Nicola Cornick Collection: The Last Rake In London / Notorious / Desired. Nicola Cornick
and Sally knew nothing beyond the fact that he had loved her and they had run away together and that she had been shot. To think that it might have been Jack who had killed Merle was shattering, impossible, even if it had been a tragic accident.
An icy trickle of despair ran down Sally’s spine. She could not believe it of Jack. She simply could not. It was not just because she loved him. She did not think she was so blinded to his faults because of that. She knew Jack could be ruthless. She knew that his mistress had died. But the rest …
It would explain the scale of the scandal, a little voice whispered inside her. It would explain why he was banished abroad. It would explain Jack’s silence …
‘Sally?’
With a start Sally realised that Jack had come to stand beside her. The night wind was ruffling his dark hair and he raised an absentminded hand to smooth it down in one of the gestures that she was coming to love. He was looking at her with concern and Sally realised that she was gripping the masonry so tightly that her knuckles were white and the stone was scoring her hands.
‘Sally?’ he said again. ‘What is the matter? What has happened? Did Connie say something to upset you?’
‘Yes,’ Sally said. She did not think of lying to him. She could not see a way of pretending that there was nothing the matter when suddenly there was this ugly, monstrous secret between them.
‘Yes,’ she said again. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her—’ She stopped and cleared her throat. ‘She told me that Bertie had told her you killed Merle Jameson,’ she said. ‘She said that you murdered her.’
There was a silence. Behind them the fountain in the courtyard splashed softly. A swan floated past on the smooth waters of the moat, its head tucked beneath its wing as it slept.
‘And did you believe her?’ Jack asked quietly.
Sally looked at him. ‘You told me yourself that she had died,’ she said slowly, knowing that it was no answer.
Jack took a step closer to her. ‘You don’t trust me,’ he said, and his voice was hard.
‘I don’t know!’ Sally spun around on him. Her heart felt torn. ‘God knows, I don’t want to believe you capable of murder. I cannot believe it! I cannot even imagine that you might hurt her by accident. But you have never told me the truth, Jack. You told me Merle died, but you never told me what happened.’
‘And because of my reticence you think I may be guilty?’ Jack’s icy tone flayed her to the bone.
‘No!’ Sally spoke, once again on instinct, and when he turned away from her she felt sick and dizzy all over again. She did not want to believe it, could not believe it was true …
‘Connie was right.’ Jack drove his hands into his trouser pockets and stood braced, staring out into the darkness. ‘I did kill Merle.’
‘No,’ Sally said again, but this time it came out as a whisper. She felt cold with shock.
‘I did not pull the trigger myself,’ Jack went on, as though she had not spoken. ‘But that does not matter. I was guilty. Her death was my fault. And I have carried that guilt ever since.’ He turned slightly towards Sally, but when she reached out a hand to touch his arm he drew back as though he could not bear it.
‘It was my fault,’ he repeated. His tone was violent. ‘You wanted to know the truth and now you have it.’
‘What happened?’ Sally felt cold through and through. She had thought she wanted to know the truth, but now she was desperately unsure. ‘Was there an accident?’
Jack folded his arms. ‘I told you before that I was young and foolish. I fell madly in love with Merle and was desperate for her to leave her husband and run away with me. When she agreed I thought I was the happiest man on earth. Merle wasn’t happy, though. She was afraid. She was afraid of what her husband would do when he found out. And I …’ he sighed ‘… I laughed off her fears. Jameson was frail and I was young and strong and arrogant and thought I could protect her.’
His face was bleak.
‘When Jameson caught up with us he had a gun. I thought he was going to challenge me—kill me, even. That would have been just. I never thought that he would kill Merle instead. Up until the last moment, his attention, his hatred, was focused entirely on me. I was afraid too by this point. I thought I was going to die. But he shot Merle, not me, and it was my fault. Her death was my responsibility.’
‘No,’ Sally said. Her lips shaped the word, but made no sound. ‘It was not your fault,’ she said. ‘You did not pull the trigger.’
‘As good as,’ Jack said. ‘I was the one who persuaded Merle to elope. I was the one who swore to protect her. I was the one who failed.’
‘She chose to go with you,’ Sally argued. ‘It was her decision, just as it was Jameson’s decision to pull the trigger. You cannot bear that blame, Jack.’
Jack’s expression was blank and Sally despaired of her words ever reaching him. He had kept his guilt and his misery locked away inside for ten years. At last she understood that part of him that was unreachable; the bitter part that had abandoned the idea of love. She felt hopeless of being able to change that now.
But she had to try.
‘You told me you loved Merle sincerely,’ she said, ashamed that even at a time like this she could feel jealousy over Jack’s deep love for the other woman. ‘You loved her and you wanted her to be happy. You thought that happiness could be achieved if the two of you ran away together. And who knows—you could have been right if matters had fallen out differently.’ She fixed her gaze on the dark trees etched against the night sky. ‘You knew that Michael Jameson was a dangerous and violent man. That was one of the things that you wanted to save Merle from, because you loved her. So you did what you thought was right. You asked her to elope with you and she agreed. She chose to go with you.’
Jack did not speak, but she sensed that his dark eyes were fixed on her face. ‘Neither of you could have foreseen what would happen,’ Sally said. ‘Neither of you knew what Michael Jameson would do. Merle’s death was his responsibility, Jack. It was his fault.’
‘You did not go with Gregory Holt,’ Jack said.
‘That was different,’ Sally said. ‘I did not love him. But if I had, I would have chosen to run away with him exactly as Merle did with you.’ She smiled at him, but his face was set hard in the moonlight. ‘I think that you could love again,’ she said softly, ‘though I expect it will be different from your feelings for Merle. But it need not be less profound.’
She took a deep breath. This was the hardest part. ‘Which is why,’ she said, ‘you should not marry, Jack, until you find someone you can love. Least of all should you marry me.’ She stopped, her voice threatening to break. She wished she had guarded her heart more carefully when they had first met instead of tumbling into love with him like a young girl fresh from the schoolroom. But it was too late for those regrets now. She loved Jack Kestrel, but he could not love her in return and, foolish as she might have been, she would not be so unwise as to marry him and then watch him fall in love with someone else when his heart had healed.
‘Good night, Jack,’ she said. ‘Think about what I have said. It was not your fault. Let it go.’
She heard him call her name, but she did not wait. She knew she had to get back inside the house and into the privacy of her room before she was tempted to reveal her most secret feelings. She could not tell Jack that she loved him and expose the deepest vulnerability of all.
Jack stood on the darkened terrace for a long time after Sally had gone. He could smell the faintest, most elusive hint of her fragrance still in the air and for a shocking moment he felt so bereft without her presence that he was hollow with longing. For the first time in ten years he felt at a loss, unsure of himself in his relationship with a woman. He had told her more of his feelings for Merle than