She snatched back her hand. ‘Did you really believe you could sail away and nothing and no one would change while you were gone? Did you think you could leave and come back to find everything the same?’
‘I believed our love would be the same.’
‘Love isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for my parents. It isn’t enough for us.’ The surrender in her voice ripped through him like a gale wind.
He stepped closer, wanting to wrap her in his arms and soothe away the distress furrowing her brow, but he didn’t. She was no frail society miss. He’d seen her break ground with a shovel in search of a fossil too many times to think her weak. But as he’d learned over the past year, those who thought they were the strongest were sometimes the most vulnerable. ‘The Katie I knew before wouldn’t have given up like that.’
‘That Katie hadn’t seen how ugly London and everyone could be and how willing you were to leave me to face it alone while you chased your precious dreams.’
His sympathy vanished. ‘You know I wanted us to marry before I left. You were the one who insisted we wait.’
‘Because I needed to see what it would be like to live in your world and I did, every day while you were gone.’
‘That’s not my world. It’s my uncle’s.’
‘No, your world is in far-off lands,’ she scoffed, her dismissal of his work and everything he was as stinging as her rejection.
‘What did I do to you to engender such derision?’ he hissed.
‘You left.’
‘You know I had no choice.’
‘You could have resigned your commission. Instead, you chose to remain in the Discovery Service and put Mr Barrow’s whims and wants above everyone else’s. It’s the rest of us who were left with no choice but to deal with it and all the consequences. Despite coming home, it won’t be long before Mr Barrow snaps his fingers and you’re gone again.’
‘And what of you?’ He levelled an accusing finger at her. ‘Are you ready to leave your work for me, to give up the fossils and chasing after the acceptance of all the scientific societies to place me first in your life?’
She recoiled, her answer in her silence.
‘And you accuse me of being selfish.’ He snatched another decanter from the table, using both hands to grip it. The silver tag hanging around the bottle’s neck clanked against the crystal as Conrad raised it to his lips. By the time he lowered the thing, she was gone.
He dropped the decanter on the table with a thud, his failures hardening around him like ice on the masts of the ship. Katie wasn’t the first person to doubt him enough to give up and walk out on him. How many more would desert him when news of his failures in the north became public? He ran the toe of his boot over the wet fur of the lionskin rug, matting and staining the tan pelt with the dirt from his sole. Perhaps Katie was right and he never should have left. The mud on his boots from one expedition was rarely dry before he was in Mr Barrow’s office campaigning for another. He should have been more hesitant this time, more cautious, but he wasn’t a man to sit idle in the country with nothing better to do than hunt and raise dogs.
He tilted his head to the mountain of trophies surrounding him, the silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. None had come easily, not even the first commission which had cemented his reputation as a master explorer. It was an achievement he’d fought long and hard to secure, one he wouldn’t surrender to his own doubts and fears.
He kicked the decanter, sending it spinning across the floor in a flurry of reflected moonlight and scattered drops. This was how weak and snivelling men dealt with their failures. It wasn’t how Conrad would deal with his. He’d made mistakes, but there wasn’t a captain alive who hadn’t. Nothing had been decided in London or here at Heims Hall. Whatever criticisms Mr Barrow decided to heap on him for his mistakes, he’d meet them and overcome them, just as he had so many other obstacles. Whatever victories his uncle believed he’d won, Conrad would see to it they were short lived, and if Katie thought she could simply walk away from him, she was wrong. In the morning, she’d expect him to see her home, but he wasn’t about to do her bidding. He hadn’t fought storms and scurvy to reach her only to let his misgivings or hers defeat him now.
He took up the flint and some tinder from the holder beside the mantel, knelt down in front of the hearth and sparked a small flame. When the fire was going, he tossed in a handful of coal from the bucket, rising to watch the fire grow taller as it consumed the fuel.
He would only have a day or two before he had to return to London and face, good or bad, whatever Mr Barrow had in mind for him. He’d use the brief time with Katie to draw out the love he’d felt in her soothing touch. Despite her hasty departure, her reaching out to him revealed something of the woman he’d left all those months ago. Their love had been strained by his absence, but it wasn’t gone. It was only hidden like grass beneath the snow waiting for the spring warmth to draw it out.
With any luck, the cart carrying the things he’d purchased in Greenland would arrive in the morning, before he ran out of excuses and delays to keep Katie here. On it, packed tight in sawdust and woodchips, was the one thing he knew would make her stay.
He was betting their future together on it.
Katie marched across the kitchen garden to where Conrad stood by the cart, unloading crates, his jacket draped over the side. He’d avoided her all morning, leaving her to Miss Linton’s scowl at breakfast before secluding himself in his study to speak with the estate and mine managers. The part of her which still cringed at the nasty accusations she’d levelled at him last night was glad he’d stayed away. She wasn’t proud of what she’d said, but it was the truth and better he know it now than be led on by her silence into believing in something which no longer existed.
‘You’ve avoided me long enough. I insist on going back with this cart once it’s unloaded,’ she demanded, startled when he straightened. The strings of his shirt were undone and open, revealing the light chest hair underneath. The memory of his bare muscles beneath her palms, the soft sun caressing his shoulders as she held tight to him in the tall grass on the Downs nearly rattled her out of her purpose. They’d never gone far enough to completely compromise her, but they’d indulged in a few pleasures, the memory of which made the skin of her thighs tingle.
‘You can’t. It’s going back to Portsmouth.’ He slid the last crate off the wood and carefully laid it on top of the stack beside the wheel.
‘Then call the chaise.’
‘Matilda has use of it this morning.’ Conrad leaned against the cart and propped his elbows on the rough wood to face Katie, not as the angry, drunken man from last night, but as the self-assured one who’d won her heart two years ago.
‘Then saddle a horse. I’ll ride home,’ she insisted, eager to get away from him and his state of near undress.
‘Come, Katie, you don’t know how to ride.’ He playfully tapped the end of her nose, his touch as unnerving as his jibe.
‘I know what you’re trying to do, Conrad, and it won’t work.’
He picked up the crowbar lying beside the cart. ‘What am I trying to do?’
‘Keep me here.’
He slid the bar between the crate and its lid and pushed down. The nails broke free in a screech of metal against wood. ‘You’re right.’
‘Why?’
‘Because, I have something for you.’ He shoved the lid aside and