keep her.
'So you'll stay at home with her? Try to be domestic?' he asked, his voice full of derision. 'How will you fit in with her friends and family, when you simply don't know how? My God, you couldn't sit a gathering before you turned killer.'
He was right. Hugh had been too long in the field, and was sodifferent from the people in her life anyway.
'If you can't make a decision,' Quin said, his tone low and seething, 'I'll bloody make it for you!'
The dream, the ominous reminder of the book, Quin's arrival—what more did Hugh need to see to realize he had to let her go…?
Apparently, Hugh needed to see Jane at the door with her bags packed, her mien stoic, and jaw battered. Hell, after the events of yesterday and the sight of the book this morning, she likely wouldn't have stayed with him anyway.
Quin sucked in a breath at the sight of her face. 'My God, Jane. Are you all right?' When she nodded, Quin shot Hugh a black look.
Jane was dressed for travel, her bags at her feet. She was truly leaving. Today.
'You're goin' with him?' Hugh asked, his voice breaking a pitch lower.
'What else would I do?' She smoothed her skirts. 'I'm glad you sent for him when the threat passed. Very forward-thinking.'
'I dinna—'
'I thought so as well,' Quin interrupted. 'Doing the right thing for both of you. Jane, we need to get on the road if we intend to catch the train in Perth. Say good-bye and come along.'
When she nodded absently, Quin collected her bags, then strode to the carriage—because they were leaving. Now.
Hugh had known he and Jane would part, but he'd thought he would have time to prepare himself. He turned back to Jane, staring down at her. 'I was going to see you home.'
'You don't think Quin can keep me safe?'
'Aye. Now. But I wanted to get you settled in, before—'
'Beforeyou leave again?' She shrugged, her face cold.
'We knew it would come to this. No reason to prolong it unnecessarily.'
He exhaled, running a shaking hand over his face.
'We both have to get on with our lives,' she continued. 'This is what you want, isn't it?'
'I doona want you to go yet.'
'Yet.'
'What doyou bloody want?' Was he sweating more? He couldn't stop seeing that dream before him.
Her voice quavering with emotion, she said, 'We're back to the simple choice. We put the curse behind us. Or you refuse, and once I leave here today, I will never want to see you again.'
He couldn't promise her he would disregard or forget something that had molded him and he couldn't easily give her loss, which was all she would have with him. But he had to know…'You'd be willing to be with me, even after everything you learned?' he asked, wishing she would say no. To find the one woman who could accept him, and to find her inJane would be too much.
'I'd be willing totry , to see,' she finally answered. 'To maybe understand everything better.'
'And after seeing the book?'
'That's something I don't think I willever understand.' She shivered. 'Yes, when I look at it, I fear it—but I also know we could be stronger than anything written there.'
Jane was here for the taking, ready to face hell for Hugh—and it humbled him. But shouldn't he be ready to do the same for her?
'Jane, come along!' Quin called from the carriage. 'We have to make a train.'
She turned back to Hugh. 'If I leave here today, it's over. Forever, Hugh. I must move on from this.' Her voice dropped to a whisper. 'If you don't choose me now, you never will. But the sad thing is that one day you'll realize what you threw away.' When he was silent, her eyes watered. 'And I promise you, it'll be too late to get it back.' She turned toward the carriage. Just as she was about to climb in, Jane stopped and strode back to Hugh.
She'd seen reason—she would stay with Hugh for a week more, aday more.
The cracking slap to his face took him completely off guard. 'That was for the last ten years.' She slapped the other side of his face, even harder. 'And that's for the next!'
Chapter Forty-six
'Inever thought I'd say this,' her father began, as he nervously regarded Jane's face, 'but perhaps you ought to just cry.'
Quin had suggested the same thing repeatedly on their journey back to London, right up until he'd deposited her in her father's study. She'd been home for an hour—long enough for her father to finish explaining what he and Hugh and everyone else did.
'I'm fine.'I'm numb . When had her voice begun to sound so tinny?
She took a sip of her iced Scotch, defying him to say anything about her drinking so early.
'I'm sure this has all been a blow to you.'
'Are you competing for the most patent understatement?' She rolled her eyes. 'I mean, really, Papa,imports ?'
He shrugged helplessly, and she sighed. He'd finally been totally forthcoming with her—she thought. She'd been markedly less so about Hugh's reasons for letting her go. 'Who knows what he's thinking?' she'd said to him and to Quin. 'He made comments like he thought he wasn't good enough for me….'
'Jane, you keep saying you're fine, but you don't look it.'
No, she'd been on the verge of crying since she'd first comprehended that Quin was there to retrieve her. In fact, she'd been as close to it as she'd ever been, without actually spilling tears. As she'd absently packed her things, she'd somehow prevented herself because she'd known that with her first tear, she might start something she couldn't stop.
'You're right.' She gingerly touched the chilled glass on her swollen jaw, but the pain made her wince, and her father flinch—again. 'This has all been a lot for me to digest. I see you and Quin and even Rolley, and I feel like you're strangers.' She'd tried to put on a strong front when facing each of them, but for right now, all she could seem to manage was a wary indifference. 'And Hugh? I had an idea of him for half my life. Now that's… changed.'
She wasn't angry about Hugh's role in deceiving her. He had a job to do, and after talking to her father, she better understood the seriousness and significance of what he did. One of his bullets could spare a million of them in some needless war, and yet his job was lonely and grueling and he would never receive credit—or support if he'd been captured. She'd forgiven Hugh—for this, at least—but her father? 'As for you, well, perhaps you might have provided a bit more warning about all this, and a lot less pressuring me to marry an assassin. Just a thought.'
Her father couldn't meet her eyes—and she'd noticed that for the last hour, he'd avoided looking at her mother's portrait as well. 'I regret what I did. But I swear that I believed Hugh would come around and do the right thing. The man has been in love with you for so long, and he's always been honorable. But then, you understand that—you've always understood that. Jane, do you know how proud I was of you for choosing a man like Hugh? You saw things in him others couldn't. I thought the two of you were perfect for each other.'
We almost were.
'Are you sure that you made it clear you were in love with him? And that you wanted to remain married?'
She made a sound of frustration. 'You—have—no—idea.'
He briefly raised his palms in the air. 'Yes, yes, very well. I won't ask again.'
'Well, what do you propose I do now?' She rotated the glass against her cheek to the cooler side and added,
