Julia London (35 page)

“Why you did not tell me about your cousin?” Michael said, going directly to the point in a voice smooth as ice.

Abbey’s hand fluttered instantly to her forehead, but she quickly dropped it and steeled herself. “He did not want to present himself until his circumstance had improved. He thought you would think ill of us.”

“Of us?”

“He thought you would think ill of him for not having a proper situation, and me … he thought you would think ill of me because of him.”

“So he asked you not to tell me of his existence?”

“For just a time,” she murmured.

His shoulders tensed. “And you were merely honoring his request?” Although the tone of his voice was impersonal, almost casual, he still had not turned to face her.

“I—I did not see the harm.”

“You did not see the harm in lying to me?”

Abbey’s stomach flipped. “I did not lie to you. I just didn’t tell you everything.”

Michael said nothing. The silence seemed to create a huge
gulf between them, and Abbey was suddenly frantic to fill that void.

“I thought … I thought he would come to Blessing Park soon, with a post, a respectable post. He was quite embarrassed, not only for himself, but for me. He was afraid you would think he was trying to take advantage.”

“Did it occur to you I might think he was taking advantage by virtue of sneaking around behind my back?”

Abbey faltered. Michael’s voice was cool and even, and so detached she could not tell if he was angry or merely inconvenienced. “I thought … I guess I thought …” Her voice trailed off. Good God, what
had
she been thinking?

Michael slowly turned around. His face was devoid of any expression, except for his eyes, and they were burning. Abbey swallowed a surge of fear. “What did you think, Abbey? That I would receive the news about your cousin much better if he had a post? That I would forget you had lied to me? That I would readily accept his explanation for the sudden and improbable appearance of a second will?”

Abbey unintentionally shut her eyes. Her worst fear—that he would think she was part of her father’s deception—filled every fiber. “On my honor, I did not know of the will. He said he was waiting for important news, but I did not know what it was. Like you, I thought my father’s last testament was delivered to me in America.”

“Are you being truthful with me now? Or shall I discover more facts you and this cousin of yours were ashamed to give me?”

“You cannot believe I had any knowledge of that second will, Michael,” she heard herself say. She slowly opened her eyes to see a wickedly wry smirk twist his lips.

“Why not? Strange wills seem to follow you. If you are as blameless as you would have me believe, why did you not tell me about his letters or his visit?”

His accusatory tone sparked something inside her. Could he stand there before her and honestly believe she would betray him so completely? Did he think their lovemaking a lie? Was
the day at the cove a lie? Was every day of the last three months a lie?

“I didn’t tell you about his first letter because
you
had fled to Brighton,” she snapped, “and as you made it quite clear you intended to live separately from me, I saw no point in boring you with the arrival of the second. As for his visit, I had no idea he was in Pemberheath and encountered him quite by chance. I might have told you then, but you had absented yourself for a
second
time without word to me!”

Michael’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Pemberheath? You had occasion to see him in Pemberheath?” he asked, clearly startled, but did not allow her to respond. “Putting aside, for the moment, that you were forbidden to go to Pemberheath without my express permission, you should have told me
immediately
of your encounter. I can’t believe you could be so naive, Abbey. A distant cousin does not appear, unannounced, on the door of a wealthy young heiress without cause. Or perhaps you are not so naive. You did not seem surprised when he fired upon us.”

“
Fired
upon us?” Abbey gasped with outrage. “How
dare
you impugn him?” she breathed angrily. “Galen would
never
harm anyone! As you don’t know him, I do not see how you could possibly make such sweeping judgments!”

The sound of Michael’s sardonic laughter ricocheted off the walls and hit her squarely in the face. “How terribly inappropriate of me.
My
one encounter with your beloved cousin was so that he could use a fraudulent document and demand five hundred thousand pounds from me! How silly of me to think anything amiss!”

Abbey turned abruptly so he would not see her painful confusion. He was right; it all seemed so wrong. But Galen had not defrauded him! He might be irresponsible, but he was
not
a thief! “I don’t know
what
to think!” She moaned. “I am so … so …”

“So afraid? So exposed?”

“No!” she cried, turning to face him. “Astonished! Confused!”

“Astonished and confused. That hardly begins to describe
how I found this news, my sweet,” Michael sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

A dull sickness swept her. “Michael, he had things that belonged to my father! And as Papa had lied once before, I thought Galen was a victim, too!” she pleaded with him. Didn’t he understand how much she loved him? That she would rather die than hurt him?

“Michael,
please
 …” she said weakly, mortified that she sounded so guilty. “I can’t explain it. All I know is that Mr. Strait sent the papers I expected. But when Galen showed me his, I did not think it wholly unbelievable that my father would change his mind at the last moment. I did not think it wholly unbelievable that he would have betrayed me a second time! Galen would not lie about this. He expected to be left a
ship
, not my dowry! He was as shocked as I!”

Michael clenched his jaw and cast a scathing glare at her. “I wonder how you thought you would secure the dowry after you were married,” he said in a low, accusatory tone.

Desperate, she tried to think of something that would prove her innocence. “I told you once I would return to America if that was what you wanted, and you could have the money. I had every intention of leaving so that you could be free of me! Surely that proves that I had no part in it! Had it not been for that silly bet, I
would
have left! If this was some scheme, I would not have left!”

“You did not leave,” he quietly reminded her.

Abbey inhaled sharply. God, how guilty he thought her. Devastated by what was happening, she took a step toward him. He stiffened. Her eyes darted helplessly about the room; she felt like a raving madwoman as she searched for something, anything that would show him she had not lied. How could she make him understand that she loved him with all her heart and would never do anything to hurt him? She walked forward to him and reached out to touch him, but he pulled away from her.

That single response killed her.

“I love you, Michael. I love you more than my own life,” she heard herself whisper softly. The muscle in his jaw flexed.
“I would
never
do anything to hurt you, don’t you know that? Do you honestly think everything we have been was a
lie?
That I have deceived you in your own house … in your
bed
?” she whispered.

Michael’s jaw tightened. She thought for a moment that the hard glint in his eye softened, but through clenched teeth he muttered, “I do not know what to believe.”

An involuntary cry of anguish escaped her, and she stumbled for a chair, praying she would not fall to her knees. Tears were beginning to seep from her eyes and an irrational shame engulfed her. “Michael!” she insisted hysterically. “Please, you must believe me!” He did not believe anything but her guilt, and she was breaking apart in front of him like the weakling she was. She forced herself to lift her head and look at him through wet lashes. The icy distance stretched between them; his face had a ghostly pall she took to be anger.

It was hopeless.

With what little pride she could muster, she straightened. “I won’t beg you, Michael. I have never played you false, not once, and I swear to you on my father’s grave I have not started now. If you believe everything we have is a lie, then so be it,” she said evenly. “But I love you. I always have, and God save me, I always shall.”

Michael said nothing. His cold, steady gaze did not waver from hers, and after several tense moments, Abbey bowed her head. It was over. This man felt nothing, and she could not bear it another moment. Dejected, she turned away from him and started unsteadily to the door.

“Abbey.” The hoarseness in his voice betrayed his emotion. A surge of hope erupted within her, and she turned expectantly to face him. “Do not, under any circumstance, see him again.”

With that, he very succinctly broke her heart. She whirled and ran to her room. She flung herself facedown upon the bed, and the tears she had held back now came forth in gut-wrenching torrents.

Galen Carrey glanced at his pocket watch for the third time, then glanced up, peering through the thick fog that had begun to settle about the docks. He did not see the figure approaching from the right and stumbled backward when the red tip of a cheroot suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision.

“God, Routier, you startled me,” he muttered irritably, and self-consciously straightened his neckcloth.

Routier ignored the remark. “What in the bloody hell are you waiting for?”

“I said I would give him a few days,” Galen shot back.

Routier, disgusted, tossed his cheroot to the cobblestones, and ground it out with the heel of his boot.

He fisted his hands on his hips and glared at the younger man. “Look here, Carrey. From the moment I found you crying in your cups, I’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure your rightful inheritance is returned to you. I concocted the plan. I dealt with Strait. I retrieved those blasted articles for you to use. I am doing it for
you
. What the devil is wrong with you? You’ve hardly lifted a finger, and now you are balking!”

“I am
not
balking!” Galen loudly protested. “We cannot rush headlong into this, Routier. You know he is suspicious of me. We have to give him time to come to the realization that Carrington duped him.”

“Right. And while you are giving him time, he is scouring all of London for Strait! Do you have any idea what that could mean? You must demand it of him!”

“Demand it? Do you think if I demand it, he will turn it over? God, Routier, you should know as well as anyone he will refuse such threats!”

“He won’t. You have the documents as proof, and a court suit would threaten scandal. He can ill afford another one, and my guess is he will do what he must to avoid having his precious little marchioness subjected to the speculation of the entire
ton
,” Routier said matter-of-factly.

At the mention of Abbey, Galen drew to his full height of six feet and glared at Routier. “I will not drag her into this any more than I already have, Routier!” he responded angrily.

Routier flashed an evil smile and leaned forward so that his
face was only an inch or two from Galen’s. “Then do as I tell you, Carrey. Look, the captain wronged you. He should have left you
something
. As his only male relative, you deserved the entire estate! Did you slave all those years on his ship to be tossed aside like a piece of garbage in the end? No! But I had to convince you to fight for what is rightfully yours! Now Darfield holds it, and he knows it. Are you a coward now? Are you going to let him get away with it?”

Galen shook his head weakly.

Routier relaxed a little. “Quit dawdling about then and go and demand what belongs to you. You can soothe your pretty cousin later.”

Galen did not respond and regarded Routier with apprehensive dislike. Routier was right; he deserved his fair share of Carrington’s estate. He had been the man’s only living male relative, the son of his second cousin, and had served the captain faithfully for several years. Despite the rows he might have had with Carrington, he deserved something. Routier had helped him to see that when they had met, by chance, in Calais last summer.

But he had never meant to hurt Abbey. He had always been very fond of the lass, even more so upon seeing what a beauty she had become. Routier thought nothing of ruining her, as his motive went far deeper than the cut of the fortune he was promised. He practically spit venom at the mere mention of Darfield’s name, and Galen feared he would ruthlessly use Abbey to get to Darfield and ruin him.

“If you are finding you are too weak for the task, Carrey, you can repay me the five thousand pounds you owe me, and we will go our separate ways,” Routier said, interrupting his thoughts.

Galen’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have five thousand pounds, sir, a fact you know very well.”

Routier’s smirk deepened. “Then you had best go and see Darfield, hadn’t you?”

The first thing Michael did was to move his things to a chamber as far away as he could get from those violet eyes that haunted him. The second thing he did was avoid her at all costs, refusing her one request to see him, and keeping odd hours so he would not risk running into her. The third thing he did was drink. A lot. But he could not drink enough to clarify in his mind her guilt or innocence.

For three days Michael waited, restlessly alternating between drinking and fitful sleep. On the morning Galen Carrey finally made an appearance, Michael was sprawled in an overstuffed chair in his study, staring at the mound of gowns for which he had paid a small fortune and a velvet box containing the amethyst jewelry he had given Abbey. She had returned the articles just that morning with a terse note saying they belonged to him.

The gowns and jewelry did not distress Michael. It was the violin case that lay next to the gowns. She had returned the instrument as one of the articles she claimed belonged to him. But it was a part of her, and it was impossible to imagine her without it. Just as it was impossible not to feel deep pangs of guilt and anger when he looked at the case.

When Galen Carrey was announced, Michael’s anger gave way to white fury. He did not rise when the man was shown in.