Journey's End (Gilded Promises)

by Renee Ryan

  Smiling benignly, Marcus sauntered into the room. “What about me?”

  Lightning fast, Richard spun to face his son. “Your wife is the one who intercepted your sister’s letters.”

  His face stunned, Marcus stared at his father. “She . . . no.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Blinking in confusion, he turned to Katherine, who had the gall to smirk at him. It was the wrong thing to do. His eyes growing as hard as his father’s, Marcus strode to her and gripped her shoulders. “How could you?” He pulled her close, so they were nose to nose. “How could you, when you knew how much I loved my sister.”

  “Oh, believe me, I knew.” Katherine sneered at her husband in disgust. “As soon as this one showed up, all you could talk about was your sister. Libby this and Libby that.” Her tone turned mocking. “It was as if Libby had returned, instead of her hideous, simpering daughter who—”

  “Katherine,” Marcus said, his tone as rigid as his glower. “That’s enough.”

  She wrenched free of his hold and stalked over to Caroline. “You are nothing. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

  Caroline blinked at her aunt, clearly shocked. In one move, Jackson was back by her side, pulling her close. He opened his mouth to defend her, but Marcus beat him to it.

  “She is my niece,” he said. “Libby’s daughter.”

  “What of our daughter? What of my sacrifice? I gave up everything to be a part of this family, to live in this house.”

  “What did you sacrifice?” Richard asked. “You have enjoyed a life of privilege since marrying my son.”

  “You. This is all your fault.” She jabbed her finger at Richard. “You tossed Elizabeth aside for this . . . this . . . harlot. Now she must go. She must disappear from this family. I will not stand for any other outcome.”

  Eyes glazed over with rage, Katherine reached up and yanked Caroline’s hair before anyone could stop her.

  With a quick swipe, Caroline clutched her aunt’s wrist. “Release me, this instant.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or this.” A smile, icy and lethal, spread across her lips as she tightened her hold. Katherine cried out and lost her grip, stumbling back several steps.

  “Don’t ever touch me again.” Caroline moved toward her aunt, eyes intent. She slowly raised her hand, but stopped herself. “You aren’t worth it.”

  Caroline’s hand lowered slowly to her side. Her eyes were filled with horror. But somehow she remained calm and in control, her rage firmly held in check.

  She was better than all of them, Jackson realized.

  Unconsciously regal, she crossed the room to stand by his side again.

  “Marcus. Son.” Richard’s voice quivered with emotion. “Please escort your wife out of my sight.”

  “Yes, Father.” Marcus grabbed Katherine’s arm and dragged her toward the foyer. Before quitting the room, he stopped beside Caroline. “I’m sorry, my dear. Please know I wasn’t part of my wife’s treachery.”

  His eyes swam with a mixture of shock and disillusionment, a mirror image of his father’s expression.

  And Caroline’s. “I know, Uncle. I know you would never harm my mother, or me.”

  Looking like a beaten man, Marcus left with his wife firmly in hand. The moment the door shut behind them, Richard sank into a nearby chair.

  Caroline rushed forward and collapsed to her knees in front of him. “Grandfather? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, child. I just need a moment to take in the events of the last half hour.”

  The older man looked as downtrodden as his son. Caroline began speaking softly to him, in a low, gentle tone. Jackson couldn’t hear her specific words, but whatever she was saying seemed to soothe her grandfather’s grief.

  Now that the truth was out at last, the two could begin the process of healing the past and forging ahead toward the future.

  Satisfaction filled Jackson. He longed to tell Caroline how he felt about her, that he loved and admired her and wanted to spend the rest of his life by her side.

  But now was not the time to declare himself. Caroline needed to be alone with her grandfather.

  Jackson slipped out of the room, shutting the door behind him quietly.

  Elizabeth met him in the foyer. “Is it true? Did my mother ruin Caroline’s life?”

  For years, Jackson had protected the people he loved, sheltering them from anything unpleasant. He’d told himself he was giving grace, but grace without truth was dangerous.

  “Yes, Elizabeth, your mother is guilty of a very grave sin.”

  Grimacing, she wrapped her arms around her waist. “I can hardly believe anyone would do something so treacherous. It seems so intentionally wicked.”

  Jackson saw the despair in Elizabeth’s eyes but had no idea how to help her accept the truth of her mother’s character, a woman as bitter as his own, just far better at hiding it.

  In many ways, Lucille Montgomery had been the more honest of the two. It was time Jackson honored her for that. He owed his mother an apology, for not trying harder to understand her pain. “I must leave.”

  Elizabeth nodded absently, her gaze darting between the closed doors of the parlor and the stairs leading to her parents’ room.

  “Elizabeth.”

  “Yes, yes, good day, Jackson.”

  No, it wasn’t a good day and would probably get worse before it got better. Change was never easy and always carried a cost. “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  Without another word, he walked across the foyer and let himself out.

  Less than an hour later, Jackson entered his childhood home and immediately went in search of his mother. As expected, he found her in the sunroom just off the first-floor parlor. Although she claimed the early morning light hurt her eyes, she’d never once altered her daily routine, not even in the first few weeks after her husband’s betrayal.

  What she must have suffered, Jackson thought, as he positioned his shoulder against the doorjamb and studied his mother’s bent head. The pain and humiliation must have been unbearable, especially in those early days. Surely far worse than what he’d endured himself.

  Heart in his throat, he watched his mother a moment longer, trying not to sigh at the picture she made: her back ramrod straight, head bent over her needlework, face scrunched in her customary scowl. Anger and bitterness rolled off her in waves. This was the mother Jackson had known all his life. The difficult, demanding woman with expectations so high no one could ever meet them. Not her husband. And certainly not her son.

  Disgrace hadn’t made her bitter, he realized with a jolt. Nor had it made her hard, or unforgiving. The sour condition of her soul had been a part of Lucille Montgomery long before her husband had run off with her younger sister.

  For as long as Jackson could remember, his mother had wallowed in a constant state of unhappiness, wielding her disappointment in others as a weapon.

  The familiar disquiet he always battled in his mother’s presence arose, urging him to leave before she took notice of him. He stayed firmly planted in place and forced himself to sort through what he would say to her, what he needed to say.

  He predicted an uncomfortable conversation.

  Pushing to his full height, he stepped into the room. “Good morning, Mother.”

  “So, you are going to acknowledge me.” She kept her head bent as she spoke, while her displeasure sounded in her voice and showed in her tense neck muscles. “I was beginning to wonder.”

  So had he. Prepared for the battle ahead, he moved deeper into the room. “I have just come from St. James House.”

  “What business called you there so early in the day?” She poked her needle into the material with considerable force, then stilled, as if a thought had just occurred to her. “Is it official, then?” She lifted her head to gaze at him at last. “Have you asked for Elizabeth’s hand in marriage?”

  “No. I won’t be proposing to Elizabeth. However, I will be making my—”

  �
�But the match has been decided for years.” She gripped the needlework in her hand, wrinkling the fabric beyond recognition. “The girl was to bring respectability to our family, once and for all.”

  A month ago, Jackson would have agreed. That was before he’d fallen in love with Caroline, before he’d realized his priorities had been skewed. “Is respectability so important?”

  “You know that it is.” Her outrage shot through the room like a well-aimed dart. “It is what we have worked for ever since your father left town with that”—she paused, sneered, narrowed her eyes—“that woman.”

  At the fury in her tone and the murderous rage in her eyes, Jackson went utterly still. He’d seen a similar look in Katherine St. James’s glower that morning, had noted the same need to hate. But where Katherine’s wound had been forged from a false impression of an unknown wrong done to her, his mother’s had been founded in truth.

  Hurting for her more than he ever had in the past, he went to her, lowered to his haunches, and took her hands in his.

  “Mother.” He chose his words very carefully. “I know Father hurt you—I know—but at some point you must find it in your heart to forgive him. For your sake, if not his.”

  “No.” Eyes wild with a mixture of hurt and anger, she snatched her hands free from his. “I will never forgive that man. And you shouldn’t, either. What he did was wrong. He has made both our lives unbearable.”

  It was true. They had both suffered. But Jackson knew the time had come to forgive, before the hurt permanently gave way to hate.

  Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and let go of the anger, the pain, the offense he’d harbored in his heart through the years.

  He simply . . . let go.

  Jackson knew there would be more work to do. There would be times he would fall back into old habits. But today he had taken the first step toward freedom. He must help his mother do the same.

  “Mother.” He spoke softly, slowly, urging her to hear him as she’d never heard him before. “Understand, I’m not advocating you deny any wrongdoing on his part, or that you cease to feel the pain of his betrayal, but if you want to take your life back, you have to forgive Father. It won’t be easy and it won’t be fast, but it will come with time.”

  “He doesn’t want my forgiveness.” The resentment in her tone spoke of a stubborn, insidious avoidance of the real matter at hand.

  “How do you know that?”

  “He has never asked.” And there was the real crux of the problem before them. She was waiting for an apology, one that might never come.

  Jackson looked at his mother as if coming out of a five-year trance. He would never win this battle with her. Reason would certainly never work. Lucille Montgomery was happy in her misery. She was comfortable in the knowledge that she was the wounded party. The victim.

  No matter what words Jackson used, no matter how hard he tried to help her, he couldn’t bring her to a place of healing. She would have to arrive there on her own.

  That didn’t mean Jackson wasn’t willing to give it one more try.

  “The most Godlike thing you can do is forgive the unforgivable.” He let out his breath very slowly, very carefully. “Father is gone and isn’t coming back. Even if he does return, he might never apologize for his actions or ask for your forgiveness. You have to decide to do that on your own.”

  She flattened her lips in a grim line, mutiny in her eyes. “Nevertheless . . .”

  Yes, nevertheless . . .

  Jackson stood, disappointment making his limbs heavier than normal, his movements slower. Regardless of his failure here today, Jackson loved his mother. “I want you to be the first to know. I plan to ask Caroline St. James to marry me.”

  Her face went slack, then pulled into the familiar scowl he’d grown to expect. “It was inevitable, I suppose.”

  “What was inevitable?”

  “That, in the end, you would choose an unsuitable wife.” Still frowning, she smoothed the wrinkles from the crumpled fabric in her lap, stabbed the needle into a random spot, and yanked hard on the loose thread. “It is as I’ve always feared. You are just like your father after all.”

  Jackson was nothing like his father. Except perhaps he was like the man who’d sired him, at least in this particular instance.

  The truth hit him with a force that nearly dropped him to his knees. After spending years working to restore his family’s good name, Jackson was going to buck tradition and follow in the footsteps of his rebel ancestors.

  He wasn’t going to marry for propriety’s sake, or to please his mother, or anyone else for that matter. No, Jackson was going to marry for love.

  Chapter Thirty

  Caroline didn’t see Jackson again that day. When her grandfather had decided to stay home from the office—who could blame him, really?—she’d requested to do the same, hoping to spend some private time with him. They’d talked for hours, just the two of them, mostly about her mother and the various memories each of them had of the woman who’d been taken from them far too soon.

  The day had brought its form of healing, a healing that had been coming on for some time, at least in Caroline’s case. Finally, with each story her grandfather told, she could think of her mother without the raging guilt or regret for what might have been. The sadness—oh, the sadness—that would be a part of her always. Such was the nature of grief.

  In time, Caroline knew she would have to find it in her heart to forgive her aunt, but not today. Today, the pain was still too raw, the hurt too new, and Katherine’s lack of remorse too maddening.

  Back in her room at Granny’s, with the sun finally setting on the day, Caroline began the arduous task of preparing for an evening at the opera. She was tired, emotionally wrung out, and really not in the mood for interacting with New York society. She had tears in her eyes again and, now that she was alone, she allowed them to spill down her cheeks.

  She stared at herself in the mirror through her watery vision, her mind still in the drawing room at her grandfather’s house.

  There had been a tense moment near lunchtime, when Marcus had interrupted. He’d only stayed awhile, using the opportunity to apologize for his wife’s behavior once again, as well as make a personal request of Caroline. “Would you do me the honor, my dear, of attending the opera with the rest of the family this evening?”

  Caroline had gaped at him, quite unable to formulate a response. She could not bear—she really could not bear the idea of attending any function with her aunt present.

  As if sensing where her mind had gone, her uncle had hastened to add, “It will be a small, intimate party. You, me, Elizabeth, and, of course”—he nodded to the other man in the room—“you are welcome to join as well, Father.”

  With that additional information, and her grandfather’s quick acceptance of the invitation, Caroline had agreed to attend the opera with her family.

  My family.

  She lifted a shaky hand to her throat and sighed. How far she’d come from the girl who’d stoically endured the merciless registration process at Ellis Island. Angry at the world, and at God, Caroline had come to America to seek vengeance for her mother.

  She’d found forgiveness instead. And love, familial love, with her grandfather, who in a very short time had become the earthly, albeit flawed, model of her Heavenly Father’s perfect love. She would treasure every year she had with Richard St. James and make up for the time they’d lost.

  Caroline picked up her hairbrush and twirled it around in her hand. Heat rose to her cheeks. Could she dare to hope that she’d also found romantic love with a man who knew the worst of her and still seemed to accept her as she was?

  Yes, yes, she dared to hope. And that was the greatest blessing of all.

  Beauty from ashes. So much to be grateful for in her life these days, so much to thank God for.

  Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

  Her heart pounded with satisfaction. Although she was tired, she was looking fo
rward to attending the opera with her family. Her family!

  “Truly, Caroline.” Sally wrestled the brush from her hand and gave her a quick appraisal. “I cannot decide if you are a slow learner or just plain stubborn.”

  She grinned at her friend, realizing how much she’d grown to care for the girl. “Perhaps I am a little of both.”

  “Now that, I believe.” Setting her hands on Caroline’s shoulders, Sally turned her around to face her directly. “You’ve been crying.”

  Sighing, Caroline wiped at her eyes. “Only a little.”

  “You are sad.”

  She forced a smile. “Only a little.”

  Sally pursed her lips and let her eyes wander over Caroline’s face. “Perhaps you should stay in tonight.”

  The thought had merits. The events of the day had worn her out. But Caroline wanted to spend the evening with her family, even if that meant enduring the rest of New York society as well. If she was to embrace this new life of hers, she must learn to appreciate all the various facets, and that included attending the opera in her uncle’s private box. Where the good people of New York would watch her every move.

  No matter. She would have her family with her tonight, and perhaps Jackson, too.

  She gave a small sigh and turned back toward the mirror. “I’ll be fine, Sally. But thank you for your concern.”

  Nodding, Sally began pulling the brush through Caroline’s hair. As she’d done many times over the last week, she watched the maid arrange her dark, unruly curls in a sophisticated knot atop her head, marveling at the girl’s skill.

  Hair coiffed, Caroline rose from the table. As Sally tugged and smoothed each layer of clothing into place, anticipation spread through her. A new beginning. She was embarking on a new beginning, starting tonight. The Lord had provided her with a second chance when she’d done nothing on her own to earn it.

  Mercy, grace, she understood both so much better now. She would not squander this unexpected blessing in her life. She would cherish every moment of the adventure that lay ahead.