Page 102 of Lord Ashley's Beautiful Alibi
Her footsteps resounded down the hall toward the staircase and the foyer.
Gus broke into a run.
On the landing, she caught Amber’s arm and spun her around. “Don’t do this. Do not throw your life away. You are young. Vaillancourt will hurt you. Defile you. Destroy all you have built. Do not reappear. Someone will rebuild the network that you and I can no longer serve. Trust in that. Live your life. I detect Lord Ramsey wants you to live it with him.”
Amber stood, facing her, tears silently streaming down her cheeks. “I would do it, too. Accept Ram’s offer of…life and love. Especially love. But I know of what Vaillancourt is capable. You only know a small bit. I will not have you hurt.” She would have turned, but Gus tugged at her.
“He cannot hurt me now. Kane will not permit it.”
Amber rounded on her. “Do not believe it. Where evil lives, it is capable of destroying the finest, the fairest, the worthiestof any of us. Each of us fights with the weapons we have. You have your own skills, your knowledge of what you and I and our network has done. You have Kane, who has another entire cadre to support him. Use it. Employ it. Never abandon it. As I do not abandon what I know, what I have, what I must do to strengthen the work I have done and what I will leave behind. I must fight as I can. For the love of a freedom I can only imagine. For you to live in the love that can bring you peace and joy.”
“Amber, you told me once never to fail to take love where you find it.”
She ran her fingertips through Gus’s hair. “I did.”
“You can again.”
“Could? Might. Should not. Cannot.” She got a dreamy look in her vibrant eyes and gazed back in the direction of the study and Ramsey. “Perhaps one day I might take the love I’m offered and live in peace. But that day is not this one.” She took the stairs down.
Gus could not move.
At the last step, Amber stopped and lifted her head to regard Gus with a smile. “I love you, sweet Augustine. You have been my dearest friend, my colleague, my collaborator, and my darling sister. Go seize your love and live in peace. You deserve Kane and all the happiness you both will find together.”
Then she picked up her skirts and fled.
*
Ramsey stared atKane. But saw nothing. “She does not listen to reason.”
Kane had never seen him so depleted. So undone.
“I have tried everything.”
Kane put a hand to his friend’s shoulder. “Find yourself.”
Ramsey blinked. “What?”
“Find yourself, and then you will find a way to help her.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t,” Kane said with the perception of one who had known another through many trials and tribulations. “You will find a way.”
A spark of vigor lit Ramsey’s blue eyes. “Never easy, is it, loving another?”
“Never. But then the rewards are more than you imagined.”
Ramsey embraced him once, then turned on his heel to follow the woman he loved.
*
A minute later,Gus flew into the study and halted before Kane. “She has lost herself.”
“But she is strong,” he assured her.
She glanced toward the door. “He loves her.”
Kane nodded.
