Marguerite Kaye - Regency Surrender - Notorious Secrets - The Soldier's Dark Secret / The Soldier's Rebel Lover

‘Celeste, for God’s sake, you had a lifetime’s experience of her not explaining. You can’t be thinking that what she did is your fault.’

‘Can’t I?’

‘No.’ Jack gave her a gentle shake. ‘No. You don’t know if it would have made any difference. You cannot know for certain if she would ever have trusted you enough.’

‘Yes, I have tried to tell myself that. I am not a martyr. I have tried.’ Celeste shook her head wearily. ‘For months, trying, pretending, and until I came here it was working—I thought. But now I can’t pretend.’

‘Celeste, I repeat, it’s not your fault.’

‘Jack, you can’t know that any more than I can. You don’t understand...’

‘I understand a damn sight more than you think.’

‘Those soldiers you told me about, yes, but they were not your family. You were not directly responsible.’ She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. ‘Perhaps this dark secret of Maman’s would have sent her to her grave regardless of what I did. But there is the possibility that she might have confided in me if I had given her one last opportunity. It’s possible that she might still be alive today as a result.’

‘Speculation is pointless, it changes nothing.’ Jack’s tone was harsh. His fists were clenched. ‘You can dig up the skeletons of your mother’s past. They might be gruesome, or they might be nothing at all, but whatever they are, they cannot alter what happened. It was her act, not yours. You can’t let the guilt destroy you.’ His eyes went quite blank. ‘You can never know if it would have made a difference. There are so many imponderables. If you had kept your mouth shut. If you had not been so determined to see for yourself. If you had not spilled your guts. If you had not—’

He broke off, staring at her as if she were a spectre. His expression frightened her in its intensity. ‘You will never know, but if you keep asking, one thing is for certain. You will tear yourself apart. That much, I most certainly understand.’

Celeste stared at the door as it slammed shut behind him. She sank down on to the sofa. She felt as if she were seeing her life through a shattered mirror. Everything she thought she knew about herself had become distorted. The barrier which her mother had erected between them was bizarrely, in death, beginning to break down. In doing so, it was not only destroying Celeste’s idea of her mother, it was destroying her notion of herself.

She curled up, squeezing her eyes closed, but the tears leaked out regardless. Was she tearing herself apart for no purpose? No, she had a purpose. She had to know. And when she did, she would be healed, not broken.

And as for Jack? If you had kept your mouth shut. If you had not been so determined to see for yourself. If you had not spilled your guts. He had clearly been talking about himself. What had he been so determined to see? What did it mean, to spill his guts? Had he been ill? Or did he mean he had talked? Given away secrets?

‘Non,’ Celeste muttered. Jack was no traitor, on that she would stake her own life. Then what was Jack? ‘I could as well ask, what is Celeste,’ she muttered as exhaustion overtook her.

* * *

Jack sat at the window of his bedchamber, watching the grey light of dawn appear in the night sky and replaying his conversation with Celeste in his head for the hundredth time.

Guilt. From the moment she had told him that her mother had taken her own life, Jack had known that guilt would eventually overwhelm her. He’d hoped that by helping her quest for answers, he’d postpone its onset but it was already too late. After yesterday’s confession, she wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

Jack was something of a connoisseur of guilt and all its insidious manifestations. Eating away at you. Keeping you awake. Torturing your dreams. Turning you inside out. He couldn’t bear thinking of Celeste suffering the same fate. Celeste, who had worked so hard to escape her miserable childhood and make her own world. Celeste who was so confident, and so independent and so strong.

And now so vulnerable. He couldn’t bear to think of what it would do to her, if she did not find the answers she sought. But then he already knew. Guilt would consume her. As it was consuming him?

Feeling his chest tightening, Jack pushed open the window and gulped in the fresh air. Outside, the sky had turned from grey to a hazy pink. It was time for his early-morning swim. Pulling off his nightshirt, Jack grabbed his breeches and shirt. As he pulled the window closed, he noticed a flutter of white in the garden below. Celeste, hatless as usual. Her hair was piled carelessly on top of her head, long tendrils of it hanging down, as if she had not even bothered to look in the mirror. Her gown was cream coloured, with short puffs of sleeves and a scooped neck, accentuating the golden glow of her skin.

She was barefoot. He could see tantalising glimpses of her toes as she walked. The deep flounce of her gown was already wet with dew. She paused, lifting her face to the pale sun, closing her eyes. Had she slept? What was she thinking? She was so very lovely, and she looked so very fragile.

She made for the path which would lead her to the lake. Jack watched as she reached the gate, hesitated, then turned away. Giving way to a sudden impulse, he headed out of his bedchamber, descending the stairs three at a time, and ran out into the garden.

* * *

‘Celeste!’

‘Jack.’ His bare feet left a line of footprints in the damp grass behind him. He was dressed in only his leather breeches and his shirt. His hair was in disarray and he hadn’t shaved.

‘I’m going for my swim.’

‘Then that is the signal for me to make myself scarce.’

He smiled, pushing his hair back from his face. ‘Actually, I wondered if you would care to join me?’

He looked tired. He looked devastatingly dishevelled. He looked as if he had just risen from bed. He made her think of rumpled sheets and tangled limbs. Their tangled limbs. ‘Join you?’ Celeste repeated, dragging her eyes away from the tantalising glimpse of chest she could see at the opening of his shirt.

‘At the lake. To swim. Assuming you can swim, that is?’

‘I was brought up on the coast. Of course I can swim,’ Celeste said, and then the significance of his offer struck home. The lake at this time of the morning was Jack’s private domain, his sanctuary. For him to offer to share it with her was hugely significant. ‘No, I would be intruding. After the last time...’

‘This is different. I am inviting you as my guest.’

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. His smile made her insides flutter. She was weary of questioning and analysing her thoughts and motives. The urge to just be , to surrender to a whim was irresistible. ‘Then I accept your kind invitation,’ Celeste said. ‘I am extremely flattered, since I know how important your privacy is to you. I would very much like to join you for a swim. I should warn you though, I am rather good.’

Jack laughed. ‘I am not so very shabby myself,’ he said, opening the gate for her. ‘I’ve come on a bit since you last saw me in action.’

‘I remember thinking that you swam like a fish that had drunk too much wine.’

‘Not so much now. Perhaps one small glass of Madeira.’

The path to the lake was narrow and dark. The earth was cool against her bare feet. She had not swum for so long. She loved the water. She had not allowed herself to miss it. Now, seeing the glint of the lake in the early morning sunshine, Celeste felt her spirits rise in anticipation. The water was a strange colour, nothing like the sea. Golden and greenish, with a hint of brown. She stretched her arms high above her head, lifting her face to the warm English sun, and laughed with delight.