Chapter 107

Kendall may have kept the dark horses of his temper carefully in check all the way back along the passageway. Now that he had the satisfaction of hearing the barn door reverberate on its hinges, he let go of the reins.
"Jesus suffering Christ, what the bloody, goddamn hell did you think you were doing out there? What the hell possessed you to say that to Lady Kertouche of all people?"
"Well ... "
"Well, what? Am I dealing with an idiot? A complete and utter cretin? Do you think you can somehow smooth your way out of this as you have everything else to date? Because this line, this one you've crossed, cuts to the center of the earth."
"It's like this, Your Grace. I had your reputation to consider."
"My reputation?"
"Yes."
"My reputation?" He flung the tray onto the floor where the coffee pot didn't just smash to smithereens, it smashed entirely to his avid satisfaction. "Why the bloody blazes should my reputation concern you?"
"Pardon me, but is this why your wife left you, by any chance?"
"You mean you haven't acquainted yourself with the facts?"
Jesus Christ. How damn dare she stand there, her hair tumbling about the shoulders of his coat, and ask so intimate a question? As the realization rushed his carefully constructed barricades and he was within an inch of spilling his guts about Marietta, another realization leaped like ivy up the walls of his heart. In that second when he'd woken to the tickle of this woman's soft, strawberry-blonde hair beneath his nostrils, peace had woven itself around that same heart.
"I have acquainted myself with the fact that I have perhaps opened my mouth and spoken in a way that on the surface may seem misguided and foolish. But-"
"You think you can lay a false charge on me and then what? Blackmail me for more than that ten thousand pounds, which I was good enough to give you? Is that it?"
"I think you make too much of the fact that money can buy you everything."
"Who says I was saying it bought anything? So far as I am concerned, you gave yourself freely, of your own accord."
So much so his body was a hollow shell reverberating around his heartbeats. So much so it had seared his brain, shaken his core, and he'd suggested breakfast. Well, this was the way to end it. By dismissing it as if it never happened. As if it was of no consequence to him, because that way lay suffering, torture, and misery, the darkest things that had made their home in him ... once.
"So you think. Simple thoughts, Your Grace, are always pleasing to simple minds."
He'd never been so damnably insulted in his life. Was there anything that silenced her, pricked her, made her lose her perfectly constructed cool? The cool that was as much a front as the lies he lived behind?
"Well you should know."
"When all that money does, so far as I can see, is ruin everything."
"If you are referring to you and that damnable runt, then where is he? Hiding in the hay bale?"
"Of course you would probably like that, you deviant bastard. You creeping, peeping, bad tempered,-"
He drew himself straight. "You flatter yourself you are worth creeping anywhere for. As for peeping? Well, I peeped hard that first day of the tournament, I never saw him stepping in to fight that duel like a man."
"Don't speak about Gabe like that."
"What I saw, what I saw even then-"
"Here."
This was where he took her in his arms and told her that was rubbish-money was nothing-and of course, he did not mean to say these things, any more than she probably did, although her eyes glittering dangerously said she did. And he? He couldn't stop thinking about what he had sort of seen that first day. But the thing was, she didn't just dig in his coat pocket, she took out the check and ripped it, the check, not just in half-if it was in half it might be repairable-fluttering confetti would neatly describe it. His check, which he'd been good enough to make out to her last night when the moon was high in the sky and his level of stupidity higher still. And she did it with a set face, that expression he'd come to know and dread. The faintest cold glitter in her eyes but nothing else. She did it before he could stop her.
"Have the ten thousand pounds."
When it was his, why shouldn't he?
He stared at the tiny bits of paper that peppered his shirt.
"Well, the thing is, when it comes to money, it does buy certain things. With that amount, you could have comfortably forgotten about being ruined and have disappeared, instead of trying to manage everything. Your greatest fault if you don't mind me saying? Now, if you don't mind?"
He turned around away from her. If he'd done that last night, left when he'd meant to, he wouldn't have got in deeper.
"Managing? Me? The cheek of those who can't see past their own nose. Well, let's not start on your faults. By all means, please don't let me stop you leaving. After all, making Her Grace, the bitch of Langley, jealous was all this was ever about."
Of course it was. His shirt and hair would hardly be peppered by paper crumbs otherwise.
"Babs?"
He jerked his head around. While he'd sooner cut his heart out and feed it to the dogs despite the fact he'd be dead before he could do such a thing, he admitted one thing. And not where his common boredom was right now either. Finally her eyes were like wild pools in the moonlight, except there wasn't any moonlight, just the harsh reality of dawn streaking across pools the moonlight would never pierce. Not now. Not ever.