A Love That Never Tires (28 page)

It hurt like hell, but Patrick didn’t swing back.

“What’s the matter, Patty?” Reginald asked, laughing. “Afraid to hit me back?”

Patrick felt warm blood trickling down his face and tasted its metallic tang in the back of his throat. He hated Reginald Bourne more than any man alive. But he didn’t want to start a fight that, no matter what the outcome, he knew he would never win.

Reginald stepped up to him again and whispered, “She told me you like to be held after you finish.”

The pain in Patrick’s eyes spoke volumes even as he said very little. Clearly, Lady Wolstanton’s betrayal hurt him.

Linley’s mouth fell open at the revelation.

For the first time, Reginald and Patrick, as well as her father and the others noticed her presence.

“You are weak, and you are a coward,” Reginald said. “And now Linley finally sees you for what you really are.”

Reginald’s first mistake was to turn his focus on Linley. He took his eyes off his opponent. This blunder gave Patrick a split second to step back and punch from the shoulder, rocking Reginald with one firm blow to the head. The man tumbled backward over a camp chair and sprawled onto his back in the mud.

Linley ran forward and shoved Patrick as hard as she could. She pummeled his sides and his chest with her little fists. She hated him for hurting Reginald, for rising to his challenge and stooping to his level. And she hated him for Lady Wolstanton, although she was not sure why.

From his seat by the fire, Sir Bedford sat shocked as to how the argument suddenly became a brawl. Even Linley fought now, punching and kicking, and hurling curses at a stunned Lord Kyre.

“Enough!” her father said. “I refuse to see my team brawling like spoiled children! Everyone to their tents. Now!”

As the guilty parties skulked to their tents, Sir Bedford lit another cigarette.

“It is a wise father that knows his own child,” he told Schoville. “But I’m afraid I am at a loss with mine.”

Schoville leaned back in his chair, watching the sparks from the fire flutter up into the night sky. “This Lord Kyre business has gotten out of hand. You should have never allowed it.”

“If I never allowed it, she would want him all the more for it,” he explained. “I let him come along in hopes that the utter absurdity of their relationship would become apparent.”

Schoville sat forward and yawned. “By no means am I telling you how to raise your own daughter, Bedford, but I think Linley could benefit from learning about man’s true nature. And unless you want a very heartbroken young woman on your hands, you should be the one to tell her.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

In the last valley before the tall, grey, snow-capped mountains began, the lush, green landscape gave over to a craggy ravine. Linley craned her neck back as far as she could, and all she saw was cold stone. It was as if a wall had been carved out of the mountainside, reaching higher and higher until the human eye could no longer fathom the distance. There seemed to be no way out but up—to climb the foothills of the Himalayas.

“My goodness,” she said. “That’s one hell of a mountain!”

Her father smiled, seeming not the least put off by the obstruction in his path. He stumbled on the rocky ground, running his fingers over the cold slab.

At last, he found what he searched for—a narrow break in the rock face.

It was an unassuming opening, one any passerby would dismiss with hardly a moment’s notice. But upon further inspection, it was clear this was no ordinary fissure.

“If we cannot go over,” Sir Bedford said, grinning. “We must go under!”

Linley and her father stepped into the mountain passage. It must have been carved hundreds of years before but appeared safe and dry, and she was unafraid.

The Talbot-Martin team switched on their lamps. The passage continued for miles, always seeming to stay one step ahead of the lights. Nothing but slick black rock lined the tunnel. No sound could be heard except the echo of their footfalls and the rhythm of their breathing. They were completely alone, miles deep inside the base of a mountain.

“Extraordinary,” Patrick whispered. He had never witnessed anything like it in his life. This was isolation at it’s finest.

Slowly, and very tiny at first, a light appeared at the other end. The Talbot-Martin team pushed on, eager to discover what lay ahead.

Before them, the passage opened up to a lush valley. Everything shone green, and crisp, and fresh. A waterfall seemed to descend from the very heavens to nourish the hidden nugget of earth, which Patrick estimated was only a hundred yards wide. At the base of the waterfall, a large pool of water gathered before trickling off into no more than a brook.

The brook disappeared beneath a mountain on the far side of the valley, probably traveling underground to meet with the river they crossed days before. This place they stumbled upon was natural—as natural as Patrick and the air he breathed—but to discover it hidden in the Himalayas gave it an otherworldly mystique.

“Where to now, Papa?”

“Up,” he said. Linley’s father walked among the tall bushes and trees, stopping to touch a specimen from time to time. He knew there must be a way to the top of the hidden valley, he just waited for it to make its existence known.

“Stairs!” Reginald cried. “This way!”

Behind the waterfall, a set of narrow steps were carved into the rock.

“Marvelous!” Sir Bedford said, clapping his hands together. Bracing himself against the side of the mountain, he climbed the steps one by one.

Behind him, the rest of the team followed. They made their way up the mountain, up an endless set of stairs that wound around the valley, spiraling higher and higher toward an unseen destination. They passed through clouds settled between the mountains that stood guard over the valley. At some places, the steps grew so steep they were hardly more than ladders. Vertical. Hand over hand and foot over foot as the team ascended.

It grew dark early in the shade of the mountains. Soon, there was very little light to climb by. Their legs quivered with every step and their hands grew raw clinging to the rocks for support. Patrick did not know how Sir Bedford managed. He was half the old man’s age, and already his lungs burned from the stress of the climb, the altitude, and from general overexertion.

Not to mention half his nose had been caved in the night before.

Patrick gritted his teeth, forcing himself to push on. It was his God-given right to defend himself against an attacker, and if Linley didn’t like it, then so be it. Obviously Reginald meant more to her than he did. She cried no tears for
him
that night. And the next morning, it had been Reginald she fussed over. In fact, she had not spoken a word to Patrick since he cocked back and gave old Reggie what he deserved all along.

How dare Reginald try to use another woman to frighten Linley off! Sure, he embarrassed Patrick beyond belief, but what else had he hoped to accomplish? Exposing him for the caring, faithful man he was could certainly do no harm to a budding relationship. Yet…Patrick and Linley were no longer on speaking terms.

In fact, she stayed as far away from him as possible. She walked beside her father at the front of the line while Patrick kept a safe distance from the entire Talbot-Martin team. If he thought things were awkward before, it was far, far worse when
everyone
hated him.

***

The moon hung high in the air by the time they reached a suitable place to camp. They were out of the valley, but still surrounded by mountains on every side.

Linley unfurled her bedroll and slipped out of her boots, giving her feet a few hours rest as she crawled beneath the blankets. The night was bright and clear. There was no need for a tent, and to fall asleep under the stars was a perfect reward for her hard day’s work.

She listened as the team fell asleep. One by one, each person’s breathing became slow and rhythmic, and in Schoville’s case, a few dozen times louder. But nothing—not even his snoring—could ruin such a beautiful night.

Until Patrick crawled up beside her.

“Go away,” she said.

“I want to talk to you.”

She shook her head. “Not until you apologize for hitting Reginald.”

“He hit me first,” Patrick hissed, trying not to wake the others. “I was defending myself. Surely you of all people could see that!”

“Haven’t your ever heard of ‘turning the other cheek’?”

“Don’t preach to me, Linley. I was not about to stand there and let the man air out my personal life for everyone to hear.”

Linley rolled over onto her side, away from him.

“He’s trying to poison you against me,” Patrick said.

“He doesn’t have to,” she replied. “You do a fine job on your own.”

Patrick grabbed her shoulder and flipped her onto her back. “All right, I hit him. I did exactly what he wanted me to do, and now I am the villain because I let my pride and my anger get the better of me. I cannot change the past, but I would like to make up for it in the future.”

“Apologize to Reginald.”

“This is not about Reginald,” he said. “This is about you and I.”

Linley took a deep breath. “Then apologize to me.”

“For what, exactly?”

She turned her face away from him. There was no way she could tell him how she felt. How could she explain jealousy over someone she never met? How could she tell him that she hated him for once caring about another woman, despite the fact that he never hid it from her? Patrick told her from the very beginning that he’d known other women. He had left no room for jealousy or distrust between them.

“Linley,” he said. “If you cannot be honest with me about how you are feeling, then I cannot do anything to help you. Talk to me, please.”

She could not look at him, even as she spoke. “Those things that Reginald said—they were true, weren’t they?”

“I make no attempt to deny them.”

“Then…you cared for that woman. More than you originally let on?”

Patrick hung his head. “You asked if I loved any of those women, and I told you I did not,” he said. “I cared for Esmée Wolstanton a great deal, but I don’t know that I loved her. I was young and stupid, and I had naïve expectations. She played me like a fool because I didn’t know any better.”

Linley finally turned to face him.

“Above all,” he continued. “I was ashamed. I did not want you or anyone else to know the details of my private, sexual life. And I don’t think I am wrong to feel that way. What passed between Lady Wolstanton and I is between Lady Wolstanton and myself. Not for her to laugh about with Reginald, and not for Reginald to throw in my face. And most certainly, not for you to lose any sleep over.”

Linley reached up and pushed away a piece of dark hair that fell over his forehead. “Tell me about her.”

“I was lonely at the time, and I think she was, too. Her husband was much older—your father’s age at least. But it was a good marriage for her. In the first year, she gave him an heir, and then she was free to do as she pleased.” Patrick paused. “But that all happened a very long time ago. I was still at Eton then.

“I met her just out of Oxford. I had recently come into my majority, and she was not yet thirty. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She must have thought me decent enough looking because she didn’t put up much of an argument. Someone else arranged everything—one of my school chums who knew her—and before I realized what I was doing, I found myself in bed with her.

“I won’t go into detail, but I will say that I was initiated into lovemaking the way a runt puppy is initiated to a deep bucket. And it was Esmée Wolstanton holding my head underwater. The whole thing was just a game to her. I couldn’t see it then, but now I look back and think I should have known better.”

He shook his head, sadly. “And to hear your friend Reginald telling everyone my shame. To hear him telling
you
the one thing I would never want anyone to know…” Patrick closed his eyes and sighed. “Please don’t think me weak, Linley. I couldn’t bear it.”

He looked years older then, his face shadowed in moonlight, one side of his nose swollen and purpled. Linley wondered what he had been like at her age. Before all the loss, and the hurt, and the years of responsibility took their toll on him. At only twenty-seven, he already carried the burdens of an old man.

And she wondered what future burdens he would have to carry, for there would certainly be many.

“I don’t think you’re weak, Patrick. I think you are a good man with a good heart. You just gave it to the wrong woman,” she said. “And to take that heart and treat it so cruelly, I think Lady Wolstanton must have no heart at all.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Linley stretched, stiff and sore from sleeping on the hard stone ground. She rolled over to find Patrick a few feet away from her, sleeping on his stomach. He looked peaceful, besides his bruised face. Linley wanted to tell him that she wasn’t mad at him anymore, but she didn’t want to wake him. Instead, she scooted closer to him and slipped her hand in his.

Instinctively, his fingers closed around hers.

Even tucked away in slumber, he still wanted a connection with someone. To hold, and to be held, and not be laughed at for it behind his back. That was not weakness, as far as Linley was concerned. To her, it was the very measure of a man.

Someone stirred, and Linley snatched her hand out of Patrick’s, afraid of what the others might say if they caught them holding hands.

Patrick’s eyes jerked open. He looked confused to have been pulled so quickly from sleep.

“Good morning,” Linley whispered.

“Is it?” he asked, looking around. “I dreamt I was back home in Kyre.”

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “So that’s why you looked so peaceful. I thought it was because we weren’t quarreling anymore.”

“I never know whether we are quarreling or getting along. It seems to change so quickly…”

“You must think me dreadfully unstable,” she said. “I swear I don’t know why my moods have been so erratic lately. I am usually so calm.”

He stood up, stretched, and offered his hand to help her up. Linley took it, and after a few minutes of working out her own body’s kinks, she went to wake the others.