The Darkest Sin (30 page)

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Authors: Caroline Richards

BOOK: The Darkest Sin
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Rushford had estimated a three-hour ride to Dover. It was still a few hours before dawn, so they could vanquish the miles under cloak of darkness. Without asking her permission, he scooped Rowena into his arms, shielding the Baron's body from her gaze, and carried her into the damp London night. Archer had swept the area clean, and there was no sign of the struggle that had taken place that night in the vault and in the shadow of the British Museum. Rushford's mount waited, along with a sleepy lad guarding the leather purse filled with an extra revolver and coins.
They left London through Hyde Park, turning the horse toward the sea, following the Thames to its mouth. Rowena sat quiet in the saddle in front of him, and he sensed that her fatigue enclosed her with a mind-numbing force, protecting her from the pain in her shoulder and the anguish of her spirit. Yet it was enough for him to know that she loved him, even though she shouldn't. She was too young and too inexperienced for him, he told himself, but he wanted her with a single-mindedness that staggered him. He had known it from the first moment he had taken her from the river's grasp, known somehow that this young woman was for him, despite the months he had tried desperately to convince himself otherwise.
The sun was not yet on the horizon when they arrived in Dover, the hour both too late and too early for the usual raucous activity of a port town. Rushford urged his horse onward, cantering easily toward the quay. The
Brigand
was identifiable by her sleek form, moored at the end of the quay, her profile dark. Rushford slipped from his mount, gathering Rowena carefully against him for a moment as she rested her forehead against his chest. She was asleep, her skin flushed but cool. There was no fever developing from the wound to her shoulder, he thought with relief.
The combined odors of fish and sea air swamped him as he strode down the companionway of the sloop and into the small cabin. Gently depositing Rowena on the cot in the stern, he smoothed the rough ticking of the straw mattress beneath her. He quickly unbuttoned her cloak and loosened her makeshift bandage before dragging a thin blanket over her sleeping form. Taking a last look, he made his way above deck to loosen the moorings and begin their journey to Calais. The moon was almost full, lighting their way.
 
Rowena awoke to the strong smell of the sea and the swinging of an oil lantern hanging from a low ceiling. The flickering light cast grotesque shadows on the planked bulkhead, and the boat lurched beneath her. Her gaze took in the cabin, the floor covered with gleaming mahogany, the paintings on the bulkhead, the coal-fired stove that provided heat in cooler climes. Two chairs and a settee covered in blue damask filled the port side of the cabin. She heard the groan of a sail running up the masthead. Grabbing the edge of the bed as the boat swung slowly away from deep swells, she listened to the wind fill the mainsail.
It all came crashing over her. Rushford.
He loved her
. Elation swept through her, replaced almost instantly by a jumble of doubts. How could he love her when he didn't trust her and believed that she was but a notch above treachery? And worse still, how could he ever trust her if he could not trust himself, or forgive himself for the demise of the Duchess? The fervency of her unspoken thoughts shocked her.
Rowena's head and shoulder ached as she rose from the narrow bunk, enervated. The world tilted on its axis and she nearly tumbled from where she stood, but she was determined to find Rushford and some blessed fresh air. Ignoring the throbbing in her shoulder, she gathered her cloak around her and made her way up the narrow stairs and onto the deck. She staggered to the rail and threw back her head, looking up into the sky where the moon hung over the boat surrounded by millions of stars. The spray stung her face, but she breathed deeply of the sharp air, her face turning away from the open water to see Rushford emerging from the companionway. He smiled, and her heart leaped at the sight of his face thrown into silver relief by the moonlight. She couldn't prevent her own lips curving in response.
“You have slept deeply. Feeling restored, I trust?” He swept a hand down her cheek, his eyes concerned.
“Much better, thank you.” The words were stilted, but she didn't know where to begin. She turned to look out onto the water boiling around a row of jagged rocks. She shivered and drew her cloak tighter around her aching shoulder. Somewhere in the distance a lighthouse glowed weakly in the darkness; the clanging of a warning bell carried faintly across the sound.
“I've never been on open water like this,” she said.
Rushford feigned amazement. “Difficult to believe that Rowena Woolcott, along with riding, climbing, and marksmanship, did not learn the fundamentals of sailing.”
Her smile widened. “You are always making light of my accomplishments, sir.”
“Never, Rowena, do I take your accomplishments for granted. You are a remarkable young woman.”
She felt herself flush under his gaze, but silence stretched between them, leaving only the wind that blew stronger now, surging ahead in a rolling expanse of white caps. The
Brigand
rode the waves with ease, but Rowena was not certain how her stomach fared. She intended to stay on deck until they reached Calais. Turning from the rail, she caught sight of a huge wooden crate, its dimensions secured by several heavy chains.
Rushford caught the direction of her gaze.
“Are you prepared to talk about this now?” he asked.
“I've always been prepared,” she countered. “But I know you enough to declare that you have no intention of relinquishing the Stone to Faron, Rushford. And please don't tell me otherwise.” Her mind grappled with several outstanding details. Such as how the crate had made its journey to Dover without them. “It doesn't matter, does it, given your intention to kill Faron?” She stood at the deck rail, wrapped in her cloak. “And the Rosetta Stone is not even in the crate, is it?” She paused for a moment, taken aback by the troubling intensity of his gaze, which, if she was hard pressed, she might interpret as love.
“Among your many attributes is also keen intelligence,” he said.
Unable to bear the force of his gaze, Rowena stared out into the channel, then took a long breath. “How do we know that the threat to Meredith and Julia will end once he is dead?”she asked into the wind. The prospect of murder was too much to contemplate, and she forcibly wiped the recollection of the Baron, his dark cloak spread around him in the vault of the British Museum, from her memory.
Rushford looked at her profile for a moment before answering. “Faron's obsession with the Rosetta Stone stems from the man's insatiable ambitions,” he said flatly. “His vendetta against your family is entirely personal. Once he is gone, I don't believe anyone will take up the cause.”
She continued to stare moodily over the rail at the dark heavings of the channel. “I need to know what lies behind this madness,” she said with grim finality. “Faron's madness.”
“You may not wish to know, Rowena.”
“Do not try to protect me from the truth,” she said urgently, turning to look directly at him. “I acknowledge that you do it out of the best of intentions but—”
He interrupted. “I do it from love, Rowena.” He leaned against the rail, and his expression was as open as she had ever seen it.
“So you say,” she said with a wan smile. “I don't mean to doubt you. I'm just confused, not only by your feelings but also mine. One moment we're in each other's arms and the next we seem to be plotting against one another, unable to give each other a shred of trust.”
He shook his head. “I promised to tell you everything. I need to tell you everything.”
Rowena pulled herself up sharply, pain in her gaze. “I only hope it helps,” she said simply. “Because I love you, Rushford, and that fact will never change.”
Over the crashing of the waves, his voice was soft. “It will never change, because I won't let it.” The statement had the power of a royal decree. “I love you, Rowena. More than I ever thought was possible.” In response, because she was almost afraid to hear any more, she rested her head on his shoulder as the
Brigand
cut through the waves. With her cheek on the wet wool of his jacket and his arms around her, she heard the rumble of his voice and breathed in his familiar scent. “I meant what I said to you now and last evening—I love you. And I don't say those words lightly.”
The need for honesty between them made her brave. She raised her head to look directly at him. “And I meant what I said. I love you. But I wonder if it is enough,” she said softly. “I think I knew it from the first, the reason behind my seeking you out so relentlessly.” A faint embarrassment enveloped her. “Do you not need to be at the helm of the ship?” she asked.
He kissed the top of her head. “We're on course for the next several miles. And don't try to squirm out of a difficult conversation. That's hardly like you.” But she tucked her head back into the warmth of his chest. “I will have to be the courageous one then,” he said softly into her hair.
Rowena closed her eyes, feeling as though she were falling off the edge of the world into nothingness, save for Rushford's arms around her. Words failed her; her emotions were in chaos as she listened to him.
“For the longest time, I felt only the most bitter rage,” he said, “and you can guess at the cause. I don't like to lose. As a matter of fact, I had never lost anything I'd cared about in my life. Before Kate.”
The ship heaved beneath them, but Rowena felt secure in his arms and with the truth. “So I went after Faron the second time at Birdoswald in an attempt at revenge. Then you came into my life. And everything changed. I mourned for Kate and the love I thought we had, but all the while I wondered how it was possible to feel such a powerful and obsessive emotion for you.”
Her silence urged him on. “You must believe me when I say that I had no inkling of Faron's intentions regarding the Woolcotts. I was only at Birdoswald to intercept him before he ventured to Eccles House. And you know the rest.”
Rowena breathed in his scent, mingling now with the salt air. “And then you hid,” she said simply. “For a year, looking for ways to expiate your guilt. Helping solve the Cruikshank murders—anything to make up for the death of the woman you loved.”
“I wish it were that simple, Rowena.”
“But I do understand,” she insisted. “You were punishing yourself for doing what you did.” He had betrayed the Duchess, but Rowena could not say the words. “You sacrificed your love for the Duchess in order to save the Rosetta Stone.” She steeled herself for his response.
Rushford took her chin between finger and thumb and brought her face up to his. “I never doubted my love for her.
I doubted her love for me.
” Rowena wanted to close her eyes to hide from the pain she saw in his gaze. “Look at me,” he said, softly insistent. “The Duchess of Taunton betrayed me.” The words came out evenly, but they must have cost him dearly.
Her eyes widened. “Now I don't understand.”
Rushford tightened his arms around her before he continued, gazing into the foam-flecked channel. “Kate was capricious by nature, lively and intelligent and supremely bored as the wife of an elderly diplomat,” he said flatly. “It was not surprising that she became too curious about some of the dispatches that arrived on a regular basis for the Earl. As a lark, and perhaps as the ultimate revenge against a husband she increasingly despised, she sought to undermine him by passing highly classified information to the French, the Russians, and to Montagu Faron, as it turned out.”
Rowena stiffened. It was as though Rushford had put his finger on an open wound.
“I believe most of the time she had not the slightest idea of the import of the dispatches. It was simply a game to her.”
As was their affair, Rowena wanted to say, but dared not.
“In the end, she was using me as well,” Rushford continued. Rowena's arms tightened around him.
“Not wittingly at first. She was titillated by what she'd learned about me from the dispatches she'd intercepted, intended for her husband's eyes only. I suppose it was exciting for her to become involved with someone who worked clandestinely on behalf of Whitehall,” he said as though telling a story about someone other than himself. “It was only a matter of time before she discovered that I had been asked by Whitehall to prevent the theft of the Rosetta Stone. By that time, she was so inextricably entangled with Faron's people that she had no choice but to divulge every last bit of sensitive information to them or face charges of treason in England.” Rushford paused. “I do not blame her. It was not deliberate on her part, I'm convinced.”
Rowena strained for breath. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered. The rough wool beneath her cheek was damp with her tears.
“As am I,” he said with painful honesty. “Because I then betrayed her.”
When Rowena was able to speak, she said, “But you had no choice.”
“One always has a choice. But I made my decision, and I have to live with it.” She felt his muscles stiffen. “And because of it, Faron's men murdered her and then made it look like a suicide by drowning.”

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