C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

“I think of it all the time.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, drew in a deep breath.

She said, “I did the right thing, Sebastian. For you and for me.”

“You can still say that? Despite all that’s happened?”

“Yes. We would have destroyed each other had we wed. I couldn’t have continued on the stage as Lady Devlin, yet I would never have been accepted into society. So what would I have done instead? Sit home and embroider seat cushions? I’d have been miserable, and in the end I’d have made you miserable too.”

“We could have found a way,” he insisted.

Although for the first time, he was aware of a whisper of doubt.

Faint, but there.

That night, a new storm swept in from the north. A fierce wind rattled the limbs of the elms in the garden and sent dead leaves scuttling down the street. Hero could see streaks of lightning rending the sky, hear the patter of wind-driven rain against the window. She lay alone in her bed, her eyes on the tucked blue silk of the canopy overhead, her hands resting low on her belly, on the swelling of the child she had made with a man she’d barely known but who was now her husband.

She heard him come in when the storm was at its fiercest. But though she listened carefully, she didn’t hear him mount the steps to the second floor. And so, after a time, she drew on her dressing gown and went in search of him.

She found him in the dining room, beside the long windows overlooking the wind-savaged garden. He had his back to her and did not turn when she paused in the doorway. He’d stripped off his wet coat and waistcoat, and she could see the tense set of his shoulders through the fine cloth of his shirt. The air was damp and close with the smell of the rain and the tang of blood and an elusive scent she realized suddenly was pealed oranges. And she knew the pain of a woman who has given her heart to a man who lost his own heart long ago to someone else.

But all she said was, “I hope that’s not your blood I smell.”

He turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. “It’s not. Jacques Collot is dead. He was telling me about how he came to know Eisler had the blue diamond in his possession when someone put a bullet in his chest with a rifle.”

“You didn’t see who did it?”

“I was too busy trying not to get shot myself.”

Crossing to the table beside the dying fire, she poured a glass of brandy and went to hold it out to him. “Here.”

He took the glass from her hand, his fingers covering hers for a moment. He said, “There’s something I must tell you.”

“Tell me later. You should come to bed. You’re wet and cold.”

“No.” He set the brandy aside and reached to draw her into his arms. “I’ve put it off too long already.”

She felt his hands slide down her back to rest on her hips, holding her-but not too close.

He said, “I first fell in love with Kat Boleyn when she was sixteen and I was just down from Oxford. Hendon grumbled about it, although if truth be told, I think he expected some such thing. It’s not exactly unusual for a young man to have an opera dancer or an actress in keeping. What he didn’t expect was that I’d want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“You don’t need to tell me-”

“No, please, hear me out. When I told him I’d asked Kat to marry me, he flew into a rage and swore I wouldn’t see another penny from the estates until he was dead. I told him I didn’t care.” A sad smile touched his lips. “The world well lost for love and all that.”

A flash of lightning lit up the room with a throbbing blue glow chased by a rumble of thunder. She waited.

After a moment, he said, “What I didn’t know was that Hendon went behind my back and saw Kat. He told her that such a marriage would ruin my life and offered her twenty thousand pounds if she would leave me. She threw him out of her rooms. But his words had had their effect. She decided that he was right-that if she truly loved me, then she’d let me go-for my sake. So she told me she had no intention of marrying a pauper, and since my father was standing firm on his threat to cut me off, she wanted nothing more to do with me.”

“Oh, Sebastian,” Hero whispered. “How. . fiercely noble of her.”

He sucked in a deep breath that flared his nostrils. “That’s when I bought my commission and left England. I wasn’t exactly trying to get myself killed, but I wouldn’t have minded terribly if it had happened. When I came back to London some six years later, I thought I’d managed to put it all behind me.”

“Until you saw her again,” said Hero softly, although what she really wanted to say was, Why? Why are you telling me this now?

He nodded. “Eventually I found out the truth about what had happened all those years ago-that she had lied to drive me away from her. I asked her again to marry me, but she still refused. She said nothing had really changed, that she loved me too much to allow me to ruin myself by marrying a woman off the stage. In my arrogance, I was convinced I could change her mind, eventually. Only. .”

“Then you discovered she was Hendon’s daughter.”

She watched him reach for his drink and down half the glass in one long pull. The tension in the air was like an unnatural hum that had nothing to do with the storm.

He said, “I knew that in all fairness, I couldn’t blame Hendon for the blood relationship between them-after all, he was the one who’d been trying to drive Kat and me apart for years. But it took me a long time to forgive him for the undisguised satisfaction he showed at finally achieving what he had worked so hard to accomplish.”

She started to say, But if you have forgiven him, then why are you still estranged from him? Only, something in his face made her hold her peace.

He drained his glass and went to pour himself another brandy, as if he felt the need to put some distance between them. He said, “And then, last May, I discovered that in December of 1781, Hendon sailed for America on a secret mission for the King.”

Hero stared at him. Jarvis had sailed on that mission too. She tried to recall if she’d known the date of their sailing, if she knew when-

He said, “I will turn thirty next month. I assume you can do the sums?”

She watched him set aside the brandy decanter, watched him carefully replace the stopper, and understood finally what he was trying to tell her. “Are you certain Hendon’s not-”

“Yes. He tried to deny it at first, but in the end he was forced to admit the truth.”

“Do you know who-”

“No. My mother never said.” He stared at her from across the length of the room.

His mother, Hero knew, had disappeared at sea years ago, when Devlin was still a child.

Hero was suddenly aware of the fury of the storm, of the wind rattling the windowpanes in their frames and the rain pounding on the terrace paving. He said, “I would have told you before we married, had the circumstances been different. But as it was. .”

She said, “Jarvis knew. He was on that ship with your father. So he’s always known.”

“Yes.”

Yet he hadn’t told her. Why ? she wondered. Aloud, she said, “And the Bishopsgate tavern owner? Jamie Knox? Where does he fit in all this?”

“I honestly don’t know. He could conceivably be my half brother. Or a cousin, perhaps. I find it difficult to believe the resemblance between us is nothing more than a coincidence. Unfortunately, his own paternity is. . cloudy.”

When she remained silent, he said, “I will understand if this knowledge alters your opinion of me.”

“It hasn’t lowered it, if that’s what you mean.” She drew a deep breath that shuddered her chest. “Why now? Why did you decide to tell me this now?”