43
Admiral Lord Hylton had aged so badly since Celia had last seen him, she could not control her gasp.
"My lord," the butler intoned from his position at Celia's side in the threshold of the admiral's library, "your daughter has arrived. Lady Hylton awaits without."
It was the most unnecessary announcement any servant had ever made, since Bancroft was staring at her as if she were a ghost, apparently equally shocked. But then he gathered himself and strode across the warm and cozily cluttered room with his arms spread as if greeting an old friend.
Get her out of my sight before I kill her!
Celia stepped back, pressing herself against the butler's wall of a chest, and fashioned her expression into one of fear.
Bancroft halted and slowly dropped his arms, then looked down at the thick Persian rug and sighed. He did not look at her again, but turned away from her with a light gesture.
"Come," he said low. "Please. Have a seat."
The butler gently prodded her and directed her, but she went without a peep, as it seemed Bancroft was aware of his sins and would keep his distance from her. She sat in a leather chair on the powerless side of the desk, folded her hands in her lap, and directed her face toward the floor while watching him out of the corner of her eye.
He dismissed the butler and commenced to pacing once the library doors were closed. Though Bancroft had a tasteful wig in both style and color, it could not draw her attention away from the deep grooves worn into his face from his brow to his cheeks to his mouth to his jowls. He was still as tall—taller, with his heels—as she remembered, but he was much thinner, less muscular, and his hands were long and spindly where they had been broad and strong. His shoulders were a bit hunched, even accounting for the fact that he was striving to make himself less intimidating to her.
In short, he appeared to be carrying the weight of the world upon his shoulders and would welcome death when it came, to relieve him of his burdens.
Excellent.
She would gladly assist him to the end of his mortal path.
"Your hair," he said abruptly, startling her. "'Tis brown. I thought ... Your fath—" He stopped, unable to say it. "I, ah, remember it a more vibrant color."
Of course he would.
"I don't remember," she said tonelessly, making a note to give her wigmaker a handsome bonus.
"Ah ... Oh. That's ... Hm."
Celia took her eyes off the pacing admiral for a moment to study his library. It was a modest one, in a modest terrace near Grosvenor Square. The thick rug was bald in spots; the books that lined three of the walls were a bit dusty; the sofas were a bit out of date; and the leather of the wing chairs was a bit worn and cracked. The liquor cabinet was open and well-stocked; the hearth was cold and dark but clean; and the desk and floor around it were cluttered with carefully haphazard stacks of books, parchments, and various naval trinkets holding the papers down. Though it gave a good impression of it, this was not the library of an impoverished baron; it was the library of a powerful but overworked man.
For a wealthy baron, it was entirely modest, particularly as compared to the large, fine Philadelphia home in which she had spent the first eight years of her life—the one to which she had longed to return since Dunham took her to sea.
Finally Bancroft seated himself behind his desk, his chair turned so that he faced the windows. He remained silent and still he would not look at her. His fingertips drummed the desk. Ten full minutes passed this way, but The Simpleton would not fidget because The Simpleton did not know boredom, only blankness.
"I have missed you," he croaked.
Celia tensed. It was the last thing she had expected him to say to her, and she felt something gather in the back of her throat.
"I ... was despicable," he continued, low. "You were there in the same room with Dunham, next to him. The resemblance was unmistakable, but— Clearly you were terrified of him and had no idea who he was. When he took you away ... That I had caused him to take you away ... "
Celia blinked, unable to credit him with anything approaching regret. After all, he had never attempted to find her, never used his position to bid Dunham return her to him.
"Lucien is my pride and joy," he said, "but you were ... the light of my life. Oh, how I loved you, and have missed you every day of the last twenty years. Even though you are another man's child, I have never ceased thinking of you as mine."
He didn't mean it, you ken. Good God, had Dunham been right all these years? Honorable men don't generally go about killing wee lassies.
She sensed the admiral shifting, and watched him from under her eyelashes. "Celia," he said gently. "Look at me."
No. She did not want to. Did he intend to confess his sins, it would negate twenty years of tortured thoughts and feelings. Then again, because he thought her simple and possibly incapable of comprehending him, perhaps he merely needed to bare his soul.
Could he not have confessed to a priest?
She steeled herself, cleared her expression, then slowly raised her head.
"What happened to you?" he whispered. "After Dunham took you?"
"I have no memory of that time," she said dully.
His mouth tightened. He would believe that. Anyone who had lived through battle would, and he was an accomplished commander. He would know that people suffered many things they could not bear to remember.
"Where have you been all these years?"
"I don't know."
"When did you reunite with your mother?"
"Some weeks ... months ... years ... ago. I don't know. I cannot keep time."
"You cannot have survived with your virtue intact."
She looked at him blankly. Blinked.
He sighed. "You know I have settled upon you a dowry? So that you might wed?"
"Aunt told me."
"Do you know why?"
"No."
"To provide for you. Your mother is not well and Dunham seems to have abandoned you—God knows when. I've had many offers, but almost none from men I would entrust your care to. Lucien's wife is—" His mouth tightened. "Lucien's home is not an option, unfortunately. I could welcome you into my home and take care of you until my days are over, but I'd rather see you settled first in case I have made yet another grievous error I need to rectify before I die."
Oh? "You are ill?" she intoned, as if she were not really interested.
He barked a humorless laugh. "No. Not ill. I am— Suffice it to say time is of the essence and I will not gamble your future any more than I already have. I can never make amends for what I said, what I did. But I cannot go to my grave having not made the attempt."
He looked down at his blotter and pressed a thumb to the corner of his eye. It was then Celia blinked rapidly when her own eyes began to sting and hoped he would not notice their sudden moisture.
This was the man she had adored from her earliest memory.
"Rafael Covarrubias—" he muttered, his voice hoarse. "I am given to understand you have a tendre for him. Likewise, he seems genuinely fond of you. He is in need of the funds I have bequeathed upon you, but he is, so far as I can gather, a good man. He has a position in Portugal which will take most of his time, but he also has heirs presumptive and will not ... burden you with his attentions."
Celia would have laughed if she had the least amount of amusement in her. "There is another," she said, keeping her voice carefully flat, which was difficult to do at the moment. "Lord Tavendish."
Bancroft started. "How do you know that?"
"Aunt told me."
"Ah, he— Well. After he— Ah, I was not able to persuade him to consideration." Celia sat perfectly still though she felt as if a jib boom had slammed into her chest. "Which is a shame, as I trust him above all men."
Silence descended and lengthened while Celia attempted to catch her breath.
"Did you ... " He cleared his throat. "That is, are you perhaps a bit fond of him?"
"He has been kind to me."
"As is Lord Covarrubias, I hope?"
"Yes."
"Ah, good. So you object to neither man I would have chosen for you."
The very opening she had hoped he would give her! She attempted to stay the course. "I do not wish to marry at all."
He sighed. "Nay, I would not expect so after what you must have endured, but really I've no choice if I want to do my duty by you, which I do. I hardly think you'd rather be tossed in a madhouse, which is what will happen if your mother or I should—"
Now Celia was almost desperate. If he wouldn't release her voluntarily, she would be forced to flee England before she could complete her task. "Aunt has offered me her home."
He snorted. "I believe Lord Rathbone would have something to say about that. But no. Unfortunately, I cannot give you leave to refuse, as I am your guardian and you are ... broken. I will not allow you to be shuffled from one household to another for the rest of your life." His voice trailed off. Cleared his throat. "'Tis my fault," he whispered, staring down at his desk. "All my fault. Oh, what did I do to you, my child?"
"You said you would kill me."
His head snapped up. "You remember that."
"Yes. It is the last thing I remember."
"Oh, God!" he cried, standing and pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. "I meant him. Dunham. I was looking at you, but it was him I wanted to kill and— I ... misspoke. 'Tis that simple."
It slammed into her breast, his deep remorse. Never could she have foreseen this, and her sudden urge to relieve him of his suffering by revealing herself shook her to her soul. She could barely keep herself from springing to him and declaring to him who she was and what she had become, for surely he would be pleased and comforted and proud of her ...
But then, once upon a time, she had run to him to roust the orange-headed giant from their home, a giant who was accosting her mother—only to find herself slung over the giant's shoulder and dropped to her feet aboard a pirate's ship.
She was no longer eight years old and her papa's little princess. She could no more predict Bancroft's reaction now than she could then, when she had not been able to tell a passionate embrace from an attack. He would have to wallow in his guilt a while longer and perhaps someday ...
"'Twas all," he whispered. "He, she. It all ... blended ... together ... "
Celia had not felt this much pain since Talaat had been snatched and bound during one of their promenades through the bazaar, then beaten after she too had been subdued and bound.
She was barely able to gather words. "Mistakes were made," she whispered. It was Smitty's answer to anything where fault could not be assigned with any certainty. "I understand."
"Oh, my poppet, my little minx, you cannot possibly understand, and that is the hell of it. Mistakes were made by all of us. Except you, the one who must bear the heaviest burden of it."
They sat in silence, Celia struggling not to cry while Bancroft gathered himself back into the dignified Admiral Lord Hylton.
"So, my dear," he said with forced robustness as he shuffled the papers upon his desk. "Lord Covarrubias and I will be signing the agreement Friday, after his solicitors have finished perusing it, and perhaps we shall have a lovely wedding some time during Christmastide ... I remember you loved the snow. Do you still?"
Tears slid down her cheeks and dropped into her puce-satin-covered lap, leaving dark spots to betray their passage. "Yes."
"Excellent. I had hoped a Christmas wedding would please you. In the meantime, I shall do my best to make you happy, or at least as happy as you are capable of becoming."
Every commander knows that there will come a day when she will not have thought of an angle of attack, which, when implemented, would set all her strategies asunder and be her downfall.
Celia's day had come.
Bancroft, in his attempt to pay her restitution before his death, which he believed to be imminent, had hit her in each of her most vulnerable spots, crushing her ability to counter the attack.
She was dead in the water and beginning to sink.