26. Chapter 26

Where in the blasted world did Callum disappear to?

She'd spent far too much time listening to Lady Agnes drone on about her uncomfortable journey north, before she could excuse herself to check on the children.

She found them with Mrs. Jorge in the library, where they had fallen asleep on the couch while Mrs. Jorge read to them from Frankenstein. While she'd have to speak to her maid about her choice in reading material, the fact remained that Mrs. Jorge was a delight in helping her with Georgette and Jacob, when that was the last thing her job entailed.

Though Mrs. Jorge had taken to the role with aplomb. And it might be easier to find a new maid, than it would to find a suitable governess. Nemity could deal with a new, inept maid. What she didn't want was for the children to have to deal with a new, inept governess.

A possibility she would discuss with Mrs. Jorge once the children went to bed this eve.

The more pressing matter at the moment—in the long list of pressing matters—was to find Callum.

He'd disappeared from the house, which was odd because she knew he always liked to be within a hundred steps of her—within screaming distance—as his drive to protect her overrode everything else.

Except not at the moment.

After a quick sweep of the gardens, she made her way to the stables.

Callum was inside one of the stalls, his head bobbing up and down from view as he saddled his horse.

She walked down the length of the main corridor in the barn, her approach silent, for he didn't look up as she came to a stop in front of the stall. That, or he knew full well she was watching him and he was purposefully not looking in her direction.

"Ca—" She stopped, having to clear her throat. "Callum, where are you going?"

"Lady Agnes knows about my gardening assignment, I imagine." Not surprised at her presence at all, he glanced up at her, then went back to tightening a strap. He'd known full well the moment she'd entered the barn.

Nemity took a step forward, her hands wrapping over the top of the stall's half wall as she watched him continue to avoid her. "She does know you were a gardener, but I deflected that easily enough. She was more concerned about why I left London in such haste after leaving Vauxhall without you."

His head stayed bowed as he worked on the girth and he nodded to himself. "And what did you tell her?"

"You were already here, so it was easy enough to convince her we did not break things off and that I absconded with the children to hide that fact."

He nodded again. "If anyone could convince her of that, it would be you." He finished tightening all the saddle's straps and stood upright, moving to the half door and stepping out into the main walkway. His arms crossed over his chest as he leaned his hip on the half wall next to her. "That is all? She is satisfied?"

"No." Her jaw fell slightly and she took in a shaky breath. "I told her we are getting married. She is insisting on staying until she witnesses it with her own eyes."

His eyes went wide. "You what?"

"I am sorry." Her words rushed out. "It was the only way I could convince her to not take Georgette and Jacob. I didn't think she would insist on staying until the deed was done."

His head turned in the general direction of the manor house. "You think that old bat doesn't know every trick you have up your very loose sleeves?"

Her fingers went on his arm and she couldn't hide the tremble in her hand. She looked up at him, fear creeping into her voice that she didn't want to admit to. "Where are you going, Callum? Are you running from me?"

His mouth opened. Closed. Opened again and he shook his head. His fingers ran through his hair. "Hell, Nemity. No. Yes. No."

Her hand snapped away from him and she shuffled a step backward.

He was leaving. Leaving her.

She'd only said it because she didn't believe it. But then there, out of nowhere, he was leaving her.

Leaving.

Another step backward, her left hand landed on the top of the half wall so she wouldn't lose her balance as dizziness set in.

He was leaving.

After everything. He was leaving her.

And that would mean Georgette and Jacob would be leaving her as well.

Everyone…gone.

Her stomach started to twist, bile chasing up her throat.

"Nemity, you have to understand." He took a step forward, his hand going out to seemingly catch her upper arm before she lost her balance, but she jerked another step backward and out of his reach before he could grab her.

Her look went vicious on him. "Understand what? You'd thought to be quicker in abandoning me? Already gone? Direct in your exit?"

"Nem…no, I don't know what I'm doing down here."

Her left hand flew up, swinging toward his saddled horse. "You're leaving, that much is obvious."

"No." His head tilted back, his look on the rafters above as a growl rumbled from his throat. "No, I'm confused, and that is a state I am never in. I'm thinking one thing and then you appear in front of me and I'm thinking another, and I don't know where my mind is at."

She sucked in a breath, attempting to keep calm when she was about to lose everything. "Confused about what?"

His stare still on the rafters above, he shook his head. Like he expected all the answers he needed to just come raining down from above and they weren't. "I don't tell you much about me—I know that. And you don't ask, you don't push because that is who you are and I adore that about you."

His stare dropped to her, his look carving deep into her with want and madness and restraint, making her heartbeat thunder out of control. "I've nearly died multiple times in my life, Nem."

"Callum—"

His hand flew up between them. "Stop. What you need to hear about is the first time I almost died."

She swayed slightly, but then her grip on the half wall tightened, refusing to let her fall even if the bones of her knuckles popped out of her skin.

She nodded, her voice soft. "Tell me."

He stared at her for a long moment, and she could see the torment in his eyes. The torment he was unleashing to the light of day for her.

His head dipped, his stare centering on the hay-strewn floor between them. "They came at night…Boney's forces."

He heaved a deep breath and lifted his gaze to her. "Even though he lived in England for much of his life, my father was Prussian, and at that, loyal to his homeland. My mother was the daughter of a wealthy London merchant. When I was six, my father brought us all to Prussia—with Austria close to falling to France, he was well aware of what the future held. My grandfather—my mother's father—fought him, tried to convince him to let me and my mother stay behind in England, but my father would not hear of it. The night before we left, they fought again, my grandfather's last stand. But in the middle of it, my grandfather dropped dead. I do not know the circumstances, only that my mother was destroyed by her father's death. And she was my world…my very happy world."

He swallowed hard. "So we moved to Prussia, and my father bought us a beautiful manor outside of Berlin. It was grand and ostentatious, but it had beautiful gardens my mother and I played in every day. Father was gone much of the time in service to the army, and for that, I was glad. He was not a kind man. An exacting bastard, if I were to judge him."

"That was who you were channeling at Vauxhall?"

"Mostly." His shoulders lifted. "But we held those days high, those days when it was just me and my mother. There was laughter and sweets and warmth and learning—she was intelligent and taught me so much in my early years. French, German, some Latin. Mathematics and philosophy—topics that were far beyond my years, but she never dumbed any of it down for my age. She expected me to learn and I did."

Her heart constricted, for it was easy to see how much he adored his mother.

"And when my father would arrive for short visits, she would trot me out and I would recite all I learned. I realized many years later, all of that was about pleasing my father, living up to his high standards in his wife, in his son. If we didn't perform to his exact specifications, my mother felt the back of his hand."

An intake of breath, and her fingers lifted to her lips.

"It wasn't long before Prussia entered the coalition, and not long after that, my father led a contingent in the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt. He escaped with his life and returned home, but it wasn't for long. Boney's forces were on his trail."

He paused, pinching the bridge of his nose for a long breath. "They came in a swarm that night. All these men with rifles with bayonets, flooding the house. My father rushed me and my mother up the servants' stairs and he shoved us into a far-flung room to hide, but they found us. My father fought them, fought to save us, fought them from coming into the room—the one admirable thing I remember about him. He was trying to give my mother and me time enough to escape.

"Our driver, Hector, was on the ground outside of the window and my mother didn't hesitate, didn't say a word, she just pushed me out the window. Hector caught me—broke my fall as I was just skin and bones at that age. He set me down and waited for my mother to follow, but halfway out the window, she stopped, then slumped onto the windowsill. He saw that and he picked me up and ran with me over his shoulder. The last time I saw my mother was when I was hanging over Hector's shoulder, and she was half splayed out of that window, blood dripping from her face. Even in the dark, I could see it so clearly with the light from the torches below. The blood splattering out onto her cheek. She didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to me. Didn't get a chance to kiss my forehead like she did—long—like she was imprinting herself onto me every time she did so."

Tears brimming in her eyes, Nemity couldn't help them from spilling over.

At that, Callum's eyes closed, wincing as the memory took a hold of him.

Nemity's hand crumpled, her knuckles pressing into her lips as the pain in him palpitated in the air around her and made her own heart crack in two for him.

His head turned to the side, his eyes still closed as he started talking again. "The man that saved me—Hector—he took me in. Raised me. Any family I had in Prussia or in England was dead." He opened his eyes and expelled a deep breath. "Then, years later, I found out what Hector really was."

Her brow furrowed as she tried to force words past the lump in her throat. "What was he?"

"He was the first Guardian of the Bones. Before he died, before we left England, my grandfather had at great expense employed Hector to protect us—my mother and me—without us or my father knowing. My father never would have stood for his father-in-law's interference. Hector looked the average man on every account, but he was deadly, one of the deadliest people I've ever known. He killed two men while carrying me that night we escaped from Berlin. And his breath never even quickened, he was that efficient."

Her hand dropped to her side. "He came with you from England?"

"He did. He was the first Guardian. My grandfather's surname was Bones, hence, he deemed them the Guardians of the Bones."

"Them?"

"There was another as well. Hector and a maid in our household, who wasn't truly a maid, but a guardian as well. Miss Bannerson. Those two brought me back to England, kept me fed, gave me a home to live in while they built the Guardians of the Bones. It was during the Continental wars and the need for people like them was great. Ones that would protect the people in harm's way that needed protecting. Both of them were gone much of the time. And then I grew tall and strong—earlier than most boys—and Hector asked me to become a Guardian. He'd already taught me everything he knew, and I owed my life to him, so I said yes."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen, nearly fourteen."

She gasped, her hand covering her mouth. Her fingers slowly fell away as she shook her head. "And you've been paying back that debt ever since."

He shrugged. "This job—it was what I was meant to do."

She nodded, her look sinking to the ground, studying stands of hay as the breath stole out of her chest. She knew what he was saying. He was telling her he was always going to be a guardian. That he was leaving because he would never be anything more than a guardian. Never be anything to her other than a stray dalliance.

No.

Clarity slammed into her.

She didn't want him to go. Didn't want him to be a guardian. Didn't want him to be her protector. She wanted him.

Him.

As a husband. As the one that she knew to her bones would never hurt her—would move the sun and stars for her if it made her happy. She wanted him as the father that Georgette and Jacob needed. She wanted him because of his intelligence and his wit and that undeniable energy between them that drew her to him, a moth to flame.

She wanted him.

Heaven above, she was in love with him. Deeply so. Irrevocably so.

So much so that the pains in her chest at the thought of him leaving her now were close to making her collapse onto the ground.

She'd been alone for so long, accustomed to it. Thrived on it. And now this. An upheaval of her whole life.

An upheaval she was going to have to fight for.

Her look crept up to him, her voice cracking with the weight of all that was running rampant through her mind. "And are you meant to be a guardian for the rest of your life?"

"All I know is that I've been doing what fate has handed me."

Her stare sank into him, willing him with everything she was to hear her, to feel this like she was feeling it. "Callum, fate handed you me."

He paused, a breath of air puffing out.

His eyes locked on hers, the silver that reflected the world around it sparking in a way she'd never seen before.

Possibility. He was seeing it. Imagining it.

His look snapped away, and he shook his head, running a hand through his hair. "What you're asking of me, Nem…you're asking me to give up everything I've ever known."

"Except you've also known what a family is. You had that with your mother. You know that a family can be your whole world."

His voice dipped into a heart-wrenching growl. "And that is the worst of it."

"How can you not want to choose me?" She took a step toward him, closing in on the space between them. "Choose a family with me?"

"My mother was everything, Nemity." His growl turned into thunder. "Everything. And she was ripped away—skewered in front of me. I wanted to be there with her. Dead. That was where I wanted to be."

She heaved a frustrated breath. "So you'll not risk having a family again only to lose it? That is ridiculous, Callum. You risk your life all the time with the Guardians."

"Yes, but that is just me. If I die, I die. I am responsible to only me."

"So you're choosing the coward's way?" Her voice turned desperate and she hated it, but damned if she wasn't going to fight this down to the last tooth. "You're willing to take yourself away from me? When I think you are everything? Everything I always wanted but never got?"

"Nemity…"

"Stay." She reached out and grabbed his forearm. "Stay with me. Please. Please st?—"

"No. Stop." He yanked his arm out from her grip.

"What?"

He stepped back. "No. This isn't right." Another step away. "I have to go talk to Thomas."

Three more steps and he moved into the stall and grabbed the reins of his horse, then led Pharaoh out, his feet not slowing as he walked past her. "I can't do this right now, Nemity. Wait. Just please, wait. Don't do a thing until I'm back."

"But…"

Without another word, he disappeared out into the daylight, leaving her in the shadows.

He didn't want her.