserved it then. I've worked hard not to deserve it now, but that's for you to decide. I can't bear this loneliness any longer, Carolyn. I've worked and waited these five years in hopes of winning at least your respect, but what I want is your love. Can you ever forgive me and start anew?" He was not too proud to beg, but he desperately wished he dared take her in his arms while doing so. The cold air between them chilled his heart.

Carolyn stared at him in disbelief, not daring to believe the words. He had destroyed her with just such words before. She couldn't let him do it again. Her gaze faltered at the smoky gray intensity of his eyes, and she dropped it to the valentine in her hand. Her fingers instinctively smoothed the crumpled paper.

"I can't. How can I?” she murmured, almost to herself. "You sold my love for money. It's gone. There can be no love where there is no trust."

His heart ached, and he finally gave in and reached for her. Whether he hoped to prevent her escape or pour his love into her, he couldn't say, but the contact was electric. They both jerked with the jolt, and Jack couldn't have moved away if his life depended on it.

Holding her arms, he poured out his feverish response. "I paid him back, Carolyn. I paid your father back every cent I ever took from him. He was right. I had no right to ask you to share a life of penury with a careless spendthrift. I do not condone his methods, but he did what he had to to protect you. I didn't take his money in exchange for your love. I never wanted his money. He gave me no choice. Please understand that, Carolyn. Turn me away if you will, but not without understanding that I have never stopped loving you, that everything I have done has been for love of you."

Carolyn wanted desperately to be enfolded in Jack's embrace, to accept his words unquestioningly, to feel his strong arms around her and hear his heart beat beneath her ear, but she had learned her lesson at his hands too well. She shook her head blindly, refusing to meet his eyes.

"I heard you that night. Father paid you to turn me away. Don't lie to me anymore, Jack. I can't bear it."

Jack felt anger for the father who had allowed her to continue to think these things all these years, even after the debt was repaid. But the plea in Carolyn's voice called to him, and he gently pulled her into his arms. He rejoiced when she made no effort to fight him. The scent of lavender wafted around him, and he inhaled deeply. He could easily spend the rest of his life drowning in that fragrance.

"I've never lied to you, my love. Please believe me. Every word I've said is true, although I once said them cruelly to drive you away. I didn't want you wedded to a man lounging in debtor's prison. I didn't deserve you then, and I knew it. Your father's ultimatum only made it clear to me. I hated him for making me face the facts, but he gave me the opportunity to redeem myself, and I took it in hopes of one day being able to look you in the eye again. The money he offered was a loan, my love. I repaid it with interest. You may ask him if you have doubts."

Carolyn tried to make order of her swirling thoughts, but enveloped in Jack's arms, she could only drink in the radiant heat of his body and the ecstasy of his hard strength beneath her hands. She didn't wish to think of anything else.

She didn't need to think of anything else. A door slammed, and a harsh voice exclaimed, "What is the meaning of this? Damn you, Chatham, haven't you caused enough scandal—must you create more?"

Carolyn jerked and would have fled Jack's arms, but he held her firmly, entrapping her in his protective hold as they both faced her father together.

"If you'll excuse me, sir, I am asking your daughter to marry me. I do not believe I need your permission anymore.

"You do not need my money anymore, is what you mean! She refused you, Chatham. I'll not see her made unhappy. Get out of here before I call the constabulary."

Carolyn straightened at this threat, and without a second thought to her words, she answered her father's fury. "Jack will leave when I want him to. If you throw him out, I go with him. You tore us apart once before, but I'm older now and know you are not infallible. Had you but trusted my judgment then, we neither of us would have had to suffer all these years. This time, the choice is mine. You cannot force it." She felt Jack's arm tighten around her, and this time she allowed herself to lean into his embrace.

"Shhh, Lynley," Jack whispered placatingly in her ear as her father's face grew suddenly ashen. "Save your temper for another time. I'm a father now too, and I know what it is like to protect a daughter. It is easy to think the safe thing is the right thing. No one wants to take chances with the ones they love."

Carolyn turned eyes brimming with love up to Jack's face, and her smile was one of joy and acceptance. Her words, however, had the ring of a woman who had set aside childish fancies. "You are not my father, John Chatham. If it's marriage you want, you had better learn I am no longer a gullible child to be swept away by your facile tongue. I can fight my own battles, thank you."

The warm chuckle in her ear made her heart quake. "Anyone who can simultaneously rout Mrs. Higginbotham and capture my daughter has my full respect, my love. I do not doubt your abilities. It is your temper I fear."

Henry Thorogood watched this display with bemusement but had the sense to hold his tongue. The young lord had a quick way with words, but perhaps that was what Carolyn needed. He certainly couldn't fault the loving attention the young man showered upon her, although he certainly could fault his methods.  With a loud throat-clearing to remind them he was in the room, he interrupted what could easily have become a rather intimate exchange. "I cannot leave the room unless I know a formal betrothal has been formed."

Carolyn turned her smile from Jack's loving gaze to her father. "Leave the room, Papa. Jack may talk with you later."

She felt the joy rocketing through the man holding her as her father glared and stomped out. She wasn't certain what she had done, but in her heart, it felt right. She turned her gaze expectantly back to Jack.

"I love you, even if you are as spoiled and obstinate as Amy." Jack's mouth curved as she moved more fully into his embrace.

"Don't forget bad-tempered and willful," she reminded him, standing on tiptoes to reach his lips with hers.

"And mine." Firmly, Jack covered her mouth with his, drawing her into his hold so she could have no uncertainty as to what he meant.

"I never said yes," Carolyn gasped some minutes later when he gave her time to gulp for air.

"Yes you did, five years ago. It's been a long betrothal, my love. Shall we make it a hasty wedding?" Jack held her eyes with desperate intensity.

"Will you explain to George?" Carolyn asked, postponing her acceptance of this joy Jack offered her with open hand. She still could not quite believe it. She needed time.

Jack smiled. "I've already explained to George. He's a very understanding man. He's willing to let you choose."

"He'd give me up without a fight?" she asked in mock incredulity.

"He knows I'll put him six feet under if he stands in my way. Give me a date, my love."

"Christmas," she said firmly.

Jack bent his head closer and spoke inches from her lips "Try again."

"Easter," she murmured, rising to the temptation.

And as that holiday was little more than a month away, Jack said, "Done," and closed the compact with a kiss.

* * * * 

Although the sun shone and the guests wore their spring pastels for the occasion, the ebony-haired flower girl wore red velvet. The four blond bridesmaids, one only slightly older than the flower girl, wore white lace and carried valentine roses as the bride walked down the aisle that balmy Easter Day.

When the ceremony ended and the groom's sun-darkened face bent to take the kiss he had earned from his shining bride, he gave no hint of surprise as their audience broke into gales of laughter rather than happy tears.

There at the foot of the altar two dancing cherubs in white and red cavorted to the sweeping swells of organ music, heedless of the solemnity of the occasion. The bride smiled into the groom's eyes, and the look they exchanged bespoke the distinct possibility that another cherub would be on the way before year's end.

* * *

Deceiving Appearances

Admiring the image in the shop window of the well-dressed gentleman in gray top hat and velvet-collared cloak, Peter Denning straightened his broad shoulders, and when the image did the same, he smiled, cocked the hat to a rakish angle, and proceeded onward.

The absurd silk scarf dangling about his neck swung as he walked despite the expensive tiepin, and he felt a trifle foolish tucking a bit of stick beneath his arm as the other gentlemen on the street were wont to do, but his side-whiskers were neatly groomed and his Wellingtons gleamed and he was satisfied that he had perfected the image of the perfect gentleman that he had set out to portray. The knowledge that he was no such thing was keenly imprinted in his mind, but there was no need for the world to know that.

It was not that he meant to defraud the society in which he walked. He had as much wealth and more as the young gentlemen in the club to which he turned his feet now. Unfortunately, that wealth had not come about from the opportune demise of one of his relatives.

His mother had been a lady's maid who had never seen two coins to rub together in all her life. His father had had the courtesy to marry her before disappearing from their lives, but that had been the extent of his involvement in Peter's affairs.

No, the wealth that paid for a well-appointed apartment in Mayfair, a valet who had naught better to do than see to his master's newly acquired wardrobe, and a rig and four that ate their worth in expensive feed had come from hard toil.

Not to mention a certain shipping venture that had generated unexpected profits. Denning grinned to himself as he pushed open the elaborately carved door. A servant who had shirked his duties rushed forward filled with apology, bowing and scraping as Peter handed him his cane and hat.

After all those years on the sea in the company of men who ate, slept, and breathed in their own filth, he was finding it exceedingly pleasant to return to the cultured confines of an orderly society, one that he had only been able to admire from afar before he went to sea.

He was learning to conquer these outer appearances very well. He had grown up on the estate of a wealthy lord, listening to the speech of his betters, cultivating their accents even more than his mother had. His mother had encouraged him, hoping one day he would find a position in the household for himself and so secure his future.