Beloved (17 page)

“I do not regard you as a joke.”

“No, no,” she murmured. “You are right. Not as a joke, but as one to be taken, but not taken seriously.”

“This is pointless.” As far as he knew, he had never, even in the throes of one of his worst attacks, inflicted harm on another.

As far as he knew
. There were those—the only ones who knew of his affliction—who would not tell Saber about the lost minutes, or hours, for
fear of sending him further into the abyss.

Ella swung away from him. “So, we are to sit here—you, Mr. Bigun, and I, and pretend for two hours?”

“Bigun,” Saber said. “He does not care to be called ‘Mr.’ ”

“Ooh.” She stomped toward him once more. “Silliness. Little things. And at a time when my life holds no sign of light.”

“And mine does?” Slowly, he undid her cloak and swung it from her shoulders. The strings of her bonnet fell undone at a touch
and he removed the wide-brimmed velvet confection. She neither helped nor resisted. “Do you find this room unpleasant?” he
asked.

“I find it unusual,” she said promptly, studying it with narrowed eyes. “I confess that I might rearrange your treasures.
And they are indeed treasures. But, no, I do not find it unpleasant. In fact, I find it fascinating.”

“You can be comfortable here while we await your coach?” Her answer was to settle herself on a low, green-leather-covered
hassock, tuck her reticule into her lap, and hold her hands toward the fire.

The small, exquisite gold and diamond reticule he had sent to her. He had not noticed she carried it until now.

Ella took the bag between her hands. “A beautiful thing. You were generous to give me such a gift.”

He had wanted to give her something. Even as he’d told Bigun to deliver the message that was supposed to dampen her interest
in him, Saber had reveled in the thought of her owning something he’d intended to give her anyway. The bag and the ruby were
only two of many treasures Saber had looked forward to showering upon Ella … before their worlds had spun away from each other.

“Well, then”—he took the chair his grandmother had vacated—“it’s good that you’re comfortable. How shall we proceed, I wonder?”

“We shall not proceed. Mr. Bigun is taking a long time.”

“Bigun.”

Her breath blew out noisily. “He will not return.”

Ella looked at him sharply. “Of course he will return. Papa instructed him to chaperon me.”

“Bigun will return when I signal for him to do so. He has other duties to perform. He will be in attendance when the coach
comes. Struan said Bigun was to assume responsibility for your reputation and safety. He does not have to be in this room
to do so. Perhaps I should write down the names of possible suitors.”

“Tell me about India.”

He deliberately relaxed his hands on the arms of the chair. “Nothing to tell.”

“How did it happen? Your injury?”

“We shall make a list.” He got up and went to a black-lacquer secretaire that had once belonged to a Chinese prince. “Stay
by the fire. It is cool over here. I’ll write. If you have any suggestions—”

“Don’t waste your time.”

“Tell me if you have any suggestions.”

“I suggest you speak to me about India. About the reason you went back a second time when you’d already been wounded.”

He pulled paper in front of him and dipped a pen into the standish. “Sir Knowlton Carstairs is a fairly innocuous fellow.”

“A glowing recommendation!”

Saber wrote the name. “Someone who will please you—”

“There is no one!” He heard her move behind him. “You know there can be no one but you.”

“Ella, please.”

“Why would Grandmama think you should help me find a husband?”

“She does not always make her thoughts plain. But Struan led a quiet life until he left the priesthood and married Justine.”

“He was not a priest. He never took his final vows.”

“Nevertheless,” Saber said patiently. “He
was
a priest, in all but his final vows. And he did not spend a great deal of time going about in Society. Now he and Justine
are happy with their quiet life in Scotland, and with their family. Am I not correct?”

“Yes,” she told him, standing at his back now. “And I have told them that is where we should return.”

Saber drew a deep breath. “I believe Grandmama asked me to assist in this matter because she thinks I am better acquainted
with those men who might make you a suitable husband.”

She rested a hand on his shoulder. “This is a sham, dear one,” she said softly. “By all means, write names upon your paper.
They will satisfy the dowager. She wants only the best for me, I know. She has always championed me—even though she knows
I am nobody.”

“You
are
somebody.” He gripped her hand on his shoulder. “You have not been dealt the finest of cards, Ella. But you are the finest
of women, a prize any man would be proud to possess.”

“Any man but you,” she said, taking her hand away. Moving beside him, she idly picked up a brass box from the desk. “Make
your list, Saber.”

He looked at the box and had to restrain himself from taking it away. “That will make your fingers dirty.”

Ella opened the lid of the box and gave a short laugh. “Why, a button collection. I had a button collection when I was … My
mother collected buttons and gave them to me. I loved them then, before I was old enough to know that they had been lost from
the clothing of people who visited that house.”

“Don’t… Ella, don’t speak of that.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s over.”

Was it? How could such a thing ever be entirely over? “Where did these come from? They appear… military?” Saber could not
look at the buttons. He began to write. “They are military. More mementos.”

“Quite the collector,” she said. “I had not known that side of you. They all appear… Most of them are the same in design.”

“Are they?” All cut from the coats of dead men, all men under Saber’s command. “I can’t even remember where I got them now.
I should have Bigun get rid of them.” Never. He would keep them as long as he lived.

Ella snapped the box shut and set it down. “I hate London.”

“I am not fond of it myself.”

“Then why are you here?”

Because here he usually found anonymity. “It is what I’m accustomed to.”

“What of Shillingdown? Who cares for it?”

“My estate commissioner.”

“You do not like your estate?”

His estate reminded him of his need for a family, for a wife, for children to carry on when he was dead. The only wife he
would ever want was Ella, and he could not have her, even if he could forget the past—his own, and hers.

“Saber?”

“I like Shillingdown well enough. I’ll return there in good time—I visit occasionally.”

“Kirkcaldy is the closest I’ve come to having a home.”

“A beautiful estate. You like living in the lodge?”

She actually laughed. He’d forgotten how her laugh had the power to make him smile. “I adore the lodge,” she told him. “You
did not visit, but it is quite the most wonderfully eccentric building in the world. Papa and Mama love it too, and we are
so close to the castle and to Arran and Grace and their children. Oh, yes, I do love living there.”

“And Edinburgh? Do you like to visit that fair city?”

“Yes. Charlotte Square is always filled with visitors and music.”

“But you have not met some young buck who could capture your heart? And keep you happily living in your beloved Scotland?”

“No.”

He should not feel relieved by the promptness of her response.

“I spoke to you once of Papa and the way he rescued me— and Max.”

Saber bit back the impulse to tell her he didn’t wish to discuss that issue again. “I remember.”

“You know, I was offered at an auction in that house. The house where my mother and my uncle had a room.”

“You don’t need to speak of it.”

“When my mother was younger, and there was not enough money, she had been…I believe she did some work at the house.”

She was offering him honesty without any notion that he already knew a great deal about her early years—and guessed the rest.

“I was paraded before a lot of people—”

“No, Ella. Do not say more, little one. You were cruelly used.”

“We have both suffered, Saber. Could that not be reason for us to draw close together? To comfort and heal each other?”

So sweet. So ignorant of the nature of the man at her side. In a rustle of silk, she knelt by his chair. “I should like to
comfort you, Saber.”

“Thank you for your concern.” He could not relent, even for an instant.

One of her cool hands settled on his cheek, caressed his neck. She said, “There is something you’re not explaining to me,
isn’t there? Something you think I should not care for?”

Tenderness rushed through him. He covered her hand and turned his mouth into her palm.

“I could not help myself.” Her voice shook. “There was nothing I could do but stand there and allow them to stare at me with
only—”

“No! No, Ella, I cannot bear it. I cannot bear it for you.” Or for himself. One more cause for shame—he could not obliterate
what she had been from his mind and pretend she was untouched. Poor child, that she had been. Poor, helpless child. They could
not bring each other happiness. He could bring no woman happiness.

“Is it that? Is it my past that makes you shun me?”

“No!” He lied, and yet he did not lie. “You think you know me, Ella. You don’t. If you did, you would not want me.”

“I want you no matter what you are.” She rested her face on his shoulder. “I know what you are, Saber. You are a man. Good
and bad. Strong and weak. Brave and afraid—like any man. But you are more than the rest to me.”

She spoke, and with her words, touched his heart—or whatever there was where his heart was supposed to exist. “How I would
like to accept what you seem determined to give.”

“Then
do
it,” she whispered, turning her face up to place a lingering kiss on his jaw. “
Do
it, Saber. Take me for your own.”

Take her? He clasped her head, held her cheek to his neck. He breathed in her scent of wildflowers, and new-mown grass beneath
the sun—and wind on her Scottish moors. And he knew the sweetest cut of all. To love and be loved, yet to be denied.

Saber held Ella’s face between his hands and looked down into her eyes, eyes the same color as the deep russet silk pooled
about her legs.

Her soft lips parted.

He watched her lips, the glimpse of white teeth.

Ella lifted her chin.

Saber felt her breath on his face.

Her eyes drifted shut.

He flinched at the rapid thunder of his heart and rested his jaw atop her head.

She trembled.

“Ella. One day I will find the strength to make you understand.”

Her hands folded around his wrists. “Why can’t we just be us.”

“Oh, but we are just us.” He released her and stood up. “That’s it, y’see. We are us, the sum of what we have been and have
become.”

She remained at his feet, holding his wrists. “And what we’ve become is good, Saber. It always is, because we learn from it.”

Gently, he raised his arms until she was forced to let go. “True for you, sweet one. But there are those for whom the result
is not good.”

Her hands came together as if in prayer. “You are good. We will be good together. You told me we would always be together.”

“I told you that a long time ago. Before I became what I am. And you do not want to know what that is, Ella.”

She pressed her steepled fingers to her lips. “I do know. You are…You are the best man in the world.”

Shaking his head, he backed away. “No. No, Ella. I am the worst. What I have become, you cannot even imagine. What I have
become—”

“Saber!”

“Don’t you know what I’m telling you?” he shouted, and hated himself for the shock on her face. “I am not … What I have become
is unspeakable. I cannot even be called a man. I no longer know the nature of my life—or my living death!”

He left her.

E
lla remained where Saber had left her, crumpled beside the chair at the secretaire.

She could not imagine what he’d become? He’d become something unspeakable? Not even a man?

“Why did you leave me?” she asked the air where he had been. “Why won’t you listen to me? Why won’t you let me listen to you,
really listen to you?”

Where she rubbed her silken skirts, her moist palms left marks.

He no longer knew the nature of his life? Or his living death? Because he was scarred?

Ella flattened her lips to her teeth. He made her angry. She would like to follow him to his precious hiding place and demand
that he open his heart to her.

Not again. She must not allow herself to run after Saber again. If he did not want her, she must accept his wishes.

And if she accepted those wishes, she would accept no other man! She got to her feet. No other man could ever be what Saber
had become for her. And she did not care what everyone else wanted for her. What they thought she wanted for herself.