Chapter 30

Nylander's world upended on itself and went topsy-turvy. "In league?"

"Of course," Callie said, a shell hardening over the hurt in her eyes. "It makes perfect sense. This whole time, you knew."

"Knew what?" he asked, slowly, to buy time. Her insinuation was clear.

"That Lord St. Alban wanted to sell the Grange to you," she replied, her tone growing hard as well. "And you worked together with this"—she pointed an accusatory finger toward Jack—"with your father to sabotage my chances of purchasing the Grange."

Nylander's gut dropped. "You have it all wrong."

"It explains everything," Callie continued, unheedful, and began ticking items off her fingers. "The cow in the orchard. The damage to the wheel mill. The lost flock of sheep. You had access to it all."

"No."

"The seduction."

Jack gave a randy whistle.

"It was all part of your plan," Callie continued. "And today? I thought it was real." Her voice hitched on that last word. Real.

"It was absolutely real. Every moment."

How had it gone so wrong, so fast? It didn't seem possible.

"That a man like you could find a woman like me—" She stopped. Attractive. Desirable. Those were the words left unspoken. "Now everything you ever wanted is yours for the taking." She lifted empty hands and let them drop to her sides. "You won. I would say fair and square, but this fight was never fair."

She turned to flee, but Nylander caught her arm as she brushed past. She smelled of dirt and grass and ocean spray and sweet apple cider. She smelled of everything he loved in this world, including herself.

"Callie," he said, low, for her ears alone.

Her eyes startled up to meet his. For an instant, confusion and indecision shone up at him, enough to give him a glimmer of hope. The next, they went flat and unreadable.

The sound of heavy footsteps rushing into the cave sounded behind Nylander, and he had just enough time to register the stricken expression on Jack's face before a shout sounded. "Halt in the name of the King's justice!"

Callie gasped, and Nylander pivoted to find the excise men, faces like granite, serious fists clenched and ready for a fight, if it came to that.

Nylander didn't hesitate. "There's the man you seek." His finger pointed dead-square at Jack.

Incredulity spread across his face. "Grassed out by me own blood?"

Nylander hadn't time for Jack's bruised feelings as the excise men's gazes had shifted.

"And she is?"

He stepped in front of Callie, blocking their view of her. "The Dowager Viscountess St. Alban," he stated, imbuing the title with its full, aristocratic consequence to dazzle and distract. The ploy appeared to work as they shifted on their feet in the presence of their better. "Jack Le Grand is the man you seek."

The excise men nodded and stepped forward. Nylander made eye contact with Callie and jerked his chin toward the cave's entrance. This could turn ugly, and he wanted her out of here.

Protest in her eyes, her mouth began to form the words that were surely following. He shook his head and mouthed, "Now."

Still, she stood rooted in place, as if she wanted to tell him something. He must convince her to leave this second. "The fire," he whispered.

In an instant, panic replaced stubbornness, and her feet were moving. At the mouth of the cave, just before she disappeared into the dark, she gave him one last look. He couldn't read it, that look. Then she was gone.

A void, black and heavy, opened inside him. She thought him in league with Jack to steal the Grange out from under her. His hands fisted, and he returned his attention to the group. The excise men had Jack cornered, closing in by small steps.

"Now, you can keep your pretty face intact," began one of the excise men. "If you come with us all docile, like a lamb," finished the other.

Jack barked out a laugh. "Me face ain't been pretty in more years than ye've been on this earth. So if ye be lyin' about that, I gotta wonder what else ye be lyin' about?"

Nylander's fists clenched tighter, and he stepped forward. "Would you mind if I have a word with me dear old pa?"

As one, the excise men nodded and stepped back.

Nylander prowled forward. The loss of Callie settled deeper into his soul with each step, with every beat of his heart. He'd lost her. Because of the man before him, who looked upon the world as one big joke. "You're like gangrene," he growled. "All you touch turns to rot."

Jack cocked his head. "Is this about Her Highness?" He sucked his teeth. "Let her go, Johnny boy. Any woman that would truck with the likes o' me ain't worth havin', that I kin tell ye fer free."

Nylander's world went dull and flat and meaningless. The blackness he'd been holding at bay was given free rein, and he swung around and landed a solid right hook to Jack's jaw. The pirate stumbled back and just caught himself on a boulder before he hit the ground. Seized by blind fury, Nylander advanced. He grabbed the man's collar and jerked him upright, positioning him for another blow. He reared his arm back and hesitated. If he struck Jack again, he wouldn't be able to stop until the man was nothing more than a pulpy mass of bones and skin.

He hadn't yet lowered his fist when a strong, trembling hand wrapped around his upper arm. His gaze cut to meet Lash's steady and wide upon him. Ever silent and observant, the lad could be easy to forget. Which would be a mistake, Nylander knew down to his bones. Only a fool would underestimate the lad and the man he was destined to become.

Nylander knew something else, too: he would have to work his way through Lash if he was to continue going after Jack. The fight drained out of him. He wouldn't be exchanging blows with this lad, his half-brother, not in an eternity of lifetimes.

Ahead, Jack made a big show of working his jaw and swiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. "See what I mean?" He looked to the excise men. "I knew me pretty face wasn't gonna make it out without a few bruises."

They shrugged and settled in against the cave wall, apparently content to let this family drama play out without interference.

What a bloody fecking day.The numbing effect of adrenaline fading fast, Nylander winced and shook out his hand. He'd likely broken a few knuckles on that bloody bastard's face.

"Judgin' by yer right hook, the sailor's life has been treatin' ye well." Jack slouched forward and braced his elbows on his knees. "Could use me beloved boy on the Free Reaver. The straight life on the high seas is a sight more dangerous than an out-and-out pirate's."

Bitterness, acrid and metallic, hit Nylander. "You have your beloved boy sailing with you."

Jack's head cocked to the side. "And ye think yer not me beloved boy? Ye think I truly gave you up?"

"I have no reason to believe otherwise."

Jack's chest puffed up with indignation. "Whose colors do ye think ye've been sailin' under all these years?"

Nylander held his tongue. This conversation wasn't worth his breath.

Jack jabbed his thumb into his chest. "Mine, that's whose."

"You're going soft in the head," Nylander scoffed.

"What? Ye've never once been attacked. Ye think yer the luckiest sailor who ever navigated the high seas?" Jack sifted his weight to rest his elbows on the stone at his back. "No one's that lucky."

Dread snaked through Nylander.

"Ye've sailed beneath my protection, Johnny boy. Ye think anyone would dare touch ye, the son of Jack Le Grand? I kept one finger on ye, made it me business to know all that affected ye. And who needed to know it, knew it."

"I can hold my own."

"Of course, ye can. Like that one"—he nodded toward Lash—"yer me beloved boy."

"Get this in your head, Jack. I'm your nothing. After that day, we can never be anything to each other. And not after what you've done to Callie."

Jack waggled a leering eyebrow. "Callie?"

Nylander ground his teeth together and kept his mouth shut.

"Why can't ye see?" Jack asked. Was that a ribbon of hurt threading through the question?

"See what?"

"I've given ye everythin' ye ever wanted."

The words hit Nylander with the force of a blow. Jack truly believed them.

Jack held up one finger. "A family with the Van Rijns." Another finger joined the first. "Land with Wyldcombe Grange. Why can't ye see?"

Nylander did see. In Jack's twisted version, he'd acted out of fatherly love. "You haven't given me everything I've wanted. You've only pushed her out of my reach."

Jack waved his words away. "Women come and go, Johnny boy. Ye've had one, ye've had 'em all."

"I know all about your view of women."

"Well, yer ma had her charms, that's sure. And Lash's ma, she's somethin' special."

"All done with your family chat?" asked one of the excise men as he pushed off the wall. The other dug a pair of cuffs out of his voluminous overcoat. "You gonna come easy?"

"Aye," Jack assented.

A gun cocked, and, in an instant, the cave went on alert. Four sets of eyes swung toward the source. There stood Lash, eyes wide, hands trembling, gun pointed dead center at one of the excise men's chest. "You'll not be layin' a finger on me pa."

Nylander started forward, but Jack met his eye and gave a slight shake of his head. Nylander froze. The situation was spiraling out of control, as situations tended to do around Jack. Yet he was the only man in this cave, right now, who could stop the spiral.

Jack held up a steadying hand. "No, son, I can't let ye ruin yer life o'er the like o' me. I'll be goin' with these men. The King's justice needs to be served and all."

"But, Pa?—"

Jack shook his head. "Ye stay with yer brother and learn from him." His canny eye shifted to Nylander. "And, ye see the lad gets some schoolin' in him."

Lash lowered the gun, and Nylander secured the weapon from the lad's slack hands. The excise men grabbed Jack.

"Ain't no need fer these cuffs, boys. If I wanted to escape, ye couldn't hold me."

His captors might've rolled their eyes skyward, but they made no further move to bind Jack. As they strode past, Jack turned to his sons one last time. "Ye ain't seen the last of me, me boys."

The trio disappeared into the night, leaving Nylander alone with Lash, a lad he hardly knew, a lad whose welfare was now his responsibility. A lad whose eyes reflected back at him a pain that had been inflicted on him twenty-five years ago. For he, too, had once loved Jack that deeply.

"He's not worth it," Nylander said, knowing full well the lad wasn't ready to hear those words. "He'll only break your heart."

Lash swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. "What do you know?"

Of broken hearts? Quite a bit. "Follow me," was all he said.

He strode out of the cave, the lad's soft tread at his back, and into the fallen night. Of necessity, they shortened their step when they reached the inches-wide goat scramble and the cliff's edge, their progress slow and painstaking on this return trip without Callie as a guide.

At last, they reached the top, and the fire appeared in the distance, its fiery orange a few shades dimmer than it had been a half hour ago. The fire was getting under control.

Outside the edge of light, figures silhouetted by varying shades of darkness and light scurried to do the bidding of the woman at the helm. Callie. The township hustled to fulfill her commands, every last one, confident their mistress knew what she was about.

"Come," Nylander tossed to the lad at his side, feet already on the move. "We need to see this through."

Careful to keep his distance from Callie, Nylander and Lash found a section of thatch along the barn's back roofline that needed more dousing. All the while, he kept half an eye out for her. Believing what she did of him, she wouldn't want him here.

The dull, flat feeling that rendered the world blank and meaningless again hollowed out his insides. She believed him in league with Jack Le Grand. Why shouldn't she? If he'd just told her at the very beginning what he knew, there might've been a chance for them.

Likely not.

His luck didn't work that way.

The last twenty-four hours had been nothing more than an exercise in delusion of the most massive proportions. Had he really thought he'd be lucky enough to spend the rest of his life with her?

He was the scum beneath her feet.

The air saturated with smoldering ember and thatch, Lash met his eye. "Where to next?"

"The fire is under control." He sounded as dull and flat as his soul felt. "It's time to leave, now."

"Where are we going, then?"

"To London."

Nylander's feet kicked into motion, away from the cliff barn, away from her, determination gathering steam with each stride. He had a few matters to sort out in London.

Jake wouldn't like the way he wished to resolve the matter of Wyldcombe Grange, but he would do as Nylander requested.

Then it was on with his life.

Without her.

Dirt and gravelcrunched beneath Callie's swift feet, the only sound in the interminable night, as she made swift progress toward the main house. Only the race of her heart was faster.

Where was he?

He'd returned to help with the fire alongside Jack Le Grand's lad, but in the chaos of it all, she'd lost track of them. Once the fire was nothing more than damp, smoldering ashes, she'd discovered they were gone.

Her feet, blistered and sore, notched up their pace. There was something she must tell him.

No, not tell.

Ask.

She would sink to her knees and ask, nay, beg for his forgiveness for thinking, even for a moment, that he'd been in league with a villain like Jack Le Grand. Shameful, unthinkable, utterly, disgustingly wrong, were the words she'd spoken to him.

In that moment, she'd let every bad word she'd been called to her face and behind her back—unnatural, mannish—whisper in her ear. How could a Viking warrior angel like Captain John Nylander possibly feel the way she wanted him to feel? There must be trickery involved, the malicious whispers went. They'd overridden not only her good sense, but, most importantly, what she knew of him in her heart.

And when the excise men had rushed in and he'd protected her, the knowledge of how deeply she'd wronged him sank sharp claws into her as she'd rushed to tend her duty as temporary mistress of Wyldcombe Grange.

The roof had been saved. The Charentais still was salvageable. It would live on to distill apple brandy another day.

The brandy, every last cask, was lost to the explosion. She wouldn't be purchasing the Grange. That, too, was lost to her. In truth, it had never really been within her reach.

But that wasn't at all what she must tell him. Not even close.

The house drew closer, and just ahead, in the stable yard, movement caught her eye. She slowed her feet to a stop as two riders, Jack Le Grand's lad and him, mounted their horses in the distance. She backed off the path and faded into shrubbery gray with shadowy night.

He was leaving. Before… a hollow void, as deep and infinite as the universe extending above her head, opened inside her… before she could ask, beg, for his forgiveness.

There would be no absolution for her sins. Which was exactly what she deserved.

A quick twist of the reins and a soft click of the tongue, and the horses whirled onto the path. The riders raced past her without the faintest notion of her presence. She clambered out from behind the protective shrub, her eyes squinting into the distance, determined to keep on him until the night swallowed him whole.

As if her heart had been putting off the inevitable, it now took leave to fully break in two, then four, and on and on, until the pieces of it were nothing more than powdered dust. Wyldcombe Grange… Nylander… they were lost to her, decidedly and irrevocably.

And now, oh, irony of ironies, those which were lost would belong to each other. The Grange would be Nylander's. He'd won it.

He would make a bloody good squire. He had the respect and admiration of the tenants and town, which was something she'd never been able to accomplish in her years here. This outcome had been destined from the very beginning.

Except, hadn't there been a moment tonight? On the shore wild with laughter and revelry, when she'd downed the glass of cider and the townsfolk had roared their approval, hadn't she been like him and one of them in that moment?

She took one step forward, then another, away from memories that would drive her toward madness if she allowed them purchase. Through the kitchens, up the grand staircase, she continued until she found her bed, where she laid her exhausted body, still clad in the emerald silk dress, now ragged and sodden. Her soot-flecked head found the pristine white pillow, a pillow no longer hers.

It would belong to the man she'd lost.