us.”
“Fired upon us?” Abbey gasped with outrage. “How dare you impugn him?”
she
breathed angrily. “Galen would never harm anyone! As you don’t know him, I do
not see how you could possibly make such sweeping judgments!”
The sound of Michael’s sardonic laughter ricocheted off the walls and hit her
squarely in the face. “How terribly inappropriate of me. My one encounter with
your beloved cousin was so that he could use a fraudulent document and demand
five hundred thousand pounds from me! How silly of me to think anything amiss!”
Abbey turned abruptly so he would not see her painful confusion. He was right;
it all seemed so wrong. But Galen had not defrauded him! He might be irresponsible, but he was not a thief! “I don’t know what to think!” She moaned.
“I am so… so…”
“So afraid? So exposed?”
“No!” she cried, turning to face him. “Astonished! Confused!”
“Astonished and confused. That hardly begins to describe how I found this news,
my sweet,” Michael sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
A dull sickness swept her. “Michael, he had things that belonged to my father!
And as Papa had lied once before, I thought Galen was a victim, too!” she pleaded with him. Didn’t he understand how much she loved him? That
she would
rather die than hurt him?
“Michael, please . . .” she said weakly, mortified that she sounded so guilty.
“I can’t explain it. All I know is that Mr. Strait sent the papers I expected.
But when Galen showed me his, I did not think it wholly unbelievable that my
father would change his mind at the last moment. I did not think it wholly unbelievable that he would have betrayed me a second time! Galen would not lie
about this. He expected to be left a ship, not my dowry! He was as shocked as
I!”
Michael clenched his jaw and cast a scathing glare at her. “I wonder how you
thought you would secure the dowry after you were married,” he said in a low,
accusatory tone.
Desperate, she tried to think of something that would prove her innocence.
“I
told you once I would return to America if that was what you wanted, and you
could have the money. I had every intention of leaving so that you could be free
of me! Surely that proves that I had no part in it! Had it not been for that silly bet, I would have left! If this was some scheme, I would not have left!”
“You did not leave,” he quietly reminded her.
Abbey inhaled sharply. God, how guilty he thought her. Devastated by what was
happening, she took a step toward him. He stiffened. Her eyes darted helplessly
about the room; she felt like a raving madwoman as she searched for something,
anything that would show him she had not lied. How could she make him understand
that she loved him with all her heart and would never do anything to hurt him?
She walked forward to him and reached out to touch him, but he pulled away from
her.
That single response killed her.
“I love you, Michael. I love you more than my own life,” she heard herself whisper softly. The muscle in his jaw flexed.
“I would never do anything to hurt you, don’t you know that? Do you honestly
think everything we have been was a lie! That I have deceived you in your own
house… in your bed?” she whispered.
Michael’s jaw tightened. She thought for a moment that the hard glint in his eye
softened, but through clenched teeth he muttered, “I do not know what to believe.”
An involuntary cry of anguish escaped her, and she stumbled for a chair, praying
she would not fall to her knees. Tears were beginning to seep from her eyes and
an irrational shame engulfed her. “Michael!” she insisted hysterically.
“Please,
you must believe me!” He did not believe anything but her guilt, and she was
breaking apart in front of him like the weakling she was. She forced herself to
lift her head and look at him through wet lashes. The icy distance stretched
between them; his face had a ghostly pall she took to be anger.
It was hopeless.
With what little pride she could muster, she straightened. “I won’t beg you, Michael. I have never played you false, not once, and I swear to you on my
father’s grave I have not started now. If you believe everything we have is a lie, then so be it,” she said evenly. “But I love you. I always have, and God save me, I always shall.”
Michael said nothing. His cold, steady gaze did not waver from hers, and after
several tense moments, Abbey bowed her head. It was over. This man felt nothing,
and she could not bear it another moment. Dejected, she turned away from him and
started unsteadily to the door.
“Abbey.” The hoarseness in his voice betrayed his emotion. A surge of hope
erupted within her, and she turned expectantly to face him. “Do not, under any
circumstance, see him again.”
With that, he very succinctly broke her heart. She whirled and ran to her room.
She flung herself facedown upon the bed, and the tears she had held back now
came forth in gut-wrenching torrents.
Galen Carrey glanced at his pocket watch for the third time, then glanced up,
peering through the thick fog that had begun to settle about the docks. He did
not see the figure approaching from the right and stumbled backward when the red
tip of a cheroot suddenly appeared in his peripheral vision.
“God, Routier, you startled me,” he muttered irritably, and self-consciously straightened his neckcloth.
Routier ignored the remark. “What in the bloody hell are you waiting for?”
“I said I would give him a few days,” Galen shot back.
Routier, disgusted, tossed his cheroot to the cobblestones, and ground it out
with the heel of his boot.
He fisted his hands on his hips and glared at the younger man. “Look here,
Carrey. From the moment I found you crying in your cups, I’ve taken the necessary steps to ensure your rightful inheritance is returned to you. I concocted the plan. I dealt with Strait. I retrieved those blasted articles for you to use. I am doing it for you. What the devil is wrong with you? You’ve hardly lifted a finger, and now you are balking!”
“I am not balking!” Galen loudly protested. “We cannot rush headlong into this,
Routier. You know he is suspicious of me. We have to give him time to come to
the realization that Carrington duped him.”
“Right. And while you are giving him time, he is scouring all of London for Strait! Do you have any idea .what that could mean? You must demand it of him!”
“Demand it? Do you think if I demand it, he will turn it over? God, Routier, you
should know as well as anyone he will refuse such threats!”
“He won’t. You have the documents as proof, and a court suit would threaten
scandal. He can ill afford another one, and my guess is he will do what he must
to avoid having his precious little marchioness subjected to the speculation of
the entire ton,” Routier said matter-of-factly.
At the mention of Abbey, Galen drew to his full height of six feet and
glared at
Routier. “I will not drag her into this any more than I already have, Routier!”
he responded angrily.
Routier flashed an evil smile and leaned forward so that his face was only an
inch or two from Galen’s. “Then do as I tell you, Carrey. Look, the captain wronged you. He should have left you something. As his only male relative, you
deserved the entire estate! Did you slave all those years on his ship to be tossed aside like a piece of garbage in the end? No! But I had to convince you
to fight for what is rightfully yours! Now Darfield holds it, and he knows it.
Are you a coward now? Are you going to let him get away with it?”
Galen shook his head weakly.
Routier relaxed a little. “Quit dawdling about then and go and demand what
belongs to you. You can soothe your pretty cousin later.”
Galen did not respond and regarded Routier with apprehensive dislike.
Routier
was right; he deserved his fair share of Carrington’s estate. He had been the
man’s only living male relative, the son of his second cousin, and had served
the captain faithfully for several years. Despite the rows he might have had with Carrington, he deserved something. Routier had helped him to see that when
they had met, by chance, in Calais last summer.
But he had never meant to hurt Abbey. He had always been very fond of the lass,
even more so upon seeing what a beauty she had become. Routier thought nothing
of ruining her, as his motive went far deeper than the cut of the fortune he was
promised. He practically spit venom at the mere mention of Darfield’s name, and
Galen feared he would ruthlessly use Abbey to get to Darfield and ruin him.
“If you are finding you are too weak for the task, Carrey, you can repay me the
five thousand pounds you owe me, and we will go our separate ways,”
Routier
said, interrupting his thoughts.
Galen’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t have five thousand pounds, sir, a fact you know
very well.”
Routier’s smirk deepened. “Then you had best go and see Darfield, hadn’t you?”
The first thing Michael did was to move his things to a chamber as far away as
he could get from those violet eyes that haunted him. The second thing he did
was avoid her at all costs, refusing her one request to see him, and keeping odd
hours so he would not risk running into her. The third thing he did was drink. A
lot. But he could not drink enough to clarify in his mind her guilt or innocence.
For three days Michael waited, restlessly alternating between drinking and fitful sleep. On the morning Galen Carrey finally made an appearance, Michael
was sprawled in an overstuffed chair in his study, staring at the mound of gowns
for which he had paid a small fortune and a velvet box containing the amethyst
jewelry he had given Abbey. She had returned the articles just that morning with
a terse note saying they belonged to him.
The gowns and jewelry did not distress Michael. It was the violin case that lay
next to the gowns. She had returned the instrument as one of the articles she
claimed belonged to him. But it was a part of her, and it was impossible to imagine her without it. Just as it was impossible not to feel deep pangs of guilt and anger when he looked at the case.
When Galen Carrey was announced, Michael’s anger gave way to white fury. He did
not rise when the man was shown in.
“I had thought you would slither out from under your rock before now,”
Michael
said dryly.
“I know this news is upsetting to you, my lord, and I had thought to give you
some time to collect your thoughts,” Carrey responded politely.
“Spare me your bloody platitudes. What do you want?”
Galen’s faint smirk almost went unnoticed. “For both our sakes, I shall be blunt. As unpleasant as this is, surely you can understand my desire to collect
from you what is rightfully mine.”
“That’s bloody well blunt, I’ll give you that. But make no mistake, Carrey. I have nothing that belongs to you.”
Galen’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he shifted his weight onto one leg. “I beg
to differ, my lord. The will I have shared with you is quite plain. You have my
inheritance, and I respectfully request you return it at once.”
God, what a lying bastard he was, Michael thought angrily. “You wouldn’t be
trying to extort a sizable sum from me, would you?”
“It is rather unfortunate that Captain Carrington chose to proceed as he did,
but that hardly is of my doing. And you must not blame Abbey, either.
She was
quite unaware of the change.”
Michael smirked. Carrey was certainly quick to absolve Abbey. “Was she?” he
asked sarcastically. “It would seem to me that if anyone was unaware of the
change, it was Carrington. It must greatly surprise you to know that he made
sure a small fortune would be paid to her aunt the moment she was put aboard a
ship bound for England. It must also surprise you to know that his associates
and creditors would not have been paid had she not come here and married me. And
no doubt it must astonish you to know that there was never a mention of any
distant cousin who would be heir to her fortune,” he said with a sneer.
One corner of Galen’s mouth turned up in a mocking smile. “I believe the papers
I gave you clearly state those same things were to happen. The only change is
the direction of his liquidated assets. In the will I brought you, there is mention of a cousin, sir.”
“How convenient. You miraculously appear after the captain’s estate has been
settled by marriage,” Michael said.
Galen frowned at that. He paused to remove a small, white kerchief from his
sleeve, and dabbed at the corners of his mouth before responding. “My
timing has
nothing to do with the rightful settlement of the captain’s estate. It has everything to do with a man’s change of heart on his deathbed, my lord, I can
assure you.”
“Um-hmm.” Michael nodded. “I wonder what prompted Carrington’s change of heart?
It wouldn’t have been a pistol to his head, would it?”
Galen folded his arms across his chest and glared at Michael. “I take offense to
that, sir! Men on their deathbeds change their minds all the time.”
Michael almost laughed. “I’ve never heard of one changing his mind so drastically on his deathbed, Carrey. And how odd; I was given to understand by
Mr. Strait’s correspondence that as the end drew near, Carrington was rather