Unraveled (Turner #3)(78)

He’d hold the memories dear and deep, no matter how bittersweet they became. His free hand lifted to her cheek. A wisp of her hair was falling out of her chignon. He reached to tuck it back behind her ear, but when he did, he noticed that the hairpin that had held it in place was loose. Instead of pushing it back, he found himself pulling the metal from her hair. The piece pressed hard into his palm.

“You’d best be leaving,” he said. “You’ll want time to make sure you’re settled on the train.”

Her eyes widened, but she turned away from him and swept to where Dryfuss awaited. He followed her; he was helpless not to. And he handed her into the cart. But she didn’t let go of his fingers when she’d found her seat. “If this were a play,” she said, “this is the point where you’d realize that you can’t possibly allow me to leave.” Her eyes were suspiciously shiny; her voice quivered. Her fingers lingered on his.

But even the sight of her obvious distress could not break him. “No,” he said quietly, disentangling himself from her. “This is the point where I wish you Godspeed.”

He gave Dryfuss a nod, and the man shook the reins.

After she left, he stood as still as he dared, listening to the sound of the cart recede into the distance. Listening, past all hope of hearing her. He wasn’t even conscious of breathing, and yet his lungs ached fiercely.

He had been wrong. It would have been easier if it had slain him. But he was still standing. Still cogent. And that meant he was all too aware of how badly it hurt. He clutched her hairpin until the metal cut into the palm of his hand, unable to let even that much go.

Chapter Twenty

SMITE ARRIVED AT THE hotel where his brother was staying just as the clock struck one. He found Ash pacing before the mantel, shaking his head.

“You’re late,” Ash said, turning around as he entered the room.

“My apologies. The delay was…” He stopped, catching himself on the lie. Those last minutes with Miranda hadn’t been unavoidable. They’d merely been vital.

“You’re so rarely late.” Ash dropped the watch he’d been holding into his waistcoat pocket. “I was beginning to worry. And wonder that I’d done something wrong. Again.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Smite said. “Not everything I do is about you, you realize. You can’t fix everything.”

Ash’s forehead crunched, developing parallel sets of grim lines.

“In any event,” Smite added, “nothing needs to be fixed.”

Ash grimaced.

They had had some variant of this conversation a hundred times over the last decades. Ash apologized, and tried to ply Smite with things to salve his conscience; Smite refused, and tried to convince Ash he truly preferred not to be cosseted. Somehow, Smite’s insistence that nothing was amiss had turned into a cycle of accusation and recrimination.

Smite was too bone-deep tired to try to fend off such well-meaning attacks. He sat down wearily.

“Let me explain,” he said. “I don’t need anything from you. It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you, or that I wish you ill. It doesn’t mean that I’m rejecting your offers. It simply means that I don’t need or want anything.”

Ash didn’t respond to this. He simply wandered over to the fireplace and looked up at the ceiling, as if wondering what he had ever done wrong.

“You act as if I’m damaged,” Smite continued. “As if one foot put wrong will cause me to collapse. But nothing is wrong.”

Silence stretched. Ash set his hands on the mantel. Finally, he spoke. “I see. You live in cramped quarters on your own, eschewing all servants, when I know damned well I’ve given you enough money that you could afford an entire estate. You do that all for the fun of it?”

Smite stared straight ahead.

“You scarcely visit, and you never spend the night. That’s because you’re just an ordinary fellow? And you harbor no resentment toward me at all.”

“I never said I was ordinary. Just that I wasn’t…wrong.” He was feeling more and more wrong now. As if he’d given away his center. As if he’d sent it via train to London.

“Oh, no.” Ash rolled his eyes. “You’re not wrong. You’re never wrong—always damnably precise, you are. Still, I must wonder—why are you always so angry at me?”

“I’m not angry!” Smite growled. “I just don’t need you to do anything for me. How can I make you understand that?”

Ash threw up his hands. “How am I supposed to believe that nothing is wrong? I remember when I first found you on the streets of Bristol. My God, Smite. I left you and Mark with Mother at her worst. You won’t even tell me what happened. How can you not hate me for that? I can scarcely stand to think of it myself.”

Smite spread his hands. “It was noth—”

“It’s always nothing with you. I don’t believe you.”

Smite could almost hear Miranda, could almost see that resigned smile on her face. You are the worst liar. But that unbidden memory nearly overwhelmed him. He shut his eyes and turned away. It was almost a physical pain, that tearing in his gut.

He took a deep breath and thought of the only thing that could dislodge that wave of sorrow.

“She locked me in the cellar,” he said flatly. “It flooded. I nearly drowned. I have nightmares about it still, and I can’t bear to be around other people. I hold no grudge against you specifically. It’s everyone.”