Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) (33 page)

God. He couldn’t do anything right. And now Ellie—

Ellie. God. Ellie.

His eyes flew towards her in a desperate panic. She sat perfectly still except for the slow rising and falling of her breast with each breath. She shook her head from side to side as if that would somehow make the last few minutes disappear. As if that would somehow erase the truth and make everything right again.

But nothing changed.

Nothing was alright.

After some time she stopped shaking her head. Her face was calm and even. She pushed her lips to the side and then in one flowing motion she removed the blanket off her body and stood up. She wobbled slightly and when Cal took an involuntary step in her direction she held up a hand to stop him and composed herself. Picking up her belongings from the side table, she walked in a measured pace to where the three women were standing near the door. Ellie’s mother patted her daughter’s back and then wrapped her arm around her shoulders as she opened the door. Ellie nodded and the women began to walk outside.

Cal forbade himself to blink. This was the last time he would ever set eyes on her and he didn’t want to miss even a millisecond. He needed to see it all, every detail no matter how small. Her soft waves of hair, the color of a shiny copper pot, the alabaster pureness of her skin, and her eyes—God, those eyes—more brilliant than a turquoise stone with which they shared their shade. But he couldn’t see her eyes from here and now he would never see them again. God, that he might see them one more time. He hung his head.

And Ellie turned around. He gasped, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was his surprise that his silent prayer had actually worked, or perhaps it was because her eyes were dry as the desert. He’d expected her to cry. To feel something; something for him. A hot twinge struck his stomach. What kind of monster was he? He should be glad that she wasn’t crying. But instead he was thinking about what it meant for him: that she had already mentally severed their ties. It hurt more than he had expected or more than he could have ever imagined. Now he just wanted her to turn back around. But she didn’t. She took a step closer to him and looked him dead in the eye.

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I was lying to myself. Maybe I was desperately naïve. Maybe I was a lot of things that I’m now going to have to figure out. But there is something I need to know…”

Cal swallowed, slowly. “What?”

“What was I to you? Was I just… a game?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was all of this just a game? Helping the workers, needing my help to collect information… kissing me…” She swallowed the crack in her voice. “…telling me you love me?”

His heart was breaking. He wanted to tell her,
No, No. Never! This was never a game.
You
were never a game and I love you more than I’ve ever even loved myself.
But he couldn’t. He couldn’t give her any reason to hope or change her mind. So he forced out one pained word.

“Yes,” he said. But he couldn’t bear to look at her face.

“Were you ever planning on helping anyone?”

“No,” he lied once more as the word raked through his throat.

She paused for a second, gears turning, searching. “If I was just a game, then why didn’t you… make love to me earlier, when you had the chance? Or was that all just part of the game, too?”

“Yes.”
No. No. Never. That was the only thing I did right.

Ellie scrunched up her nose and her mouth, nodding a few times. “I guess my parents were right, then, when they took me from this world. I’ve never believed in stereotypes but what am I supposed to think after what you’ve done? You’re all the same. All of you in that world.” She lifted her right hand up, gesturing towards him dismissively. “Nothing but another wicked Duke playing another wicked game.”

With a sigh, she turned back around and walked to the women waiting for her by the door. “Let’s go,” she said as her mother once again wrapped her arms around her daughter and ushered her out the door. At the last second Ellie’s mother looked to him, with something almost like sympathy in her eyes but too soon it was gone. And so was Ellie.

Cal was alone now, just as he’d always been.

And he’d never felt anything lonelier than his own company.

Ellie had given up counting the days. There was no point in doing so when nothing ever seemed to change. Time was blurred for her and each day now flowed into the next as if no time had passed at all. And this made the hurt so much more difficult to bear.

Time was supposed to heal anything, mend any wound of the body, heart, and soul, but when time never seemed to pass then neither did the pain.

She knew, factually, that nearly a month had passed since the day when she’d learned the truth but it still felt like yesterday. It was still raw and fresh in her mind. The truth about Cal had incited more difficult questions than answers. Right before the revelation she’d been so confident that she’d finally figured out her life and who she was as a person, but in an instant it had all been taken away.
The Duke of McAlister.
Just four simple words. Now, she was afraid to trust her own judgment about anything. She didn’t know how to handle that feeling or how to move on.

Ellie exhaled slowly as she leaned against the table resting her head on her hand. From here she could see the throngs of people passing by on the street—talking, walking, laughing, living. This practice, watching others, had become routine to her in the several weeks since… that day. There were days now when it was all she did. Watch others. Sometimes it was the only way she could convince herself that time was passing by, seeing other people go on about their days. It didn’t change the way she felt about Cal, the truth, or herself, but it was comforting to know that her own personal crisis was not the end of the world.

Even though it felt like it was.

Even on the darkest days when she wished it was.

The bell at the shop entrance rang and Ellie looked up, half dazed, at the older gentlemen who walked through the door. There was something about him that struck a chord. The peppery hair, the ill-fitted and rumpled jacket and trousers, the splotchy complexion and broken veins in his cheeks. Her stomach dropped when she made the connection.

“I recognize you. You’re—” She cleared her throat trying to decide how to refer to Cal. Just the thought of his name made her insides burn. “—you’re
his
uncle.”

“Yes. Yes, I am.” The man frowned, confused. “How did you know that?”

Ellie stood up and walked towards him, crossing her arms. “I saw you once, outside of his residence. You were—you were... kicking the door down...”

“Oh, yes.” He cleared his throat as if he remembered, though Ellie got the impression that this type of scenario was rather common place for him and so while he could imagine the way it had all looked he couldn’t place it with a specific time or date.

“What do you want?” Ellie asked, turning to the table next to her and busying her hands by folding and arranging fabrics.

“You.”

“Me? Oh, my...” Ellie hadn’t expected that. She slapped her hands against the fabric stack, smoothing it back and forth. “You know your nephew once said something very similar...”

The man exhaled deeply and pinched his nose. “No. Not like that...”

“Of course not. But you do want something
from
me.”

“Your help. Nothing more.”

Ellie turned around and saw the man wringing his hands together and then wiping at his damp forehead with a handkerchief. Shaking, his hands searched inside of his coat but found nothing which only served to make him more upset and anxious than he already was. He licked his lips as his eyes darted around the room, searching.

“We have no alcohol here. Not downstairs in the shop anyway.”

He cleared his throat and held up his hand in invitation. “Perhaps if you could—”

“Absolutely not. Which I can already tell you will be the answer to whatever it is that you’ve come here to talk to me about.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Is that so?”

“What about Cal?”

Ellie snorted. “What about him?”

“What about the workers?”

“What about them?”

“Well,” the man rubbed his forehead, “Cal’s work. His work helping them.”

Ellie scoffed. “He’s not helping them. He’s not helping anyone...” She ran her hand over the fabrics, smooth and cool and serene. If she could just fall inside of it right now and hide from the world then she gladly would.

“No?”

“No.” She gritted her teeth.

“Well, I don’t know who gave you that impression—”

“Your nephew, that’s who.”

The man’s puffy eyes showed alarm. “Did he now? And what did he say?”

“That it was all just a game—that he had lied to—” The words grated inside of Ellie’s throat. The thought of reliving that moment and the pain she had felt was almost too much to bear. She shook her head.

“Well, whatever he said I can tell you with absolute certainty that it wasn’t the truth. That he lied.”

A knot formed in the center of Ellie’s belly, tight and strong. She’d learned a lot of difficult and confusing truths lately. But this this was something else entirely. The lie was a lie? What did that even mean? Why would he have done that? She stopped toying with the fabrics and turned to look at Cal’s Uncle. “He’s trying to help the people is he? The workers? Tell me—tell me what he’s been doing and—and for how long…”

“It all started more than a year ago after he learned what happened with Hart—he
did
tell you about Hart?”

“Yes.”

“Before that he never took an interest in what was going on. But he never had any reason to, I suppose. Oh,” Cal’s uncle waved his hand, “he was brought up in a much different world than you—”

“Was he now?” Ellie mumbled.

“Not all people in that world are cold, just as not all people in your world are kind. But Cal’s world… it was one of the colder ones. He just didn’t know it because growing up almost everything was given to him. And he never realized that others didn’t live the same way. Not even Hart. But why would he?” He pointed his finger. “Because what he had wasn’t as important as what he lacked: love and truth. Hart gave him both of those things. And ever since Cal learned what happened to Hart, he’s dedicated his every waking moment of his life to these reforms. And it didn’t matter what anyone said or did, he wouldn’t waiver. Not when I begged him to let it all go, not even when they started having him followed as they—as they’d once done to me…”

“I was right…” Ellie whispered, remembering when she’d guessed he was being followed and the reason why.

“You knew about that?” This appeared to genuinely shock him.

“Of course. From the very first time we met. That’s how we met actually…” And for just a moment she allowed herself to fall into that private memory that now felt so long ago; the fresh meadowy color of his eyes, his soft lips, the electricity and energy of his touch as they ran. She smiled. She hadn’t done that in weeks. “And I suppose that’s why they were having him followed as well.”

“What do you mean?”

“The other shareholders. They wanted to intimidate him.”

“Well, he doesn’t see it that way, or at least he refused to admit it anyway. He always said they were looking for a concrete reason to vote him out, or that they were waiting for the right time to confront him and try to force him to a shareholders meeting because they couldn’t vote him out if he wasn’t there… which is why he stopped attending the bloody meetings until he could figure out a plan for all these reforms...” His eyes widened and wagged his finger again. “But I never believed that’s what they were doing. That wasn’t what they did to me…”

Ellie raised a brow, thinking. “Why would they follow you? He said you weren’t helping him.”

“No. No, I wasn’t. But I was very much like him, once. When I was his age I tried to do something similar. And it—it cost me. Greatly…” Once again the man searched through his pockets with trembling fingers but this time he found a small flask, only large enough to hold a few mouthfuls of liquid. He opened it and pressed it to his lips, taking two large, desperate gulps and then gasping.

“Your family. Cal told me that you lost them.” Ellie shifted, a sense of sadness trickling through her. “How—What—Did they… die?”

He tipped the flask up again but found nothing more. “No. They left.”

“Why?”

“Because of the dangers I subjected them to. Because of the—the threats—”

After another unsuccessful attempt to find relief in his flask, Ellie gave in. “Wait here,” she said, holding up her hand. She went to an upstairs cupboard and brought him back a large glass of whiskey. He nodded, with ample appreciation, and swallowed the drink in several quick gulps.

“Anyway,” he continued, wiping off his mouth. “That’s why I told him he had to choose. And it’s also why I need your help now.”

“Choose? What do you mean ‘Choose’?” This sparked Ellie’s interest as well as muddled up her thoughts.

“Yes. I told him that he must choose between you and his work because it was too dangerous. That I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you that happened to my family.” He pointed solidly at the floor. “I put my foot down. I told him he needed to make a choice or I would tell you the truth about who he was before he had a chance to tell you. Bloody fool of a man, I think he thought he could do both. That he could finally tell you the truth and that you would accept him… And maybe you would have, but then you were hurt…”

These revelations stabbed deep into Ellie’s chest. A piercing blow directly to her core. Her knees buckled and she leaned against the table for balance, both hands flat on the small stacks of fabric. She remembered the way Cal had acted that last night in the carriage—how sad he was and how certain she was that it meant he was leaving her. And then his words the next day…
I was afraid that you would leave me.
Had being forced to choose been the reason? If so, she was afraid of the implications.

After a moment she lifted her hands from the fabric and turned to in his direction. “And what does this have to do with needing my help?”