Page 74 of With Love in Sight
Pain washed through him. “Yes.”
Her eyes tensed at the corners like they used to when she went without her spectacles. “Perhaps you had best explain.”
Bitterness mingled with the pain. “What is the point? You have already declared you will not have me.”
He suddenly turned from her, unable to bear being so close to her now that he knew she was lost to him. He strode for the door to his dressing room.
“Where are you going?” Imogen cried. He could hear her scuttling after him but didn’t turn around.
“I’m going to change out of these clothes,” he said, the weary defeat in his voice apparent even to him, “and then we can see about getting you ready for your journey back to London.”
Chapter 31
Imogen’s steps faltered. He was sending her home before she could get the answers she needed to help this damaged family. But a second later she resolutely put her head down and marched forward. She grabbed Caleb’s arm just as he was about to go through the door and spun him to face her.
“Now you listen to me,” she ground out. “I will not stand by and watch you completely destroy whatever tenuous peace this blasted family is living under. You will give me answers, and you will give them to me now.”
His eyes had dulled, and he regarded her with a weary defeat. “Why? You’ll be leaving soon. Telling you will change nothing.”
Her heart ached at the lost look in his eyes. But she could not have put that there. He did not love her, after all. He would forget her soon enough.
That did not mean, however, that she had to leave him with nothing.
“That may be. But then again, telling me may help everything,” she said. “Let me in, Caleb.”
He regarded her uncertainly for a moment. It was now or never.
“I have already figured that it has to do with Jonathan’s death.”
Such pain flared in his eyes that her chest constricted. She reached for his hand and squeezed it reassuringly.
“If Emily did not tell you, how did you find out?” he asked, his voice hollow and resigned.
She smiled sadly. “All part of being a wallflower, I’m afraid. I’m unbelievably observant.”
Still, he looked uncertain. She pursed her lips, and then gave him a little push toward the dressing room door. “Why don’t you change into something dry? When you return, I expect answers.”
He nodded distractedly and disappeared inside. Imogen went to a set of heavy mahogany chairs before one of the windows, sinking onto the slate blue damask cushions.
It wasn’t long before Caleb appeared, dressed in a dry linen shirt open at the chest and soft buckskin breeches. His hair was still damp but now brushed back from his forehead. He regarded her with hooded eyes for a moment before joining her. Imogen clasped her hands primly in her lap, turning her eyes to the landscape out the window, patiently waiting for him to start.
“I loved my brother,” he said haltingly. “Before I begin, you must know that.”
She shifted her gaze to his and nodded. For some reason her heart was thumping like mad in her chest. She clasped her hands tighter to keep herself from reaching for him.
“I always allowed him to follow after me. We were ridiculously close, he and I. I am not being conceited when I say I know he looked up to me. And he was such a jolly fellow, a veritable ray of sunshine, that I admit I admired him as well.
“That last morning, however—” Here he stopped. He cleared his throat and stared unseeing out the window. “I was twenty. I had my two closest friends visiting, Tristan and Morley. Perhaps you remember them?” At her nod he continued. “We were young men and wanted to discuss women and gambling and all things inappropriate for younger ears. We had made plans to spend the following morning together by the fishing pond, reveling in this new level of adulthood we had reached. I did not want my younger siblings tagging along. And I told Jonathan so.”
His mouth twisted, but not in humor. There was a deep self-loathing in that expression. “He did not take it well, I’m afraid. We fought. I told him I didn’t want children with us, that he would ruin it for us. I told him he was a burden, an infant, a loadstone I didn’t need around my neck.”
Imogen’s heart ached as she watched Caleb’s profile. The muscles in his jaw worked painfully and he swallowed hard.
“We set out early the next morning. I had no idea that Jonathan and Emily had snuck from the house to follow us. They had taken a circuitous route, you see, not wanting to be spied, and had tried to make their way over an embankment of rocks. But I saw them. I was so angry…” For a moment he sat silently, seemingly lost in his memories. Suddenly, he cleared his throat, looking at Imogen quickly before resuming.
“I climbed up to them. We fought.” He pressed his lips together, seemed to struggle for words. “So many words I said, that I wish I could recall. I finally turned to leave. But Jonathan grabbed at my arm. I threw it up, trying to ward him off. He flailed. The look on his face was full of such surprise. And then the rocks gave way…”
His voice trailed off. Imogen could stand it no longer. She reached out and gripped his fingers. To her relief he gripped hers back fiercely, as if she were his lifeline.
