P
hoebe was concerned. Andreas was acting peculiarly. Always watching her for something. Asking small, leading questions about things she had always wanted and inquiring after things she received. Making small notes in his margins.
With anyone else, she might have thought he was trying to find her a present. But Andreas?
The whole week had had an odd feel to it as they tied up loose ends and danced around the subject of moving, and the twitch of it was approaching a head.
One of the men had approached her earlier thanking her profusely for encouraging him to become a cobbler. An anonymous benefactor had left him enough money to do so, and he was setting up a shop immediately.
Phoebe had just stared at him for a moment before shaking herself out of her surprise long enough to congratulate him warmly.
Then her mother had bemusedly shown her a document gifting Mathilda Pace with a fine property in Bath. One that would be passed down the matriarchal line, with a solicitor set up to take commands from the women of the family alone. Some sort of inheritance from an aunt neither of them had ever heard of. Giving them complete independence from the men in their lives.
Then Phoebe had found a beautiful piece of poetry on her desk that listed one dozen stanzas as to why she was more than a “good sort.” She had stared at it for at least an hour, not knowing how to respond. Was Edward having a joke? It had to be from him. He was the one who called her a “good sort.” Made it out to be some sort of noncurse in the marital sphere.
But it hadn’t been in Edward’s hand. In fact, she had no idea whose hand it was in. It seemed like something the popular author Eleutherios would write, but that was a beyond strange thought. Maybe one of the men in the hell? Who knew that a poet existed somewhere in hell’s depths.
But someone would have had to speak to
Edward,
and that limited the playing field immensely.
It couldn’t be Andreas. He would have had to have spoken to Edward
and
asked personal questions. Besides, Andreas had been busy with something else. Her heart thumped.
He had called her to his office and presented her with a document clearing James Pace of any wrongdoing in the eyes of the Crown. A complete pardon for matters discovered and even better, those not yet uncovered. She had quickly locked the door—
and
slowly
and demonstratively
showed her thanks to the person she knew was responsible.
But another piece of poetry dedicated strictly to the glory of her determination came a few hours later. Then another glorifying her large eyes and luscious lips. Disturbing.
She had started darting paranoid glances at everyone she passed in the halls after that one, folding her lips between her teeth. When another had shown up praising the ecstasy of her smile, she decided that she was going to tell Andreas she had acquired a strange stalker.
But he simply raised both brows when she’d shown him the note before handing her a sheaf of papers that signified the continuation of Pace Industries, healthy and whole. With a contract from His Royal Highness, Frederick. She had blinked at that. When pressed, Andreas had demurred.
Demurred.
Things were getting odder.
Word was sent that the new house in Bath had been readied and their servants summoned.
A note from Henry said that he had been cleared of any wrongdoing. That the sixth viscount Garrett’s death had been labeled accidental—the funeral to be held that weekend.
And another bit of poetry had been presented by her bemused mother, who had found it shoved under the door, words blessing the value of her friendship.
As unbelievable as it was, after assembling all of the notes to determine the identity of the mystery writer, she really only had one suspect, but . . . she didn’t know what to do about it.
Phoebe was a bit dazed by the time she lifted her fist to knock on Andreas’s door.
He answered right away. He always knew where she was when she was in the building. She had stopped questioning it.
She waited for him to close and lock the door before pressing him to it. “Have you been sending me notes?” She pinned him so he couldn’t look away.
“Of course. I send you notes all the time.”
“You send me
summonses.
There’s a difference.”
“Summonses are still notes. Written on bits of paper with ink.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Are you . . . playing word games with me?”
“No.”
“You are.” She tapped on his chest. “Which means you have been sending me those secret admiration notes. Why?”
“Perhaps I admire you. Secretly.”
“While I am flattered—beyond flattered, now that I know it is you and not some stranger—you already have me, you know.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” She nodded emphatically.
One set of muscles loosened beneath her hand, another tightened. “I can still send you notes of admiration. I’ve been told ladies like those.”
Her lips twitched up. “It is nice to be appreciated, it is true.”
“Exactly. I don’t want you to feel I do not appreciate you.”
While she was having fun, something said he was being entirely too serious.
“Andreas, I know you well enough now that simply having you pay me attention when I’m speaking to you shows you care.”
He frowned. “But . . . that is not enough.”
She stepped back and observed him. “What is bothering you? I have never seen you so uncertain.”
“I want you to be happy.”
But whereas when he said it of Roman, it was a steely concern, carved in stone, there was a wistful, sad nature to how he said it to her.
“You think I cannot be happy with you.”
He didn’t meet her eyes. “I am a terrible person.”
She sighed. It was time to take her courage in hand and wipe the slate bare. They needed to erase the secrets between them before they could be on truly even ground.
“What happened to my brother, Andreas?”
He stiffened. “What?”
“I know you know,” she said softly. “And I have waited these many weeks, thinking you would tell me, hoping that it wasn’t because it was such a horrible story that I couldn’t bear to hear it.”
N
o, no, don’t say a word. Lie. Prevaricate. Misinform.
But he looked in her eyes and couldn’t do it. “Your brother was about to be shot by Garrett’s man. But someone else shot him instead. Your brother fell into the river.”
He could feel her despair.
Say nothing more
.
Don’t give her false hope.
“He was dragged out of the river a few minutes later.”
He could feel the upbeat of her heart against his chest.
Dammit
. But he couldn’t keep the words back after seeing her despair. He would drag Christian Pace from hell and glue him back to his mortal coil if he had to.
Her lips disappeared into her mouth, then reappeared. “He is alive?” Her voice was steady.
“I don’t know.” He said it even more stiffly. He didn’t. “He was put on a ship to Australia.” He was careful to keep himself out of the words.
Her head shot up. “You put my brother on a ship to Australia?”
It felt like his entire body was made of lead. “What?”
“I thought I must be crazy to think such thoughts—that he might have been transported. But I had the dockets checked anyway, and there are a lot of anonymous passengers. It gave me hope. What ship? What was the name?”
He carefully wet his lips.
You put my brother on a ship to Australia?
She knew that he was involved.
“I already have people searching for him.” His voice sounded strange, even to his ears. “I dispatched someone weeks ago. I . . .” He swallowed. Do it. Just
do it
. “I don’t know that he made it, Phoebe. I . . .” He cleared his throat.
Do
it. “
I
shot him.”
For once, her open eyes were shuttered as they connected with his. It was a little like a vise cutting the rays of warmth from the sun.
She looked away after a moment. “Yes, I believe you. You look at me with such guilt sometimes.” She examined him. “You didn’t want his death, though.”
“I shot him.”
“But you don’t miss. There would have been no passage aboard any ship if your intention had been death. Another man was going to shoot him—Lord Garrett was truly desperate then, I remember that time with the clarity of a crystal memory, he had outright threatened Christian—so you shot Christian before the other man could.” She nodded as if she had finally pieced it all together and was now wiping her hands of the puzzle.
He felt the urge to shake something. “I may not have aimed to kill him, but I
wanted
him out of London. I was willing to do what I thought necessary to our—the Merricks’—best interests at the time.” Though that was not entirely true, even then her smile had been embedded in his mind. “He was too dangerous. And I put him on that ship. He might have died of infection, disease.”
If only he had tucked him away in the country . . . but he hadn’t known then what would happen. Hadn’t thought of the consequences. Why would he ever think he would be standing here with her like this—wanting so desperately to hold on?
“He didn’t,” she said confidently. “I know he is still alive. I feel it. I have always felt so. I will see him again. Putting him on a ship was likely the right choice. Otherwise, he would have popped back up and been more annoying to the people who wanted him dead. I know my brother.”
He gripped her arms, trying to make her understand. “I shot him.”
“I know,” she snapped. Then took a deep breath. “But you didn’t kill him. There is a difference.” She tilted her head at him. “And now, you would do anything to save him. I know this too.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and she held his gaze, as she always did. “Yes. I would.”
He moved away from her, back to his desk. “You should go to Bath tomorrow.”
“You want me to leave with my parents for Bath tomorrow.” There was an odd note to her voice. “Does that mean that you don’t trust me?”
He stopped and looked up at her. “Trust you?”
“To love you. To make this work.”
The emotions bit into him. He wanted her love in a way that he hadn’t wanted much else in his life. More than revenge. More than anything in his memory. For a man used to taking what he wanted, it was a sharp double-edged sword to find the one thing he wanted most was the one thing he wanted to protect most keenly.
He had been scrambling this past week to try and make amends for every slight or hurt he had ever done to her. With the thought still hooked and buried quite firmly that she would never forgive him should she discover everything about him—and all he had kept hidden.
It had nothing to do with his trust of her. The devil knew that she was one of the few people he trusted. It was that he couldn’t trust himself to accept what she was offering. Didn’t feel it fair.
“It was never fair for me to think you would stay with me after discovering the truth about your brother. I betrayed your trust by not speaking of it earlier.”
“It is a complicated matter.” She drew her hand along her desk. Would he be able to get rid of it after she left? He wasn’t sure. “I don’t think it is fair to make it black-and-white as you are trying to do.”
“I make everything black-and-white,” he said, a bit stiffly.
She smiled gently. “I know. It makes you uncomfortable otherwise. But emotions are messy.”
She gifted him with
that
soft smile. And it did that strange thing to his insides. He would probably lead a revolt against the king if she asked him to do it while wearing that smile.
“You work in a world where you have to rely on black-and-white information. But,” she said, in a somewhat oddly gentle tone of voice, “I like you in all shades.”
“You don’t know that,” he said stiffly. “You’ve been stuck here, with me, your project, for the last few weeks.”
With perspective, she would change her mind. Getting away from him would give her that perspective. He needed to give her that.
It would be his last gift to her.
She would find someone worthy of her. He curled his fingernails into his palms. And he wouldn’t interfere. He would need to swear it to himself.
“You are wrong,” she said calmly. “I have chosen to stick myself to you. Do you really think I would have stayed had I not wanted to?”
He wanted so desperately to believe it that he couldn’t trust his own truth on the matter. “I think you need to experience life without me.”
She watched him for long moments, then nodded. “Very well.”