Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Chapter 31

“The Earl of Rutland is dead.”

Her voice was accusing. That, and her pointing the newspaper at him like a judge would point his gavel, left no doubt whom she blamed for the man’s death.

He put his pen aside. “I know.”

A telegram from his lawyer had told him as much earlier this morning.

Her mouth was trembling. “Please tell me it was not your doing,” she said. “That it is a coincidence.”

“Does the paper indict me?”

She gave an indignant gasp. “They would hardly put it in the papers that he turned to his gun,” she said. “There are no details beyond a sudden departing, but I have a hunch.”

“I called in the debts,” he said, “yes. That doesn’t mean his death is my doing.”

She hugged herself. “When?” she whispered. Her eyes were swimming in misery.

And yet her distress touched no part of him. He felt nothing at all; he had not felt in days. The news of his nemesis’s death, the fruit of his life’s labor, had effected but a faint ripple of emotion. That, in itself, had numbed him.

“The day the tunnel collapsed,” he said. “When I went to Auchtermuchty to telegraph for help.”

Harriet’s chin quivered. “You promised,” she said. “You promised me to leave him in peace. Now you didn’t even tell me when you broke your word, leaving me to find out like this.” She crumpled the paper in her fist.

“I promised I would try,” he said. And that had been before the clanging of the bell. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. His fingers had been shaking all morning; his letter was barely legible. He kept seeing bodies, lined up … clammy and wet, arranged from tallest to smallest ….

“What have you done?” she said. “Lucian, I know you blame him for the accident, and I’m angry, too, but how has this now improved our life?”

She was looking at him as if he’d done her some great personal injury, and his head was empty. He rose from his chair. “Why the hell are you taking that man’s side?”

She threw up her hands. “But I am taking your side,” she cried. “Can’t you see?”

“No,” he said. “What I see is my own wife condemning me for a weak man turning toward his gun instead of accepting his lot and living on.”

“This was not about Rutland’s character, but about yours,” she choked out. “It was about you—and the goodness of your soul—and your standing, our reputation, our future plans …. The papers won’t report details, to spare his family the shame, but people will talk. I fear you have done yourself a disservice.”

“Really?” he said. “Is that the true reason why you’re put out with me?”

“What else?” Her voice was high and thin.

“Forgive me, but I had the impression Rutland was a test of sorts,” he said coldly. “A test for you to gauge whether I could be good in the way you wanted me to be good—domesticated, a gentleman.” He shook his head. “Well, I am not a gentleman, Harriet. And I can promise—actually promise—you one thing: the lily-white creature you fancy drinking hot chocolate with in Italy? I’m not that man. I’ll never be that man. The sooner you understand that, the less disappointed you’ll be.”

Her lips were white as bone. “I could not be more disappointed in you than I am now,” she said softly. “You think I’m a silly girl.”

His chest tightened as if in the grip of a vise. He hated disappointing her, but he couldn’t change that, so he hated how she carried on with this righteous, breathless fury. He did not comprehend her motivations, so she seemed erratic to him, and as such he did not feel safe with her. He killed them, he wanted to say, if only he could make himself say such words out loud, but then she already knew that Rutland meant death. Yet here she was, carrying on. If he were to try to tell her of his shame, and his pain, and she still insisted he be her pious version of good, he might not find it in him to forgive her. Then he would lose her, and he couldn’t. He could not lose her.

“This is not about you,” he said. “You don’t understand. For now, just trust me that he has done things to my community and my family—”

“Trust you?” she said, her disbelief plain. “I did trust you, and look how it ended. But of course,” she added, an odd gleam in her eyes, “I don’t understand, I can’t, I’m just a brat. I still believe you could have chosen us, and your future, over your past.”

“Oh Christ,” he said, “do you even hear yourself?”

Her face turned ashen, and the newspaper slipped from her fingers. He watched as she paced, and he began to feel sick. “Harriet,” he said.

She turned to him. “Do you regret it?” she whispered. “Do you at least regret what you have done?”

“I regret disappointing you,” he managed.

“But do you regret causing the death of Lord Rutland?”

Bodies, lined up, tallest to smallest … wet blond hair spread out in the mud …

“I can’t,” he said thickly. “I can’t regret it.”

A shiver visibly ran through her, and for a moment, she looked afraid. He was irretrievably crushing whatever knightly version she had constructed of him, and knowing he couldn’t stop it from happening jammed his throat with lumps of ice.

Harriet straightened, and she faced him with her chin put high. “I trusted you,” she said. “When you showed me exactly what you were when you tricked me into marrying you. And then struck a deal with my father. And pretended to be doing the honorable thing in my parents’ parlor while I was so afraid, I could barely think straight. All that I knew, and yet I resolved to trust you—more fool me. I have no choice: I must return to London.”

The words reached him muffled, as if from underwater.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said.

“How could I stay?” she said, her gaze already bouncing around the room, locating her belongings.

“It is unsafe for you, on your own.”

She looked him dead in the eye then. “The truth is,” she said, “I feel even less safe with you.”

Her words sliced at something vital in the very fiber of his being. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe.

Later. He would approach her later, when they were both in possession of all their senses.

“If that is how you feel about me,” he said, “it would indeed be best if you left for now.”

He walked out the door, because watching her pack made him want to howl.