“I stole a horse.” A grey stallion. “It was worth five times what I was worth. More.”
It was worth nothing compared to him. “And you took Cynthia.”
“Kidnapped her. If the earl ever wanted her… if he ever found us… I would hang.” He looked toward the ballroom. “But what could I do? How could I leave her?”
“You couldn’t,” she said. “You did the right thing. Where did you go?”
“We were lucky… we found an innkeeper and his wife. They took us in, fed us. Helped us. Never once asked about the horse. He had a brother in London who owned a pub. We went to him. I sold the horse, planning to pay the pub owner to take care of Cynthia while I enlisted in the army.” He stopped. “I would never have seen her again.”
There was fear in the words, as he was lost to their memory. She spoke. “But you did. You see her every day.”
He returned to the present. “The night I returned, money in my pocket, ready to change our lives, there was a man in the pub. He owned a newspaper. Offered me a job running ink and paper at the press.”
“And so you became Duncan West, newspaperman.”
He smiled. “A few steps in between – a careful investment in a new printing press – the retirement of a man who saw something in me that I did not know was there – but, yes. I started The Scandal Sheet —”
“My favorite publication.”
He had the grace to look chagrined. “I apologized for the cartoon.”
“I was happy that you felt you owed me a penance.”
The laughter in his eyes disappeared at the reminder of their deal – of his promise to help her marry. She hated herself for bringing it up.
“Once I was Duncan West” – he looked back to the ball – “I suppose I should have expected Tremley to find me once he inherited the title and took his place in Parliament. But once he did, he owned me.”
She understood, immediately. “He holds your secrets. And they are more valuable to him in private, where he can use you for news, than in public, where you end up in prison.”
“Horse stealing is a hanging offense,” he reminded her, all macabre. “As is fraud.”
Her brow knit. “Fraud.”
“Duncan West does not exist.” He looked down at his feet, and she saw a glimpse of the bruised boy he’d once been. “There was another boy who saw us leaving,” he said, the words soft and full of memory. “He tried to follow.
“But he was younger, and he wasn’t strong enough, and I already had Cynthia. I made him take his own horse.” Dread pooled in Georgiana’s stomach. “It was dark, and his horse balked at a jump. He was thrown. Died.” He shook his head. “I left him. I got him killed, and I left him.”
She placed her hand to his face. “You hadn’t a choice.”
He still did not look at her. “His name was Duncan.”
She closed her eyes at the words. At the trust he must have for her in order to confess it.
A trust she had not shown him.
“What was yours?”
“James,” he said. “Jamie. Croft.”
She pulled his face down to hers, letting their foreheads touch. “Jamie,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “Gone now. Forever.”
That word, promise and weapon at once.
“And Cynthia?” she asked.
A cloud crossed over his face. “Cynthia does not remember anything before the innkeeper and his wife. She doesn’t remember our mother. She thinks we shared a father. Thinks his name was West.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to know the truth.”
“That her father was a monster? Of course you didn’t.”
He met her eyes. “I took her from that life. She had no choice.”
“You did what was best.”
“She is half aristocrat.”
“And all West.” She refused to let him be ashamed of it. “You chose that for yourself?”
“I chose it for her,” he said, and she understood that more than he could ever know. “When we left Tremley Manor, it was dusk. We rode toward the sunset.”
“West.”
She lifted herself onto her toes and kissed him, long and slow and deep, as though they had all the time in the world. As though their secrets weren’t thundering toward them at breakneck speed.
His hands were at her jaw, cradling her with such care, that she thought she might weep – if she did not want him so very much. She sighed into his mouth as he kissed her again and again, pulling her tight against him, fitting them together in a way that made her wish they were somewhere else. Somewhere indoors. Somewhere with a bed.
He pulled back finally, and said, “So, you see, I keep Tremley’s secrets for Cynthia. But now that they are with Chase…”
Of course, now that Chase knew Tremley’s secrets, Duncan and Cynthia were under threat. And there it was, the reason he had pressed her for Chase’s identity. The reason he had threatened her.
And now Georgiana knew Duncan’s secrets, she would do anything to protect them. To protect him.
Tremley had asked her to choose – Chase or West. And there was no question anymore.
She might not be able to have him with her forever, but she could ensure that his forever was happy, and long, and without fear.
He was so noble. There was so much about this man that she adored. He was deeply, undeniably worthy of this world. Of life. Of love. She came up on her toes and pressed her forehead to his. “What if we married?”