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Bound with Love

Page 8

by Megan Mulry


  Farleigh stepped out first, and Vanessa curtseyed, then wrapped him in a friendly hug. “You rascal. How are you?” She stepped back to get a better look at him. “You appear to be almost happy. What’s got into you?”

  His wife poked her head out next, smiling and looking around. Her face reflected her delight: the vast expanse of the castle’s façade caused her to gasp in wonder. “How beautiful!” Farleigh helped her step down, and she curtseyed as Farleigh presented her to Vanessa and Nora.

  It was all syllables and movement, sounds and utterances, but Nora couldn’t really understand any of it. Her flesh-and-blood daughter was inside that carriage, and she would rip the shiny metal from its frame if the woman did not emerge soon.

  Sebastian came out next, and Nora sighed rudely in frustration. She didn’t want to see another person. She wanted to get her hands on her daughter.

  “Nora?” It was Vanessa’s voice that finally penetrated. Nora’s eyes were so fixed on the shadowy interior of the carriage that she’d ignored Sebastian de Montizon entirely.

  “Oh, do forgive me, señor de Montizon—” Nora curtseyed out of habit, but she was still too distracted to focus on him.

  “Sebastian. Please call me Sebastian.”

  She finally gave him her full attention and saw something protective and loving in those deep turquoise eyes of his. He was worried about his wife. Nora’s heart beat faster. “It is my great honor to meet you, Sebastian,” she replied formally in Spanish, extending her hand for him to take, and holding his eyes in the hopes he would see she meant to love Anna, nothing more.

  He kissed the back of her hand lightly and gave her his best courtly bow. “Mother,” he whispered solemnly as he pulled away. “Please allow me to present my wife.” He turned to the interior of the carriage. “Anna?” Leaving his arm extended until a delicate hand gripped his, he helped the petite blonde beauty step out, holding her hand tight until she’d fully emerged.

  Vanessa gasped even louder than Nora. “She’s the image of Dennis!” Vanessa cried. “Oh my dear!” No longer able to stand on ceremony, Vanessa nearly assaulted Anna with the power of her enveloping hug.

  After an ooommph of confusion, Anna spoke in a muffled voice, “Are you my mother?”

  Nora stood like a statue as silent tears slid down her cheeks. All the weeks of trying to imagine or endure or comprehend what this moment would be like did nothing to prepare her for the reality of it. Anna caught her eye and stared at her. Nora had been such a fool. She should have saddled a horse and ridden to Cambridgeshire that first day, when the dowager duchess’s letter had arrived. What had she been thinking? Her daughter was right here. With her heart pounding, she inhaled sharply when she realized she had stopped breathing.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and even though her words were swallowed up by the bustle around them, Nora knew Anna had seen or heard or sensed the depth of her remorse, the pain of all the time that had been stolen from them.

  “No! I’m your aunt,” Vanessa laughed, so full of joy. “Your father, Dennis, was my husband’s brother, and you are simply the mirror image of him.” Vanessa reached for a strand of Anna’s blonde hair, then patted her cheek. “Exactly this color hair and those Cambury eyes.”

  Vanessa stopped speaking when she realized Anna was no longer listening to her, but had focused all of her attention on Nora. The two stared at each other while everyone else fell into an apprehensive silence.

  Nora spoke first, in a halting whisper. “I am your mother.”

  In her peripheral vision, Nora saw Vanessa step away. “Come, gentlemen. Pia. Let us go inside, shall we?” She corralled the visitors in front of her, directing Farleigh’s footmen to the houseman who would show them where to put the luggage.

  Nora noticed that the other woman, Pia, was particularly reluctant to leave Anna’s side. “But—shouldn’t we—” Nora stared at her for a moment and had a strange feeling of connection and then fear—fear that this woman could keep Anna from her if she ever thought it necessary.

  “It’s all right.” Anna gave Pia a light, dismissive kiss on the cheek.

  Pia looked at Nora one more time. The threat in her eyes was unmistakable this time: Anna had powerful allies, and Pia wanted Nora to know it.

  “No, dear.” Vanessa was being kind to Pia, but her voice brooked no opposition. “They’ll be fine. You too, Sebastian. Inside.”

  Farleigh smiled at Vanessa. “Orchestrating as always, are you?”

  “Best to stick with one’s strength, don’t you think, Farleigh? In you go.”

  Nora glanced up briefly and watched as Vanessa stood at the large double doors, holding her hand out to get everyone into the hall. “Dinner at eight, darlings,” she called down to Nora and Anna, then pulled the doors shut behind her.

  Nora wanted everyone in the world to disappear so she could simply stare at her daughter. She had completely underestimated the power of memory—more to the point, the intensity and immediacy of her memories of Dennis. She was in awe of how she and Dennis, in their short, intense affair, had produced something—someone—so splendid. Anna crackled with life. Simply standing there in the afternoon sunshine, she vibrated. Nora was afraid to touch her, afraid to break the spell of Anna’s willingness to stand there and let Nora look at her. She finally gathered all her courage and reached out to touch Anna’s cheek.

  Anna stared at the elegant dark-haired woman standing before her in a pale blue walking dress with a beautifully embroidered overskirt. There were so many details, and she needed to pay close attention lest she miss a single one. The way the woman’s hands gripped together, as Anna gripped her own. The way her wrist bent at that angle. The long, tapering fingers. Finally, Anna looked at her face.

  She was so . . . young.

  And she was crying.

  Not anything wracking or slobbery, more like an outpouring of emotion from her eyes.

  “May I?” Nora was extending her hand toward Anna, asking permission to touch her.

  Anna nodded, not knowing what to do exactly. There was no appropriate order of events for such a meeting. When the woman’s hand came to the length of Anna’s neck and pulled aside her fichu to reveal the birthmark, they both froze.

  “It really is you,” Nora whispered in awe. She pressed against the skin, as if testing its reality. “When they took you from me, all I saw was your blonde, downy hair and this . . .” She stroked the patch of mottled dark skin. “That’s how I knew you didn’t belong to Floridablanca . . . that you’d been born of love not hatred.”

  She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry, but Anna broke down despite herself. Of course she’d known she was not Floridablanca’s legitimate child, but she’d never known if her mother’s affair had been one of many—as the cruel nuns had implied—or even one of brief, meaningless passion. Or something more. Something, perhaps, tender.

  Anna reached out for this woman, this stranger who knew more about her than she knew about herself. Anna also wept, far more messily. “I— He was— He told me you died—that having me was what killed you—” Anna tried to gasp out the words, but they were choppy and ill formed. The woman pulled her into a firm embrace.

  “Shhhh, shhhh,” Nora soothed. “I’m here now and I’m never going to lose you again.” Anna simply sagged against Nora and, for the first time in her life, let go.

  A few moments later—Nora wasn’t really sure about the passage of time anymore; as if she floated outside of her body—she held Anna close and led her to a shady spot on the lawn, beneath an expansive willow tree that swayed gently in the afternoon breeze.

  “Shall we simply talk for a spell? I have so many questions, and I’m sure you must as well.”

  “Yes. I have many questions.” Anna’s voice was lightly accented in Spanish, but she continued to speak in English. “First off, I don’t know what to call you. ‘Mother’ feels strange.”

  “Then you’d best call me Nora. And then ‘Mother’ on special occasions, when we both feel like
a good cry, perhaps.” Nora hesitated lest she alarm the poor girl, but oh how she wanted to be Anna’s mother, oh how she wanted to earn the right to be called mother.

  “That’s probably true.” Anna looked at her tentatively. “Nora.” She appeared to let the word settle around her, then smiled cautiously. The combination of Anna’s confidence and hesitation made Nora want to weep again, but she waited for Anna to formulate her thoughts. “Though Sebastian will want to call you ‘Mother.’ He’s very sentimental about silly things like that.” Anna rolled her eyes and smiled as if her husband’s sentiments were a joke.

  Nora couldn’t hide her surprise. Sebastian de Montizon appeared to be a loving, protective husband from her brief assessment; she didn’t understand how Anna could find his feelings trivial. Perhaps Anna didn’t love him after all. “He appears to love you very much. Is that funny?”

  Anna’s smile faded instantly, and Nora wanted to take back her words—she even touched her lips with that old childish habit of hers. “I’ve said the wrong thing, haven’t I? I am so sorry—”

  She watched Anna struggle with what to say next. Nora wanted to pull her close and tell her she didn’t have to say anything at all. Anna stayed quiet and looked at the fabric of her skirt.

  “I’m sorry,” Nora persisted, wanting more than anything to alleviate the girl’s obvious dismay. “That was . . . too much. I’ve become a very blunt sort of person, it seems.”

  Anna exhaled and seemed to reach for the truth like a blind person reaching for a handrail at the top of a very long set of stairs. “I’ve no idea why he loves me, Nora. So yes, I guess it seems funny to me.”

  But funny didn’t sound jovial when Anna said it like that. In fact, it sounded terribly sad, and very similar to the feelings of unworthiness that she and Vanessa had been discussing earlier in the day. “Oh, Anna. I know we’ve only just met, but in some way I feel . . . I mean, please trust me. If you can.”

  Quirking her lips and looking at Nora directly, Anna shrugged and continued with a renewed lightness. “I can trust you, I think. I feel the same. I want you to . . .” She faltered and then began again. “Whatever happened twenty years ago, you don’t need to tell me—”

  “Oh, but I do—”

  “No. You don’t. I trust you. I feel it here.” She pressed the palm of her hand against her own heart.

  “You remind me so much of your father. Your real father, I mean. He was fast in that way.” Nora tried to explain it in a better way, letting herself think back to how quickly and easily she’d fallen in love with the Englishman in 1789. “Not rash or impetuous, just . . . oh, I don’t know, he simply knew his own mind. He knew his likes and dislikes without ever giving it a second thought.”

  Anna smiled. “That sounds about right.” Her face turned serious. “Also, I have to believe that. I have to believe that Floridablanca is nothing to us now. If I allow myself to think otherwise, it’s just too dispiriting? Don’t you agree?”

  Nora smiled ruefully. “Yes, I agree. But it is harder for me. You are more like Vanessa. You two will be great friends, I think. I tend to mull things over endlessly, whereas neither one of you likes to dwell in the past, it seems.”

  “I suppose that’s true.” Anna’s shoulders sagged. “But a lack of contemplation is not a very admirable trait when you put it that way . . .” Her voice trailed off and she looked away from Nora. “And here I had begun to hope you might come to like me.”

  “Like you?” Nora laughed gently. “Oh, don’t lose hope on that score, sweet Anna. I tend to fall madly in love with people who are less than admirable. Maybe Sebastian suffers from the same predilection?”

  Anna smiled, and a warm wave spread across Nora’s heart. “He must,” Anna mused. “He’s so persistent and adoring; I’ve given up trying to understand these strange people who seem to find me more than passable.”

  Nora reared back and laughed, but she stopped almost at once when she realized Anna was startled by the sound. “Oh, I shouldn’t find any of this funny, should I—”

  “No. It isn’t that.” Anna’s expression held a hint of wonder. “It’s only . . . that is my own laugh, almost exactly, the one that Pia—and now Sebastian and Farleigh—finally drew out of me, after a childhood entirely devoid of laughter.”

  Nora gasped, and then started crying again at the idea of a childhood without humor, mourning the loss of all those years she was not allowed to comfort her own child, to sing to her, to teach her how to hold a brush, to laugh with her. “I’m so sorry, my sweet.” She reached for Anna’s hand where it rested on the grass.

  “I’m not sweet.” Even though her tone was blunt, Anna didn’t pull her hand away, so Nora held on.

  “Nor am I. I’m a selfish beast.”

  Anna looked across at Nora, probably seeing nothing more than the veneer she presented to the world: a delicate woman with a fair complexion, and a loose pile of dark hair on her once aristocratic head.

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Good. That’s as it should be.” Nora beamed, overcome with a piercing ray of hope—that for this one person at least, she could be completely unselfish and loving. “As far as you’re concerned, I am the most charitable, forgiving creature ever to walk this earth. And so are you, to me.”

  “That is quite the ruse.” Anna pulled a blade of grass out of the lawn. Nora squeezed her hand and continued to hold on. The contact was warm and comforting; she hoped Anna would never let go.

  After a few moments passed with the two of them simply holding hands and getting accustomed to one another, Nora saw Anna look across the park toward a group of people playing a game of battledore and shuttlecock in the distance. “Why is everyone so happy here?”

  “It’s probably Vanessa’s doing. She has an infectious good humor. Relentless, really.”

  “Sounds like Sebastian,” Anna said to the grass, smiling to herself.

  Nora released Anna’s hand so she could lean back on her elbows and settle in. She wanted Anna to relax as well. “Tell me more about Sebastian. How you met him. When you first fell in love. He’s so handsome, you must have swooned.” Nora hoped the topic would keep the conversation light.

  Anna turned to look at her, but didn’t reply.

  The silence extended.

  “Or not.” Nora leaned all the way back on the grass, folding her hands behind her head and staring up toward the canopy of leaves and sky and sun and branches. “I’ll go first.” Without looking at Anna, she continued, “Vanessa is my partner . . . in every sense of the word. I thought of keeping it from you, lest you recoil from my ungodliness, but—” She shrugged against the grass and turned her eyes to Anna’s. “It’s who I am, so, I can’t really . . . not be me. If that makes sense.”

  Anna stayed quiet, and her eyes widened.

  “Are you very shocked?” Nora asked, rising onto her elbows to focus more intently on Anna’s quiet response. The threat of Anna’s judgment seared hot and threatening in her chest. Was she repulsed? Would she wish never to see her again? “Perhaps we shouldn’t speak of it—” Nora shut her eyes and a new terror pressed down on her. What if Anna was disgusted, what if—

  “I fell in love with Pia first, long before I met Sebastian,” Anna blurted.

  Nora opened her eyes slowly, and let the welcome words roll through her. She shifted to lie on her side and rested her cheek against the palm of her hand. Then looked up at Anna, with those Cambury eyes—Dennis’s eyes—glowing and loving. “Was it quite wonderful when you realized you were in love with Pia? I was rather tormented when I realized I loved Vanessa. Really loved her, I mean.”

  “It was wonderful, Nora. She really saved me in some way. I think I would’ve gone mad in the convent if Pia hadn’t been there.” Anna reached for her hand this time, and it was as if all the keys in all the broken locks slid home at once, and fastened her heart in place for the first time in her life. “Pia is so wonderful, you will see when we all spend more time together—”
Anna started speaking faster and with more enthusiasm, and Nora hoped she would never stop. “Sebastian is wonderful, of course, I don’t mean to roll my eyes at his goodness exactly, but it’s as if he doesn’t even have to work for it. It doesn’t seem quite fair that someone should be so naturally good, if you know what I mean. And he loves me in such an adoring fashion, it just feels rather . . . blind.” Anna paused and looked at her, and Nora gradually realized she was seeking her approval or advice. “Is that very wrong of me?”

  The thudding in Nora’s heart was nearly deafening. “No, Anna. I can tell you love him, just from the way you held his hand when you stepped out of the carriage, the way you two relied on one another with the briefest glances. Just don’t ever take him for granted, because his love might appear to be blind, but that type of devotion is very rare indeed.”

  “Do you feel that way about Vanessa? Has it always been easy between you?”

  Nora had a hint of worry, a twinge of guilt that she had somehow passed on her libertine ways—not that she’d ever considered herself a libertine, but she supposed society did. “Vanessa has a very straightforward, managing way about her that I would not describe as easy, and yet . . .” She paused and thought about the nuances of this day, the shadows of ideas and feelings that had been whispering around her. “We are none of us perfect. Where Vanessa is sometimes forceful when she should be gentle, perhaps I fret when I should take action. But in my heart, none of that really matters: I just look at her, and I am grateful she is mine.”

  “Yes! That is it exactly. I am grateful every minute of every day, for Sebastian and Pia. I absolutely am. But I am also . . . difficult. I am willful. And Sebastian simply doesn’t see that. Ah, but Pia does; she sees those things in me and loves me anyway. She is patient and kind—” Anna laughed and Nora’s heart nearly burst at the familiar sound—her own laugh, as Anna had said earlier. “As I’ve often told Pia, she’s all that damned First Corinthians nonsense—” She halted, probably thinking that Nora would be appalled by such blasphemy.

 

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