22. Chapter 22

Bloody hell.

No.

Impossible.

Two days.

Two days he'd been scouring the countryside. Working in concentric circles outward from the exact spot Thomas had kicked Nemity and the children from the carriage.

He'd found some hay in an abandoned barn that had looked recently ruffled. It could have possibly been the three of them. Or it could have been a wild animal. Beyond that, no obvious tracks, no random strips of cloth on the roadside. Nothing.

This was when he needed Rory from the Guardians. Rory could track anything, anyone with the slightest imprint on the grass. Could see things others couldn't.

But to fetch Rory from wherever he was currently trying to track down Nemity's abductors, by the time they got back, all trace of Nemity would be gone.

Not that he had any trail at all.

So he'd been working in ever expanding circles, looking at every divot in the ground, stopping at every cottage or farm in the area.

No one had seen Nemity or the children.

How had some sort of otherworld sorcery made it possible for a lady in all her finery with two children in tow manage to disappear?

He heaved a sigh from atop his horse.

Apparently, he was looking at that very sorcery.

Or maybe he was seeing things. A mirage.

A hallucination of Nemity standing outside a cottage nestled in a crook between two hills, throwing a wet sheet over a long line of rope to dry it. The top half of her dark red hair was pulled back, the rest of the locks long on her shoulders and lifting in the breeze. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes alert and alive, like she'd been running. The sleeves of her elegant but now rumpled dark blue travelling dress were rolled up to her elbows, and she had a simple white apron wrapped around the front of her.

No. Not real.

He was so exhausted, he had to be hallucinating. The wild machinations of his desperate imagination.

Then the mirage of Nemity turned to an older lady next to her. The older woman laughed, shaking her head, and started rearranging the sheet on the line.

A fucking hallucination.

It had to be.

He alighted his horse and grabbed the reins, walking the distance from the overgrown lane he'd found branching off from the side road. The pathway to the cottage cut between the hills, barely wide enough for a wagon.

Closer. Closer still. And the ghost of Nemity didn't disappear.

Nemity and the woman next to her continued to pull out sheets and clothing and hang them on a line stretched between the cottage and a gnarled old oak tree that only had half of its branches producing leaves.

As the older woman moved away from the drying line, toward the thatched-roof cottage, Nemity turned to where he couldn't see the angle of her face and bent to rummage in the large basket by her feet.

He kept his stare trained on Nemity as he moved in, waiting for her to somehow transform into a stranger he'd mistaken for Nemity in his exhaustion. A woman he was about to scare half to death.

"Stop right there, good sir."

Callum looked to his left to the see the older woman standing in front of the cottage, a Baker rifle propped against her shoulder and aimed directly at him.

He froze, instinct taking over.

One never knew how shaky a finger on a trigger was.

Nemity yelped in surprise and though Callum stayed still, his eyes shifted to her.

Her blue eyes wide, her jaw had dropped, the white towel in her hands sinking to a sopping pile on the ground next to her feet.

"Smart man. Ye have no business here, sir." The older woman took two steps away from the cottage, advancing on him. The scratch of age tinged her voice, but her words were hard steel. She wasn't just dallying about at shooting him. "I encourage ye to be on yer way."

His gaze locked solely on the threat, Callum's fingers spread wide and he slowly raised his hands in the air, the reins of the horse looped in around his thumb.

"Mable—no—no." Nemity ran toward the older woman, her hand raised. "No. He's not a threat. I know him." She grabbed the end of the barrel and pushed it downward.

The older woman looked to her, her left grey eyebrow lifting high. "Do ye, now?"

"I do. He's…" Nemity's head swiveled, her look landing on him. "He's… He's… I don't actually know who he is."

"Nemity—"

The older woman snorted a grumble and looked to him, her look laced with pure disgust. If he was ten steps closer to her, he was pretty sure she would have spit on him. "He's the one, then? The liar?"

"Yes." Nemity looked directly at him, scorn vibrating in her eyes. "He's the one."

The woman lifted the rifle back up, and Callum was now fully convinced it was actually loaded and that her aim would be spot on.

"I don't think that's necessary, Mable." Nemity's voice had gone hard, her stare on him turning to disgust. "I am positive this man is leaving right now."

Callum exhaled a breath. "Nemity, please, you need to let me?—"

"She will shoot you, I have no doubt. So you best be gone." Nemity's glare cut a flaming arrow right through his gut. "Leave. Leave!" The last word erupted, the full venom of her anger unleashing.

His stare stayed on Nemity, ignoring the older woman looking for the slightest reason to shoot him. "Please, Nemity. You need to let me explain. Please."

"Explain what? That you're a liar?" She stepped toward him, her arm swinging in the air. "That you did everything you could to try to get at my money? That you faked everything?"

"No. I didn't fake everything." His look sliced into her. "Not by far."

"Tell it to someone who will believe you."

This was going to rubbish far too quickly.

He nodded, trying to calm her. "You are right. I am not what you think I am. But my name, Callum, that is exactly who I am. I have never lied to you on that score."

She scoffed a forced chuckle. "You think that is supposed to make anything better? When you lied about everything else? Your name means nothing to me when the rest of you is a sniveling, spurious liar not worth the bottom of my boot."

"Nemity…I…" His words dissolved as he glanced at the older woman, then looked back to Nemity. He didn't want to do this in front of an audience. It wasn't in his nature, groveling. But he'd do what he had to, to get her to listen to him.

He notched his voice down, slowing his words, for each one of them had to make an impact on her in order to cut through the lies he'd laid at her door. "Yes, I am a liar. Yes, there are things I never told you—I couldn't tell you. But you—me—I never lied about one second of that. I never faked one second of that. Never faked one look. Never faked one touch. That—that was real. When I was with you—every one of the moments, that was me, that was truth."

She shook her head, her look going up to the grey sky and then dropping to him. "Do you even know what real is?"

"No. Probably not." He heaved a sigh. "Because I haven't been real in a very, very long time. But I am risking my life with the barrel of that rifle pointed at me to stand this ground and tell you that I have been looking for you nonstop since Thomas kicked you out of his carriage. I haven't slept, I haven't eaten, and I'm damn well convinced I might be in a nightmare of my own making right now, but I am here. This seems pretty damn real and I'm asking you just to give me five minutes. Just five minutes."

Her glare cut into him. "Why did you even bother to come look for me? I have nothing for you."

His arms lifted at his sides. "Because it is you, Nemity. It is you. I just needed to know you were safe."

Her eyes closed with a pained exhale.

Heaven above, please let this be the moment, the moment she broke just a little bit. That was all he needed. The slightest crack.

Her blue eyes opened to him, staring at him, and he wasn't sure what he saw in them.

Her head turned from him as she looked to the older woman next to her. "Mable, it is fine. I will talk to him. The rifle can go down. Five minutes and then you can blast a hole in his gut. Will you check on Georgette and Jacob for me, please?"

Thank the heavens.

Mable's eyes narrowed at Callum, the side of her mouth pulling back in a tight line. She dropped the rifle to her side and looked to Nemity. "I will check on them, make sure they are still asleep, then I'll be waiting on the bench." She motioned with her head toward a roughhewn bench sitting to the left of the door of the cottage.

Nemity nodded. "Thank you."

Callum waited until Mable disappeared into the cottage.

Avoiding Nemity's stare, he walked his horse over to the gnarled tree and looped the reins onto a dead, but sturdy branch. Buying time as he tried to gather all his thoughts through the muddle of exhaustion in his brain.

He had to make the next minutes count—count like nothing else ever had in his life.

Nemity followed him part of the way, stopping a healthy distance away from him. Her arms threaded tight against her ribcage. "You look like hell."

He turned to her, finally allowing himself to look at her.

He didn't know how to do this. Didn't know how to not screw this up even more grievously than it already was. He needed to do this right, but he had no idea what right was.

His hand ran through his hair, scuffing the back of his neck. "Well, if it's any consolation, I've been in hell, searching every last speck of this countryside for you." He paused, a breathless chuckle lifting from his chest as he looked to the sheet she'd hung to dry. "And you've been here all along? Doing wash?"

Her jaw shifted outward, her lips pulling tight. "This isn't about me. You said you wanted five minutes—you've already wasted one of them."

"Nemity, there are things I cannot tell you. You have to trust me on them."

Her head dipped down, her stare skewering him. "Except we went through this—I have no trust for you."

"Because some woman told you something about me at Vauxhall?"

"Because that woman is my friend. Someone I've known since I was nine years old. Someone I trust. Someone who wouldn't lie to me."

He nodded, scuffing the back of his neck again.

He had to do it.

He had to tell her.

He nodded more to himself than to her, his look meeting hers. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything."

Her glare eating into him hadn't softened. "Is it even worth my time?"

"I don't know." His shoulders lifted, because he truly didn't know. He'd never had to tell anyone about his life. Never had wanted to tell anyone about his life. "I don't know how you'll react. But what I tell you, it will be the truth. I swear my life upon it."

Her lips parted and a long sigh escaped. Her fingers flicked up at him. "Fine."

He nodded.

An awkward silence descended

He had her ear, but now where to start? His look dipped to the ground, searching for inspiration in the tufts of grass sprouting up from the worn dirt. Searching for something that would convince her this was the truth. Something he could point to that was real, not just words.

His gaze lifted to her. "I have to show you something."

"Then show me."

"It's on my person and I'd rather not have your friend advancing on me with that rifle if I half undress."

Her eyes ran up and down his body, her eyebrows jutting inward. "You need to half undress?"

"I do."

A strangled sigh erupted from her. She motioned past the half-dead tree. "We can go down to the brook." She looked over her shoulder to the cottage. Mable was already sitting a distance away on the simple wooden bench, her eyes skewering him, the rifle clutched in her right hand.

"Mable, we're going down to the brook," Nemity called out to her.

Mable's brow wrinkled. "Ye think that wise?"

"No, but I'm going to do it. I'll stay within earshot. He'll need his horse to get out of here, and if he comes over the ridge alone, you have my permission to shoot him."

"Does he ken I'm a good shot?"

"I am guessing that he has quickly come to that conclusion."

Mable nodded, eyeing him with a great deal of malice, as though she was already imagining the hole she'd blast through him. "I'll be ready."

With a nod to her, Nemity turned back to him and moved forward, walking past him without a word.

He followed, quickly falling in step beside her.

Past one of the hills surrounding the cottage, the land rolled downward to a pleasant brook where willow trees lined the edges of the bank.

They walked the distance in silence. Silence he was afraid to break.

She was next to him. Willing to listen to him.

He was afraid anything but the truth in this moment would sink him for good in her eyes.

But the truth itself could sink him just as well.

Between two willow trees, they reached the edge of the brook, pebbles crunching underfoot with the water bubbling by Nemity's boots. She turned to him, drawing her arms in to clasp them across her ribcage. "What is it you needed to show me?"

He peeled off his dark coat, then his waistcoat, dropping them down to the rocky bank of the brook. Before she could stop him, he pulled free his lawn shirt and tugged it off over his head.

Half naked in front of her, Nemity's gaze flickered across his chest, and her fingers twitched, a flash of craving in her eyes.

That had never been a problem between them, her enjoyment of his body. But that wouldn't make her listen to him.

Only the truth could turn this around now.