Silence, then, “I’m only a poor male. Don’t confuse me.”
Poor male her left eye. Yet revisiting her knowledge of him, talking matters through with him, was helping; she was starting to grapple with the new him. The irony hadn’t escaped her; she’d deliberately avoided thinking of him for the past thirteen years, but now fate and circumstance were forcing her to it. To understand him again, to look and see him clearly.
She drew breath. “All right—think of this. I saw you with Millie and Julia today. The charm, the smile, the laughter, the teasing, the hedonistic hubris. I recognized all that, but now it’s subtly and significantly different. At twenty, that was you—all of you. You were the epitome of ‘devil-may-care’—there wasn’t anything deeper. Now, however, the larger-than-life hellion is a mask, and there’s someone behind it.” She glanced at him. “The man behind the mask is the one I don’t know.”
Silence.
Charles didn’t correct her; he couldn’t. He knew in his bones she was right, but he wasn’t sure how the change had come about, or what to say to reassure her.
“I think,” she continued, surprising him, “that perhaps the man behind the mask was always there, or at least the potential was always there, and the past thirteen years, what you’ve been doing during that time, made him, you, stronger. More definite. The real you is a rock the years have chiseled and formed, but what smooths your surface is lichen and moss, a social disguise.”
He shifted. “An interesting thesis.” He couldn’t see how her too-perceptive view would improve his chances of gaining her trust.
“A useful one, at any rate.” She glanced at him. “I note you’re not arguing.”
He held his tongue, too wise to respond. She continued to gaze at him, then her lips lightly curved, and she looked out once more. “Actually, it will help. If you must know, I’m not sure I would have trusted the hellion you used to be. I wouldn’t have felt certain of your reaction. Now…”
He let minutes tick by, hoping…eventually, he sighed and leaned his head back against the arch. “What do you want to know?”
“More, but I don’t know exactly what I’m searching for, s
o I don’t know what questions to ask. But…”
“But what?”
“Why did you leave London to come here? I know your ex-commander asked you to look around, but you’re no longer his to command—you didn’t have to agree. You’ve never willingly run in anyone’s harness—that I’m sure hasn’t changed—but more importantly you knew what hopes and, well, dreams your sisters and sisters-in-law were nurturing when they went to London. You—helping you find a wife, planning your wedding—gave them purpose, invigorated them; they were so excited, so flown with anticipation.”
She stared out at the rain-drenched vista. “If you’d stayed there, indulged them, teased, laughed, and joked, and then gone your own way regardless, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But you did something I never would have predicted—you left them.”
Her struggle to comprehend colored her tone. “It’s as I said before—I had it right. You fled.”
He closed his eyes. She paused, then asked the one question he’d hoped she wouldn’t, “Why?”
He stifled a sigh. How had he allowed things to develop to this pass? Given the bafflement in her voice, he couldn’t very well not explain.
“I…” Where to start? “The work I was engaged in, in Toulouse, involved…a great deal of deception. On my part, primarily, although sometimes, through my manipulation, others deceived others, too.”
“I imagine spywork rather depends on deceit—if you hadn’t lied well, you would have died.”
His wry smile was spontaneous; he opened his eyes, but didn’t look her way. Talking to her—someone who’d once known him so well—in darkness sufficiently complete that he couldn’t see her expression and knew she couldn’t see his, was strangely comforting, as if the dark gave them a degree of privacy in which they could say almost anything to each other in safety.
“That’s true, but…” He paused, conscious that telling her the rest would be the first time he’d put his feelings into words. Decided it didn’t matter; it was the truth, his reality. “After spending thirteen years living a deception with lies as my daily bread, to return to the ton, to the artful smiles and glib comments, the sly falsity and insincerity, the glamour, the patent superficiality…” His face and tone hardened. “I couldn’t do it.
“Those chits they want me to consider as my bride—they’re not so much witless as intentionally blind. They want to marry a hero, a wild and reckless handsome earl who everyone knows cares not a snap for anything.”
Her laugh was short, incredulous. “You? A care-for-naught?”
“So they believe.”
She snorted. “Your brothers may have been the ones trained to the estates, but it was always you who knew this place—loved this place—best. You’re the one who knows every field, every tree, every yard.”
He hesitated, then said, “Others don’t know that.”
His deep rapport with the Abbey was why he’d retreated there, irrevocably sure that despite his desperate need for a wife, he couldn’t stomach a marriage of, if not outright deceit, then one built on politely feigned affection. Feigning anything of that ilk was now beyond him, while the thought of his wife being only superficially fond of him, smiling sweetly but in reality thinking of her next new gown…
He drew in a deep breath. He knew she was watching him, but continued to stare out at the black night. “I can’t pretend anymore.”
That was the crux of it, the source of the revulsion that had sent him flying from London to the one place he knew he belonged. The one place where he didn’t need to fabricate his emotions, where all was true, clear, and simple. He felt so much cleaner, so much freer, there.