The Clarendon Rose (39 page)

Clarendon, in the meantime, had come forward and was watching her as if she might disappear at any moment.
 
He held a sealed letter in his hand, which he only seemed to remember he carried when she glanced at it questioningly.

He flashed a smile and ripped it into small pieces.
 

“What was it?”

He shrugged.
 
“Irrelevant.
 
At least for now.”
 
Then, as if afraid she might break in two if he touched her, he very gently cupped her shoulders.
 
“Are you all right?”

She nodded, hungrily taking in his appearance.
 
Truth be told, he hardly looked much better than she did—his eyes were shadowed and stubble darkened his chin.
 
But, despite her exhaustion, she could feel the power of his nearness.
 
She swallowed.
 
“I’m fine—just tired.
 
I—“

“Of course, you would be,” he interrupted.
 
“Come, let’s go upstairs.
 
You can bathe and rest.
 
You don’t have to tell me anything for now, Tina.”
 
He put his arm around her and guided her to the stairs, while calling for a bath to be drawn.
 
Now that she was finally home, she was suddenly too tired to even voice a protest.

Clarendon shooed away the maids who came to bathe her, insisting on seeing to her himself.
 
Brushing aside her half-hearted help, he removed her dress, his expression growing grim when he saw the tatters and the crusted, darker patches on the material.
 

“Blood, Tina?”

She shook her head wearily.
 
“Not mine.”

He seemed to struggle with himself, then shook his head.
 
“You can tell me the rest of it later.”

He treated her with a heartaching tenderness that made Tina feel all the worse about her assumptions as to his character.
 
But, fatigue had weighed down her tongue and it took her longer to find the words.
 
It was only as he removed her slip that she managed to summon up the energy to speak.
 

“Clarendon?”
 
She heard the drowsiness in her own voice.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I assumed the worst about you.
 
I was wrong.”

“Shhh.
 
We’ll talk about all that later.”

And, too tired to protest, she nodded.
 
“But perhaps you could tell me about Fitzwilliam.
 
Why would he want to abduct me, anyway?
 
What did he have against you?”

Clarendon’s mouth tightened.
 
“I knew him years ago, in the army, when his name was Simon Pepridge.
 
He was a spy, supposedly for our side.
 
But, I soon had reason to discover that he was actually playing the role of double agent—selling our intelligence to the French even as he brought us theirs.”

Once he had removed the last of her undergarments, he led her to the steaming bath and helped lower her into it.
 
“I was suspicious of him, but I dismissed my concerns.
 
Shrugged them off, until much later, when I learned that it was in large part thanks to his false information and double dealings that I led my men into a wholesale slaughter—slaughter which I could have prevented if I had followed up on my suspicious.

“Of course, at the time, I blamed myself for other reasons—because I hadn’t expressed my doubts about the validity of the particular stratagem my superiors appeared to be pursuing.”
 
He shrugged as loosened what was left of her coiffure.
 
“At any rate, when I discovered that the commands had, in part been based on Pepridge’s intelligence, I remembered my suspicions and, while I was convalescing, I began investigating his actions more closely.”

Tina heard him swallow.
 
Then, he lathered up a washcloth and began scrubbing her body with gentle, rhythmic strokes.
 
“What I learned was far worse than I imagined.
 
He was a twisted, monster of a man—apparently completely without a conscience or any moral boundaries at all.
 
He seemed to live for his own amusement, and had been using the inhumanity of the war as a blind for his particular entertainments.
 
Some of the things he had done—“
 
Clarendon shook his head.
 

Tina swallowed.
 
“Surely he couldn’t be all that bad, Clarendon.”

He hesitated, and when he finally spoke, his voice was disturbingly flat.
 
“Let’s just say, his sexual interests had few limits—neither age, nor innocence were an impediment to him.
 
Nor was there any particular pattern to his activities—it really was as if he were simply diverting himself with the variety because he
could
.”
 
Another pause.
 
“And he rarely left victims behind to speak out against him.”
 

Despite her fatigue, Tina shuddered.

“I’ve said too much.
 
I’m sorry.”

Tina shook her head.
 
“No.
 
I asked.
 
But please, do go on.”

“It was I who found the other witnesses.
 
I also gathered all the evidence I could find against him—his double dealings as well as his other, more horrifying crimes.
 
He was convicted—sentenced to be executed.
 
At that point, I had already sold my commission and walked away from the situation, too sick at heart to do much else.
 
I was still certain I could have done better by my men—saved them from pointless deaths—and I no longer had the trust in my own judgment to give commands as I had done before.”

“But he wasn’t executed.”

Clarendon shook his head.
 
“I later heard he had escaped, only to turn up later, beaten to death by some thugs.
 
I should have known better than to believe it, but I was already too sunk in my own self-indulgence to be bothered questioning the story.”

“I see.”

“If I hadn’t been so busy convincing myself Pepridge would keep things between us—and that I could take care of the situation without involving you or the family—I would have told you this before.
 
If you had been properly armed with the truth, then you wouldn’t have fallen into his trap so easily.”

He rinsed away the soap and helped her step out of the tub.
 

“But as you see, I’m fine.”
 
She gave him a smile, feeling a little better for being clean and warm.
 
“And I’ll happily forgive you so long as you promise not to shut me out like that again.
 
I can dry myself, you know.
 
I’m feeling much better now,” she added, for he had begun toweling her off, still with that painfully exquisite tenderness.

He hesitated, his expression cautious.
 
“Are you certain?”

She nodded.
 
After a pause, he stepped back and walked over to the window.
 
Tina dried herself off briskly, then wrapped herself in the towel.
 
“So have we any leads on catching the man?”
 

“We’re ahead of you, there.
 
Sebastian already has him in custody,” he said, before filling her in on the details of Pepridge’s capture.
 
Then, he glanced at her with a pained smile.
 
“But you’ll probably be wanting to rest now.”
 
He started towards the door.
 
“If you like, I’ll send in one of the maids to assist you.”

Tina’s chest tightened and she knew she couldn’t let him go without unburdening her conscience.
 
It was time.
 
“Clarendon, wait.”

He turned, keeping his gaze carefully averted.
 
“What is it?”

“We have to talk, Clarendon.
 
I have to apologize for my earlier assumptions.”

“We don’t need to discuss this now, Tina.”

She shook her head.
 
“I was wrong about you, Clarendon, and I’m sorry.
 
When you left for London, your mother took great pleasure in suggesting…” Tina’s throat closed, but she forced herself to continue.
 
“That a man of your drives would undoubtedly be making frequent trips to the city in order to sate your need for variety.”

“So that’s what had you sending her packing.”

She nodded.
 
“But what she had said played on my own self doubts.
 
And you yourself had said that your feelings for me were likely no more than infatuation.”

“About that, Tina—“

She held up her hand.
 
“No, please, let me finish.”
 
She sighed.
 
“So, even though little in your behavior supported my conclusions, I went ahead and drew them anyway.
 
Edmund tried to tell me you had changed, but I just didn’t want to listen.”
 
She was mortified to hear her voice crack on the last word.
 
He drew her into his arms.

“It’s all right, Tina.
 
Of course I forgive you.”

It felt so good to be in his arms again.
 
She had missed the exciting warmth of his embrace and the spicy smell that was his alone.
 
She sighed against him, wanting to sink into the sensations and lose herself in him.
 
But she couldn’t.
 
Not yet.

“There’s more, Clarendon.
 
Things I have to tell you,” she said, her head resting against his chest.

She heard him sigh.
 
“All right, love.”
 
He pulled away from her and led her to the bed.
 
“Sit.
 
Tell me.”

Tina grimaced, unsure of where to begin, now that the moment had come.
 
“I imagine you know the bare bones of my history.
 
My father gambled everything away and killed himself rather than face the blame and penury that would have accompanied his actions.
 
Mother’s parents were already dead by then, and she didn’t even think to appeal to Uncle Charles because by then he had married your mother.
 
At the time, Mother believed that marrying again was her only hope.
 
But, my father had lost her small inheritance and few men of the gentry would be willing to marry her and raise another man’s child.
 
So, she married a groom and they fled to one of the less savory districts in London.”

She frowned as she thought about all the bits of her mother’s story she had managed to piece together over the years.
 
“He soon found he was unemployable by a wealthy family, for having crossed the class lines by marrying so far above his station.
 
They lived on the edge of survival and he did whatever he could to earn a penny.
 
I believe he was good to her at first.
 
But, she soon grew disillusioned by poverty and by his heavy drinking.
 
She became verbally abusive, goading him when he was drunk, and at his most capricious.”

She swallowed.
 
It had taken years before she was able to concede that her mother had provoked and accepted her stepfather’s abuse as a form of punishment for her own mistakes.
 
As a child, Tina had hated and feared her stepfather with a single-minded intensity.
 
“He began beating her, and she just took it.
 
But one day, when I was about five or so, I couldn’t stand it anymore.
 
I tried to stop him from hurting my mother.
 
He threw me across the room.
 
From then on, Mama gave as good as she got, rather than allow me to get hurt again.”

Tina shifted on the bed, drawing her legs up and hugging her knees to her chest.
 
“But, some nights, after it was over and my stepfather was asleep, Mother would crawl over to the corner of the room where I’d be lying, pretending to be asleep.
 
She’d shake me awake—wouldn’t stop until I looked at her.
 
My eyes would have adjusted to the darkness enough that I could see the dark marks of cuts and bruises, the distortions of the swelling.
 
She’d make me promise that I would never make the same mistakes she did.
 
She’d tell me I should never trust a man and make me repeat that again and again until she was satisfied that I spoke with proper sincerity.
 
Only then would she let me go back to sleep.”

Tina’s voice cracked on her last words.
 
She had never spoken of that particular recollection before.
 
As she sat in silence, struggling to regain her composure, she felt the warmth of strong arms enclose her.
 
She uncurled her legs and pressed close against him.
 

Allowing her lids to drift shut, she leaned into him.
 
He rocked her gently back and forth.
 
She felt the touch of his kiss against her temple and the roughness of his stubble against her cheek as she rubbed her face against his, raising her hand to touch his muscled forearm.
 

She made herself speak around the constriction in her throat.
 
“I trust you, Clarendon.
 
I know you would never hit me.
 
But when you raised your arm, the gesture was so familiar that for a second, it wasn’t you I saw and feared.
 
It was my stepfather.”

He nodded.
 
“I understand.”
 
They sat in silence a few moments.
 
Then, he spoke.
 
“It must have been a difficult childhood.”