“So you’ve known this from the first. Even before you offered to marry me.”
“I suspected it, yes.”
“And Sir Vernon knew, too. The whole time. He let take us the penalty for his indiscretion.”
“That’s the way secrets work. People will do anything to hide the truth. I should never have indulged your attempts at an investigation. But I never imagined you’d—”
“Be any good at it?”
He shrugged. “I underestimated you. I freely admit that much.”
She turned away. “I can’t believe this. I’ve been skulking along window ledges, riding demon horses from Hell, risking everything to mend my reputation in Sir Vernon’s eyes so I could travel the Continent with Delia. And now you tell me that Sir Vernon was the culprit, and I did it all for nothing?” Her voice was edged with anger. “This wasn’t a game to me, Piers.”
“It wasn’t a game to me, either. Looking into Sir Vernon’s indiscretions was my duty to the Crown. The man’s going to be given a sensitive post overseas.”
“Where overseas?”
“Australia.”
She put a hand to her brow. “Australia?”
“If there’s any chance a man in his position could be blackmailed, England’s interests would be at risk. Lives could hang in the balance.”
“And so you decided to sacrifice mine.”
“That’s a bit overdramatic, Charlotte.”
“Not by much. Last night cost me a friendship and any shred of respect I might have regained. You betrayed me. I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”
“Can you not? How do you think a diplomat convinces despots to surrender territories? How does he force invading armies to retreat?”
She dropped her gaze to the scorched carpet. “By leaving them no other choice.”
“Got it in one,” he said. “I did what was necessary to protect you.”
“Oh, please. You were protecting yourself. You can’t tell me that what we shared”—she gestured at the wall, the bed, the bath—“was all in the line of duty. It’s grown too real for you, too intense. Too close to your heart. I told you I loved you, and it scared you to death.”
“You don’t love me. You don’t know me. If you think this comes close to the worst I’ve done, you have no idea. You’ve been telling yourself a pretty little story. That I’m an honorable man at my core. I’ve been trying to warn you—crack me open, and you’ll find darkness inside.”
“I refuse to believe that. I know there’s love in you.”
He moved toward her. “I have trespassed and stolen. I have traded secrets and brokered exchanges that caused blameless people to be killed. I have spilled blood with my own hands, and I have left battered men to die alone.”
“England was at war,” she said. “Good men had to do unspeakable things.”
For God’s sake. Piers rubbed his face. “It wasn’t the war, Charlotte. It’s who I am. I have deceived every person in my life since I was seven years old.”
“Well, that’s hardly evidence. Who doesn’t tell lies at seven years old?”
“Not this kind of lie. I concealed the truth of my mother’s death. From everyone. For decades.”
Her brow furrowed. “So it wasn’t too much laudanum.”
“Oh, it was too much laudanum. And it wasn’t an accident. She took her own life.”
“But . . . you were a child. How could you know that?”
“Because I was there. I found her in her bed, just before she breathed her last. I heard her final words.”
“Piers.” She stepped toward him.
He stayed her with an outstretched hand. This was not a plea for pity. Quite the reverse.
“I couldn’t let anyone know it was a suicide. Especially not my father. I was young, but I understood that much. He would have viewed it as a stain on the family legacy.” He paused, looking into the distance. “So I hid the truth. The bottle had slipped from her hand, shattered on the floor. I mopped up the spill, gathered every sliver of glass. I carried it all to the pond in a bundle and sank it with a stone.”
He could still see the reeds clustered at the water’s edge, feel them grasping at his boots as he waded out. He heard the sound of birds singing. And the frog that leapt out of the way as he pitched the stone into the deep, greenish water.
“I didn’t breathe a word of it to anyone,” he said. “I meant to pretend surprise when she was found. It would only be a matter of hours, I thought. What I didn’t consider was that my father might delay in breaking the news to me.”
“Delay for how long?”
He inhaled slowly. “Months.”
“Oh, no.”
“I suppose he thought it would be too great of a shock. Rafe was too young to even understand. He said she’d gone to a spa for a cure. Every week or two, he told me she’d written a letter. She missed her boys, but the cure wasn’t taking. Finally, he told me she’d succumbed. I found her dying in May. I wasn’t taken to visit her grave until winter. By then, I’d been concealing the grief for so long . . . I couldn’t have shown it if I tried.”
It wasn’t merely the grief he’d hidden. It was the shame. The shame of lying to his father, of denying his mother her rightful mourning.
The shame of not being enough to make her stay.
A mother was supposed to live for her children, wasn’t she? But Piers hadn’t given her sufficient reason to carry on.
I can’t. I can’t bear it.
He pulled away from the painful memories. “Suffice it to say, deceit has come easily to me ever since.”
She looked at him with those clear blue eyes. “I’m very sorry for what happened, Piers. I’m glad you told me the truth. I hope you’ll talk about it more. With me, or Rafe, or someone else. But I don’t see how this excuses what you did last night.”
“I’m not offering excuses. Or apologies. I don’t desire forgiveness. I did what needed to be done.”
“What needed to be done?” Her eyes widened in disbelief. “You gave me that speech about being a powerful man with every option at his fingertips. Am I to believe you couldn’t come up with any other idea besides setting fire to my undergarments in the middle of the night?”