The Wedding Escape (32 page)

“Maybe she won't want to escape again,” Jack retaliated. “Maybe once she has returned to living in luxury, she'll come to her senses and realize what she was missing.”

Alex looked at him in confusion. “What was she missin'? She had everythin' she needed here.”

“Amelia isn't the one who needs to come to her senses, Jack,” said Charlotte. “You are.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean it's about time you stopped feeling sorry for yourself,” she told him. “It's time you put your past where it belongs—in the past. And realized that you aren't condemned to spend the rest of your life alone, feeling bitter and angry at the world.”

“I don't.”

“You do,” Charlotte insisted. “And if you don't stop now, then you may indeed have to spend the rest of your life alone. But it won't be because of Amelia. It will be because of you.”

“You can forget whatever romantic notions you may have in your head, Charlotte.” Jack was infuriated at having his life dissected in front of his entire family. “There is nothing between me and Amelia. She was a friend, and I helped her escape from a marriage she claimed to not want, and gave her a place to stay for a while. Nothing more.”

“Oh, Jack.” Charlotte's eyes were filled with sadness. “How can you lie to me?”

There was a moment of strained silence.

“If all of you would kindly leave us for a moment,” Genevieve began quietly, “I would like to speak with Jack, alone.”

“Come on then,” said Oliver, rousing the little group into action. “Let's see if we canna get Eunice to fix us some nice tea and biscuits.”

Genevieve waited until the room had cleared and the door shut before seating herself on the sofa. “I've always loved that painting of Charlotte,” she remarked, studying the portrait she had created so many years earlier. “When I gave it to you, I sensed that you loved it just as much as I did.”

“It's a beautiful painting,” Jack said shortly.

“I suppose it is. But that isn't what first drew you to it. You liked it simply because it was a painting of Charlotte.”

He did not deny it.

“Before you went away to university, I used to worry about you and Charlotte. I could see that there was a powerful bond between the two of you, and I was afraid you might confuse your feelings for each other for something else. I knew that no matter how deeply you and Charlotte cared for each other, it would be wrong for you to marry her. Do you know why?”

“You thought I wouldn't be gentle enough with her,” Jack replied bluntly. “You knew I had a violent past and a temper, and you thought Charlotte deserved better than that, after all that she had been through—and she did.”

“No, that wasn't it at all, Jack. I knew you and Charlotte were wrong for each other, because you would always see Charlotte as a victim. After being an older brother to her for so many years and thinking of her as a shy, frightened, abused little girl who needed protection, you would spend your life trying to shield her from the rest of the world, and even from yourself. You would never come to treat her as an equal. By loving her so much and wanting to keep her safe, you would have locked her into a narrow, stifling role that would have kept her from challenging herself, and ultimately discovering all that she could be.

“And Charlotte would have suffocated you,” Genevieve continued, “although not intentionally. As her husband, you would have felt guilty every time you left her to go on one of your lengthy voyages, even though you needed so desperately to escape Scotland and see the world. Ultimately, you would have resented that. She also would have inadvertently forced you to suppress your emotions and your temper, because you would have been afraid that she was too fragile to deal with them. You needed a woman who could accept your moods and your passions, and not be afraid to match them. Finally, had you married Charlotte your contempt and anger toward the world would have grown unchecked. You would have always believed she was being judged for her own unfortunate beginnings, and you both would have suffered because of it.”

“I don't see how any of this matters now.” Jack's voice was clipped. “Charlotte married Harrison, and I was damn happy for her when she did, once I knew what sort of man he was.”

“You were also relieved, because you no longer felt responsible for her happiness.”

He said nothing.

“So my question to you is, who do you think is responsible for your happiness?”

“No one.”

“Wrong. You are. Only you can decide what will make you truly happy, Jack.”

“I am happy.”

“You're the most miserable I have ever seen you.”

“I'm not miserable.”

“Then why do I feel as if your heart is breaking?”

“I suppose because you've been listening to Charlotte, and she seems to think I'm unhappy.”

There was a long moment of silence before Genevieve finally asked, “Do you love Amelia Belford, Jack?”

A harsh laugh escaped him. “It wouldn't matter if I did. She would never marry a man like me.”

“And what kind of a man is that?”

“A bastard,” he said ruefully. “An urchin. A thief. A street fighter. A prisoner. A struggling, barely successful entrepreneur. Take your pick. None of those things are what she has in mind for a husband.”

“What does she have in mind?”

“Someone rich. Preferably an aristocrat, with a huge estate and lots of money. Someone who has the time and inclination to take her to lots of fancy balls and dance with her and play all those bloody games of society.”

“It seems to me she already had that in Lord Whitcliffe. Yet she gave it up to run away with you.”

“She didn't run away with me,” Jack objected. “She ran away, and because she just happened to climb into my carriage, I helped her. She thought she was going off to marry Viscount Philmore, but it turned out the sniveling little fop was already betrothed to someone else.” He snorted with contempt.

“And so she stayed with you. She came to Inverness, and from what I understand from your brothers and sisters, she created a new identity for herself, and got herself a job, and even brought that little Alex here to live. Those hardly sound like the actions of a spoiled heiress who is pining to go home.”

“It doesn't matter,” Jack argued. “Now that she has gone home, she'll see everything that she was missing. This is a woman who was born to a wealth you and I can barely imagine, Genevieve—far greater than anything Haydon inherited or earned in his lifetime. She has lived a life of unbelievable privilege and protection—she doesn't understand the real world. She thinks all criminals are like Oliver and Alex, for God's sake.” He turned to look out the window before finishing in a raw voice, “And she doesn't know the truth about me.”

“What truth?”

“About my past,” he replied shortly.

“Actually, I believe she does—in quite some detail. Annabelle told me that she and Amelia talked about your childhood at length while Amelia was staying with her. Annabelle wasn't the first to mention it, either. Apparently Oliver, Eunice and Doreen had already told her about it.”

Jack stared at her, dumbfounded. “She knows?”

“Why does that surprise you?”

“Because she never acted like she knew.”

“How do you think she should have acted?”

Like she was better than me. Like I was not worthy of her.

But Amelia had never acted like she thought she was better than him—or anybody else, for that matter. For all her privilege and breeding, for all her travel and education and jewels and gowns and the expectation that she would marry someone of either staggering wealth or nobility, Amelia had always treated him exactly the same.

As an equal.

“When I first fell in love with Haydon, I believed he would never want to marry someone like me,” Genevieve reflected softly. “He was a marquess, and I was a poor, outcast spinster whom society thought was mad because I had given up a life of privilege and respectability to take care of urchin children no one else wanted. How could a wealthy, handsome, titled man like Haydon possibly want to marry a woman like that?”

“You were strong, and kind, and generous.” Jack felt his old fury stir as he remembered how society had denigrated Genevieve. “He was lucky to find you.”

“We were lucky to find each other,” Genevieve amended, smiling. “But all the while I was thinking that I was not worthy of Haydon, he believed that he was not worthy of me, because of the mistakes he had made in his past. So there we were, each of us too consumed with self-doubt and guilt to realize how the other felt. If we had just walked away without telling each other, we would never have known the incredible love and happiness that we have shared these past twenty-two years.”

Jack shook his head. “Amelia Belford is not in love with me, Genevieve.”

“How do you know?”

Because a woman as magnificent as she could never love a
selfish bastard like me.

“Everything I've heard about her suggests to me that she is quite special,” Genevieve continued, watching him. “I'm your mother, so of course I think that any young woman with an ounce of sense would be foolish not to love you. But the only question that matters at this moment is, do you care for her enough to find out? Because if your brothers and sisters are right, she is trapped now. She is a prisoner of her family's ambition, while you are a prisoner of your unwillingness to put your past aside and look at her purely with your heart.”

He went to the window and stared outside, weighing Genevieve's words.

He had let Amelia go. He had always known that eventually she would leave him. Yet for a brief moment he had allowed himself to think that he had managed to bind her to him—that he had made her understand with his touch what he couldn't seem to articulate with words. He had been so furious when he discovered the note she had left him, he had barely flinched when Oliver returned home later that evening to say that she had not been at the hotel when he went to pick her up. Walter Sweeney, the manager, had seemed surprised that Oliver didn't know she had taken the train to London earlier that day, saying she had some urgent family matter to attend to. Jack had retired to his study to pore over the journals Lord Hutton had given him, angrily telling himself that he didn't give a damn what she did. He would just immerse himself in his work the way he always had. He would devote himself to bringing down Great Atlantic and building North Star Shipping into the successful company he knew it could be. But he couldn't.

Amelia was gone, and suddenly nothing else seemed to matter.

“Oliver!” he called suddenly. He strode across the room and jerked the door open, only to find his entire family crowded around the doorway.

“Were you listening?” he demanded.

“Of course not.” Alex managed much better than the rest to look thoroughly affronted by his suggestion. “We was just comin' to ask ye if ye wanted yer tea brought to ye.”

“I don't have time for tea,” Jack told her. “I need my bags brought up to my room, Oliver. I'm taking the next train to London.”

“Good.” Alex nodded with satisfaction. “I've always wanted to see London.”

“You're not coming, Alex.”

“Ye canna stop me from goin',” she told him bluntly. “If ye willna buy me a ticket, then I'll just pinch one, or nick the money to buy one. Either way, I'm goin'.”

“I'll pay your fare, Alex,” offered Jamie. “That will save you the trouble of lifting my wallet. We can sit together on the train,” he suggested brightly, “and you can tell me how you would go about fleecing the other passengers.”

“Oh, Jamie, that's a lovely idea,” agreed Annabelle. “I was just thinking a trip to London would be very nice. I could meet with my publisher, and we might even take in a play while we're there.”

“I'm going, too,” Simon decided. “I can use the time on the train to work on my drawings for my latest invention.”

“I've been meaning to get to London to see the new fashions for autumn,” reflected Grace.

“I would like to visit the National Gallery and the British Museum,” Charlotte added.

“And I really must check on the house, and see how Lizzie and Beaton are getting along.” Genevieve looked at Haydon expectantly.

He sighed. “I'm sure I have some business matters in London to attend to,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist.

“Well, I'm nae leavin' ye to be driven around London by that old drunk, Beaton.” Oliver scowled. “He's liable to forget where he left ye.”

“You're not coming with me.” Jack's tone was final.

Simon regarded him with feigned confusion. “Who said anything about going with you?”

“We're just taking a trip—that's all,” Grace assured him.

“Are we now?” Eunice entered the room carrying an enormous platter of ginger biscuits. “I've been thinkin' of takin' a wee trip myself, lately.”

“London seems as good a place as any to go,” reflected Doreen. “Besides, I doubt poor Lizzie can feed and tend to all o' ye by herself.”

“Surely you can't object to us traveling on the same train with you,” Annabelle said sweetly.

“You won't even know we're there,” Charlotte promised.

Jack's expression was dark. “I doubt that.”

“You can't expect to just march into Amelia's home and walk out with her, Jack,” pointed out Simon, munching on a biscuit. “Even if she wants to go with you, her parents are liable to make a fuss.”

“Think about what happened at the Wilkinsons' ball,” said Annabelle.

“If things get sticky, you're going to need us,” Jamie added.

Grace nodded in agreement. “The more distractions we can create, the better.”