Chapter Thirteen #2
Carrying the envelope, he headed upstairs to bed, remembering how badly Hugo had needed him. Needed to be saved. Little had he known then that saving an elephant would change his life. Bringing Hugo to London had been the reason he was here when Uncle Donald died, and why he’d met Meridith.
Drake paused on the stairs. Hugo had needed him, but he’d needed that elephant, too. Looking into Hugo’s eyes, those big, sorrowful eyes, had opened his heart, let him care about something, someone, besides himself.
Then he’d met Meridith. She’d moved right into his open heart, lock, stock, and barrel.
He hadn’t seen it coming. Might not even believe that it had happened, if his heart, the one beating inside his chest right now, didn’t feel as if it was broken beyond repair.
The exact moment when that break had happened was foremost in his mind.
It had been when he’d said that they would get married.
That hadn’t been a slip of the tongue, he’d meant it, and the spark he’d seen in her eyes had thrilled him.
But it had only lasted for a split second, because the shine in her eyes had faded and tears had fallen onto her cheeks.
That was when his heart had split in two. When she’d refused to marry him. Refused to let her family win.
He couldn’t argue against that, because he knew the feeling. Knew what it was like not to have any control over his own life.
The pain he’d felt walking out of the door, leaving her standing there, crying, had been excruciating, and now he knew why. He’d found what he’d been searching for his entire life.
Love.
Pure, undeniable love.
And then he’d lost it.
Maybe he just didn’t deserve it.
He trudged up the rest of the stairs and into his bedroom, where sleep eluded him, until dreams consumed him.
When the morning light woke him, he knew what he had to do.
Later that morning, Drake didn’t have high expectations of easily getting the truth out of his cousin as he entered Archibald’s study, but he wasn’t leaving until that happened.
Closing the door behind him, he said, ‘I’ve instructed my solicitor to pay any outstanding bills owed by the dukedom.’
Archibald stiffened in his seat, but for the next several moments, nothing could be heard except for the steady ticking of the mantel clock above the fireplace, where Uncle Donald used to tell tales of sailing the ocean when he’d been a captain. Stories that had filled Drake with rapture.
‘Do you want me to grovel at your feet?’ Archibald asked, breaking the silence. ‘Thank you for not letting my family starve?’
‘I would never let your family starve,’ Drake replied, sitting in the chair across the desk from his cousin.
‘No, you’ll just toss some money our way and then smile and walk away,’ Archibald said. ‘That’s what you’ve always done. Smiled and walked away.’
Drake had to nod, because that was what he’d always done. Even to Meridith. He’d just walked away. He finally understood why. ‘I wasn’t walking away. I was running. As fast as I could. And as far away as I could get.’
‘Why? You’ve had everything you ever wanted.’
‘No, you had everything I ever wanted,’ Drake admitted.
‘I was the orphan.’ A feeling of vulnerability arose inside him, because he was exposing himself in a way he never had before—to Archibald of all people.
But it was what had to happen. ‘Your parents were good to me. They gave me a good life, and I loved them, but I always knew that they weren’t mine.
And that’s all I wanted. Something that was truly mine. ’
‘You have it now. You own Coastal Shipping.’
‘I made that same mistake. Thinking that possessions or adventures, or hell, I don’t know what, would fill that void.
But nothing did.’ Drake shook his head. ‘Until I found it. You want to know the ridiculous part? What I found, what exposed that void was a damn elephant. He needed me, and I needed him. He loves me and I love him.’
Archibald looked at him as if he had two heads.
‘I know it’s absurd,’ Drake said. ‘I didn’t understand it all until last night, when I read a letter and realised that all my life, I wanted to be loved.’
‘My parents loved you. My sisters love you.’
Drake nodded, because that was true. ‘You didn’t. You hated me.’
Archibald averted his gaze, looked everywhere except at him. ‘I didn’t hate you, but I was jealous of you. You were this cute little boy that everyone felt sorry for, and I was a half-grown lug, who had a penchant for finding trouble.’
They both sat quiet for several moments, until Drake said, ‘I left as soon as I could, searching for something that I didn’t understand, merely knew that I didn’t have.
Now I realise that I had it all along, but was too blind to see it.
Too caught up in myself to feel it. Until I found an elephant. ’
Archibald shook his head, shrugged. ‘I didn’t know I’d been jealous of you until my wife pointed it out to me. Quite recently, I might add.’
Drake nodded, understanding that it would have taken someone else to make Archibald see that. ‘What is it about women? They make us face ourselves, our fears, our desires, everything we try to hide from the world, and in doing so, they make us better, happier.’
Archibald laughed, a dry sound devoid of any real humor. ‘You sound like a man in love.’
‘I am,’ Drake admitted, ‘and I need your help.’
‘My help?’
‘Yes.’ Drake sighed while leaning back in his chair.
‘Strange how it works, isn’t it? The more we try to control our own lives, the more we realise it’s the love and understanding of those closest to us that truly sets us free.
It’s as if life’s not about the things we can control, but about those that we can’t. ’
Archibald nodded. ‘I’d agree with that, but to be honest, Drake, I’m not in a position to help anyone.’
Feeling a sense of kinship with Archibald that he’d never expected, Drake said, ‘Well, maybe an elephant can save you, too.’
Archibald cracked a smile. ‘I don’t think so.’
Drake leaned forward in his chair. ‘I think it’s time we put aside the past. We’re family, and should be able to work together, help each other.’
Archibald gave his head a disbelieving shake. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’
‘I’ve never been more serious. I want to marry the woman I love, but I can’t, not without your help.’
‘What do you need me to do?’
‘You can start by telling me how you managed to squander away a fortune.’
With a heavy sigh and drooping shoulders, Archibald said, ‘What the hell. It’s gone. It’s all gone. The money. Investments. Property. Gone. All that’s left is Coastal Shipping, and that would be gone too if you hadn’t come home when you had.’
‘Where did it go?’ Drake asked. ‘The money?’
Archibald shrugged, then began to spill his guts like a lonely man who had one too many swigs from a bottle during rough seas when there wasn’t a lot to do but hunker down and wait for the storm to pass.
Drake listened as Archibald told him about two surveyors who claimed to have found gold on Rayburn property.
They’d shown him flakes and nuggets, said it could be the richest vein in England, and how for four years he’d poured money into finding it hand over fist, only to come up empty-handed.
The coffers were empty now and there was no hope of recovery.
Ultimately, without the shipping company, he wouldn’t be able to feed his family, nor pay the last few men still on their payroll.
‘Four years ago,’ Drake said, ‘means that Uncle Donald knew about it.’
Archibald nodded. ‘He agreed to the venture, at first. After the first two shafts came up empty, he said that gold fever was like the sea. It could get a hold of a man and not let him go, unless he was strong enough to break the bond.’ With a shrug, Archibald said, ‘I guess we both inherited something from the Taylor side of the family.’
‘I guess we did,’ Drake replied.
‘Well, there it is,’ Archibald said. ‘Proof that I have nothing to offer you. I wish I did, but in all honesty, I have no way to help you.’
‘Yes, you do,’ Drake replied. ‘I need a partner. An honest, hard-working partner, so that when I ask Meridith to marry me, she’ll know that it’s her that I want. Only her.’
Meridith sat upon a large rock, watching as six-year-old Nita and eight-year-old Meg ran back and forth through the ankle-deep stream of trickling water that ran behind the barn at Diana and Walter’s country estate, Holdenstall.
Her sister wouldn’t leave London, wouldn’t leave her, so Meridith had come with her.
To her way of thinking, one person being miserable because of love was more than enough.
Peter had worried that leaving town might damage Meridith’s reputation more.
That had been when Alena had stepped in and questioned him.
He’d told her about the message that Karl Harding had sent to him.
Meridith hadn’t seen what Karl had written, didn’t want to, but as soon as Alena read whatever was penned in that note, she told Peter that going to the country was a very good idea.
She also told him that the Hardings weren’t the only people with family ties to royalty and that she’d put a stop to any rumors that Karl may have started.
Meridith wasn’t sure what that all entailed, but both she and Diana were convinced that Karl would be sorry that he’d attempted to create a scandal when there truly wasn’t one.
They had left the following morning. The day after Drake had returned from Bristol. The day after they’d kissed.
The day after her heart had been broken into so many pieces that there were times when it still hurt to breathe.
However, she found it within herself to feel joy for other people.
Walter was ecstatic about having his wife and daughters home, and in the days since they’d arrived, now a total of six, Meridith witnessed for herself that Diana and Walter were still very much in love with each other. What she’d assumed to be true about their relationship hadn’t been.