Page 51 of When You Rescued Me

With fresh and uncomfortable awareness, Hannah forced herself to face the man standing before her. He spoke and acted like a gentleman, but his gray eyes and distinctive scar bore witness of someone else. Shock coursed through her veins, causing her limbs to tremble. She took an unsteady step back. How could she have been so blind? She—who prided herself on being an intelligent and perceptive young woman—had not only ignored the physical signs but had also not even thought to connect the names Samuel and Sammy!

Tears sprang to her eyes, but of all the emotions currently assailing her, she could not determine which one had caused them. “The pickpocket,” she repeated. “He . . . You . . . you were sent to the gallows. All my life, I have believed that. All my life, I have blamed myself for that.”

“Blamed yourself?” Obviously shaken by her broken confession, he took a step toward her.

She retreated, releasing a sob when her heel hit a chair leg. “Every day, every night, for years and years—” she cried, the awfulness of her reoccurring nightmares and the accompanying guilt crashing over her anew.

“Hannah!” He tossed his gloves onto his cloak and ran a hand across his face. “That day in the pawnshop, you did nothing wrong. Indeed, I . . . I owe my life to you. I owe everything I am now to you.”

Sophia had been right. Hannah’s seemingly endless years of suffering had truly been for naught.

Hannah’s tears were falling freely now. “Everything I believed about Sammy and about you . . . It was wrong. All of it.” She swiped at the moisture on her cheeks. “How could I have been so foolish?”

“You are the very opposite of foolish.”

A flicker of anger licked at Hannah’s aching heart. “Is that not what one calls someone who has been so fully deceived?”

Pain filled his all-too-familiar gray eyes. “It was never my intention to deceive you. You must believe that.”

“I hardly know what to believe anymore.” Hannah’s voice broke, and she lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle another sob. “None of this makes any sense.”

“May I attempt to explain?”

She nodded. What else could she do? Her need to understand outweighed all other considerations—including her sense of betrayal that he had seemingly known who she was the whole time and yet had not disclosed who he was until now.

“In brief,” he said, “I was orphaned at a very young age and turned to a life of crime to survive. I was saved by a young girl who recognized my wrongdoing and was brave enough to speak out. When I was taken before the magistrate, he sent me to the Marine Society, and from there, I entered the Royal Navy. The captain of my ship took an interest in me, taught me to read and write and to speak more articulately. I am now a Bow Street principal officer devoted to curbing crime in the very city I once plagued.”

“You . . . you went to the Marine Society instead of the gallows?”

He nodded. “Sir John offered me a chance to change, and I took it. I have endeavored to conduct myself uprightly since then.”

“And yet you were not fully honest with me.” That realization hurt deeply.

Footsteps sounded in the hall, and his jaw tightened. “Forgive me,” he said. “I should have said something sooner, but though I have repented of the many thefts I committed in my youth, I cannot bring myself to wish my time with you undone. You are the most remarkable young lady I have ever known, Miss Dennington, and I pray that one day you will find it in your heart to overlook my selfishness.”

He had reverted to calling her by her surname.

Hannah thought her heart might be breaking, but no words would come. Through a mist of tears, she watched him reclaim his gloves, hat, and cloak.

“Farewell, Miss Dennington.” He pressed his hat to his head and bowed. “I shall forever be grateful for the role you played in my life.” And then, before she’d fully assimilated all he’d shared with her and the seeming finality of his parting words, he walked out of the door.

She did not call him back.

“Mr. Ross! Are you leaving already?” Sophia’s voice reached her from the hall.

“I am,” he said. “Good day, Miss Sophia. Good day, Miss Elinor.”

Numbly, Hannah heard his brisk footsteps cross the entryway. The front door opened and closed again. He was gone. She dropped to the floor, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed.

Samuel had been walking the streets of London for almost four hours. The rain that had started not long after he’d left the Denningtons’ town house had long since saturated his cloak. He was wet and cold, but he scarcely noticed. His feet were heavy, but his heart was heavier. The deed was done. It had been the right thing to do, but it had been even more painful than he had anticipated.

He reached the center of Westminster Bridge and stopped to look down at the vast array of masts clogging the Thames. Three months ago, he would have thrilled at this prospect. Now it barely registered.

He’d made Hannah cry. The vision of her standing before him in tears cut him to the quick. He’d longed to take her in his arms and comfort her. But to do so would only have made matters worse. On every level. Even if the gesture were not completely inappropriate for any gentleman so wholly unrelated to her, his touch, in particular, would have only caused her further grief. In a matter of seconds, he had gone from being a tolerable dance partner to an abhorrent fraud. She had every right to hate him.

He closed his eyes and took a ragged breath. He must get past this. Somehow. He had conquered difficult trials in the past; surely he could do so again. He would throw all his energy into his work, starting with conceiving a means of gaining entry into Lady Telford’s ball that would not place him directly in Hannah’s path. As much as he wished to be at Telford House to keep Hannah out of Grimsby’s hands, watching her dance with all the eligible gentlemen at the ball may actually be Samuel’s undoing.

He shook away the miserable thought and started back across the bridge, toward his rented room. Work and a dispassionate, logical mind—that was what Bow Street needed. That was what he needed. And he would employ both those things just as soon as he was out of his sodden clothes.