A Love That Never Tires (18 page)

What should have been.

Linley smacked her forehead against the cool glass of the window. When did she become such a hopeless romantic? She had no more chance of being with Patrick than she did marrying the Prince of Wales.

She told herself she knew better as she turned and walked across her bedroom. And she told herself she knew better as she went downstairs to use the telephone.

Tomorrow morning, Linley would be on a steamer to India and would never see Patrick again. She could not leave without saying goodbye.

***

Patrick sat in a high-backed leather armchair at his club. He intended to find a quiet corner to read in, but ended up passing the time over a few games of cards. Nights like these were good nights—his friends were in town for the season and hiding from their wives at the club. They sat around catching up, remembering the old times, and counting the weeks until August when they could all go back to their country houses in peace.

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” a waiter said, “But you have a telephone call.”

It could be Hereford. Georgiana’s baby was due any day. Patrick excused himself from his friends and followed the man to the telephone.

He picked up the receiver. “Hello. This is Lord Kyre.”

“Patrick.”

The voice on the other end was certainly not Hereford’s. “Linley?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

Patrick looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. He leaned down lower to the mouthpiece. “What are you doing ringing me at the club?”

“I have to see you.”

He glanced at his pocket watch. “It’s nearly two in the morning. You should be sleeping. Why don’t I pay you a visit tomorrow afternoon?”

“Tomorrow will be too late,” she said. “I’m leaving in the morning.” There was silence on the line. “Please, Patrick. I want to see you before I go.”

“Fine. Be watching for me.” He hung up the telephone and called for his motor to be brought around. After making his excuses to his friends, Patrick stepped out of the club and into his waiting automobile.

A quarter of an hour later, he pulled into Bedford Square. Linley waited for him on the front steps of Berenice’s townhouse. When she saw him, she sprinted across the pavement and climbed in beside him.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, settling herself into the passenger seat.

Patrick took a deep breath and nodded. Gentlemen did not take unmarried ladies for a spin in their motor at two thirty in the morning. If anyone saw them, the consequences would be dire. “Did you have anywhere particular in mind?”

“No.”

“Then I know somewhere we can go.” He put the automobile in gear and circled Bedford Square.

They drove out of London toward one of the smaller towns north of the Thames. Away from the thick haze of coal smoke, moonlight flooded the countryside, shining so bright that Patrick could’ve driven without his headlamps. Neither he nor Linley spoke, contented to take in the view and enjoy the crisp night air over the whine of the engine.

On the outskirts of a small village, the motorcar turned off the lane and pulled into an open field of grass. Far down the hillside, London’s lights cast a yellowed glow on the horizon. Patrick shut off the engine, and the night went silent.

“Are you cold?” he asked, shrugging out of his evening jacket. “Put this on.”

He placed the jacket around Linley’s shoulders. She hugged it tightly to her body, taking in the scent of him that still lingered in the heavy wool. “Won’t you be cold now?” she asked, noticing that he was down to his shirtsleeves and waistcoat.

Patrick shook his head. “It feels good to be out of that thing for a while.” As if the idea just came to him, he climbed over the back of the driver’s seat and into the rear of the motorcar. “Come on,” he said, giving her his hand. “We’ll be more comfortable back here.”

Linley crawled up and over the seats. “Schoville said this is a Rolls-Royce,” she said as she plopped down beside him in the back. “A rather expensive motor for someone who’s stony-broke. Apparently my definition of the word must be quite different from yours.”

“I am broke, no matter how you see it. After my father died, the death duties took nearly all the money I would have inherited,” he explained. “Georgiana and I practically had to start over from nothing.”

“I don’t think it is fair. No matter how much money someone has, they don’t deserve to have it all taken away in taxes.”

Patrick kicked his feet up on the jump seat in front of him. “I’m glad you feel that way. I only wish more people shared your sympathy.” He lowered his voice and added, “As much as I hate the suffragettes, I tell you I didn’t mind their blowing up Lloyd George’s house.”

“Please, let’s not talk about the suffragettes.”

Frankly, Patrick was as sick of hearing about them as she was. He didn’t know why he brought it up, and he already wished he hadn’t. “All right, then let’s talk about you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. There has to be a reason you pulled me out of my club at two in the morning,” he said. “So let’s hear it.”

Linley gulped. “Oh, Patrick, I am sorry about ringing you, but I’m leaving for India tomorrow and the prospect of not saying goodbye…I just couldn’t bear it.”

He folded his arms behind his head. “What happened to our not seeing each other anymore, and that business about only being friends?”

“If you’re going to tease me,” Linley said, “Then I’d rather you take me home.”

“I am not teasing. You of all people should know I never joke about matters of the heart, especially when it’s matters of
my
heart.”

She blinked at him.

“You see, I’ve grown terribly fond of you these past few weeks,” Patrick continued. “And to be perfectly honest, I wish you wouldn’t go.”

“But I have to.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “I’m sure Mrs. Hastings wouldn’t mind if you stayed on, at least until the season ended.”

“Cousin Berenice cannot afford to support me in London, and you know my father’s financial situation is impossible.” Linley turned her head up to the canopy of stars above them.

“Don’t you want to see where this is going between us?”

Linley shook her head. “I already know where this is going.” She brought her eyes down to meet his. “Nowhere.”

“It’s going nowhere because you never give it a chance!”

“We’ve had this conversation before and my thoughts on the matter haven’t changed,” she said. “I will never leave my father. He needs me.”

“I need you.”

She snorted. “No you don’t. You might think you do, but you’ve gotten along just fine without me until now.”

“If that is what you think…”

“It’s what I know, Patrick. You’re a great deal stronger than you let on.”

Patrick nearly shot out of his seat. “Look here! You hardly know me. So don’t go making assumptions about who and what I am.”

“Any idiot would know within five minutes of meeting you what sort of person you are,” she said. “Do you really think I would’ve invited you to walk to the
souk
that day if I didn’t believe you were the sort of man a girl could put her trust in?” Linley did not give him a chance to answer. “And I know you feel trapped in all your responsibilities, and you’re scared to let them go, but one day you’ll realize there is more to life than fancy clothes and fancy motors.”

“If money was all I cared about, then I would be having this conversation with Gaynor Robeson, and not with you!” When Linley’s jaw fell open, Patrick sneered. “That’s right! Gaynor’s father has made it quite clear that her hand in marriage would come with a fat dowry. A dowry that I desperately need.”

Linley sat there with her mouth agape, unable to think of anything to say.

“Oh, but don’t worry about me,” Patrick continued. “After the season, I’ll return to Kyre. I’ll attend a few shooting parties, and then join the hunt.” He sighed, wondering whom he was trying to convince. “It will be summer again before I know it.”

“You would…marry…Gaynor Robeson?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t look like I have much choice.”

“Patrick, you cannot marry her,” Linley said. “She may be pretty, and she may have heaps of money, but she is the most vile woman alive. Not to mention spoiled and shallow. Her dress bills alone would run you into the poorhouse!”

Despite Linley’s very good argument, Patrick couldn’t help but laugh. “Do I detect a twinge of jealousy in your words?”

“If it wasn’t for Gaynor Robeson, our paths might not have crossed again.” She thought about that for a moment as she rested her head on his shoulder. “In a small way, I owe her everything.”

“But I’ll bet you’d never tell
her
that.”

Linley grinned. “Not for all the tea in china.”

***

They sat for hours on the hill, watching the night sky fade from purple-blue into the pink grapefruit of dawn. Linley relished in the feeling of Patrick’s arm around her, lying tucked against his body with his evening jacket and his warmth to drive away the dewy chill of morning. Why couldn’t life be like that always? No heartaches, no goodbyes. Just an endless summer sunrise with the one person who mattered most in all the world.

“We should get you home,” Patrick said, stirring. “There will be an uproar when the servants wake and discover you’re not in your bed.”

Linley resisted the urge to groan. She knew he was right, but she hated knowing that the fairytale had finally come to an end. “Won’t you at least drive slowly?”

He climbed out of the motorcar and helped her into her seat. “You could always stay, you know.”

“It would break my father’s heart.”

It would break Patrick’s heart, too, but he knew better than to press her. Instead, he started the engine and made the short drive back to London.

“You can write to me,” Linley said as the outskirts of London came into view. “My father keeps a villa in Malta. We are hardly ever there, but if you wanted to send me a line or two…to let me know how you are, or anything at all…I could give you the address.”

“I would like that very much.”

“And I could write to you,” she continued. “It wouldn’t be very often, and you wouldn’t have to write me back...just if you felt like it, or you weren’t too busy.”

“Write me every day if you want.”

Linley watched as they drove further and further into London, growing closer and closer to Bedford Square with every passing moment. “Oh, Patrick, I wish I could stay. It’s going to be awful knowing I’m so far away from you and that I may never see you again.”

“We will see each other,” he said, turning into Bedford Square. “You know how to find me.”

They stopped in front of Berenice Hastings’ townhouse. Patrick got out of the motorcar and walked around to open the door for Linley.

“I’m not ready to say goodbye just yet,” she said. “Couldn’t you come see me off at the dock? We’re leaving on the British-India line to Chittagong—”

“No.”

It was inevitable. Linley could not put off their parting any longer, unless she stayed behind in London—which, no matter how badly she wanted to, she simply could not do. “I will miss you terribly,” she said, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Patrick clutched her to him, not caring if all of London saw. And then, when he could not hold her any longer, he let her go.

PART II

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

When his steam packet pulled out of London harbor, Patrick had watched the sun sink against the Tower Bridge. Now he watched as that same sun rose, pink and warm over the port of Chittagong.

He stood on the deck, feet braced apart, hands gripping the worn wooden railing. Many times over the course of the voyage he’d convinced himself he was crazy. No man in his right mind would throw away twenty-seven years of wealth and privilege to chase a girl he hardly knew half way around the world.

Yes, many times he thought himself crazy for doing it, but this was not one of those times.

Patrick’s steamer wound its way through the harbor, slipping between the small wooden fishing boats and tea merchants’ ships that clogged the busy port. With a blast of its whistle, the little steamship tucked itself into a vacant wharf and lowered its ropes to the dockhands waiting below.

Bending to pick up his leather bags, Patrick waited for the gangway to be pushed up to the deck. Once connected, he jogged down the ramp, weaving his way between the other passengers as they disembarked. He stepped onto dry land for the first time in weeks, still feeling it sway under his feet, and with a deep breath, called out to the nearest brown-skinned native within earshot.

“Can you direct me to a hotel?”

The Indian man nodded. “If you would follow me, Sahib.”

Patrick stayed a few steps behind him, still taking in the sights and sounds of the busy harbor. It was filthy. It reeked of mud, rotting fish, and manure—not to mention the stench of so many unwashed bodies crowded into one place. Really, it was no different from any English harbor.
 

Bare-chested Indians scrubbed themselves and their cattle in the thick brown water. Others loaded and unloaded fishing boats, hauling heavy nets across the docks. Amid them, women washed clothes, keeping an eye on their children who splashed nearby.

“Is the Sahib from London?” the guide asked, pushing aside two fishmongers thrusting handfuls of smoked hilsa in Patrick’s face.

“Yes.”

He stopped at the edge of a busy roadway and held up his hand. A young man pedaling a brightly colored rickshaw pulled up beside him. “Then I think he should stay at the Empress Victoria.” The man bowed. “This boy will take you there.”

The Empress Victoria was a small, clean hotel. His guide had been wise to recommend it because Patrick would have never been able to find it on his own. It seemed the type of place one would have to know about, perhaps have even been to before—exactly the sort of establishment frequented by archaeologists, missionaries, and other travelers of distant lands.

Well-dressed Englishmen and women milled about the lobby, drinking tea and speaking in low, hushed voices. The only Indians were employees, serving breakfast with white gloves to their patrons, or carrying luggage up and down the carpeted stairs.