There, on the banks of the stream, she tilted her face to the sun and quietly, painfully let go. She trailed her fingers in the cold water, imagining the worst of her hate bleeding from her like dark ink. Her hand grew numb as she envisioned all her hurts slowly drifting away, the darkness dissipating into clear water.
It wasn’t his fault Camilla thought she was unloved. It wasn’t his fault her father had committed treason. He was just the easiest, nearest target.
She made her way back to the carriage after fifteen minutes. Christian didn’t ask her how her time had gone. He didn’t tease her. He simply put down his book.
“We need to negotiate a new treaty,” Judith said.
“Yes?”
“There’s a problem with the former one.” She insisted on meeting his gaze head on. “You can’t remind me that I hate you if I don’t hate you.”
His hands stilled in the act of gathering up the reins.
“I wish I could,” she confessed. “It would make everything so easy if I did. I’m angry with you. I can never forgive you.” She looked over into his eyes. “It’s simple if it’s all just hatred. But nothing is ever simple, least of all us.”
His gaze dropped down from her eyes to her lips, and then very slowly, traveled back up. She felt the path it took like heat from the sun.
“You’re right,” she said. “We know each other too well to really hate one another.”
“Come,” he said in a low voice. “You can’t be reasonable now. I don’t want you to be reasonable. It gives me…ideas. And hope.” His voice dropped even lower. “I will never forgive you if you give me hope.”
“Don’t hope.” She looked away. “I never said I would forgive you. How could I?”
He exhaled. “What now? We’ve only managed to uncover more problems. You still haven’t figured out what is happening, and I still don’t have Anthony’s journals. The money—”
She looked away. “At this point, the money is the least of my worries. I need to find my sister. I need to know that she is well. I think it’s best that we see each other as little as possible. I’ll look into Camilla’s whereabouts; nothing else matters until I know she’s safe. You…”
“I’ll ask for some private legal advice,” Christian said. “I’ll see what circumstances might lead to this oddity that we’ve discovered, and find out if there’s any way to force Mr. Ennis to disclose what he knows without creating a public scandal.”
She snorted.
“A larger public scandal,” Christian amended.
“It sounds like we have an agreement.”
Christian fingered the reins. “As to our new armistice, might I make a suggestion?”
She looked over at him.
“We can try not to hurt each other,” he said.
“You mean, I’ll try not to call you a colossal idiot, and you in turn will—”
He reached out and touched her hand, interrupting her speech. In truth, she couldn’t have formed a word. His hand on hers snuffed out all her rational thought, like fingers pinching out a candle—a sharp heat all at once, and only the imprint of light against her vision.
“Judith,” he said, “I asked you to marry me once. You sent me one letter after eight years and I appeared on your doorstep within four hours. Yes, I want Anthony’s journals. But let us not be foolish; we both know that is not all I think about. You know precisely how you can hurt me. Please. Don’t.”
Do, his eyes suggested. Turn your hand over. Take mine. Let it all go, and hurt me.
The thing about admitting to herself that he wasn’t entirely at fault was discovering that she must have hurt him.
He’d wanted to marry her. He’d said he loved her, and likely he had. He had said he would never forget her, and he hadn’t.
She couldn’t apologize. Not now. Not with his hand on hers. Not with her heart still so raw.
She pulled her hand away. “I think last time we hurt each other enough for a lifetime. The less we talk, the better it will be.”
He nodded. “Agreed. Hopefully, everything will go right from here on out.” He picked up the reins and started the horses.
“Wrong,” Judith reminded him. “Remember, we want everything to go wrong between us.”
Chapter Twelve
The house was quiet when Judith finally returned home. It was only eight in the evening, and still light out at this point in the summer, but nobody greeted her at the front door.
She walked in. The entryway had been freshly swept. To her right, no detritus of meals had been left on the table.
Curious.
There was a single place set in front of her chair. A fork and a knife stood guard over an aging metal cover. She lifted it.
Dinner awaited her. Someone had made a creditable roast potato and some buttered carrots. These rested alongside slices of crusty bread and cheese. A little note was folded under the edge of the plate.
Judith lifted it with trepidation.
Welcome home, Judith, the note read. We love you. We missed you today.
Both Benedict and Theresa had signed it. How…sweet.
How suspicious.
She let the cover drop. It was sweet like tea with four lumps of sugar added. One only dumped sweeteners in to hide the fact that the beverage had been overbrewed.
The singular lack of carnage continued as she made her way through the house. No books were heaped on the stairs that she ascended. No piles of petticoats had been unceremoniously abandoned in the hall.
Her siblings were sucking up to her, and Judith was afraid. Very afraid.
As she came to the upstairs landing, she could finally hear their voices. They were in the bedroom that Judith and Theresa shared, speaking quietly with one another.
“No, no,” Benedict was saying. “Stop. It tickles.”
“Lie still,” came Theresa’s response. “You can’t possibly move. You’ll crush them.”
Them. Oh, dear. Judith lifted her hand to shove open the door and announce her presence when Benedict laughed. Oh, God. He laughed. Judith’s heart stood still. He was laughing again. She’d feared that whatever had happened to him at Eton had broken him in some irretrievable way. But if he could still laugh, everything was going to turn up right.
So instead of shoving the door open, she gave it a gentle push—enough for it to swing open a few inc
hes.
Her brother and sister sat cross-legged on the bed, and they were surrounded by kittens. The word surrounded did not do justice to the multitude of kittens that thronged her bed. So many kittens. There were three on Benedict alone. He twitched his finger invitingly, and one calico kitten pounced. A second one—black, with a single white paw—curled, sleeping in the crook of his arm. A third tiny cat, all fluffy white fur and pink nose, was ascending his arm with the uneasy determination of an exceedingly clumsy mountain climber.
Those were not the only kittens. Two played in Theresa’s skirts; another three rolled in a tussle at the end of the bed.
Oh, for the love of…kittens. She had said no more cats. They’d agreed.
This many uncountable kittens, however cute, would turn into approximately eighty trillion grown cats, given time, milk, and free rein to indulge their cat-lusts. If only they weren’t so cute.
If only Benedict were not laughing.
At that moment, Theresa looked up and caught sight of Judith standing in the doorway. The amused smile froze on her face.
“Oh, look who is home. Judith!” Theresa gave a scarcely credible fake smile and attempted to unhook kitten claws from her hair. “How good to see you.” These kitten claws, it turned out, didn’t unhook; she ended up dragging a cat body across her face. “We were just…um…”
Benedict wasn’t smiling any longer. He touched his finger to the little kitten sleeping in his arms and looked at Judith with a worried furrow marking his forehead. “I know you said no more cats, but… These are kittens. Kittens aren’t cats, right?”
Judith swallowed. “Benedict, love. Kittens are still cats, and you both know it.”
Two heads dropped in disappointment.
“You told us to walk by the river. We found them in a sack with rocks in the bottom, down by the Thames,” Theresa said. “Someone had thrown them over the edge, but the sack caught on a hook and didn’t fall all the way in. We couldn’t just leave them.”
Benedict, obviously misinterpreting Judith’s look of consternation, interjected. “Don’t worry. I was quite safe climbing down to get them. It wasn’t in the middle of the bridge where the drop to the water could have been significant. Near the edge.” He looked uneasy. “Pretty near, I’d say. Not quite at the center.”