Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
LIKE FOOLS
Beth
A countess. Holy shit. James’s wife would have a title. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but the realisation shocked me to my shoes. I stumbled over what to say.
“Your dad is James, too?”
“Tradition. Do you want to know my full name?” At my slight nod, he continued, “James Sebastian Moncrief Durant, the tenth Earl Fitzroy. Moncrief was Mum’s surname. The Scottish part of me. Durant is an old family name, dating from the Norman invasion. It means enduring.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I mumbled at the portrait, gazing at the two people in it, trying to imagine them alive.
James’s mum, Isla Moncrief, had eyes just like his, but she was identical to Ella.
His dad had James’s form, but his hair was a lighter brown, and the way he’d been painted made him look…
chaotic. His tie was askew and his hair messy.
But he looked upon his bride, in her flouncy white dress, as if he cherished her, and the love between them was clear.
I loved that James had done this, made his introduction, but it hurt to hold the sheer want in me at bay.
It was hopeless. I was the kid outside, staring in. No good history to speak of. I didn’t even have a middle name. My parents never cared enough to give me one.
“They were the best of friends and so in love. So happy. My mother always acted like Dad was her sunshine,” James murmured in my ear. “Just like how I feel whenever I’m around you.”
Oh hell. He didn’t mean it, this cruelty. He didn’t know how I felt. Hadn’t I told him I didn’t do love? Turning, I hid my hot face in his t-shirt and closed my eyes tight.
“I’m so sorry you lost them,” I managed and felt, rather than heard, the hum in James’s chest.
“Can I tell you about that?” he said.
“Yes.”
James sucked in a breath like the telling needed oxygen. He walked backwards, taking me with him to a small love seat. On the way, he paused, squinting at another picture. Then he shook off whatever he’d noticed and brought his attention back to me.
“On the night they died, I’d called them from my school.
One Richard had insisted on for me. My uncle had a difficult relationship with Dad, but Richard moved in with us and started asserting his views, saying we were letting history and our duty slide.
My dad and uncle had both gone to this place—a boarding school a hundred miles from home—and Mum only agreed on the provision that I liked it.
I didn’t. I hated every minute of being away.
We’d always been so close, and it felt like a punishment. ”
“You were eleven and sent away from your family? That sucks. What child would ever like it?”
He inclined his head, still looking at his parents, his arms banded tight around me.
I braced myself on his behalf, willing and wanting to absorb his hurt.
“According to my uncle, after my last, distressed phone call, Mum insisted I be brought home. She and Dad set out to get me and, on the way back, Dad lost control on the road. It was dark and raining. He swerved to avoid something. We crashed into a van coming the other way.”
God. “You were so badly hurt.”
James made a dismissive sound. “Pinned in the car by metal. But I survived. And healed.”
Nowhere near enough. I peered up at his face. “Were you conscious?”
“Do you mean did I watch them die?” He grimaced, an expression of repugnance coming over him. “No. I was knocked out by the force of the wreck.”
“Oh, James. Did you ever get therapy?”
“How did I deserve anything when my parents were dead?”
I shook my head, horrified, and went to speak, but James continued, speaking fast.
“I hated myself for it. In many ways, I still do. Or at least, I did.” His eyes were wide in the moonlight, his face white.
“I’d been talking nonstop from the moment they’d picked me up, excited to see my parents after a month.
Dad kept saying he was sorry they ever sent me. My distraction caused him to crash.”
He dragged in a breath. “In everything I’ve done since, I’ve tried to make up for it. I should be the model nephew. Model brother. But I can’t obey my uncle anymore and all I’ve done is neglect my sister because I thought it would be better for her if I wasn’t around.”
“Stop.” I took his face in my hands, his cheeks warm under my palms.
“But I can’t do it. I don’t want to marry who Richard tells me to. Not only because I’m beginning to see him as a worse influence than my own thoughts, but more, Beth, because I have feelings for you.”
He…
In a stand-off, we stared at one another, his expression deadly serious, and mine…I could only be a bunny in the headlights. I dropped my hands.
Around us, the eyes of all the other paintings, the stern men and women of James’s line, watched.
I’d been poised to start on at him, to tell him how he could never be blamed for causing the car accident, but my breath caught in my lungs, and I couldn’t speak.
“Don’t,” I managed after what felt like an eternity.
“Don’t what? Care for you or take the blame for the wreck?
Too late in both cases. If you’re a passenger, you don’t distract the driver.
Every child gets taught that. I know I didn’t actively do anything wrong, but that doesn’t change how I feel.
I know, deep down, that my thoughts are wrong, but that doesn’t stop me feeling them. ”
The shadow-laden hall seemed to grow darker.
“You weren’t to blame,” I choked out.
James leaned in until we were nose to nose. He laid a soft kiss on my lips, but I’d frozen solid, caught between needing to comfort him and wanting to run to that garage. Drive any of those cars until the tension left me.
He brushed over my lips once more. “Not everyone who loves you leaves.”
He wasn’t telling me he loved me.
I didn’t want to hear it.
Besides, what he’d said wasn’t true. His beloved parents left him. Mine never wanted me. Grandad died. Belle loved a hundred kids, and they all left her. Mathilda was just a friend, and she’d always go. Forging a connection with James would only leave me broken.
But hadn’t I already?
Fuck.
I had feelings for him. And as I acknowledged the strength of them, a flood washed over me, and I took his shirt in my hands, gripping the material against the rush. “If I agree with that, you need to agree that there were a million other factors involved in that crash.”
A kind of baffled amusement flitted over his expression. “You’re bargaining with me? Over this?”
“Yep.”
James’s expression dropped. “I don’t let myself think about it.”
“And I don’t want…” I pointed between our chests, and a hurt enveloped me. “But if it’s real, I won’t deny it.”
“You don’t want me?”
“No, James! Of course I do. How could anyone not?” The shock of his words increased the pain in me until it became a crushing pressure, an avalanche swallowing me whole and burying me in its heart. Like I needed the agony to fully transform. The poor little orphan girl, cared for at last.
Except fixing people was never this easy.
James took my hands in his. “Okay,” he said slowly, studying our linked fingers. “There were more factors involved in the crash.”
I bit my lip. “I like you.”
He tutted. “Try again.”
“I care about you.”
“Good enough. For now.” James stood and, with a sweeping move, took me in his arms. He lifted me, bride-style, and set off at pace down the hall.
I gripped on to him and tried to settle the fear in my heart.
He carried me up a narrow staircase, to a room I barely saw.
Door locked. Soft bed at my back. James in my arms, rolling me on top of him.
We tangled together, stripping off our clothes until we were naked. I kissed the scars on James’s side and, with a growl, he buried himself in me and gave me his all.
Neither of us said any more. What was left to say? Like fools, we’d exposed our hearts, our innermost secrets, and we’d put all our trust in the other.
I shook, clinging to him. My eyes leaked, and James kissed the wet lines on my face. This wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. But, with this man held tightly to me, I let myself believe in happiness for a little while.