Tangled (38 page)

For a few moments she kissed him back.

And then she felt unease and fear and a terrible sense of wrongness.

Where was David? What would David say? She should not be alone with another man. Kissing another man. It was wrong. Sinful.

She wanted David.

But he was Julian. She stared up at him blankly when he lifted his head from hers and smiled down into her eyes.

"Darling," he said. "They should have taken me out and shot me when I first left you, shouldn't they? I should have risked a court-martial and stayed home with you. So many lost years, Becka.

I'm going to make them up to you. Every one of them and every single day of them. Starting now. Just a moment, I'm going to lock the door."

"No!" she grabbed for his wrist as he sat up.

"No?" He smiled at her.

"No." She gazed up into his beloved face. "No, Julian. I can't. Not now. Not yet. I'm—. I can't. Oh, please understand. I—"

"I am being a bit of a dolt, aren't I?" he said, smiling the boyishly charming smile that had always made her heart turn over. ' T have to give you time, Becka. Did he treat you well? Were you fond of him?

You haven't gone and fallen in love with him, have you?''

Those wretched tears welled into her eyes again. "I love
you,
'' she said, her voice high-pitched and unsteady.

"I'll give you time," he said, patting her hand. "I understand, Becka. You feel some loyalty to him. Some

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affection. I don't resent that. I love Dave dearly myself."

Even though David had shot him? But she did not want to explore that thought now. She closed her eyes.

"There's Charles," she said dully.

"Your son?" he said. "He must mean a great deal to you, Becka. I know how much you wanted a child. You can keep him. I won't mind. I'll love him as my own."

Her eyes snapped open. "Charles is David's," she said fiercely. "He belongs to David, Julian."

He lifted her hand and set it against his cheek. "We'll talk about it all some other time," he said. "God, I wish there had not been that wretched mix-up, Becka. It doesn't come easy to know that you have been with Dave for a year and a half, you know. It hurts like the very devil if you want to know the truth."

Yes. It did. And worse than that.

"Well." His smile came back. "We are together again, Becka.

That's all that matters
,
isn't it? We'll work everything else out—tomorrow. Just tell me again that you love me."

"I love you, Julian," she said.

He released her hand and got to his feet. "And I you," he said.

"You're beautiful, Becka. More lovely even than I remembered. God, I've missed you. I'll leave you to get up and tidy yourself. My presence would probably embarrass you after all this time, wouldn't it?"

She did not reply.

"That will change," he promised. "I am home, darling. Home to stay."

"Yes." She smiled at him.

Bishop Young was an imposing figure yet a kindly man. He arrived quite early the following day, having stopped in the village first to talk with the vicar. He was immediately closeted with the earl in the library for a lengthy interview, and then talked separately with both Julian and David. It would be unnecessary, he said at last, to disturb Lady Cardwell since she was understandably indisposed.

The four men ate luncheon together, Louisa having excused herself on the grounds that she was tending Rebecca.

Finally they were back in the library. David held his mind and his emotions dead, as he had since the day before. He had tried to tell himself during a sleepless night that he was glad to see Julian alive—and he
was
glad beyond words. He had even tried to tell himself that he was glad Rebecca was to be restored to the only man she had ever loved. But at that point his thoughts become too tormented to be borne and he had stopped thinking and feeling.

If only it was as easily done as it was to tell himself that he was doing it, he thought now, waiting for the bishop to speak.

Bishop Young chose not to accept the chair offered him. Perhaps he had learned from long experience that certain matters were best dealt with on his feet with utter formality and all the dignity of his office.

"I will have to take this matter higher, of course," he said, "before what I say is made official. But I feel confident that my decisions will be confirmed."

The earl made rumbling noises of assent.

"Lady Cardwell's first marriage must, of course, take
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precedence over the second," the bishop said, "since her first husband is still living and the marital connection has been neither annulled nor severed in any other way.''

None of the three men either moved or reacted visibly. This was not the important pronouncement. There had been no doubt in any of their minds that Rebecca was still married to Julian. Yet David grew a little colder inside and died a little further. What his head had told him since the day before, his heart now knew to be true. Lady Cardwell. Rebecca was Lady Cardwell.

"The second marriage, her marriage to you, Lord Tavistock," the bishop continued, his voice the official voice of the Church and yet sympathetic at the same time, "is of course invalid."

Yes. Rebecca was not his wife. Julian was alive.

"The question is," Bishop Young said, 'whether it has always been invalid. In a sense, of course, it has since Sir Julian Cardwell was alive when it was celebrated. And yet my investigations this morning have convinced me that the marriage was made in perfectly good faith by all concerned, that at the time of the ceremony there was no way anyone involved could have known that there was an impediment.

Although the marriage became invalid the moment Sir Julian returned home, it was valid until then. It is my judgment that no sin was committed by either Lord or Lady Tavistock since sin involves a conscious decision to do what is evil."

David saw his father's hand clench and unclench on the arm of his chair. He closed his eyes.

"Therefore," the bishop said, "and I believe this is the point most at issue in this very sad matter, the child of that now invalid union was conceived within a real marriage and is legitimately your issue, Lord Tavistock. No stigma of bastardy will attach to his name."

David sat with closed eyes even after his father and Julian had risen to their feet to shake the bishop by the hand. If anyone—even the Church—had tried to suggest otherwise, he would have committed murder. And if anyone had suggested that Rebecca was ... He opened his eyes, got to his feet, and extended his hand to the bishop, adding his thanks to those of his father.

The bishop would not stay longer. He had other busi-

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ness requiring his attention this day. He would send word as soon as his decisions were officially approved, he told them before the earl escorted him outside to his waiting carriage.

"I'll find Rebecca then and break the news to her," he said, looking back to his son and godson.

There was a great deal of agony to be faced in the coming days and weeks, David knew. But what he was finding hardest at the moment was curbing the instinct to go to her. Yesterday he had not been able to go up to see how she was feeling after she had nearly collapsed from shock. Instead he had had to watch Julian go to her. This morning he had not been able to go to- her to find out how she had slept, how she was reacting to all that had happened. He had had to listen without comment to Louisa's claim that Rebecca was indisposed. Now he could not go up to tell her what had been decided about matters that concerned the two of them—and only the two of them and Charles. He had not even been to see Charles today, afraid that Rebecca would be with him.

"Well, Dave," Julian said. His voice sounded rather shaken. "I was not expecting all this, I must say."

David looked at him. It still seemed somehow impossible to believe that Julian really was there, alive and apparently healthy, and looking very much his old self.

"I really believed I had killed you," he said.

"That makes two of us, then," Julian said. "I was never more surprised in my life, Dave, as I was when you shot—and shot me, not Scherer. The bastard would have stabbed me in the back. It was sheer miracle that I turned and saw him just in time and managed to trip him. Though I'm not even sure I can claim credit for that. I think he might have caught his foot in a root. But he grabbed for his sword again and would have still killed me if I had not slashed down at his arm and kicked the sword away. How much of that did you see?''

"None of it," David said. "All I saw was you about to kill him."

"That explains it then, I suppose," Julian said. "It's just as I thought, in fact. I forgave you long ago, you know. You were just being Dave, of course—an officer first, my brother second. It must have looked damned

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sordid. And of course he caught me at a bad moment, when that lust to kill that always comes with battle had destroyed all my ability to reason. Maybe that's what made you shoot too, Dave. Did the bastard get himself killed some other way?"

"He survived," David said.

Julian winced. "Poor Cynthia," he said. "He was a brute to her, Dave. Nothing too physical beyond the odd beating. All mental. You wouldn't believe it. You should have let me kill him—and have him on my conscience for the rest of my life."

David said nothing.

Julian's smile was rather twisted. "Is that what I did to you, Dave?"

he asked. "You really thought I was dead. Have I been on your conscience?"

"Yes," David said.

"They don't know, do they?" Julian asked. "You didn't tell them. Is that why you married Becka?"

David got to his feet and crossed the room to the window.

"You felt you had to look after her for me, Dave?" Julian asked.

"Was that it?"

"I suppose so," David said.

"This is difficult for me, you know," Julian said. "Damned difficult. To think of you and Becka . . . And a child. She succeeded with yours while she didn't with mine. It hurts, Dave. I just wasn't expecting it, I suppose. I always thought of Becka as—mine. I thought she would wait forever.''

"You were dead," David said. "She was twenty-four years old and living here with Papa and Louisa. She needed a home of her own and something to do with the rest of her life. She needed children."

"She had a home," Julian said. "Though you could have knocked me down with the proverbial feather when I found Louisa ensconced here as the mistress. She wasted no time in getting herself a title and fortune, did she?"

"I believe she is fond of Papa," David said. "They seem happy together."

"I'm glad anyway," Julian said, "that she is not guilty of bigamy or anything like that. Becka, I mean. It would

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have killed her Dave. Becka always has to do what is right and proper. And I'm glad the child isn't a bastard. That would have been hard on her.''

"Yes," David said tersely.

"I told her yesterday that she could keep the child," Julian said. "I wouldn't mind if it would make her happy, Dave. I don't hold it against her or anything. I know you all thought I was dead."

"What did she say?" David wished suddenly that he had stayed sitting down. He rather thought he might black out.

"She said the child was yours," Julian said. "I don't know how you feel, Dave. It's your heir and all that, isn't it? But I don't mind having it."

It.
To Julian Rebecca's child was an it. "Charles is my son,'' David said quietly. “I love him.''

"Yes, well," Julian sounded uneasy. "This is damned awkward, isn't it, Dave? You'll have to find your son a new mother. That will be the best thing, won't it?"

He has a mother. By God, he has a mother.
But if he said the words aloud, he would unleash with them passions that frightened him. He wanted to kill Julian, he thought in sudden horror. And yet all this was not Julian's fault.

"What have you been doing all this time?" he asked.

"Captivity," Julian said. David turned in time to see him shrug.

"Chains and a barred cell and all that?" David asked.

"By Jove, no," Julian said. "The Russians are almost as civilized as we are, Dave. They treat their prisoners of officer rank as gentlemen.''

"It was a long time," David said. "The war has been over for a long time. But they still would not release you?"

"Well." Julian shrugged again and for a moment his face relaxed into his characteristic charming smile. "I suppose if I had asked."

"Why didn't you?"

“I didn't know for a long time that it was over,'' Julian said.

"For a long time," David said. "Did you ask for release the moment you did know?''

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Julian laughed. "I shouldn't have had to ask," he said. "They should have sent me home, shouldn't they?"

David looked at him in silence for a few moments. "You couldn't bear to leave her?" he asked.

Julian laughed again. "A man has to counter boredom somehow,"

he said, "especially when he's a virtual prisoner and doesn't know when his captivity will come to an end. She meant nothing to me, Dave. It was always Becka. It got to the point where I couldn't think of anything else. And I started dreaming about her. I had to come home. That's when I asked."

David had often disapproved of Julian's actions in the past. After Julian's marriage he had been furious at the infidelities. But he could not remember hating him as he hated him now. He really did want to kill him, he realized anew.

"Don't look at me like that." Julian sobered and looked contrite.

"It would never have happened if I hadn't been forcibly kept away from her, Dave. I love her. You know that. There has never been anyone but Becka. Now that I'm back things will be different once and for all. I'm not going to let her out of my sight."

"If I ever hear of another infidelity," David said, his hands clasped firmly at his back, his eyes holding Julian's, "even just one, Julian, I'll find you and kill you. And this time my aim will not be off by half an inch. Do you understand me?''