Chapter Sixteen #2
God, that tart mouth of hers practically demanded him to keep it busy, but in this, she was also correct.
He nodded. “Very well. It’s true. I wrote you a letter tonight telling you why I must do this.
” That hadn’t been all in that missive, but now was not the time.
“I can’t remain in a world where there is such ugliness everywhere I look, such strife and inequality.
” Slowly, he shook his head. “I didn’t fight for this country just to see it crumble due to the ineptness of the Regent.
Everywhere I turn, someone is fighting, someone is wanting…
And in my own life, I am failing, disappointing everyone.
” Trying to keep the emotions at bay, he gave into ragged breaths as everything began pressing in on him.
“Yes, tonight is—was?—the night when I thought to end it all. I… uh.” He forced a hard swallow.
“I was headed to the Serpentine but hadn’t decided if I wished to die by drowning, so I have laudanum and a pistol in my pockets. ”
The delicate tendons in her throat worked.
“I know you are many things, but I never thought you would be a coward, Blackhawke. That is what you are, you know, by making this decision.” With each statement, her voice rose.
She took a few steps closer, drilled a forefinger into his chest. “It takes bravery to fight through the things that should have broken us, yet here you are, a former solider, a former spy even, and you are taking the coward’s way out. ”
“No, I…”
“You are giving up on everything, James! On me, on us, on a future, after you already know what I’ve been through, how I’m struggling to overcome my own fears…” Tears welled in her eyes. “Why do I not matter to you?”
Fuck me.
“You do, of course, which is another reason why I must do this.”
She shook her head. “Why would you marry me if you never planned to see our first anniversary?”
“I don’t know. I can’t explain it.” Even as he said it, he knew it made no sense, because it wouldn’t, not when she didn’t live inside his head. “Also, there is something else that is pushing me toward this end.”
“What? What is the excuse this time?”
The tears welling in her eyes nearly broke him, but he steeled his spine. “I remembered Jean-Claude.”
“What?” Surprise reflected in her face. “Why? I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t think you would.” After releasing his death grip on the head of his cane, he stepped out of her reach. “It came to me during one of the nightmares. Uh, I had been hunting down two French officers who’d been seen in your village…”
“The men who raped me,” she finished in a low voice.
“Perhaps. There is no way to be certain.” He forced moisture into his throat with a swallow. “I had a colleague with me, a fellow spy, and we’d tracked them to earth on that main street which went through the middle of the village.”
She put a hand to her lips. Her chest heaved as she drew breath. “And?”
“The French officers turned on me, drew their weapons. The horror of that day was the sudden and unexpected appearance of that unassuming doctor. My friend and I were ready and willing to defend the people of that village, who’d shown nothing but kindness to us.”
Her hand moved to her chest as she struggled for breath. “And Jean-Claude?”
“Unfortunately, during that tense standoff, he came out of a shop there. The French officers knew they were outgunned—more of my men had joined us—so they turned to the doctor, maybe hoping to take a hostage.” The horror of that day lived fresh in his memories now; he could even smell the mud in the street.
“I had a feeling the French would shoot; they had the look of men desperate and starving, which was the state of most Napoleon’s troops. My body tensed.”
“What happened?”
“I dove just as one of them fired their pistol. I knocked the doctor to the ground, smelled the blood, for he had been shot.” James shook his head, not wishing to relive those memories but he must, for her.
“I, uh… I pressed my pocket watch into Jean-Claude’s hand, told him to monitor his pulse with the throb of the wound in his stomach, that I would return straightaway.
After that, I went after the officers who were running away.
The other men in my regiment went through the crowd that formed, looking for dissenters.
” The words felt pulled out of his tight throat.
“When I returned, the doctor was dead. A ring of onlookers had formed, for Jean-Claude and someone had shot my fellow spy—my friend—as well.”
“Dear God.” Eloise’s chest continued to heave as tears fell to her cheeks. “They killed him.”
“Yes.” He nodded. “Not me.” As the tightness in his chest worsened, he nodded, fought off the deluge of emotions that battered him from the inside out.
“I couldn’t manage to protect Jean-Claude or my friend, Elli.
They shot them both for no other reason than spite.
What the hell kind of man does that make me? ”
“Oh, goodness.” She dashed at the moisture on her cheeks.
“After all this time, I finally know the truth, and it’s so…
” Raising her gaze to his, her wet, spiked lashes nearly had him on his knees before her.
“It’s just as vulgar and horrible as I thought.
” Sniffles escaped her. “But at least I know you’re innocent. ”
“Ha.” He snorted. “Innocent. I haven’t been that in a very long time.” Then he cleared his throat. “Regardless, that is how Jean-Claude came to have my watch.”
“Thank you for telling me.”
“There is more.” An ache pulsed through his chest. “Right before I left Jean-Claude, he said something to me.”
“What?” The inquiry was a barely audible whisper.
“Uh…” He forced another hard swallow. “When Jean-Claude lay on the ground and I gave him my watch, he implored me to find his fiancée, to write to her, gave me your father’s address.
He instructed me to tell his fiancée that he loved her more than life itself, that he was sorry to disappoint her, but that he only wanted her to be happy.
” Lifting his gaze to hers once more, James shook his head.
“He said there was still joy to be found even though life sometimes was littered with tragedy.”
“That sounds like Jean-Claude.” The smile she gave him was decidedly wobbly. “And you didn’t remember that until just now?”
“Not until last night during a nightmare.” Why couldn’t he have given her that information earlier? He hung his head. “I’m sorry the message is three years too late. It seems I am always failing in some way.”
“That’s not true. It’s merely the ghosts in your mind telling you lies.”
“Perhaps.” But he shook his head as the darkness continued to crush him. “However, Jean-Claude was quite correct.”
“Oh? How so?”
Perhaps he could finally make her understand. “I married you, set aside portions and inheritance for you, gave you this life because I want you to be happy, especially if you already carry my babe.”
She snorted, wiped at the tears and her nose while she shook her head.
Her eyes flashed brown fire in the dim illumination.
“While I appreciate that, what good is any of that without you?” Annoyance wove through her voice.
“Are you that big of a nodcock that you can’t comprehend they go hand in hand? ”
What would he do without her spirit and her routing him at every turn? At least he would be dead and wouldn’t feel that loss. “I realize that, but I’m no good to you as the man I am.”
She waved a hand, ineffectually. “That is not for you to decide, Your Grace.”
Anger rose in his chest, and that heated tide kept him fueled. “My life is my own, always has been.”
“No! Not anymore.” With determination in her expression, Eloise closed the distance between them, stared up at him.
“You vowed to share your life with me the moment you spoke them to me. That means something. Those are sacred words, James. Special words I’ve yearned to hear from a man ever since…
” Her chin quivered, and he almost expired on the spot.
“Ever since Jean-Claude proposed. Since meeting you, I slowly learned that I didn’t die with him, that I couldn’t waste my own life.
Then there was you and…” A half-stifled sob came from her that cut straight through his chest like a knife.
“You made a solemn promise to me… for better or for worse, and I’m not giving up on that.
If this is the worse, then we will travel forward together into we reach the better, for we will”
The sensation of drowning crashed over him, and being buffeted by so many emotions when he wasn’t accustomed to it had him looking for a surcease to it all. Why couldn’t she understand how he felt? “But my worst is horrid. I don’t want to hurt you more…”
“You are doing that now, you great oaf!”
“I’m not trying to. God, I never wanted to hurt you. Hell, I never meant for you to have feelings of any kind for me.”
“Well, I do, so that’s my fault, I suppose.
” Slowly, she shook her head. “Oh, I hated you when we first met, but then… But then…” Another sob left her throat.
“I came to know you better, I understood you better… And you were so sweet with the picnic and the painting supplies.” Her chin trembled again.
“I told myself it was folly, having softer feelings for a man like you, but after what happened to me in France, I never thought I’d want any man to touch me, but with you?
” When she shrugged, the bodice of her gown slipped down slightly, and he couldn’t help but gaze at the tops of her breasts.
“You make me feel protected, almost cherished, and then you keep on with your nodcock idea of killing yourself!” A sound that bordered on the hysterical escaped her.
“How do you think that makes me feel, James?”
“I… I didn’t.”
“You are cheating me out of growing old with you, of enjoying being a wife, of perhaps being a mother… Of dancing with you in a ballroom.”