“Yet here you sit, their own father, behind the protection of his mighty desk. Sending out drudges to do the dirty work for you.”
“You know nothing about me.”
Leaning forward, Barrett drove his knuckles into the desk. Words hissed out between clenched teeth. “I know enough that you didn’t have the guts to go to Paris yourself. You sent your own daughter straight into the enemies’ hands without the slightest hope of rescuing herself. Not that she needed much help. That woman faced down Hitler without a quiver. She has more backbone, more integrity, than you could ever hope to achieve with all your military medals.”
Ever the political strategist, Sir Alfred gave no indication of abashed humility. “You didn’t think she stood much of a chance when you took my deal.”
Framed pictures stood on the bookcase behind the desk. Sir Alfred shaking hands with Winston Churchill, atop cavalry horses, on the decimated ridges of Verdun, and unsmiling with family. The largest picture of all was of Kat sitting primly on a stone bench in the middle of a flower garden. The perfect English lady. But not the woman he’d come to love.
The pang in his heart splintered open to crippling pain. To love, but never to claim for his own. “It took me less than a full minute to realize her worth, which you have failed in a lifetime to discover. She is the most fearless and unselfish woman that I have ever known and is too good for the likes of you. The likes of me too.”
“They told me you were one of the best, but they failed to mention your tendencies as a hothead.” Sir Alfred’s eyes narrowed. “Shouldn’t come as such a shock, you being a Scot and all.”
Smirking, Barrett straightened. “And I heard you were a war hero, a real man’s man. Funny how we both seem to have been misled.”
“So it seems.” The blunt fingers tapped once more on the gleaming desk. A sigh ruffled through the old man’s nose. “If you’re done insulting me, let’s get on to the business.”
Opening a lower drawer on his desk, Sir Alfred pulled out a chequebook and flipped it open to the first page. He dipped his nib in the old-fashioned inkwell and scrawled an amount and his signature to it. Tearing it out, he waved it back and forth until the ink dried, then pushed it across the desk to Barrett.
It was more money than he’d ever hoped to see in his lifetime. A ticket to America, a down payment on a brand-new life, and more to set him up for a very comfortable existence. All in his name, free and clear. But the astonishment quickly gave way to disgust. “I don’t want your money.”
Sir Alfred’s eyebrows spiked into his graying hairline. “No? After all of this, the darting on the line of death, the knife attacks, the slogging through mud? My money is no longer good enough for you?”
Barrett’s gaze flicked back to Kat’s picture. “It’s too good.”
“Surely you can use it for something. You’ll need to start over.”
“Aye, I’ll start over. But I’ll do it as my own man.” Stepping back, he gave a curt nod. “Good day to you, sir.”
Back straight lest his heart collapse further inside, he marched from the room. Far from Sir Alfred, his twisted blood money, Kat’s picture, and the future that was never to be theirs. The butler waited for him with the front door wide open. It slammed shut almost before he reached the outside.
A slight movement to his right caught his attention. Kat. Dressed in soft pink and pearls, hair elegantly swept back, and swirling in perfume, she was once again the perfect picture of a lady. His heart clenched.
He settled his hat on his head and allowed himself one last glimpse into those beautiful blue-green eyes. Then, reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his grandmother’s wrapped brooch. Unable to look at the glittering stone, he pressed it into the only woman’s hand worthy of such a jewel. His own jewel. “I’ll miss you all my life.”
He strode down the steps to the final cracking of his heart.
* * *
Was it possible to still hear the ragged breaking of a heart after watching it walk away without a backward glance?
Kat pressed her cheek to the bench’s seat as hot tears poured onto the cold stone, the rattling in the empty cavity of her chest a cursed reminder of her loneliness. She’d waited for him on the steps,