Chapter Fifteen

S TEAM CURLED UPWARD from the large copper basin full of heated water, beckoning Cheverley like a lady's crooked finger. He cocked his head, observing the bath as if he were an interloper—a Peeping Tom gazing on something never meant to be his.

He closed his eyes, drifting back to the days when salted sea frothed in every direction. On the ship, the air so thick with salt spray, his skin had become rough as sand. A tub full of fresh, hot water?

Such was luxury. And extravagance. Something beyond his means and his imagination.

Purposely, he called forth the pirate's whisper.

Tu n'es rien. You are nothing.

He waited, suspended in a heartbeat of silence. Then, his blood surged in response.

He wasn't nothing. He was Penelope's husband. He was Thaddeus's father.

He was—for all his ambivalence—His Grace's son and his heir.

And, he was Cheverley, no longer captain of the Defiance, but still captain of his fate.

Whatever restraints remained, they existed only in his mind.

He shrugged off his coat—the coat Penelope had made for him. She'd poured care into every stich. Sewing him into his future, leaving him nowhere to hide.

He yanked his shirt over his head and cast it to the side.

He caught his reflection in the mirror—gaunt, lop-sided, mottled by the glass. The external dirt would wash away; the internal, he alone could dissolve.

Had he not earned every sinew, every scar? Did he not deserve the comfort of a god-damned tub?

Fuck the pirate.

Mrs. Renton had heated the water. Penelope had helped carry the buckets brought up from the kitchens into the chamber that connected the duke and duchess's rooms to the landing of the second floor. He refused to allow any ghosts to exist between himself and this gift.

How many times had he bathed like this as a boy? Unheeding of the effort someone had taken to heat the water, to carry it up the stairs, to fill and prepare the bath. Now, he was aware. Fully aware. Aware of the sacrifice of others, aware of the privileges he possessed.

And, he was aware of the responsibilities connected to those privileges.

He stripped out of his breeches leg by leg, fully naked for the first time since the cave.

Water swished as he stepped into the tub. He braced himself with his left arm and eased into the water. Warmth enveloped him, heat curled the hair at his temples.

Holding his breath, he submerged.

His heavy hair swished as he turned his head from side to side. Sound muffled beneath the water. He stilled in the warmth, as if suspended between everything that had been, and everything he alone could set in motion.

He emerged with a chest-expanding inhale, blinking into the sunlit room as if seeing it for the first time.

Gold. On wall paper.

Everything heavy and dark and expensive.

How could a soul stay strong against such a claiming of wealth and power? Among tokens of authority, how could a man remember he was but a man—flawed, as much prone to injustice as justice, subject to unpredictable elements without and within?

All men were creatures on the deck of a ship, sorting a hundred choices—significant and not—that could mean destruction or survival.

Against such overwhelming mystery, the best armor was humility.

What was a hero?

He didn't know.

But one day, he would be duke. If he seized his place. One day soon, if his father's condition did not improve.

He'd possess unimaginable power, power he could employ entirely differently than his ancestors.

He could lift others up. Make a haven of Ithwick as Pen had made a haven of Pensteague.

Were those the qualities that made a hero?

Stewardship? Care?

He ran a cake of lavender-scented soap along his arms and his legs. The water clouded, and the scent eased tension from his shoulders. His skin tingled as if new.

He leaned back and closed his eyes, taking another deep inhale.

Lavender .

He placed the faint sent that had lingered in Penelope's hair, enhancing the scent his body remembered. He slid lower into the warmth of the tub.

His wife was remarkable in ways he'd never understood. Loyal. Inventive. Competent. Few men would have been able to create what she'd created out of Pensteague. And, if they had achieved such a feat, fewer still would have risked those accomplishments and taken leave to provide care to a man who had only ever caused her grief.

Where had she found her strength, her fortitude?

He wanted to learn by being by her side.

He wanted to begin, now.

Could he?

He stood up in the tub. Water ran down his sides in rivulets. Cool air, revitalized.

He grabbed the towel from the stand, lifted a leg up against the side of the tub, and began to wipe away the damp.

A knock sounded on the door.

"Yes?" he called.

"Lady Cheverley wished me to bring you clothes, Captain Smith," Mrs. Renton replied.

He whipped the towel around his lower half. "Come in."

Since he'd returned to Ithwick and Pensteague, he'd seen the woman who had served at Ithwick since before his birth, but never up close.

Strikingly, she'd changed little.

He skin may have thinned a bit, but she moved with the same brisk efficiency he remembered.

She kept her eyes lowered as she set the clothes on a chair. She turned, froze, and then gasped. Her face drained of color.

He followed her gaze to the ink on his ankle and then cursed silently under his breath.

"Lord Cheverley." Tears sprang in the old woman's eyes.

He grabbed a shirt from the pile and pulled the soft linen over his head, expelling a puff of air as the shirt slipped into place.

It wasn't fashioned like his new shirt—this—this was a shirt from a long time ago.

Thirteen years, to be exact.

"Your lordship." Mrs. Renton raised her gaze. "I am sorry. I should have known you from the start."

"I didn't wish you to." He hadn't wished anyone at Ithwick or Pensteague to know him. Ever.

Hurtheven had been right.

He was an ass. An ass who'd been running from the people who loved him.

The people he loved.

Mrs. Renton sounded as if she were struggling to hold back a sob. He sighed and placed his arm about her shoulders.

"I took pains," he explained, "to make sure no one would guess."

"Oh, Lord Cheverley, my dear boy, why? "

The crease between her eyes said she didn't understand—could never understand. And, in truth, he hadn't any answer that could satisfy.

"When did you return?" she asked. "How long have you been home?"

In a way, but a few, short minutes. Also something beyond his ability to explain.

But even though he couldn't find words, he couldn't lie to her—not to the woman who had practically raised him.

"After the wreck, I was imprisoned for six years," he said. "Several months ago I escaped." Or, rather, a woman—not the pirate—whose form had been sheathed in darkness had loosened his binds enough for him to finally break free.

"Months?" she said with a heartbreaking sob.

"But please, Mrs. Renton. There is more than you can possibly understand." He pushed wet hair over his shoulders. "Promise me that you will not tell anyone. Not yet."

"As you wish, of course." She sniffed. "But her ladyship deserves to know."

"Yes," Penelope spoke from the doorway. "Yes, she does."

The full weight of Pen's dark eyes, so large, so full of conflicting emotion, landed like a punch to his gut. This was what he had hoped for and feared—the storm in her gaze, windy, and rainswept, and unnavigable.

But better a storm than no feeling at all.

"Would you leave us, Mrs. Renton?" Cheverley asked.

~~~

Pen didn't hear Mrs. Renton's reply.

She leaned against the doorway for support, clutching her basket against her chest.

She'd known the captain was her husband. She'd even accepted Cheverley had his reasons for coming home in disguise. But she had never imagined he'd been back on England's shores for months .

Months.

And nothing prepared her for the raw reality of gazing on Cheverley's agonized features free of his filter of lies.

Blood rushed in her ears. Anger met grief, met pain, creating a storm she did not know how to survive.

Then, they were alone.

"Pen—"

"Don't speak." She pushed back the swelling internal chaos. "I promised you a bath in exchange for speaking with His Grace. And now, I intend to give you the shave you requested."

His wary eyes dropped to the towel, soap, brush, and razor in her basket and then returned to her.

"Don't speak," she repeated, preemptive warning replaced her command.

She wouldn't believe anything Cheverley said in this moment.

Months.

What the devil had he been doing?

Her current anger placed at risk all the future moments she'd embraced last night in giddy glee. How had she—even for a moment—been able to overlook the unanswered questions, the inevitable accusations and recriminations?

Then, she looked into his eyes. And his presence filled her with such immense solace she couldn't speak—the same great solace she'd experienced when he'd first taken her into his arms.

Her pair. Her partner. The mirror image of her heart.

Who'd crushed her when he'd left.

She dragged a wooden chair beside the tub and dropped the basket on the floor.

She was dizzy—so dizzy she nearly claimed the seat. If dizzy could be an adequate description the collision of past and present, of loss and love, of anger and pure, primal relief.

"Just sit." She indicated the chair. "Please."

His damp hair appeared darker. The dim light dulled his wrinkles. Like this, it was impossible to believe she had not known him at once.

Then again, perhaps she had.

Hadn't her breath quickened when she saw him striding across the courtyard? Hadn't the power of her response drawn his gaze to the window?

"I wish—" he started.

She lifted her brows. "Not now, Chev. Not yet."

He fell silent and, after a brief hesitation, took the chair.

He leaned back his head and blinked into her eyes. She'd always loved his eyes. Storm-grey. Fathomless. How many nights had she wished she could conjure him back into existence and experience this very expression—a blend of sorrow, apology, hope and— heaven help her —love?

She was lost.

Drowning in his gaze.

She would capitulate, acquiesce. Surrender.

There'd never been anyone else for her but him. There never would be.

"May I speak now?" he asked.

She considered. "One sentence. One. "

"I wish I had been the one to tell you who I was."

Foolish clod .

She'd given him one sentence and that was what he'd chosen to say?

"How could you?" She looked away. "How could you believe I did not already know? Do you think I would have let you touch me like you did last night if I did not know who you were?"

"When did you know?" he asked.

She chewed on her bottom lip until it hurt. That pain was easier to bear. "I wasn't absolutely certain until last night, when I placed my hand in yours."

She'd felt a spark, an invigoration she'd finally managed to place.

She'd felt the same at the stone circle, but she hadn't been ready to believe. Or perhaps, certainty had remained elusive because they'd come together by accident, opposed to last night, when Chev had chosen to reach...

But he hadn't chosen to reveal himself.

He'd played the part of another man.

For months.

"I'm furious with you," she said.

"You don't mean that."

"I do." She frowned, even now unable to resist his pull. She captured his gaze. "I mean it in this moment. What I'll say in the next, I cannot be sure."

He smiled, rueful. "You were always fearless about telling the truth."

"And you have always embraced deception."

"No," he replied. desperate. "Not always. I told you the truth about what I suffered."

Is that why it's too late for you and your love?

Yes .

She turned away. His suffering outsized her anger, but still—"When, exactly, did you return?"

His sigh raked her skin.

"December," he replied.

December. December?

"If you had come home directly, none of this—" She struggled to contain her voice. "You could have prevented Anthony from—"

"I could not have come," he interrupted. "I told you—when Hurtheven delivered me to the Admiralty, I was immediately court-martialed. But it wasn't just that. The Admiralty gave me a mission to complete before they'd set me free."

She'd heard only one word. Hurtheven.

"I see," she said quietly.

He sent her a doubtful glance. "What do you see?"

Her eyes flashed. "Again, you had the opportunity to choose me—to choose your son. And again, you chose Hurtheven. "

"No." His throat moved as he swallowed. "It was the scar on my ankle. The man said his name and then I remembered him."

"Of course you remembered him first," she said bitterly. "You made time to have him witness your will, but you could not make time to meet your son."

"I was protecting you," he replied. "That's why I amended my will. That's why I went to war in the first place. Would you have rather our son be a bastard?"

"Still, you cannot see."

He ran his hand through his hair. "That's not what I meant. Believe me, if I could do things differently, I would."

Would he?

Right now, he believed he would.

Surrender .

The slow melting to the iron-pointed arrows that were her only defense. Because if she succumbed and he left again, she'd have nothing to keep her from being bludgeoned to pieces by grief.

She turned away and filled a small basin with water from the tub. She wet her towel and scrubbed the towel with soap until small bubbles foamed between the woven threads. With hand aloft she returned to Chev.

"These past weeks, you've watched me struggle with the truth I both hoped for and feared. You saw me drowning and you never threw me a line."

Her anger was a dinghy against the tidal wave of emotion in his eyes.

"It wasn't like that."

She dropped her gaze.

"Look at me," he asked.

"No."

"Look at me. Pen, love, please look at me."

The last of her resistance crumbled.

How could she resist him? A part of her wanted to hold him close. To clasp his face to her chest, smooth his hair down his back, and make him promise to never, ever leave again. She lifted her eyes.

He took a deep breath. "I am sorry. I am so, so deeply, and fully filled with regret, I'm sorry does not begin to express how I feel."

Of course, she warmed all the way to her toes.

Cheverley had never apologized. Not as Chev, anyway. But any apology could only be grossly inadequate.

Sorry did not lighten the burden of her loss.

Sorry did not find her within the years she'd spent lost.

And sorry did not heal her greatest wound.

"You may be sorry for going to war. Sorry for your deceit. You may even be sorry that I believed you dead." Her voice fell to a whisper. "But, have you changed? Can I trust you? Can you give me your trust?"

~~~

Was he capable of giving Penelope his trust? Last night, he'd believed so.

But her anger had punctured him, painfully extracting his essence. His soul filled the space between them, pulsing weakly, like a disembodied heart.

He'd spent six years with a woman who'd fed on his terror, who'd violated him in darkness, who'd cut off his hand.

Saw jaws rattled against his bones. Straps burned against his shoulders. Cave stench stung in his nose.

But he wasn't in a cave.

He was in the duke's sitting room.

With his wife, who smelled of midsummer lavender, even as she gazed down on him with a Fury's anger.

He removed the warm, soapy towel from Penelope's hand, and draped the fabric over the tip of his injured arm.

Could he give Penelope his trust?

Slowly, he soaped his cheeks. Warm water tingled on his skin. His beard spiked through the towel, rough against his scars.

He lost awareness of everything else but Penelope. With his left hand, he lifted the razor from the basket. A tremor ran through his fingers as he transferred the razor from his shaking hand to hers.

"Do what you came to do," he said quietly.

Her eyes went wide. "Good heavens, Chev. You cannot be frightened of me! I'm angry. I'm not Bedlam -mad."

Hell yes, he was afraid.

His fear was a tar-like mess—thick, peaty, and hot—clinging and confining when everything in him was desperate to rise. He would be nothing, own nothing, have nothing, if he could not conquer his fear.

He sucked in his cheeks and swallowed. "I trust you."

She frowned, glancing to the razor.

"You can't think I would—" She gazed back into his eyes. "Good God, you do. You think I could actually hurt you."

He didn't believe Penelope would plunge that razor into his neck. His body, however, responded as if he did.

"You can hurt me"—his voice lurched—"more than anyone else. I fear,"—panic and mastery teetered on the pivot point of his trust—"but I place myself in your hands."

She took a step back. "Perhaps another time—"

He seized her by her wrist.

"Now." He spoke gruffly. "I trust you." He released her. "I trust you with my life and I swear I will never doubt again."

She glanced down at the razor in her hands. If she refused, he would not force.

"You told me to go to my love," he said. "I listened. I'm here." He held her pained gaze as long as he was able. Then, he leaned back and closed his eyes. "Show me it's not too late."

His ears attuned to her movement, the gentle whisper of her skirts, the trickle of water off the razor.

She will not hurt me .

He could expose his scars, his neck, his heart, and still, she would not hurt him.

She touched him beneath his chin and moved his face to the side. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

The warm razor skimmed slowly across his cheek. The scraping sound crackled in his ears. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

If he moved, if he even flinched, he'd be cut. She will not hurt me. Breathe in. Breathe out.

With infinite care, she sliced away the past. She will not hurt me.

Another swish of water. She lifted his chin and lathered beneath his throat.

The thin line of the razor's edge traveled up his throat once—the water swished again—then twice, then a third and final time.

She wiped his now-smooth cheeks with a warm towel.

He exhaled.

"Cheverley," she whispered. "There you are, my love."