33. Chapter 33

Callum yanked Nemity the rest of the way over the railing, his heart near to beating a hole clear through his chest.

He hadn't meant to send her flying with Charley.

His overconfidence in his own abilities sometimes surprised him—and not in a good way.

Yet letting Nemity fall to her death was never going to happen. He would have jumped after her, wrapping himself around her and cradling her fall if he'd needed to.

Her back slipping along the railing, her bare feet landed on the floor and her legs instantly crumpled.

A blessing, really, for it gave him the opportunity to clamp his arms fully around her, clutching her to his chest.

Something he needed for himself more than anything at the moment.

She huddled into him, hiding for a long minute, though it could have lasted hours and it still wouldn't have calmed his heart, calmed the manic energy in his body.

He'd almost lost her.

He never knew one second in time could crush his entire being, but that moment when she was flying through the air, just out of his reach, had nearly sent him to his grave.

"Oh, no." Mr. Flourin, Nemity's butler, came running into the foyer.

Holding her away from the railing, Callum leaned over the edge, looking down at Mr. Flourin. "Flourin, make sure the children and Lady Agnes don't see this—then get a footman to help move him out of here. And tell Lord Hedstrom what has happened—he's in the stables."

Flustered, Mr. Flourin's hands shook at his sides. "Y-y-yes sir." He disappeared back from where he came, his fast footfalls echoing down the main corridor, presumably to wherever the children were with Mrs. Jorge.

Nemity pulled slightly out of his hold, and as much as it hurt deep in his gut to give her even a slice of space, he resisted clamping a hand to the back of her head to keep her captured against his chest.

He looked down at her. "Didn't get nicked, did you?" He lifted her chin and he angled his head down to the side to inspect her neck.

"No. Not that I can feel." Her hand came up, her fingers running along her neck. Her eyes met his. "I could have done without getting shoved over the railing, though."

"I was never going to let you fall, Nem."

She stared at him for a long moment, reading intention in his eyes. Her voice came in a rough whisper. "I know that. I trust that."

He exhaled a sigh. He'd never needed to hear those words more from her lips.

Not willing to let her body have any space from his, he wrapped his arms tight around her torso and picked her up, walking back to her room. He walked in and set her down on the wingback chair next to the fireplace.

He didn't really want to bring her in here with the mess that Charley had obviously made, but she needed clothes and he wasn't about to leave her more than five feet from him.

"I'll go scrounge a dress up—which one?"

She looked around the room, dazed as her gaze shifted from one ripped apart spot to the next. Her numb stare lifted to him. "It doesn't matter. A day dress. Whichever one you come across first."

He nodded and disappeared into her adjoining dressing room.

Dresses were crumpled on the floor, stockings, shifts, stays, boots, all in disarray, every corner of the room overturned.

He bent over and picked up two dresses, shaking them out. One peach. One blue. Both looked like day dresses, but he'd never had an eye to tell a day dress from a walking dress from a carriage dress.

He stood for a long moment, staring at them. Taking far too much time deciding which one she would want more in this moment.

Blue. Blue would at least match her eyes.

He gently set the peach dress down and hung the blue dress over his arm, trying to straighten it and tug out the wrinkles that had creased into the fabric.

Stepping back into her bedroom, he stepped around the papers and overturned drawers and stuffing from the bed that scattered across the floor.

"Will this do?"

She looked up at him, her eyes still dazed, then looked at the dress he held out to her. "Yes." The word croaked out.

She suddenly shook her head and inhaled a deep breath that she held in her lungs for a long moment. "Yes. Thank you." Her voice came out stronger the second time she tried words.

He held his hand down to her, she grabbed it, and he pulled her to her feet. Behind her, he set the dress on the chair and moved in front of her, his hands sliding in to slough off his overcoat from her frame.

Her eyes big, she looked up at him. "I—I didn't see. Charley is dead?"

"Yes."

Her eyes closed, a pained cringe creasing the edges of her eyes. "Oh, Charley, what in the hell were you thinking?"

Studying her face, he treaded carefully, for he wasn't certain how she was taking any of this. "I know you loved him, I know?—"

Her eyes flew open, her voice cutting as she interrupted him. "All the love I had for Charley disintegrated the moment I realized he was the one that killed my mother."

Stunned, his hands on her arms stopped and his overcoat fell from her body. "Charley killed your mother? That was why he sent a blade to your neck? How do you know that?"

"He told me—well, he didn't really tell me—it was more that he didn't deny it when I blurted it out. He was holding my mother's journal—I had it hidden in my dressing room. I walked in and he had torn apart my room and he was holding the journal."

"That's what you were hiding from me that second day I was here—her journal?"

She nodded.

"What's in it?"

"The answers, apparently, I've been searching for since her death." Her hand lifted to her face, her fingers rubbing across her eyes like she wanted to make the last half hour just disappear. "The journal has details of every affair she had with a man after my father died. Many of them were with notable people, and she named them. She named all of them except for the last man she was having an affair with. That was the answer that I was always searching for."

"Who was it?"

"Charley."

"What? That wasn't just the rantings of a madman?" His eyes went huge, his breath catching in his throat. He'd been trying to piece together what Charley had been screaming about, but it hadn't made any obvious sense. His eyebrows lifted. "Charley? Your cousin, Charley? He had an affair with your mother? You are sure?"

Her shoulders lifted, and she looked so damn frail drowning in his lawn shirt. "He didn't deny that either. And he knew what was written in her journal, that was why he was after it. He knew the value it had—he would be able to blackmail some of the most powerful men in London with it."

His chest lifted in a heavy breath. "That's why you hid it from me."

Her look lifted to him. "I didn't know to trust you at the time."

"Why would she have something like that?"

Her head shook. "She kept everyone in there—everyone she was intimate with. I don't know why. As leverage, I imagine, in case she ever needed it. My mother was so canny, I can only think that was the reason."

"You've read it fully?"

"I have. So many times. Searching for clues as to who killed her. And there are so many secrets in it. So many that would destroy the lives of many of the men in the ton. I found it after she died, and I guess Charley knew about it. Knew what was in there. But that he would hurt me to get to it…that he would set a blade to my neck…I cannot believe…" A shudder ran through her body, sadness carving into her eyes.

He needed to tell her—after what had just happened, what she'd been through—she needed to know the truth. He had thought to keep what he'd learned to himself, for it would only hurt her, but she needed to know.

He set his hands on her shoulders. "Nem, this is exactly why Thomas sent me to protect you."

"What?" Her head jerked back, her eyes wide as she stared at him. "Thomas knows about the journal as well?"

"No." His lips pulled back as he sucked in a breath. "He suspected that Charley was after the money—your mother's money—your money."

Her brow furrowed. "What? No. Charley never…" Her look dropped away from him, her voice trailing off.

"Thomas knew it before anyone else. It's why he hired me—to find out what Charley was up to. There were the accidents that happened to Thomas, yes, but Thomas suspected something even deeper of his brother after you were abducted that first time. That was why he was trying to keep Charley away from you."

"He tried to keep Charley away from me?"

"Yes—keeping him away from you was a direct order. You didn't notice how quick Thomas was to demand Charley returned to Ravenstone with him after he brought me here?"

"No." Her head shook. "I thought that was Thomas being Thomas—being a tyrant just because he could."

"Think about it—it would have made complete sense to have Charley stay with you while I was here—for propriety's sake alone, it would have been advisable. Charley was right about that. But Thomas wasn't about to risk it. He had all these suspicions of his brother, but no way to prove them."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice caught, her blue eyes wounded.

His hands slipped down onto her upper arms, rubbing. "You believed in Charley. You believed in him so damn much that I didn't want to ruin that belief you had in him—I didn't want to break your heart. There was the possibility I was wrong—that Thomas was wrong. You convinced me of that. You and your faith in him."

"But I was wrong." Her face crumpled. "How…how could I not have known? All these years. All these years he stood by my side, carried me through the horror of my mother's death, when he was the one that sank a blade into her. He—he was my best friend and all along…all along…" Her voice tapered off, a sob choking her.

He wrapped his arms around her. "There was no way you could have known. But if it was Charley's plan all along to get rid of you, it is diabolical how much sense it makes."

"How?" She murmured into his chest.

"If you died, where does your money go?"

"Thomas would get it."

"So your money goes to Thomas, and then Thomas is framed for killing you. Charley wasn't successful in killing his brother and raised too many suspicions in doing so. So what does he do next? In killing you and framing Thomas, who gets everything he's ever wanted in the end?"

Her head pulled back, her eyes wide as she looked up at him. "Charley."

His right cheek lifted as he nodded. "Charley."

Her eyes closed, her body swaying slightly in his arms. "He got everything but my mother."

"Everything but her."

It took her a long moment to open her eyes to him. "But I…I just cannot believe it of him."

"Then you need to sit down for this next bit I'm going to tell you."

"What?" She eyed him, heavy suspicion lining her blue eyes.

She looked like she was about to be sick, so he maneuvered her backward until she was sitting on the chair, and then he dropped to sit on his heels in front of her, his hands wrapping over her bare knees.

"When we were in London, do you remember those few times I left you at your townhouse with my four men outside guarding?"

"Yes?" Her brow wrinkled.

"I was investigating. I visited with both the men that you had been engaged to."

Her head angled to the side, her eyes searching his face. "Why would you do that?"

"Because of you. I couldn't quite stand the fact that you had been used by them and I was thinking to mete out a bit of justice to them."

"Cal—"

"I know." His hand flew up. "I know. But for how they treated you—they hurt you, Nem, so I thought it appropriate. Aside from the fact that I couldn't quite believe that you so egregiously misjudged not just one man, but two."

Her hand flickered upward. "Well, apparently, I am an awful judge of character."

"Except no, I don't think you are." His hand lifted and slid in along her neck. "I think you were just too close to a master manipulator. I think you grew up with that manipulator so you would never have suspected him of being so."

"Charley?" Her eyes went wide. "Why do you say that?"

"I talked to both of those men that you were engaged to. I visited them for some time and talked to their wives and their staff at their homes. They aren't who you thought they were."

"No?" Her jaw dropped.

"No." He shook his head. "They are actually nice men. Your instincts weren't wrong. Their families, their maids and cooks and footmen all attested to it."

Her brow impossibly wrinkled, her mouth opened and closed again and again before words made it out. "What? But…but how?"

"The first one you overheard with the vicar before the wedding—he was repeating back what the vicar told him he would have to do in order to tame you—you only caught part of the conversation. The second man, he actually does enjoy women, and he has two children to show for it. Though you weren't wrong in what you walked in on with him—it is just that he also enjoys men, and he and his wife are in an arrangement of some sort with another man. A bond between the three of them."

Confusion clouded her eyes for a moment and then a spark lit up the blue in her irises. A smile curved onto her face. "Two men…"

His eyes narrowed at her. "Don't even think it."

She looked at him, laughing as she set her hand along his cheek. "You are easily two men put together so you are all that I can handle." Her look drifted off. "But another mouth…"

He dropped onto his knees, leaning forward and pulling her toward him until he could run his teeth up her neck, a growl in his throat. "Don't even think it—I am not a man who is going to share you."

Still laughing, she wrapped her hands around his neck, spreading her legs apart to let him pull her even closer to him. "Believe me, you are more than enough—too much sometimes."

He pulled back to look at her. "Don't forget it."

"I won't."

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, losing himself in the fortune of fate that had delivered him into her arms.

Her hand slid up along the side of his face. "I don't know if I should be happy or aghast that you visited them and poked into their lives."

"Be happy, for what I found out."

"But that means that I ruined my life again and again for no reason."

"Before you put that on yourself, tell me, how did you meet both of your fiancés?"

"I…" Her lips pursed for a long moment, her look going to the corner of the ceiling. "I guess I met them through Charley, if I remember correctly. He was always introducing me to people."

"And how was it that you happened to be outside that cubby at the church to hear your fiancé talking to the vicar?"

She looked up, thinking again. "Charley was with me, he walked me out to the gardens and back again, that was why we passed the cubby to begin with."

Callum nodded. "And the fiancé you walked into the intimate moment with?"

Her head nodded, the pieces falling into place. "I was at his house and Charley was leaving and told me he was in his study."

"And then he tried to convince you not to marry me."

She collapsed back against the chair, shock rolling across her face. "How…why would he do this to me—for years?"

"He never wanted you to get married."

"Because the fortune would go to my husband."

"And be out of his reach."

Her hands curled into a fist, her eyes sparking in fire. "That repulsive ass."

The door to her room flung open, Thomas bursting in. "Nemity, here you are."

Both Callum and Nemity turned to Thomas striding into the room.

Stopping in the middle of the mess of her room, he bent over, heaving breath after breath. He waved a hand in their general direction. "What the hell happened? Why are you only in a shirt? Are you injured?"

"No." Nemity shook her head. "No, I am fine."

"But what happened?" He pulled himself upright, his hand still flying about in the air. "A maid said someone died, then she scampered off. I've been running all over looking for you."

Callum stood up, moving in front of Thomas and grabbing his arms. "Did the maid tell you who?"

"No—if there was another one of those bastards in here after?—"

"It was Charley, Thomas. Charley died."

Thomas froze, blinking, and then his stare centered on Callum. "Charley?"

Callum nodded, his look hard. His look alone telling Thomas all he needed to know. "You were right on all counts. He was behind it all. I will verify with that man you have secured in the stables. But it was Charley. And he killed Nemity's mother."

Thomas looked to Nemity over Callum's shoulder. "Your mother?"

Her lips pulling inward, she nodded.

"No…I…I…didn't want to believe…" He knocked Callum's hands off of him and staggered to the side, his shoulder crunching against the doorframe. He grabbed it to steady himself, then looked to Nemity, and his face crumbled. "Nemity, I am sorry, I am so sorry…I… He never told me where he was that night your mother died. I asked."

Nemity stood up from the chair. Not moving forward. Not moving backward.

His face twisted, tortured. "I asked and then I suspected, but I couldn't believe it…didn't want to believe it."

His head fell forward as his right arm wrapped around his middle. He dragged his gaze back up to her. "I'm so sorry. But he's my brother, Nemity. My younger brother. I wanted to protect him. I didn't want to think that of him. He's my brother." His last words choked out and he turned, stumbling away from the room.

Callum stared at the empty doorway as he moved over to Nemity and slid an arm around her shoulders. He'd stay with her if she needed him, but she seemed much sturdier than she did when they'd first gotten in here. "I should go after him."

"No." Nemity drew in a deep breath and sighed it out. She looked up at him. "No, I think this one is for me to do."

He stared at her for a long moment. She was going to fight him on it. He nodded. "I'll go visit that bastard that had abducted you in the stables. I'll verify what I can."

She nodded, then pulled off his lawn shirt and picked up her dress. Foregoing any shift or stays, he quickly helped her into it.

"Thank you." She went to her toes to kiss him, then moved around him, hurrying out the door. "Thomas. Thomas. Thomas."

Her voice calling down the stairs echoed up to him.

Callum looked around Nemity's room. The mess, the destruction that Charley had caused spreading a wide path.

He bent over, picking up several crumpled pieces of paper to start cleaning, then he stilled, staring at the papers in his hand as he realized the futility of it. It would be days before her room could be righted from being torn apart.

He dropped the papers to the floor.

Better yet, it was time they moved into a room of their own. Together.