The Deepest Sin (31 page)

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Authors: Caroline Richards

BOOK: The Deepest Sin
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“Meeting him in Hyde Park was no accident,” she murmured, nor was the invitation to Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam.
There was a soft knock on the stateroom door. Impatiently, Archer went to the threshold and after a brief exchange of words, returned with a small package in his hand. Recoiling on instinct, Meredith watched in horror as a scrap of red silk drifted to the ground and he withdrew the kaleidoscope.
Archer cursed darkly. “Another warning, delivered anonymously.”
Faron's people knew where she was and, worse still, where she was going. Fighting the nausea rising in her throat, Meredith tensed her shoulders. She could not bear to see the reminder of the nursery at Claire de Lune. “Put it away, please,” she whispered. She watched him lift the lid of a trunk at the end of the bed in the alcove. The bed, where they had spent so many blindly blissful hours. She looked away.
He pushed a hand through his hair, disheveled as always. “I warned you about Hamilton.”
“The Rosetta stone and
The Book of the Dead
—even I determined there was a connection,” she said wearily. The image of Hamilton, standing by the open glass case holding the papyrus, rose in her mind. “I stand defeated, Archer.”
“Turn around.” She obeyed, and to her inexpressible relief he unfastened the belt that bound her wrists. “You still wish to return to France?”
She rubbed her hands together, the circulation returning. The kaleidoscope. It was a message somehow. “I must. I should have done it years ago.”
“And yet you believe Faron is dead.”
She repeated the same words to him that she'd shared that long-ago day at Fort St. Julien. “I know he is gone.” She raised her eyes and looked at him, her expression swept clear of all emotion. There were no other explanations or excuses, and Meredith would not offer them.
“Very well,” he said. Meredith shivered as though unable to absorb the warmth glowing from the small brazier. Despite the bleakness in his eyes, there was a recognition that matched her own, that all was at an end between them. “Dead or alive, do you still love him?” The question was stark. “You owe me that answer at least.”
“Owe you?”
“You don't understand, do you?”
She shrugged helplessly.
“I deserve to know if you still love another man.”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“Because,” he said quietly, his expression bleak, “I love you.”
 
For as long as she lived, Archer's words would merge with the most horrendous Channel crossing of Meredith's life. The winter winds were at gale force, the waves so high that death by drowning was a very real possibility. Each time the craft climbed a tower, an avalanche of water threatened to sink it to the bottom of the Channel. The wind howled and mast-high waves washed over the decks, the wood beneath their feet pitching and sinking, leaving Archer no choice but to take over the wheel from his small crew and fight to keep the vessel afloat. Punished by wind and pelting rain, he tied himself to the wheel and battled the storm as though taking on his own inner demons. Nature's fury would not survive his silent, pitiless rage. The harsh winds scalded his skin, robbed him of breath, but no more so than Meredith Woolcott had done. And for the first time, he had a shadow of understanding of what Montagu Faron must have experienced when he thought he'd lost her forever.
The reprieve, when it came, was short lived, the howling of the wind slowing only enough to coat the decks with ice. He handed over the wheel at the sight of Meredith at the deck rail, wrapped in oilskin, insulated against the weather and Archer. “I do not wish to turn back,” she said resolutely, anticipating his question when he came to stand beside her.
“I wouldn't ask you to.”
She paused for a moment. “Thank you for doing this.” Her eyes held a lifetime of pain. “You must be cold, wet and exhausted.”
“Doesn't matter.” He stared moodily over the rail at the dark, heaving mass of the sea.
Her eyes followed his. It was easier this way, to pretend that they were gazing out into a starless night with no more worries than whether the sun was going to rise in the morning. She was aware of his damp clothing, the hair clinging to his forehead from the sea spray. “You love this in a way, don't you?”
He turned to look at her, and that piercing, troubling intensity was in his gaze again. “I do. And I know that you somehow understand, despite everything.”
“Thank you for that,” she said. “I believe that I do understand.” There was no anger in her voice or his.
Archer pulled himself up sharply. He shook his head, passing a hand over his eyes. “As do you. We are a fine pair, as it turns out.”
She burrowed into her borrowed oilskin. “When did you know, Archer?”
He didn't pretend that he didn't understand. “After the wedding at Montfort, I was contacted by Whitehall,” he said briefly. “But when I saw you again at Rashid, I knew where my loyalties lay.”
“I don't see what you mean.”
“Perhaps you do not wish to,” Archer said thoughtfully. “At this point, I have no reason to lie. Yes, at the beginning I was working at the behest of Whitehall in their attempt to flush Faron out. But shortly after our meeting, I knew that whether I liked it or not, the nature of the assignment had changed.”
Meredith gave a bitter laugh. She did not look impressed with his choice of words. “‘The nature of the assignment.' So I was always an assignment to you. Even when we ...” she trailed off. The wind resumed its high-pitched howl. “I think I shall go below.”
It was best to sit on the floor of the cabin with its swinging lantern and bolted-down furnishings. Meredith noted with a faint grimace that her stomach was in an upheaval, her head swimming with the rhythm of the yacht. Archer sat down beside her and put his arm around her and she was reminded of the sandstorm that they had survived, just outside Fort St. Julien. “First sand and now water,” she joked feebly, sensing that he was remembering also. They sat in silence for half an hour when the motion of the boat changed dramatically. Meredith's stomach dipped and she staggered to her feet, reaching the stairwell just in time. Her clothes were wet from both rain and spray and she lurched as the boat pitched violently, barely holding on to the contents of her stomach. Heedless of the wind and spray, she sucked in gulps of cold, night air.
The light was graying with the approach of a December dawn and she huddled gratefully on the leeside railing. It had been only a twelve-hour crossing, perhaps fourteen with the horrendous weather.
“Meredith.” Archer stood beside her, a small flask in hand. He took her shoulders gently and turned her toward him. “Drink some of this. Brandy,” he added with a smile. “Although I know you prefer whisky.”
This time she gave him no argument, sipping the fiery liquid, which burned its way down her throat and calmed her stomach. “Only a few more hours, I hope,” she said.
“Have more. It will help,” he said, watching as color returned to her cheeks. He ran his hands through her tangled hair, pushing it back from her face, and she didn't pull away. “We are almost at Calais. You are cold and wet. Come below and change your clothes.” He reached to pull her up and she staggered against him. The contact was both reassuring and magnetic, the sexual current running between them undiminished despite the violent sea and a bout of retching.
Meredith stumbled her way into the main stateroom and swayed toward the bed in the alcove. Holding on to the mattress, she stripped off her wet clothing, aware through the haze of her exhaustion that Archer watched her rummaging through his chest for a fresh shirt. Wearing only her drawers and chemise, she was conscious of his gaze, and her body stirred. It was impossible that he should have this effect on her, even in the grimmest of circumstances when the world pitched and sawed and threatened to come undone, as though offering a fitting end to their tumultuous relationship.
“I shall be at the wheel,” he said abruptly, watching Meredith shake out her skirt and place it in front of the brazier. “We should be landing in an hour or so. There's a secluded cove behind a small island that we can negotiate safely.” His tone told her that he had done this, and other, more dangerous landings, many times before. She looked out the porthole and spied the ripple of water that marked the opening to a narrow inlet. Unwillingly, she blinked back tears as the cliffs of the Normandy coastline rose into view, gray and forbidding in the winter light. But a bittersweet sight, nonetheless.
 
An hour later, Meredith was back on deck, her clothes reasonably dry, breathing fresh, restorative air as she considered the approaching coastline. The boat tacked gracefully toward the mouth of the cove. Meredith looked up to see Archer swing the helm, monitor the sail, skillfully pulling the mainsheet to catch the wind at the perfect moment. The yacht obeyed as the wind filled the sail and danced over the line. Meredith caught her breath as she waited for the keel to scrape over jagged rock but the yacht glided silently onward and into the calm safety of the cove.
She stood with feet braced on the now gently moving deck, the wind whipping back her hair, her face lifted to the weak sun. French soil—for the first time in close to twenty years. The leather saddlebag clutched at her side held the gold coins from her reticule and the silk-wrapped kaleidoscope. She held her resolve to her just as tightly.
After disembarking, Archer, in surprisingly fluent French, made quick work of sending a boy to a hostelery, where they secured two horses. They rode hard for the next seven hours to Honfleur and onwards in the direction of Berney, stopping finally in the small village of Orchaise, a few miles outside Blois. Archer helped her down from her horse in front of a small inn, his hands lingering on her waist for an extra moment, and just long enough for her to fight the urge to lean into him. It was important to keep a tight rein on her emotions; the beauty of the French countryside threatened to unleash a tide of memories. She had spent seven years of her life here, and as the soft hills sped by, it seemed as though her life was moving backwards. Her father still lived, Rowena and Julia were mere babes and she was a young woman in love with learning and with a young man who would be hers forever.
The small inn was tidy and warm, with a welcoming scent of red wine and freshly baked bread. Meredith noted how smoothly Archer explained that he and his wife would be requiring a room and simple dinner, all of which the innkeeper, a man with sharp eyes and a neat moustache, was keen to provide.
Dinner was a wonderful pot-au-feu served on a small table in front of a roaring fire in their room, their glasses filled with a rich burgundy. A strange calm had descended over both of them; the stormy seas and the revelations of the past day had stripped both of them of any defenses. He watched her, his eyes taking in her shirtwaist, now open at the neck, her dishabille born of a recklessness that was somehow more daring than anything he'd ever seen in the most decadent gaming dens or perfumed boudoirs. They both shifted uncomfortably in the inn's hard chairs, their awareness of their mutual vulnerability inescapable.
For the first time in his life, Archer could not keep his thoughts straight, could not form a strategy for the days ahead. He simply sat across from Meredith at the table, trying to come up with reasons that would keep them both in this small French inn forever. If he could stop time, he would, because at the moment, he wanted to forget that the world existed outside their room. Nothing mattered anymore.
“You must be exhausted,” she said, her own gray eyes heavy with fatigue.
“I don't think I could sleep.”
She took another sip of her wine. “We could talk.”
He smiled grimly. “I think we've established it does not do us much good.”
“Perhaps we should give it another try.” She looked at him with her beautiful eyes, and the vulnerability he saw shocked him.
“There is something I must say,” she began. “I think I understand now that what's happened between us cannot be distilled to simple black and white. I have been unfair in thinking otherwise.” She stared at the glass of wine in her hand before meeting his gaze, reading great hurt and bitterness there. “Please forgive me, Archer.”
He shrugged. “We've both made mistakes. We didn't trust each other enough and maybe with cause, on my part at least,” he added honestly. “Trust only comes with knowing the truth and it's taken us some time to get to it.”
“I was wrong about you.”
“No, you weren't,” he said abruptly. “At least not at first.”
She shook her head. “And I think you were wrong about yourself, hiding behind that laconic façade when really, Archer, you care very much. About your friends, about loyalty and doing what's right. You are far from the rootless adventurer you pretend to be. That's why you are here right now, beside me, having risked a perilous Channel crossing and so much more.”
Archer was silent for a long moment. “Why the change of heart?” His voice was hard, armor against further pain.

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