She looked pained at that guilty admission, but not as pained as he felt inside. That she could put him above everything else…if only he hadn’t the obligations that kept him from doing the same.
If only.
“Do you see the gift that Charles has given us?” She held it up. “We no longer have to choose between your safety and the children’s welfare.” Looking half-wistful, half-thrilled, she brought the pearls to her lips. “I’ll sell them on our way out of London. And I have other ideas as well, for how we can help more children. This—this gift—will get us started.”
Her enthusiasm was more than he could bear. Soon he could bring her to the docks, show her whichever of his ships were in port, tell her that he could support all the orphanages she wanted. Soon this would be over, and he vowed to himself he’d be honest with his wife for the rest of his life. He would never make another promise that would be this hard to keep.
“You’re not selling them,” he told her, peeling her fingers from the pearls. He lifted the strand and slipped it over her head. “We’re going home and taking them with us. And I promise you, the children won’t starve.”
BACK AT Amberley later that day, Trick barely took time to see their luggage brought in before readying himself to leave.
Stunned, Kendra stood in their bedchamber watching him knot a fresh cravat. “We just got here.”
“I have an errand I must see to,” he told her, not quite meeting her eyes.
“An errand?” Although he was standing close, she felt as though he’d physically pulled away. “Are you going out to play the highwayman again? I told you—”
“Nay. I’m done with that.”
And he wasn’t wearing black—he’d dressed in a simple brown suit and white shirt. She should have noticed that. Her usually sharp powers of observation were dulled by disappointment.
Just last night, she’d felt so very close to him. She’d thought that with everything they’d shared in Scotland and since, things would be different now. But no matter that his hair had been cut and his eyes were unshielded—he was hiding from her again.
She backed away to sit on the gaudy red bed, her fingers going to the pearls around her neck. “If you won’t sell these and you won’t play the highwayman, where will we find the money for the children?”
“I told you this morning,” he said, even more slowly than usual, “the children will have plenty to eat.”
“How?” Her head swirled with confusion. “Did Charles give you more than the pearls, then?”
“You could say that,” he said dryly and fell silent.
He gazed at her for a long moment without saying anything more. Without moving. Without even blinking.
Then determination lit his eyes and his jaw tensed with resolve. “It’s time that I told you the truth,” he said, moving closer. “I have plenty of money to fund the orphanage without resorting to robbery. You’ve no need to worry for the children, I promise. All right? Can you take my word for that?”
The truth, he’d said. “I don’t understand.”
He stepped yet closer. “When my father—the duke—died, I took the ships he’d used for smuggling and began importing with them instead. It’s all legitimate. I have nine ships now and a London warehouse filled with goods from across the globe that are sold all over the country. I can well afford to support the children and anything else your heart desires.”
As though she’d been physically hit, Kendra found it hard to draw breath. “Then why did you tell me you needed to rob in order to fund the orphanage?”
“I never said that, Kendra.”
She thought back, frantically running through their conversations in her head. “But you didn’t correct me when I assumed it, either. A lie of omission is a lie, nonetheless.”
All the gains she’d thought they’d made seemed to be slipping away. She struggled to keep a hint of hysteria from her voice. “This makes no sense. Why is it, then, that you played the highwayman? Why keep doing it when you knew it worried me, and my brothers had asked you to stop? For your own amusement, as you once said?”
“Not for my amusement.” Taking both her hands, he drew her to stand before him, his gaze filled with silent apology. “I had reasons, good reasons, but…I’m sorry, leannan. There are things I cannot tell you.”
“Why?”
“I just cannot. You’ll have to trust me.” His knuckles skimmed her cheek. “Once you promised you’d trust me. Has that changed?”
Her memory flashed on that day in the dungeon, and her cheeks heated. But that had been in Scotland, where they’d spent every day, almost every minute, together. Where he hadn’t kept secrets, so far as she could tell, and where they’d grown close and learned to be easy with each other.
Yet literally the moment they’d stepped foot in Amberley, everything had gone back to the way it had been before they left. She’d thought she’d got through to him—that his wall was nearly down—but that clearly wasn’t the case. Not here.
She wished they’d never come home.
“I’m trying to trust you,” she told him. “But it’s very hard.”
“It’s hard for me, too. You must believe that. Just let me finish what I must do to put this all behind us.”
And with one kiss, so heartfelt it left her reeling, he was out the door.
SIXTY-SEVEN
IT HADN’T QUITE been a lie. Charles had given him more than the pearls—he’d given him orders not to tell his own wife what he was doing.
Blasted obstinate man.
Though Trick never thought to hear himself curse his king, he did so all the way to the cottage to fetch his papers.
From there he traveled two
