Chapter 11 #8
“The next day she killed herself,” he finally whispered hoarsely.
“She rose at dawn, rowed herself in a little boat to the center of the magnificent pond Vincent had put in years earlier, and leaped in. One of the gardeners who was just arriving for work saw her as she jumped from the boat. He raced across the lawn, dove into the pond and tried to bring her out, but the water was dark and he couldn’t find her.
” He swallowed thickly. “It was hours before they finally were able to bring her body up. She was dressed in her nightrail, over which she had put on one of Vincent’s coats.
She needed a coat with deep pockets, you see, because she had gone to the trouble of filling them with heavy stones.
” His voice was hollow as he finished, “To help drag her down, in case she tried to fight the water as it closed over her.”
His suffering was so tearing, Genevieve could no longer bear it. She sat up and grasped his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “It wasn’t your fault, Haydon,” she told him firmly. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“You don’t believe that, and neither do I.
” His tone was harsh. “I shouldn’t have left her there.
I should have grabbed her and taken her to my carriage and escaped with her.
I should have told Vincent to go to bloody hell, and said he would have to kill me to get her back.
I should have wrapped her in my arms and held her close and told her that no one was ever going to hurt her again.
I should have done something, anything, except leave her there.
But instead I climbed into my carriage and left her all alone, not understanding how fragile and desperate she was.
And because of my stupidity and selfishness and goddamn ineptitude, my little girl jumped into a freezing black pond and drowned.
” His eyes were filled with raw torment as he finished, “I could have saved her, Genevieve. I could have taken her home and kept her safe. But I made the choice to leave her there, and because of that, she died.”
“You didn’t know,” Genevieve insisted. “And even if you had taken her, Haydon, do you really think Vincent would have merely stood by and let you keep her? He would have either gone after her himself and dragged Emmaline back to his home, or he would have contacted the authorities and had the police forcibly retrieve her, either of which would have been extremely traumatic for a young girl of eight. It was an impossible situation. You had no legal right to her. By leaving her with Vincent, you believed you were doing the only thing you could.”
“You had no legal right to Jamie, or Annabelle or Simon or any of the children,” Haydon retorted. “Yet you managed to save each of them from a life of misery and destitution—because you were willing to fight for them.”
“I did have a legal right to Jamie,” Genevieve argued, “because he was my half brother—”
“You couldn’t prove that.”
“Perhaps not, but everyone accepted it as the truth.”
“You had no right to any of the other children.”
“It was different, Haydon.”
“Tell me how it was goddamn different!” he raged.
“It was different because no one else wanted them.” Her voice was low and gentle, a whisper of reason against his helpless fury.
“Don’t you see, Haydon? You couldn’t have Emmaline because Vincent was unwilling to give her up.
Maybe if you had had more time, you might have found a way to convince him, or to find some way to blackmail him into giving her to you, or to make him see reason and be more compassionate in his care for her. But there was no time.”
He turned away and stared bleakly at the wall.
“How could you possibly have known how desperate she was?” she continued quietly.
“You had never even spoken with her. But if you had known, Haydon, if you had had any inkling of the depths of her distress, I know you would have done everything within your power to take her away from Vincent and keep her safe.”
He closed his eyes, trying to shut out her words of assurance. He didn’t deserve them.
“The first time I saw you, you had been beaten nearly senseless after trying to save Jack from that vicious warder. You were in no condition to fight, yet you tore him off Jack and made him attack you instead. Jack wasn’t your responsibility.
He wasn’t even your friend. He was just a filthy little thief whom nobody cared about.
But you refused to stand by and watch him be brutalized, even though you knew you would be beaten and possibly even killed in the process.
“Then when Charlotte was sentenced to prison, you went to Governor Thomson and demanded that he release her. You understood that anyone at the prison might have recognized you, if not your face, then perhaps your voice or some small mannerism. Had you been discovered, you would have been imprisoned and hanged. But the threat of being executed wasn’t enough to deter you.
You would have died, Haydon, for a girl you had known only a couple of weeks. ”
“I care for Charlotte,” he told her in a rough voice.
“I know you do.” She reached out and laid her hand against the hard round of his shoulder.
“Enough that you were willing to sacrifice yourself for her, because you felt she wasn’t strong enough to survive the harshness of prison.
And I know you cared for Emmaline as well.
Had you been given more time, you would have found a way to help her.
You feel guilty for abandoning her all those years, but until you saw her at Cassandra’s funeral, you had believed that she was well and happy.
And once you realized that she wasn’t, you tried to help her.
You didn’t succeed in rescuing her from Vincent that day, Haydon, but had you been able, you would have. You just needed more time.”
He stared at the wall in silence, contemplating her words. Was it possible, he wondered desperately, that there might be a grain of truth to what she was saying? He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he had laid out the blackest recesses of his soul to her, fully expecting her to recoil from him.
Instead, she was lying against him, caressing his shoulder with her slender fingers as she argued passionately on his behalf.
He turned suddenly and pulled her on top of him.
He didn’t want to think about any of it anymore.
Not Emmaline, or Cassandra, or any of the other spectacular failures of his wasted life.
He was a convicted murderer and a fugitive.
It was only a matter of days or hours before the authorities realized that he had been in Glasgow that night and began to close in on him.
His time with Genevieve was running out, and the realization was so excruciating he didn’t think he could bear it.
Cradling her face in his hands, he gazed into her eyes.
“Whatever happens to me, Genevieve, there is something you must know.”
Her eyes widened slightly as she studied him.
He hesitated. Over the years he had used countless sentimental phrases on the women he had bedded.
But none of them could begin to convey the feelings he was experiencing toward her.
The day after tomorrow he would leave her.
After that he might be caught, or spend the rest of his life trying to stay ahead of the law.
He did not know if he would ever see her again.
Feeling as if his heart were being torn apart, he gently swept a lock of hair back from her temple.
“There is nothing I would not have done for you, had there been more time for us. Do you understand? Nothing.”
She looked at him, feeling as if she were looking into his very heart and soul.
And then she crushed her mouth to his and kissed him deeply, holding him fast as her tears began to fall against the dark roughness of his cheeks.