"Jane, come along!" Quin called from the carriage. "We have to make a train."
She turned back to Hugh. "If I leave here today, it's over. Forever, Hugh. I must move on from this." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "If you don't choose me now, you never will. But the sad thing is that one day you'll realize what you threw away." When he was silent, her eyes watered. "And I promise you, it'll be too late to get it back." She turned toward the carriage. Just as she was about to climb in, Jane stopped and strode back to Hugh.
She'd seen reason - she would stay with Hugh for a week more, aday more.
The cracking slap to his face took him completely off guard. "That was for the last ten years." She slapped the other side of his face, even harder. "And that's for the next!"
Chapter Forty-six
"Inever thought I'd say this," her father began, as he nervously regarded Jane's face, "but perhaps you ought to just cry."
Quin had suggested the same thing repeatedly on their journey back to London, right up until he'd deposited her in her father's study. She'd been home for an hour - long enough for her father to finish explaining what he and Hugh and everyone else did.
"I'm fine."I'm numb . When had her voice begun to sound so tinny?
She took a sip of her iced Scotch, defying him to say anything about her drinking so early.
"I'm sure this has all been a blow to you."
"Are you competing for the most patent understatement?" She rolled her eyes. "I mean, really, Papa,imports ?"
He shrugged helplessly, and she sighed. He'd finally been totally forthcoming with her - she thought. She'd been markedly less so about Hugh's reasons for letting her go. "Who knows what he's thinking?" she'd said to him and to Quin. "He made comments like he thought he wasn't good enough for me...."
"Jane, you keep saying you're fine, but you don't look it."
No, she'd been on the verge of crying since she'd first comprehended that Quin was there to retrieve her. In fact, she'd been as close to it as she'd ever been, without actually spilling tears. As she'd absently packed her things, she'd somehow prevented herself because she'd known that with her first tear, she might start something she couldn't stop.
"You're right." She gingerly touched the chilled glass on her swollen jaw, but the pain made her wince, and her father flinch - again. "This has all been a lot for me to digest. I see you and Quin and even Rolley, and I feel like you're strangers." She'd tried to put on a strong front when facing each of them, but for right now, all she could seem to manage was a wary indifference. "And Hugh? I had an idea of him for half my life. Now that's...changed."
She wasn't angry about Hugh's role in deceiving her. He had a job to do, and after talking to her father, she better understood the seriousness and significance of what he did. One of his bullets could spare a million of them in some needless war, and yet his job was lonely and grueling and he would never receive credit - or support if he'd been captured. She'd forgiven Hugh - for this, at least - but her father? "As for you, well, perhaps you might have provided a bit more warning about all this, and a lot less pressuring me to marry an assassin. Just a thought."
Her father couldn't meet her eyes - and she'd noticed that for the last hour, he'd avoided looking at her mother's portrait as well. "I regret what I did. But I swear that I believed Hugh would come around and do the right thing. The man has been in love with you for so long, and he's always been honorable. But then, you understand that - you've always understood that. Jane, do you know how proud I was of you for choosing a man like Hugh? You saw things in him others couldn't. I thought the two of you were perfect for each other."
We almost were.
"Are you sure that you made it clear you were in love with him? And that you wanted to remain married?"
She made a sound of frustration. "You - have - no - idea."
He briefly raised his palms in the air. "Yes, yes, very well. I won't ask again."
"Well, what do you propose I do now?" She rotated the glass against her cheek to the cooler side and added, "With all the money from my dowry that you'll be giving me."
He quirked a brow, but wisely said nothing.
"I really have no idea what a woman in my situation does."
"Jane, I know I promised you I could smooth this over with Frederick, but" - he tugged on his collar - "he's not precisely available any longer."
"How's that?" she asked without interest.
"He's engaged to Candace Damferre. Her husband expired with no heir, leaving her everything. Bidworth's, uh, quite beside himself that they're both free."
What would Jane have done, weeks into marriage with Freddie, when his true love became free? Hugh might not have been able to give her a love-filled marriage, but he'd helped her father save her from a completely loveless one. "I'm happy for him."
"Are you truly?"
"Yes. I couldn't have gone back with him anyway."
"I know, but I promised you something I wasn't completely sure of because I was positive it would work out with you and Hugh."
She shrugged. "Don't feel guilty on that score, at least. You told me you could work all this out with Freddie," Jane began with a careless flick of her hand, "if the marriage to Hugh was unconsummated." She glanced up and frowned. "Your face is an interesting shade of red, Papa. Really remarkable."
His fists were clenched. "I'm going to kill him."
"Now, it seems" - she glanced both ways with exaggerated slyness and hushed her voice - "that I have to clarify if you mean literally."
For the last week, Hugh had combed the small lakeside village and all the surrounding areas for word of his brother. After days of doggedly chasing down every lead, Hugh was no closer to discovering anything to indicate whether Ethan was dead or alive.
As Quin had said, many had heard gunshots, and some shopkeepers saw two men dragging Ethan's lifeless body into an alley. One might have spied a very slim man loping down the street. The bottom line was that Ethan had disappeared, and Hugh had no more leads to follow.
Nor had he any idea where to go or what to do.
Without Jane, nothing held appeal.
In the past, his life had at least had some purpose, but he didn't know if he could go back to his occupation. Yes, the odds had been against Hugh reverting to a normal life - but, damn it, hehad changed. Jane had changed him, and he had to wonder if he could return to that same existence. Besides, if it was true that Weyland always knew everything, then he now knew that Hugh had compromised Jane - and then all but kicked her out. He feared Weyland had washed his hands of Hugh.
In his place, Hugh would have.
Hugh's official missives to Weyland were responded to promptly, but coolly.
If not having Jane in his life had been painful before, now it was agonizing. Hugh knew exactly what he was missing. Worse, he knew how badly he'd hurt her. The more he thought about that morning, the more he regretted letting her go. But what choice did he have?
Where to go?He hadn't been to Cape Waldegrave for almost a year. He should go check on his estate and see if any improvements needed to be made - then do them all himself. Beinn a'Chaorainn was on his way there. He could pay Mòrag in advance to oversee the property. He could pick up the rest of his things and close down the house for good.
To go there and not hear Jane's laughter? Hell, who was he fooling? He just planned to go there to do eighty thousand pounds' worth of brooding.
Jane's cousins were hovering.
Claudia had basically moved in, and Belinda and Samantha visited as often as they could between time with their husbands and children. Today, Claudia and Belinda were flipping through fashion plates, smoking French cigarettes, and raiding Jane's clothing.
During the last two weeks, Jane hadn't had an hour to herself. Apparently, when Jane had returned home, she'd worried her entire family with her mottled jaw and insouciant demeanor. But now the bruise on Jane's face had healed, and her headaches had disappeared.
She often wondered if Hugh had completely recovered.
When she reflected over her time with him, she could think of only one thing she'd have done differently, even after all that had occurred between them. "Trust me with your secret and you won't regret it," she'd told him. She felt a flush of guilt, knowing he would have to regret it. She'd demonstrated no understanding or compassion, but then she'd never felt such fury, such strangling frustration.