Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(53)

“I told Mark, ‘I’ll come back for you. I’ll come back, I swear it. I’m leaving Albert with you.’ There was blood in his mouth. I knew he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. Albert stayed next to him, and I picked up Fenwick, and carried him over my shoulder, and took him back to the ravine.

“When I went back for Bennett, the sky was on fire, the smoke made it difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. The ammunition flashes were like lightning. Bennett was gone. Literally gone. They had taken him. Albert was wounded—someone had jabbed him with a bayonet. One of his ears was half dangling—there’s a little ragged place where it wasn’t stitched properly afterward. I stayed beside Albert with my rifle, and we held the position until the Rifle companies advanced again. And finally we took the pits, and it was done.”

“Lieutenant Bennett was never found?” Beatrix asked faintly.

Christopher shook his head. “He wasn’t returned in the prisoner exchange. He couldn’t have lived long after he was captured. But I might have saved him. I’ll never know. Jesus.” Blotting his glittering eyes with his sleeve, he fell silent.

He seemed to be waiting for something . . . sympathy that he would not accept, condemnation that he did not deserve. Beatrix wondered what some person far wiser or more worldly than she might have said. She didn’t know. All she could offer was the truth. “You must listen to me,” she said. “It was an impossible choice. And Lieutenant Bennett . . . Mark . . . didn’t blame you.”

“I blame myself.” He sounded weary.

How tired of death he must be, she thought compassionately. How tired of grief and guilt. But what she said was, “Well, that’s not reasonable. I know that it must torment you to think that he died alone, or worse, at the hands of the enemy. But it’s not how we die that matters, it’s how we live. While Mark lived, he knew that he was loved. He had his family and his friends. That was as much as any man could have.”

Christopher shook his head. No good. No words could help him.

Beatrix reached out to him then, unable to hold back any longer. She let her hand glide gently over the warm golden skin of his shoulder. “I don’t think you should blame yourself,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter what I believe. You’ll have to come to that conclusion on your own. It wasn’t your fault that you were faced with a terrible choice. You must give yourself enough time to get better.”

“How much time will that take?” he asked bitterly.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But you have a lifetime.”

A caustic laugh broke from him. “That’s too damned long.”

“I understand that you feel responsible for what happened to Mark. But you’ve already been forgiven for whatever you think your sins are. You have,” she insisted as he shook his head. “Love forgives all things. And so many people—” She stopped as she felt his entire body jerk.

“What did you say?” she heard him whisper.

Beatrix realized the mistake she had just made. Her arms fell away from him.

The blood began to roar in her ears, her heart thumping so madly she felt faint. Without thinking, she scrambled away from him, off the bed, to the center of the room.

Breathing in frantic bursts, Beatrix turned to face him.

Christopher was staring at her, his eyes gleaming with a strange, mad light. “I knew it,” he whispered.

She wondered if he might try to kill her.

She decided not to wait to find out.

Fear gave her the speed of a terrified hare. She bolted before he could catch her, tearing to the door, flinging it open, and scampering to the grand staircase. Her boots made absurdly loud thuds on the stairs as she leaped downward.

Christopher followed her to the threshold, bellowing her name.

Beatrix didn’t pause for a second, knowing he was going to pursue her as soon as he donned his clothes.

Mrs. Clocker stood near the entrance hall, looking worried and astonished. “Miss Hathaway? What—”

“I think he’ll come out of his room now,” Beatrix said rapidly, jumping down the last of the stairs. “It’s time for me to be going.”

“Did he . . . are you . . .”

“If he asks for his horse to be saddled,” Beatrix said breathlessly, “please have it done slowly.”

“Yes, but—”

“Good-bye.”

And Beatrix raced from the house as if demons were at her heels.

Chapter Seventeen

Beatrix fled to the one place where she knew he wouldn’t find her.

The irony was hardly lost on her, that she was hiding from Christopher in the place she had most longed to share with him. And she was well aware that she could not hide from him forever. There would be a reckoning.

But after having seen his face when he realized that she was the one who had deceived him, Beatrix wanted to put off that reckoning for as long as possible.

She rode pell-mell to the secret house on Lord Westcliff’s estate, tethered the horse, and went upstairs to the tower room. It was sparsely furnished with a pair of battered chairs, an ancient settee with a low back, a ramshackle table, and a bed frame propped against one wall. Beatrix had kept the room swept clean and dusted, and she had adorned the walls with unframed sketches of landscapes and animals.