Tears welled in her eyes and began to slip down her cheeks. The moon crept out from between the clouds and he thought how beautiful she looked, standing there with her fiery hair unbound, her pale skin bathed in the soft glow streaking in through the trees.
"I have to go," he said gently. "If I don't, I'll break my word."
She just stood there and for an instant, he wasn't sure he could leave her. In some primal way, she belonged to him. She was his, and he had come to need her in a way he had never needed anyone before. But it wasn't fair to Lee. She deserved to have a husband who would be there when she needed him. A man who would be a father to the children she would bear.
"I wish you didn't have to go. I wish I would wake up and find out all of this was a dream." Her eyes filled with tears and his own eyes burned. When she leaned toward him, he didn't push her away, just pulled her closer, held her until his throat closed up and the whisper of her name remained unspoken.
It took sheer force of will to set her away from him. He didn't look at her again, just reached down to pick up his satchel and started walking, one painful step at a time. Lee made no move to stop him. If she had, he might not have made it to the door.
Once he did, he turned to look at her one last time, saw the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Be happy, Lee."
She tried to smile. Failed. "Take care of yourself, Caleb."
He forced his legs to move. He didn't look back as he walked down the hall, descended the stairs, and walked out of her life into the lonely future that awaited him.
23
« ^ »
Life at Kinleigh Hall was as nothing Lee expected. In a way it was so much more. Her father was all that a father could be: gentle and caring, protective and loving. He began the legal proceedings to give her his name the day after Caleb left for London. He lavished her with gifts, had Grand Coeur and three other of her prized Parklands horses brought to his stable, and rode with her over the vast expanse of Kinleigh holdings nearly every day.
She was surprised at how often he spoke of her mother, making Angelique Durant seem real in a way she never had been before. Lee would have been happy—if it hadn't been for Caleb.
She tried not to think of him, tried not to let her heartbreak show. Her years of playing Vermillion enabled her to disguise her grief, but there were times she thought that her father suspected. After all, he had suffered the loss of the woman he loved. Perhaps he understood. If he did, he did not say.
She wondered why he hadn't forced Caleb to marry her, as a man of his position surely could have, but she wouldn't have wanted Caleb that way and she was grateful he seemed to know.
There was only one fly in the ointment. Well, two flies, actually: Bronson and Aaron Montague, the marquess's sons. Bronson had loathed her on sight. He'd been aghast when his father calmly informed him he had a sister he meant to make a member of the family.
"Good grief, Father, have you lost your wits? The girl is the daughter of your former paramour, for God's sake! She is a commoner, scarcely a suitable addition to the Montague line!"
"Need I remind you, Lee is my child as well. And her mother was scarcely common. She was a descendant Of French nobility. Had I married her as I wished, Lee would have been my legitimate offspring and I intend to rectify the situation as quickly as I can."
Bronson had threatened and they had argued.
"Lee is your sister," the marquess said, barely hanging on to his temper. "You will treat her with the respect she deserves or I shall cut you off without a farthing!"
"Perhaps Bronson is right, Father," Lee put in as Bronson stormed out the door. "I never wanted your family to suffer because of me. I have my own money. I can take care of myself. Perhaps—"
"Nonsense! You are my daughter. I intend that you should be treated as such."
Though his younger son, Aaron, had yet to arrive home from boarding school, Lee imagined once he did, the scene might be even worse. It would probably be better for all of them if she simply left Kinleigh and returned to Parklands, but she couldn't bear to think of resuming that sort of existence.
Thanks to Caleb, she was more sure of herself and what she really wanted.
Unfortunately, what she wanted was Caleb. If he had asked, she would have gone with him to Spain, though the army life wasn't the sort she would have chosen. She wanted a home of her own, a place in the country where she could raise her horses. More than that, loving Caleb had finally made her realize what she really wanted was a family of her own.
She tried not to think of him, to wonder where he was or if he had yet left London.
She tried, but she loved him so much it was simply no use.
The day was overly warm, the sun beating down from a washed-out, cloudless sky, the wind no more than a memory. Caleb walked between Luc and his father back from the fields toward the big Georgian house that was Selhurst Manor. They had been partridge hunting since early that morning. Caleb was dusty and tired, his long-gun heavy where it hung over his arm.
"What do you say to a brandy?" his father asked as they entered the house from the rear. "I know I could certainly use one."
"Sounds good to me," Luc said.
Caleb just nodded. He hadn't enjoyed the day the way he should have, the way he had as a boy. The sound of gunfire reminded him of the battles he had seen, the battles he knew were to come. But his father and brother had always loved the sport and once he had as well. Today, he was simply glad the day was over.
The three men went directly into the study. Dressed in their dusty shooting clothes, they were scarcely fit for a drawing room.
"It's good to have you home, Caleb," his father said as he walked to an ornate sideboard along the wall. He was getting older, Caleb saw, his once-brown hair mostly silver now, his shoulders a little less straight than they used to be. Still, there was command in his voice, and the smile he bestowed on Caleb still carried the power to move him.
"It's good to be here, Father. I just wish I had more time."
"So do I, son. So do I." He poured each of them a brandy and passed the glasses around.
"Any word of Ethan?" Caleb asked.
His father shook his head. "He is still at sea, I suspect." Ethan ran the family shipping interests. The sea had always been his love. "He has never been good at writing." The earl took a sip of his brandy. "You haven't mentioned the case you were working on. I heard about it, of course. There was a goodly bit of gossip going round for a while."
"Was there?" Caleb flicked a glance at his brother, wondering how much he had said, but Luc made a faint negative movement of his head. "How did you hear?"
"Jon Parker mentioned he saw you. He told me about the murderer you came home to help apprehend, though I am surprised they would send you all that way."
It was the story Caleb had told at Parklands, a flimsy tale at best, and his father was looking at him in that shrewd way he had of discerning the truth from a lie. But Caleb was too old to be intimidated the way he was when he was a boy.
"That was the story I told at the time. The truth is a bit more complicated. Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to discuss it, Father, not even with you."
"I see." The earl said it almost proudly, as if he admired Caleb's integrity. Perhaps he did. Caleb hoped so.
The earl took a sip of his brandy and they all moved over to the leather sofa and chairs. "There were other rumors, as well. Something about a young woman, as I recall."
He was fishing now. Caleb wondered how much his father knew, and a pulse in his temple began to throb. "And this also came from Lord Nash?"
"No. Just a bit of gossip I picked up here and there. I usually don't pay much attention. As this particular gossip concerned my son, I took particular pains to discover whether or not it was true."