Chapter 20
Chapter
“Menace,” McGann says from his place on the deck. “Did you tell me that story so that I’d tell you this one?”
“I’m not quite so mercenary as that, no. You did ask me what I was thinking of. But I did hope—I do still hope—we’ll be able to converse about that night. The story of your mother rather puts it in a different light, doesn’t it? A much worse one.”
“Aye,” he says. “That it does.”
McGann takes a deep breath and he begins. “You came,” he says, “to Nowhere, knowing you were to be married to a man who doesn’t love you.”
“Yes,” she says. “That’s the part of the story I just told you.”
“Aye, but I did not know it then. All I knew was that you came and I’d been sitting there, waiting for you, feeling worse and worse, like more of a dolt as each minute passed by. Nothing better than a damned dog, panting by the door, waiting for his mistress to come home.
“And then you knocked and I opened the door and I knew something was wrong but I don’t know what.” He pauses. “Why did you snap at me? Just because you were angry at Pembrooke?”
“No,” she says. “I snapped at you, because when you opened the door you said, ‘Come in, my lady,’ and that was the last thing I wanted to hear.”
“Ah,” is all he says.
“Why,” Catherine continues, “did you think I snapped at you?”
“I thought you were telling me I had no right to address you as my lady because of what I am. Who I am. And so I said, ‘What else should I call you, then? My lady the earl’s daughter? Or Your Highness?’
“And I told myself I was joking when I said it,” he goes on, “but that’s not entirely true.
I think that I really said it because I was angry too.
Because I’ve been told my entire life I’m less than nothing, and there you were, with your ball gown and your title and your expensive gloves, and I wanted you.
But I didn’t get to have you because he got you.
The goddamned Viscount’s son got you and you were standing in front of me and telling me it was because I was nothing too. ”
He stops. He didn’t mean to tell her that. He didn’t mean to tell her anything close to that.
“Well, then,” she says, and he can hear the surprise in her voice at what he’d been thinking that night. She hadn’t known any of it. “And when I reached for you?”
He clears his throat. “I was beginning to realize that you were upset and angry and looking for comfort. Or a diversion. I didn’t want to be that for you; just some rough fellow from the wrong quarter you toyed with before marrying your Viscount’s heir.
Any other woman and it didn’t matter. But it mattered with you.
” It still matters, no matter how hard he wishes it didn’t.
“Andrew,” she says. “I was trying to show you how I felt. That I… that I looked at you the same way Crawford looked at Violet and Pembrooke at Sarah Jenson.”
“Aye, Menace. That may be. But you were still engaged and not to me.”
“I know,” she says, quietly. “I wish I’d been braver earlier. I wish I’d spoken to Chester before the day of my wedding. I wish a great many things.”
“If wishes were horses,” he says.
“But would it have been different, do you think, if I’d told you how I felt about you? If I’d said that what I wanted was more than a kiss or a dalliance?”
“No,” he replies, after a while. “Esmee used to warn me that I was a fool not to believe in love. That even though I ignored it, it would find me one day. And because I wasn’t on the lookout for it, it would surprise the hell out of me.
Tip me straight over like a Scots pine in the forest. But do you know, Menace, what happens to a felled pine tree?
It never stands upright on its own again.
“And I knew that if I kissed you, even once, it would fell me. So, when you pulled me close to you and closed your eyes… I knew what you wanted, lass. And I knew I could never, ever give it to you. So I stepped away. And I told you it was because you were a lady, an English lady at that. That I’d never lay my lips on an earl’s daughter. ”
“I am sorry,” she says, “for being impulsive.” She pauses. “And oblivious.”
“Thank you, Menace. But that wasn’t really the issue.”
“I know. I’m working my way up to that. All the little apologies before…
” She pauses again. “What I’m trying to say is that I was hurt that night and I was angry.
At Pembrooke and the whole world of the ton that was never anything but a gilded cage.
And at myself for not seeing what it was until that night. And at you because you didn’t want me.”
“I always wanted you.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that then. And, drat it all, Andrew, I’m sorry that I said all I was worth to you was money.
And I’m sorry that I tossed that bag of coin into your face.
And I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like you weren’t the person I wanted.
Because you are. And I suppose—” He hears her moving, and before he can stop her, she’s risen from the bed and lain herself down next to him on the deck.
“I suppose that what I truly want to say is that I hope you can forgive me, and I promise to do better if you’ll give me a chance. ”
He lays still, with her heat next to his, remembering how that night had felt.
How it had underscored everything he’d always thought about himself, about his own worth.
About how the English try to buy everything, especially people.
His mother. His grandmother. About how his father and brother had been the purchasers.
And how they had treated him like he was so far beneath significance he might as well have been dead.
And how even Esmee—the only balm in his lonely childhood—had abandoned him. She married far too young and beneath her station, just to escape the poverty they’d been forced to endure.
Catherine reaches for his fingers, there under the cover of darkness, and he lets her. He cradles her hand in his own.
“Menace,” he says finally, “You broke my heart that night.”
She squeezes his hand, and he turns to her, so he can see her face in the moonlight. “And it’s not so easy to unbreak it.”
He pauses, gathering himself. “But I will try if you tell me why you invested in my company after that night. Because I won’t be bought.
Not by you nor the East India Company nor the Queen of England herself.
My grandmother was bought by the slave trade.
And my mother was all but bought by my father.
And I will not do it. Not even for you.”
“No,” Catherine says. “I wouldn’t expect you to.
What I realized when you asked me if I’d told Violet I invested in your company—what I realized was that I’d done it as a way to stay close to you, I think.
Even though you wouldn’t have me, it was a connection, even if I was the only one who knew about it.
Do you understand what I mean? I just wanted some chance, perhaps, to see you again. And I didn’t know how else to do it.”
He wants to hold her when she says that, finally understanding that she didn’t want control over him.
She just hadn’t been able to let go. That, he understands.
That was the same reason he’d gone to Surrey to see her one last time before she married.
Whatever this thing is between them, it’s as hard to untie as a fisherman’s knot.
But he knows, too, that no matter how badly he wants to wrap her up in arms and never let her go, he can’t.
Not tonight anyway, for a great many reasons.
The least of which is that the woman has a head injury, for fuck’s sake.
So he just cradles her hand instead and brushes his thumb against her palm.
“Does that make any sense to you, Andrew?” she asks.
“Aye,” he says. “I understand it. I was the eejit who showed up at your wedding, after all. I just wanted to see you there, one last time.” He squeezes her hand. “Now go to sleep, Menace.”
“I will,” she says. “But I’ve one more thing to say.
Because I’ve heard you go on about how you’re a bastard and a by-blow and worth less than nothing.
I’ve heard you speak of how your family treated you, and I can only imagine how the rest of the world did too.
So I’d like to tell you, if you’ll let me, why I think they’re wrong.
Because someone ought to. And because I’m grateful to be here with you now. ”
She goes on when he doesn’t reply, “Andrew, you’re a kind man, even though you try to hide it.
You’re a man who listens and watches and then makes right what he’s heard or seen gone wrong.
A man who draws baths and makes shoes. Who still fills his ship’s hold with his sister’s whisky, even while carrying so much of his own hurt.
A man who is thoughtful and sweet but doesn’t want anyone to know because he thinks those things make him vulnerable.
“But I think that’s what makes you stronger.
Impenetrable to all those corrosive forces in the world, the ones that make other people greedy and cowardly.
The ones that make them turn away instead of watching or listening or helping.
” She squeezes his hand. “You are worth a thousand heirs to a viscountcy. A million.”
She presses herself against him, and he lets go of her hand only to gently stroke her hair. His heart is expanding uncomfortably in his chest and he’s a cockstand you could hang a flag from.
Head injury, he reminds himself. The lass has a head injury.
“So,” she asks quietly, “what do we do now?”
“We go to sleep, Menace,” he says, but he knows that something has changed between them tonight. Something that might even be monumental.
He holds her more tightly in his arms, there on the deck floor, and he closes his eyes. He hasn’t told her everything, and he isn’t going to do it tonight. They both need to sleep. And, he thinks, there’s no reason to hurry.