Chapter 24 #2
He swallowed a lump in his throat, and Rachel squeezed his hand softly.
“Where were you?”
“I was watching from behind the wall,” Simon admitted. “I was too small to do anything. I could only run to the help to make them stop it, but by the time any help arrived, they were already dead.”
“Simon,” Rachel gasped. “I did not… Why did you never tell me this before?”
“You tell me.” He managed a small smile, but it did not reach his eyes. “Is it pleasant for you to hear this? Talking about it makes me relive it, and…”
He paused again.
“I still have flashbacks of that moment every night,” he admitted, “even though I have tried many times to erase it from my memory. It is not an easy thing to watch having everything taken away from you.”
“That is too big a burden to carry.”
“It does not matter,” Simon corrected her. “I carry it anyway. I was helpless that night, but I did make a promise to myself to avenge their deaths. I told myself that I would not rest until I found the man who did it.”
“And that is what you have been doing this entire time?” Rachel asked softly. Suddenly, all his long disappearances started to make sense to her.
Simon nodded, his gaze dark. “For years, I have searched. I have followed every whisper, every rumor. I have watched men lie through their teeth and smile as though they had no blood on their hands.” His jaw clenched.
“And I have spent years waiting for the moment when I could finally see justice done.”
“But what about the authorities?” Rachel argued. “Was it not their job to track down the murderer? Why did you have to take that responsibility onto your own shoulders?”
“Rachel,” he said softly, “no one cares about a murder that happened years ago. They stopped searching long ago. It takes a man obsessed to carry on this long.”
His words carried a confession—a confirmation of why he had always acted the way that he had.
“But did you ever find anything?”
“I got close,” he admitted. “Rowan and I tracked down a lead, and I got to her right before—”
“Her?” Rachel interrupted. “It was a woman?”
“Grace Langston.”
It took a moment for Rachel to register who he was talking about, and then she went terribly still.
“No.” She looked up at him in absolute horror. “But she is a lady of the ton. Are you certain about this?”
Simon let out a dry laugh. “It came as a surprise to me as well. I was too focused on my search to pay her any mind.”
Rachel felt her mind spinning. She recalled meeting the woman at a ball, and her father speaking to her. She had been perfectly polite.
“But why would Grace Langston even do such a thing?” she found herself questioning, and Simon squeezed her hand softly.
“My father had been carrying some secrets, it seemed,” he explained in a rough voice. “She admitted to me that she had been having an affair with him.”
”Are you certain that she was not misleading you?” Rachel questioned.
“I do not know. He did not strike me as that kind of man.” He sounded unsure himself. “He loved my mother.”
Rachel studied him, watching the way his jaw clenched. “Then there is the possibility that she is lying to you.”
“In any case,” Simon exhaled, “it is the fact that she has a connection to the case that is most baffling to me. I spent years trying to trace the person who I thought was a man in the ton, but it was her, all this time.”
Simon paused then, looking up at her with an expression in which she could only see guilt.
“There is something else that I must tell you.”
Rachel felt her heart rate quicken. “Go on, then.” There was no use building up suspense. Everything was splayed out in the open amongst them now.
“Our marriage…” he trailed. “It was carried out to help me get to the murderer. I married you to protect my secrets.”
Rachel could hear the strain in Simon’s voice, and she knew immediately that it was difficult for him to admit this.
“What do you mean by that?” Her heart pounded against her chest.
“I married you not because I wanted a wife but because I needed a way to conceal what I was truly doing,” Simon said earnestly. “It made sense to me at the time. A marriage to a proper lady, one that could help distract me from my other activities.”
Rachel did not dare interrupt him, even though the confession hit her like a blow to the chest. She wanted to give him a chance to explain himself.
“I knew the man who murdered my parents was part of the ton,” he said. “I knew that if I was going to find him, I could not stand on the outside looking in. I had to be one of them—to appear as though I had accepted my place and my title, as though I had moved on.”
“And a wife would make you appear… settled,” Rachel exhaled slowly.
Simon nodded, his fingers flexing before curling back into tight fists.
“No one suspects a man who is building a home,” he confirmed. “A husband does not have the luxury of investigating matters that should have long been buried. He is harmless if anything.”
“So, you married me to play the part.”
“I suppose you could phrase it like that.” Guilt tinged his tone.
Rachel should have felt angry. If he had told her this before, she would have pressed him for more answers, but something had shifted inside her now.
“I fully expect you to be angry at me,” Simon continued, “and you have every right to be after all that I have put you through. It would not surprise me if your opinion of me has changed.”
“You should not put words into my mouth like that,” Rachel corrected him. “You do not know if anger is what I feel.”
“Is it not?” Simon searched her eyes for an answer.
Rachel took a measured breath, her fingers tightening in the blanket.
“I am unsure myself,” she admitted finally. “If you had told me this before, I would have been angry. But now… I think I understand why you did it.”
Simon’s breath hitched, just slightly, as though he had not expected those words.
“That does not mean I am not hurt, Simon. But I see now that you did not do this out of cruelty.”
“That still does not excuse what I have done.” Simon let himself relax a little, but the tension did not fully dissipate. “You are far more understanding than I deserve, but that does not erase the danger I put you in.” Simon’s throat worked, as though swallowing down his regret.
“I suppose it does not,” she murmured. What else was there to be said?
“But if you can believe me now, then you should know that it did change for me as I got to know you.” He glanced downward for the briefest moment. “When I left, it was not because I did not wish to live with you anymore. It was because I wanted to keep you safe.”
“And did it work?” Rachel studied him. All the hurt she had felt from his abandonment suddenly felt distant now that he was here, being so vulnerable with her.
“No.” His jaw clenched. “It was the opposite, if anything. My foolish mistake.”
She exhaled, staring at him now. He had spent his life chasing a ghost, only to realize too late that he had placed her in the very danger he had hoped to shield her from. She knew that the realization was tearing him apart.
“Simon,” she whispered. Even if she tried, she could not get angry at him now.
“And in the midst of all of this…” He looked at her, his eyes wide with sincerity. “… I never planned to love you.”
Rachel wondered if she was mishearing things at first. Loved her?
“And I never should have,” he continued before she could even come to terms with what he had just admitted.
“You never should have?” Her voice wavered, resembling something very close to heartbreak.
“What I mean is…”
“You mean to tell me that after everything that has happened…” She steeled herself, feeling the anger rise in her chest. “… you are now regretting the one real thing between us?”
“You misunderstand me,” he tried to defend himself.
“Then explain, Simon, because I am struggling to understand how you can sit there and tell me that you never should have loved me.”
Simon’s expression was that of a tormented man, and she found herself softening towards him yet again.
“Because you deserve better than this,” he sighed. “I have only given you trouble since I have been in your life.”
Rachel inhaled slowly. “So last night, when you stayed with me—what was that?”
She never really knew what anything meant when it came to Simon.
“That was not an obligation, Simon,” she continued. “You could have left even then, seeing as you regret everything.”
“You make it sound like everything should be reasonable and logical.” He shook his head.
“Is that not how everything is in your world?” she prodded. “You have always been one for practicality.”
“But nothing about what I feel for you is practical.” His voice sounded strained. “You have changed how I used to think, and I did not even believe that was possible, given that I was always so set in my own ways.”
Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Their gaze met, and then a strange thing happened.
Both of them began to laugh as they had finally realized the absurd situation in which they had found themselves.
“Do you fault me for that?” she asked.
He shook his head, reaching for her.
“No, none of this is your fault.” He kissed her hand softly.
Rachel shivered under his touch, even though it was innocent.
“But I realized last night that you are worth more than revenge and certainly, more than anything else that I used to think was important. If I lose you, what else is there left for me?”
His words held immense weight, considering that Rachel knew how much it mattered to him to find who was behind his parents’ murder.
“You would let that all that go…” she breathed, half in disbelief, “all for me?”
“All for you.” He cracked her a smile. “Now it does not matter if I regret this or if I don’t, but…”
He stopped then, bracing himself. Rachel worried that he might say something that would hurt her again.
“But I love you,” he admitted.
Rachel blinked. “Say… say that again.”
“I love you, Rachel,” he admitted, “and I do not want to run away from that anymore.”
How she had longed to hear those words from him.
Suddenly, nothing else mattered to Rachel. He had admitted the thing that she wanted to hear from him the most. She reached out to touch his face, tears pooling in her eyes. “I love you, too.”
Simon’s eyes darkened, and then his lips crashed into hers. He grabbed the sides of her face as he kissed her desperately and with no regard to where they were.
Rachel melted into him, her hands sliding up his chest. She needed more of him. It was wild, and Rachel was convinced that they would not stop there.
But then a soft cough interrupted them.
Marina!
Rachel’s cheeks tinged red as she pulled herself away from Simon. She had forgotten that Marina was still in the room with them.