by Lynn Kerstan
She wanted to wait until he was stronger. Why burden him with confidences now, while his health should be the only consideration? But she was only making excuses, a voice in her head insisted. Putting off the inevitable. Bryn’s strength was not in question. Only her own.
With deliberation, she put the embroidery hoop aside and folded her hands in her lap. Bryn was looking at her, his gaze warm and open.
“Tell me,” he said quietly.
And she did, from the beginning, faltering at first and then in a rush, to get it over with before she lost her courage. He interrupted only once.
“Ardis is the one who put the scars on your hands and feet?”
She hadn’t meant to tell him that, but she nodded. “I doubt she was ever in her right mind, after her lover abandoned her. When I was old enough to understand, I forgave her everything she did to me—and to the boys. She was cast off by her parents, and even when she found someone to protect her—my father—he died a few months later.”
“Leaving you to care for a madwoman and a pair of infants. Dear God, Clare.” His voice was filled with wonder. “I never imagined.”
“How could you?” She produced a smile. “And it was not such a trial, you know. Joseph and Jeremy are more than worth any sacrifice we made on their behalf. Including you, Bryn, because they have a chance at a good life thanks to your generosity. I only wish you could meet them, but that is not possible. If they suspected that I—” Unable to finish the thought, she curled her arms around her waist. “They must never know.”
“Of course not.” He held out a hand. “Come here, Clare.”
After a moment, she moved onto the bed next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “My name is Easter,” she whispered against his neck. “Easter Clare.”
She felt him chuckle, although he tried hard to suppress it. “Because you were born on Easter Sunday?”
“My birthday is in October.” She toyed with a button on his nightshirt. “Lamentably, Father took a fancy to the name. I have always loathed it.”
“Clare suits you. May I continue to call you that, or would you prefer—”
“Clare,” she said swiftly. “Please. Changing my name has been the only part of this masquerade I enjoyed. And for the twins’ sake, it is better that only you and Florette know my real identity.”
“Have no fear I will betray your secrets, butterfly. I am only glad you have confided in me.”
“At last, you mean.” She sat back. “Lying has been the least of my sins, although I hated every untruth even as I spoke it. But there seemed to be no choice. I never expected things to become so … complicated.”
“One night and you’d be gone,” he said with a faint smile.
She nodded. “But then I met Lady Isabella, and Elizabeth Landry, and the duchess. And Robert Lacey and Charley Cassidy and Mrs. Beales. Every moment I feared I would betray myself. And always, by lying, I was betraying the friendship they offered me. It would have been a great deal easier if people had not been so kind.”
Especially you, she thought, in the long silence that followed. He was regarding her with an expression unlike any she had ever seen. She didn’t know how to interpret the look in his eyes, focused so closely on her face, or the muscle ticking in his jaw.
Finally he spoke, his voice barely a whisper. “What a nightmare this has been for you. I never knew. Never suspected, although I should have. Florette thought I would, when she gave you into my hands, but I have failed you.”
“Indeed you have not,” she said, with a return of spirit. “After our first two encounters, you have been wonderful to me. How absurd, to blame yourself for believing what I wanted you to believe. We did not begin well, Bryn, but above all things I hope we can part as friends.”
“Part?” He seized her hand. “We are only just now finding each other. Dammit, Clare, the past is irrelevant, except that I have a great deal to account for. And I will make a future so bright that you will forget what you have endured all these years. Already I’ve been planning. We’ll build a house by the river where we had the picnic. You can call on Alice, come to London whenever you like, and visit Joseph and Jeremy at their school. I’ll see them admitted to Oxford or Cambridge, whichever they prefer. Eventually they will learn we are living together, but by then they will be worldly enough to understand. Men always understand these arrangements. And they will never know it was for their sake that you first came to me.”
If only it were so easy. She could not help but smile at his blind self-assurance, although her heart was breaking. As always, Bryn assumed he could bend the universe to his will. How could she tell him?
“What’s wrong?” he asked, squeezing her fingers. “Nothing has changed, except that I will deal better with you than I have done.”
“Oh, Bryn.” She closed her eyes. “I have made a promise. One I cannot set aside, however much I long to revoke it. When you are well again, I must leave you.”
The glass in his hand shattered. He looked down, to the spattering of port wine on the sheets and his nightshirt, mingling with the blood dripping from his hand.
With a gasp, Clare jumped up and hurried to the bell rope.
“Don’t,” he said from a constricted throat. “Not yet.”
She gave him an exasperated look and pulled the tasseled cord. “Hold still, Bryn. There are bits of glass all over the bed.”
Minutes later the bedchamber swarmed with servants. The top sheet, blanket, and counterpane were carefully removed, and two large footmen helped Bryn to a chair. Clare directed them to stand nearby, holding Argand lamps so she could see to tend the cuts on his hand. Two large trays were set on a table beside him, with basins, cups, towels, gauze, and other things he had dimly heard her request from the maids.
After rinsing the blood away, she studied the wounds intently, her bottom lip clamped between her teeth. “I see a few splinters of glass. Try not to move while I draw them out.”
Moving was definitely beyond his power. He could scarcely breathe as her words echoed in his head: I must leave you.
He watched in a daze as she worked. Now and again she soaked his hand in a basin of fresh water before dipping tweezers into a cup of brandy and plucking nearly invisible pieces of the wineglass from his flesh. After a while, she began to press his palm and fingers with the pad of her thumb. “Tell me if you feel anything,” she instructed.
Twice he nodded, and she went back to work with the tweezers. Finally she washed his hand in soapy water, rinsed it well, and drizzled brandy over the wounds until the cup was empty. He felt nothing, saving only the pain in his heart.
After applying salve, Clare wrapped the hand in gauze and came to her feet. “That should do it. The footmen will help you change into a clean nightshirt.” She picked up one of the trays and moved to the door, followed by the maids.
“Come back,” he managed to say between dry lips.
“Yes. When you are settled in bed.”
A few minutes later, stretched on his back between fresh sheets, he watched the footmen extinguish all the lights except for one lamp on the night table. As the room grew dim, it seemed they were snuffing, one by one, his hopes and dreams.
I must leave you.
He didn’t hear the servants depart. The darkness closed around him, crushing his chest, driving the air from his lungs. How was he to live without Clare? The finality in her voice had been unmistakable. She was determined to go, for some reason that had nothing to do with him.
Even if she explained, and he was not certain she would, no words from him would change her mind. She had made a promise, one she could not set aside. And he well understood what it was to be bound by honor to a course that led nowhere. How impossible it was to turn back.
“Bryn?” She came into the room and closed the door behind her.
“I’m awake. Come here, Clare. We must talk.”
“I know.” She lowered herself on a chair at his side and lifted the bandaged hand. “Does it hurt?”
“Attila did worse damage.” In the soft glow of the lamp, her long hair loose around her shoulders, she had never looked more beautiful. He felt the effort it cost her to smile at him.
“You must take better care of yourself. Now we have only one unscarred hand between the two of us. I ought to scold you for being so clumsy with that glass.”
“How did you expect me to react? You said you were leaving me. For God’s sake, why? I don’t understand.”
She lowered her head. “It seems that you do. It is precisely for God’s sake that I must go.”
“That makes no sense whatever,” he said, after a beat. “This is between you and me.”
“I only wish that were true. And I shall try to explain, Bryn, although I don’t expect you will be persuaded I have no other choice.”
“I am already convinced you believe it to be true,” he said quietly. “Don’t be afraid to tell me how you feel. I’ll not object or interrupt.”
Nodding, she folded her hands in her lap. “You know that my father was a man of faith. From the cradle, I was taught the Commandments and schooled to believe as he did. Even when my stepmother twisted those principles into a rigid discipline that had little to do with true religion, I never lost my own faith.
“But when I became your mistress, I fell from grace. I knew that and accepted the consequences, although there was still hope I’d be forgiven if I spent the rest of my life repenting and making reparation. That was my intent, until I began to take pleasure in my sin. I never meant to. You remember how I fought it—and you.”
He winced, remembering all too well.
“At the end, I could not help myself,” she confided. “I came to want you more than salvation and was sure I would never regret our time together, although it meant burning in hell for eternity.”
He wanted to protest, but he swallowed his words. Clare was, for once, speaking from her heart. And his own heart ached as he began to realize the incalculable pain she had kept hidden from him all these weeks. She was a vicar’s daughter, driven to sell herself at the risk of her soul for the sons of a madwoman who’d tortured her. The interior struggle with her exacting conscience had torn her apart.
At that moment, he’d have willingly consigned his own black soul to the devil if she could be spared one instant of her torment. A poor bargain, he reflected darkly. Already firmly in Lucifer’s grasp, he had nothing to offer any of the Powers that ruled an afterlife he’d never believed in.
She was speaking again, in a low monotone. “You were dying, Bryn. I felt you slipping away, so far away that nothing could bring you back except a miracle. I prayed so hard, knowing I had no right to pray, and still you grew weaker. Sometimes I thought you had ceased to breathe altogether. And then I promised God that if He let you live I would never sin with you again. I knew it was a futile prayer, since I was lost already, but immediately the words were said you squeezed my hand. Opened your eyes. For some reason, that vow made all the difference. Do you understand that I have given my word and must honor it?”
He stared at her in blank astonishment before remembering that moments ago he’d thought to do the same thing—make a bargain with God, or Satan if need be, for Clare’s sake. With anyone having power to alter reality to suit his own wishes. But he had not truly believed that possible.
Clare did.
Now that he understood the depth of her religious conviction, he could not blame her. But she was wrong. She had to be, because he would not give her up for a promise she made under duress. No god worth his salt would hold her to it.
Releasing a long breath, he took hold of her hand. “Do you honestly think the Almighty bargains with his creatures for their lives and souls? Clare, listen to me. I recall very little of what happened after I was shot, except the sound of your voice. I kept trying to reach it, but whenever I got close the pain turned me away.”
He drew her fingers to his lips, wanting her to feel his words as he spoke them.
“The last moments before I awoke are very clear. The temptation to give up was nearly overwhelming, and I’m fairly certain I would have done so, if not for your voice and the assurance you were there, waiting for me. I cannot believe any god would be so cruel as to lead me back to you, only to snatch you away because of a promise you made out of desperation. I won’t believe in a god who plays games like that, pitting us against each other for his own amusement. And neither should you.”
She was quiet for a long time, her eyes closed. Then the tip of her forefinger stroked his taut lips. “Perhaps you are right, Bryn. I don’t know what God has in mind, and I cannot imagine He is toying with us. But I promised. Surely He expects me to—”
He cut her off with a foul oath. And immediately apologized. “Forgive me. I know very well what it is to be entangled in promises, and how it feels when they suddenly make no sense at all.”
“What shall we do, then?” she murmured. “We can never be happy with each other under these circumstances.”
“There is a solution,” he said forcefully. “What we need is time, to figure out what it is. For the foreseeable future you are in no danger of sinning with me, since I can barely lift my head, let alone anything else. And when I regain my strength, I won’t try to seduce you. Stay with me, Clare, and promise you won’t run away again until we find an answer.”
Her lips curved. “You are always so sure of yourself. It never fails to astound me. I’ll make no more promises, because I’m very unsure of myself at the moment. But so long as we are not lovers, I have no reason to leave you.” Her voice grew soft. “Nor do I want to.”
“Well enough, then,” he said, wishing she would kiss him. To his astonishment she did, lightly, no more than a brush of her lips across his, but the tiny gesture gave him hope.
“Sleep now,” she instructed, coming to her feet and moving with a determined stride to the door. “This has been a long and difficult day, and we are both beyond coherent thought. I’ll join you for breakfast.”
He lay awake for several hours after she’d gone, reflecting on the things she had revealed about herself and what she endured while he selfishly pursued his own goals, oblivious to her silent anguish. As exhaustion took possession of his senses, only one thing seemed clear.
He must go home and face the past that still haunted him. Confront the ghosts who had set him on a collision course with any hope of a future with Clare.
And she must go with him, because he lacked the strength to confront them alone.
28
Two weeks later, Clare and Bryn set out for River’s End.
She was glad to be on the road at last. Bryn had been impossible the last few days, sometimes brooding, other times chafing at the restrictions imposed on him by the doctor. In general, a royal pain in the backside.
She knew he was unhappy, as was she, but by silent agreement they never discussed her departure. Instead, they quarreled incessantly about how much he was permitted to drink, why she must remain at St. James’s instead of moving back to Clouds, and her refusal to accept the expensive jewelry he requisitioned from Clark and Sons. A new parcel arrived every afternoon, containing diamonds and rubies and emeralds enough to support her in comfort for the rest of her life.
She could not bear to look at his gifts, although she loved him all the more for wanting to take care of her, and angered him with her determination to preserve her independence. Was she not already indebted beyond her power to repay him?
They kept hurting each other, without wanting to.
Sometimes she wanted to disappear again and make a clean end, but he would find her. She intended to settle in Hastings. The seaside town had become a popular summer resort, and Florette knew of an excellent modiste who would be pleased to employ her. With a job and a place to live until she could afford a cottage of her own, one close enough to visit the twins, there was no reason to stay in London now that Bryn was recovered.
She had agreed to accompany him to the Caradoc estate only be
cause of the little he’d told her about his childhood there. There must be compelling reasons why he had not gone back for twenty years, although he refused to speak of them. And when he begged her, with uncharacteristic humility, to make the journey, she could not refuse.
Heydon Manor, a few miles north of River’s End, was a pleasant and unpretentious country house surrounded by well-tended gardens. Robert and Elizabeth waited by the circular drive to welcome them, along with the viscount’s mother, Lady Dorinda Lacey, who rushed to hug Bryn the moment he stepped out of the carriage.
Almost immediately Clare felt at home, despite one awkward moment when they were shown to a single bedroom.
Since the day he first awoke, Bryn had wanted to sleep with her. After learning of her vow, he swore he’d not touch her sexually, although he still wanted to hold her in his arms.
She believed him, but she did not trust herself and finally told him so. He had been inordinately pleased by her confession.
Separate rooms had been reserved at the inns where they stopped, and he seemed content to hold her hand in the carriage and kiss her cheek when they said good night. But when they were ushered into the bedchamber at Heydon Manor, Bryn saw the distressed look on her face and drew Lacey aside. A few minutes later she was escorted to a room of her own.
Dinner was informal, everyone talking at once, catching up on the news. Robert described, in high good humor, the adventures he and Elizabeth encountered on the road to Gretna Green. Bryn sketched, briefly, his encounter with the thugs who shot him, passing over his near brush with death. Lady Dorinda asked about Isabella and Ernestine.
Through it all, Clare smiled often and said nothing. She could not help but envy Robert and Elizabeth, so obviously happy together, and kept sneaking glances at Bryn, lounging in his chair beside her. What would it be like, to love him freely and openly? Without shame?