Lilith paused to taste her wine, hoping it would strengthen her resolve to defend what she held dear against potential naysayers, namely the Lady Collingwood who was asking most of the questions. Though, she might need to defend against her son, as well, for while he had yet to say a word during dinner, he had not stopped staring at her.
She continued, “Mrs. Brighton believed in a God-loving orphanage rather than a God-fearing one. She wanted a place where children, ranging from those discarded from illegitimate births to those left behind after their parents’ death, could be educated in much the same manner as they might be at a private school. In addition, children were apprenticed to work in positions within Allshire and surrounding parishes. We are unlike most facilities which either rule with an iron fist or ship off the children, even as young as seven years old, to cotton mills or other horrid places for slave labor.”
Footmen brought in the second course, inadvertently interrupting her. Instead of placing the dishes at the table, the footmen set up various plates and bowls along a buffet at the side of the dining room.
Sebastian stood and said, “Help yourselves. As you all already know, we don’t stand on ceremony here. Fill your plate with as little or as much as you would like but do please save room. Cook has arranged a cornucopia of delectable desserts.”
They each rose and explored the table of delights. To Lilith’s surprise, Lord Collingwood stepped next to her and held out his hand. She stared at it.
“May I fill your plate, Miss Chambers?” he asked.
Caught off guard, she could not think of an excuse fast enough. She nodded, setting her lips in a line of displeasure. Did he think her incapable of filling her own plate, or was this some sort of gentlemanly act?
She stood for a moment, unsure of what to do while he filled her plate. This close, his eyelashes seemed longer and darker, especially in contrast to his alabaster skin. Such a beautiful man, even if he was an aristocrat. When he inclined his head to her chair, she hastened to sit, if for no other reason than to avert her eyes from his eyelashes.
Not long did she wait until he set the plate before her and smiled, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight. Oh my, she thought, arrested by the genuineness of the smile. Her heart caught in her throat.
No aristocrat had the right to be this charming, not when she hated the lot of them—with the exception of her brother and his wife, of course.
Once they were all seated and enjoying the meat dishes, Lizbeth said, “Continue, Lilith. You were telling us about the education at the orphanage.”
Lilith sampled the fish before answering. “Yes, well, for much of their education, we teach them what ladies and gentlemen would be taught from tutors and governesses—embroidery, comportment, elocution, dancing, French, Italian, and Latin for languages, geography, mathematics, and so forth. They do not want for accomplishments, I assure you,” Lilith explained.
“But to what end?” asked Lady Collingwood.
“Much depends on the circumstances of their enrollment. Some arrive with their stay paid by a benefactor, usually anonymous in the cases of illegitimate children,” Lilith began.
She said these words without a hint of bitterness, regardless of the circumstances that brought her to Allshire. Unlike many of the children whose stay was only minimally paid, her father funded her admission to the orphanage beyond room and board, even including the sizable donation that had allowed the extension of the building and several years’ worth of supplies. If he had not been the ruthless man she knew he was, one might mistake him for generous, caring even.
She continued, “Some children, however, arrive without support and are thus dependent on the church’s funding until they can be apprenticed for work. In the case of the legitimate children who lost parents, their futures still hold promise, as they could, with the right training, go into a respectable business or secure advantageous marriages.”
Defense of the orphanage against a nosy peer had become pride in her home and identity instead. For a reason she could not say, she wanted her dinner companions to understand how rare and wonderful was the place she grew up and now resided.
“We want to afford them all the best opportunities, so we train for every eventuality.” Lilith admitted, “I will say, most of the children are apprenticed for work, such as farming, blacksmithing, millinery, and so forth. It is a rarity they marry well, are adopted by relatives, or find lucrative prospects, but we can boast of a few cases. Jerome, for instance, has recently written to inform us he is now a solicitor in London. Isn’t that grand?”
A din of voices assented in his good fortune. She wondered if any of them saw the irony of rejoicing in a workingman’s employment when no one at the table aside from her had worked a day in their life.
Lord Collingwood spoke, then, his green eyes trained on her with inquisitiveness. “Do the children ever meet their parents or learn about them? You mentioned some are adopted by relatives.”
Lilith remembered the evening dreamscapes. The children exchanged stories of what life might be like should their parents come back for them, should they discover they were really princes and princesses in hiding, should a long-lost relation search high and low for them to reunite the family. Those stories were the dreams of hopeful and lonely souls sharing a single room with dozens of other hopeful and lonely souls.
Those dreams were not reality.
“Only rarely, my lord,” Lilith answered. “Orphans wonder about their parents more than they ever learn about them. And even if they should learn, who is to say they would like what they hear? Imagine a child who dreams of being a lost prince only to learn he’s the son of a ravished woman turned out by her family from shame who then discarded him to seek employment at a house of ill repute.”
When she saw him flinch, she realized she overstepped the boundaries of genteel conversation.
“Pardon my bluntness. I hope not to put off anyone from their dinner, but there is little delicacy when speaking of the lives of orphans. If you ask, you should be prepared for the answer.”
After a moment of silence, Lord Collingwood spoke again. “And you? How has the newfound knowledge of your parentage affected you?
Her cutlery paused midair. A remarkable question. But how to answer?
Not only was he the first to ask that question, but it was the very question she struggled with and hoped to answer with this visit. She stared back at him, holding his gaze steady, unsure how to respond.
To delay her answer, she finished the last bite of the fish and washed it down, swallowing the lump in her throat in the process.
“It has certainly improved my dinner plans,” she declared with a smile. “If this is to be our evening fare for the entirety of my stay, I believe you will have to roll me back to Allshire. Once they see how corpulent I’ve become, every one of my pupils will beg to accompany me on my next visit.”
They all joined in her laughter, none the wiser that she had not honestly answered the question, none save the man with the angelic face and curls who smiled politely but did not laugh with the others.
Chapter 3
Setting the letters on her brother’s desk, Lilith looked up to find Sebastian studying her. He expected her to say something, she suspected, but what was there to say? She gleaned nothing new from their father’s correspondences, letters she had read many times since reuniting with her brother. There was no point in reading them again.
The letters may paint a picture of her past, but it was not the past that coincided with her memories. She cherished her few memories, clung to them as a lifeline, yet each reading of the letters frayed those memories little bit by little bit.
The bleakest days at the orphanage, the most hopeless of nights, all were manageable with the memories of her mother, even the few memories tainted by the presence of her father. These letters told a different tale. They told the tale of a stranger being he
r birth mother rather than the loving woman from her memories. A birth mother who did not want her, who abandoned her, just as her father did years later.
She glanced back to the letters on the edge of the desk, avoiding her brother’s eyes.
One letter expressed love, hinted at an elopement, and implied being in the family way, a letter written by Lily Chambers, nothing more than a servant’s daughter at the Roddam estate. That letter had been written to the earl’s son and heir, Tobias Lancaster. Another letter, also written by Lily, a year after the first, briefly introduced Tobias to his daughter, a baby she had abandoned on the doorstep of the home he now shared with his new wife, Jane. The last of the three letters, written by Mrs. Brighton of the orphanage to Tobias seven years after the second, confirmed the removal of Lilith from the Roddam estate to be brought to the orphanage forthwith.
Her whole sordid existence lay on her brother’s desk.
“It’s a wonder you didn’t end up in a workhouse,” Sebastian said, reaching for the letters.
Lilith looked out of the window, losing herself for a moment in the view of waves licking black rocks on the beach below.
As much as she had always loved the water, it was a wonder she found any solace in Allshire with it being a landlocked parish nearly a hundred miles from the coast. How could she ever call a place so far from the sea her home? But then, how could she ever call any place home? She did not belong anywhere. Not really.
“Surely,” she said, turning to face Sebastian, “he felt some affection for this Lily Chambers, for my— my mother. It could have been guilt, but I believe he was more compassionate than we give him credit. Of all the orphanages, he chose one that educated the orphans rather than prepared them for the workhouse. How else can we explain his securing my position at that particular orphanage if he didn’t care? And why donate enough money not only for my livelihood but for renovations of the facilities? To be accepted at the orphanage, orphans must be financially sponsored, but nothing more is required or expected aside from their livelihood for the extent of their stay. Yet, he paid so much more than that.”
Sebastian tapped his fingers against the desk, scowling. “Our father didn’t have a compassionate bone in his body. No man with compassion lies to his son by telling the boy his sibling is dead. No man with compassion blames his son for the death of that sibling and then beats a mere child within an inch of his life as punishment for that death. No, that man was not compassionate. He was pure evil.”
“I’m sorry you suffered, ‘Bastian,” she said, her heart aching for all he endured.
“You have nothing for which to feel sorry. He abused us both, even if the abuse took different forms.” Sebastian stood and walked to the window, leaning himself against the stone wall. “I don’t know his motive for sending you away when you had been raised as his and our mother’s daughter. He could very well have continued to raise you as his legitimate daughter after Mother died since no one knew the truth. I don’t know his motive, and I don’t care to know. Frankly, I don’t see the point in trying to rationalize his behavior. Forget about the woman who birthed you and forget about our father. We both shared a mother who loved us until her death. Shall we be content to be together again and stop digging up the past?”
The tension in the room chilled Lilith. She knew from Lizbeth how much Sebastian had suffered at the hand of their father, but was it so wrong for Lilith to want to learn more about her past? She only wanted to make sense of who she was.
“Can you so easily let go of the past?” Lilith queried tentatively.
“Not easily, no,” Sebastian admitted. “Lizbeth has been instrumental in helping me let go. You cannot imagine how the past tortured me, Lil. I felt responsible for your death. I accepted our father’s abuse as my own deserved punishment.”
He beat his shoulder against the stone wall and growled. “Devil take it, Lil. I spent my life thinking you drowned because I left you to play alone, never realizing you were safely tucked away in an orphanage.”
He turned back to her, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes black and inscrutable. “I spent a lifetime clinging to the past. I’m only now learning to let go. I suggest you do the same.”
“Very well, then. Burn the letters,” Lilith challenged, not at all sure she wanted him to act on the gauntlet she had thrown down.
“Pardon?” He stared at her with incredulously wide eyes.
“Burn them. Right now. Toss them into the fire. Keeping them does neither of us any good.” Picking up the letters, she thrust them in his direction, her lips pursed and her hand steady.
Sebastian said nothing. Instead, he reached across her for the tea tray and filled their cups before taking his seat. His eyes flicked to the letters in her outstretched hand but otherwise paid no heed to her request.
“My steward at Roddam Hall has been shipping one crate at a time from Father’s office. Lizbeth and I have been cleaning out his files and possessions. Most of what we find is discarded. A few items have been kept and may be put to some use. He had, for example, a collection of travel journals that we’re planning to publish. I tell you this, Lilith, because this is how at peace I am with the past. I can look through his possessions and not feel raw fury. At least, not anymore. I now see everything of his as objects, not as representations of the man.”
He looked at the letters again then back to Lilith. “These letters are not items to be hated. They led us to you, after all. There is no need to mull over them every time you visit nor is there a need to destroy them. They are only letters.”
“Only letters,” she repeated with a scoff.
“I don’t need to understand the past. I refuse to be hurt by inanimate objects, letters included. I only want to move forward.” Softly, almost under his breath, he added, “As should you.”
He was right. There was nothing more to be learned about her past, and there was no way to second-guess a dead man’s motives for cruelty or kindness. Even if she could learn more, what would it prove?
Knowing the uselessness of such inquiry did not stop Lilith from wondering if their father had loved her birth mother or if he resented a youthful mistake that resulted in a consequence. She could not stop from wondering why her mother had chosen to leave her on her father’s doorstep. She could not stop wondering why her father’s new wife had taken her in and raised her as her own.
The letters told a cold story, one of facts without emotion or motive. They were inanimate objects, as Sebastian said, incapable of causing pain.
The feel of the paper burned her fingertips all the same.
Her arm still stretched, she flicked the letters towards him, willing him to take them away, at least, to hide them in a drawer where she could not find them. They were nothing more than reminders of abandonment by people who should have loved her and reminders that the memories of her mother were not of her real mother.
“Devil take it, Lil.” He growled.
In one swift motion, Sebastian snatched the papers out of her hand and launched himself across the room to the hearth, tossing the letters into hungry flames.
She heard a gasp when the fire devoured the pages, startled to realize it had been she who gasped. Her body perspired as if she, too, were being devoured by fire. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair to restrain herself from rushing to the fire and saving the remnants of her birth mother.
After the ashes settled, Sebastian turned to her.
“Drink your tea. You’re as pale as death,” he rumbled.
Her fingers, stiff, unfurled one by one from the wood. She flexed against the ache from clenching too tightly.
Nothing would bring back the letters. It was done.
“The tea, Lilith,” her brother repeated, his voice softer and closer.
Blinking rapidly against tears that had not formed, she obeyed. The tea was hot and sweet on her tongue, just as comforting
as he knew it would be.
“Have you given any thought to moving in with us?” Sebastian asked, returning to his seat behind his desk. “I’ve spoken with my solicitor about setting up an account for you. You needn’t ever worry about money.”
“I thank you for both offers, but I’m much happier at home,” she said with as much pride as she could muster, trying not to choke on the word home.
“Help me convince you. You know we want you here,” he said, tasting his own tea. “Move forward, Lilith. Let’s move forward together.”
“No. Thank you, but no. I’m settled there, ‘Bastian. I’ve made a home for myself. People see me for what I am and accept me,” she replied, silencing the memory of how poorly the local gentry treated her.
A crease appeared between his black eyebrows. “And what are you that they so willingly accept?”
“An orphan. A spinster. And let’s not forget a bastard,” she said bluntly. “While no one except the rector knows that I really am a bastard, it is assumed that most orphans are illegitimate.”
He drew his brows closer together, the crease deepening, making him look quite ferocious. “Is that how you see yourself, Lil?”
“It’s not how I see myself. It’s who I am. I see no point in giving myself airs. I belong in Allshire where my identity is known. I need not hide any part of my past or feel shame for who I am.”
Sebastian cleared his throat. He opened his mouth to speak then closed it. After swirling the dregs of his cup for several long minutes, he let the cup clatter against its saucer.
“Look deeper. Your place may not be here in my home, but I don’t believe it is in Allshire. The parish isn’t even by the ocean, and don’t you for one second tell me you don’t long to live by the ocean.” He paused, as if daring her to contradict him.
She did not.
The Baron and The Enchantress (An Enchantress Novel Book 3) Page 4