A Soulmate for the Heartbroken Duke

by Bridget Barton

  It was not that she wished another human being dead, of course, just that she was sure that that would be the only circumstance under which she and Thomas could ever be together again. And so it was, in the end, truly impossible.

  “Thomas, I must speak to you,” Catherine said suddenly and felt her mouth go dry.

  She really did not want to say it; she did not want to put him off his perpetual seeking out of her and that little hope in his eyes, the same hope she felt in her own heart. But one of them had to do it, and she could tell, she just knew, it would have to be her.

  Chapter 23

  “Oh, my dear Thomas, I had thought the two of you looked so very comfortable the other afternoon. I kept my eye on you as I played bridge, and you looked for all the world as you did all those years ago.” Lady Morton seemed almost as disappointed in the turn of events as Thomas.

  “I thought the same, and if I am honest, I did not detect any malice in her words. She simply told me that we must be careful with our hearts and that she is not in any mood to have hers broken again. She was kind, but she was most decidedly firm,” Thomas said sadly and reached for his tea.

  His conversation with Catherine at Lady Morton’s bridge afternoon had taken a decided turn very early on. After he had met with her in the woods on the edge of the Barford estate, Thomas had convinced himself that a certain coherence had been achieved between them, that they were not so greatly distant from the two young people they had once been.

  When she had comforted him, held his hand, and walked arm in arm with him through the trees, it was as if nothing else in the world had existed for Thomas, not his life or his responsibilities, and certainly not his upcoming nuptials with Lady Eleanor Barchester.

  But when she had told him that they had something they must discuss in that very drawing room where he now sat, Thomas had known that it would be something he did not want to hear.

  “Thomas, I cannot tell you how wonderful it has been for me to see you again,” she began, and he knew that it was the calm before the storm. “But I can already sense a little closeness developing between us which I know I must avoid. I cannot tell you how it hurt to be separated from you all those years ago, but I suppose you already know it very well yourself.”

  “It broke my heart, Catherine,” he said and felt a deep sense of disappointment welling in the pit of his stomach.

  “And it broke mine also. And as much as I would not want to feel that again, I would also not want you to feel it either. There is no path which leads to each other anymore, Thomas. There is no way for us to be together. I am a different woman now, and I have been through too much, so much that I would not under any circumstances put myself in harm’s way again. I do not have the same spirit of adventure that I had as a young woman. Life has taught me much and taught me the hard way.”

  “But we can be friends, can we not?” he said and saw a brief flash of annoyance on her face.

  It was so brief, so transient, that he could hardly believe now that he had seen it at all.

  “We are nothing more than friends now, Thomas, and already I can see it leading to disaster for us both.”

  “But …”

  “No, Thomas.” She cut him off. “You are under the impression that it is as simple as picking up where we left off, and it quite clearly is not. Things are not the same, are they? For one thing, you are soon to be a married man, and I am sure that Lady Eleanor Barchester would not be at all pleased by the attention that you are paying me.”

  “But Catherine, please …”

  “Thomas, I really do not know what it is you expect from me.”

  “I just want to be near you, Catherine. I never want to lose you again.”

  “When you walk down the aisle in a few weeks’ time, Thomas, you will lose me forever, and it will be your choice. I have no part to play in this anymore. I have no father to placate and no husband-to-be waiting in the wings for me.”

  “You are angry with me,” he said sullenly.

  “I am angry that I find myself in this position again. I am angry that I have so easily walked back along the path to pain. That does not mean that I do not care for you Thomas because I do. But this is an impossible situation, and there is not a single thing that I can do about it.”

  When Thomas had finished recounting the entire conversation to Lady Morton, he looked at her with his eyebrows raised and his heart full of expectation. However, Lady Morton did not speak for several minutes but simply stared at him a little incredulously.

  “Lady Morton, for heaven’s sake say something,” Thomas said with an uneasy grin.

  “Thomas, I cannot believe that you were first party to the conversation, then you have undoubtedly thought it through several times, and now you are recounting it to me, and yet you do not seem to have drawn any conclusion at all.” Lady Morton seemed to be a curious mixture of amused and annoyed.

  “And now you are angry with me,” Thomas said and then laughed when he realized he sounded a little self-pitying.

  “Thomas, I am going to ask you a question which Catherine already asked you. What is it you expect of her?” Lady Morton put her empty teacup down on the table and leaned back heavily in her armchair.

  “I love her; I love her the same as ever I did.”

  “You did not answer my question, but never mind for a moment.” Lady Morton laced her fingers together across her lap and stared thoughtfully into the distance. “So, you love Catherine the same as ever you did?”

  “I have never stopped loving her, and seeing her again has made me love her even more,” Thomas said miserably.

  “And do you love Lady Eleanor Barchester?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “And do you love any other young lady?”

  “No, of course I do not. There has never been anybody in my heart but Catherine,” Thomas said and realized he spoke as if Lady Morton ought to have known that by instinct. “Forgive me; this business rather has me upside down at the moment.”

  “And I have no doubt it has Catherine upside down also,” Lady Morton said gently. “But please believe me that I do not mean to antagonize you or say anything to cause you hurt, Thomas, because you are as important to me as Catherine herself is.”

  “You must speak freely, Lady Morton.”

  “You surely do not expect that you can marry Lady Eleanor Barchester and that Catherine will move back from Derbyshire for the simple pleasure of meeting you once a week by Stromlyn Lake, do you?”

  “No, no I do not. Well, I did not really think about it.”

  “And have you told Lady Eleanor Barchester that you will not be marrying her?”

  “No, I had not thought of that. I do not see how I can escape it.”

  “You escape it by saying no, my dear boy. Not only to Lady Eleanor, but to your father.”

  “I am afraid it is my father who is the problem. He will be angry enough if I upend this little union between myself and Lady Eleanor and angrier still if he thinks the reason I have done so is for the sake of Catherine Ambrose. He will never agree to my marrying her.”

  “You do not know until you ask.”

  “I do know, Lady Morton. He would disown me in a heartbeat, and then I would have nothing with which to keep Catherine. She would be marrying a pauper.”

  “And when you went to find her all those years ago in Derbyshire … when you spent all those miserable hours in Glossop asking strangers if they had ever heard of her, what had you intended?”

  “I wanted to elope with her, to have her marry me.”

  “And you would have had nothing, and been disowned, and been a pauper. That is my entire point, Thomas, and it is trying my patience a little that you cannot see it.”

  “I cannot expect Catherine to live like that.”

  “And you cannot expect her to suffer the pain of seeing you married to another and still manage to maintain some sort of meaningful friendship with you. Imagine how you would feel if it were the other way around. Thi
nk back to your own fevered imaginings when you were peering out from the foliage at the graveyard hoping not to set eyes upon Catherine’s husband. You really must try to see it from her side. If you cannot make the right decision, Thomas, you can only expect to have to let her go. It is not fair on her, you see.”

  “Then there is nothing to be done,” he said and felt utterly defeated.

  “There is something to be done, Thomas. You have a decision to make, and it must be made one way or the other. Whatever happens next is in your hands, Thomas, nobody else’s.

  Any move to be made is your move, not Catherine’s, not your father’s, not Lady Eleanor’s. It is your choice, Thomas. Now, one way or the other, you must make it.”

  “You are right; I must make a choice.”

  Chapter 24

  Catherine had felt a little steadier in the days since she had told Thomas precisely of her fears and feelings on the subject of their continued friendship. She did not want to cut him out of her life altogether, but she feared that if she did not, the pain would never cease.

  At first, she had wanted to return immediately to Derbyshire, that would solve everything for her. That great distance would be put between her and Thomas again, and she could pretend that she had no choice in the matter just as things had been for so long.

  But Celia had managed to talk her out of it, calmly telling her that she must concentrate on her returning relationship with her brother Philip for a while, that she must find some way to have the strength and the stomach to visit him without fearing the sight of Thomas, or even news of him.

  Catherine knew that she must do just as Celia said, or she would never forgive herself. She had already lost Thomas a long time ago. This was nothing new, nothing that could ever be solved.

  But she had been given a second chance to have a wonderful brother, and she knew she must not waste it. Philip was so precious to her and was now one of only four other people who knew that Henry was her child. And not only did he know it, but he was pleased to have a secret nephew, even if that nephew did not know it himself.

  Catherine had already seen him playing with the child, taking him fishing and standing at the foot of the taller trees, urging him to climb higher and higher despite Catherine’s protestations.

  She had seen the light of love in her brother’s eyes, and not only that, but absolute unconditional acceptance of Henry’s place in the world. And Henry had taken to Philip as a duck takes to water; how could she possibly separate them for great lengths of time in the future?

  And so she concentrated on that for a few days, enjoying being at Barford Hall for once in her life, and trying not to think too hard about the future. It had given her a certain calm and so, some days later when her brother handed her a sealed letter in handwriting she recognized as if it were her own, she was surprised to find how instantly affected she was by it.

  “You have a letter, Catherine,” Philip said after breakfast, handing it to her in private. “From Thomas, I think.” He whispered the last and smiled, and Catherine could not help laughing at his curiously hopeless romanticism.

  “Thank you,” she said and quickly opened it. “No, Philip, you need not leave. I have no secrets to keep anymore.” She smiled at him before turning her attention to the letter in her hand.

  “My darling Catherine,

  Ever since our conversation in Lady Morton’s drawing room, I have been unable to think of anything but you. I understand entirely why you said what you said, and I certainly cannot blame you for one moment for saying it.

  I needed to understand what I was not seeing, and now I think I do. But I must speak to you, Catherine. I have something that I must say to you, and I would beg that you would hear it. I know you did not want particularly to see me again for a while, but I must ask you to reconsider that on this occasion.

  If you are agreeable, I will be waiting at the old place this afternoon at midday. I am in hopes of seeing you there.

  All my love,

  Thomas.”

  When Catherine finished reading it, she folded it and sighed deeply. Philip shuffled a little awkwardly as if he ought not to have been there at all, not even to witness her reading the thing.

  “He wants to meet me this afternoon at Stromlyn Lake,” she said, knowing that was exactly what he had meant by the old place.

  “Does he say why?” Philip asked cautiously.

  “He just says that he has something that he wishes to say to me, that is all.”

  “And will you go?”

  “I do not think it is wise, Philip.” Catherine shook her head gently. “I could not have been clearer with him the other day, Philip. And I cannot see how continuing to meet will help either one of us. It is just too painful.”

  “And yet it seems as if he has something to say,” Philip said and seemed a little overenthusiastic.

  “It is very sweet of you to want such wonderful things for me, Philip. But the last eight years have taught me not to expect such romance in my life again. I really must protect myself.”

  “But Catherine, why can you not tell him about Henry? Does he not at least have a right to know that he is a father?”

  “You are right; he does have a very real right to know that he is a father, Philip. But I cannot do it. I cannot look into his eyes and wonder if he has chosen me out of a sense of duty. If I told him, it would be my way of asking him to abandon everything, would it not? It would even be an expectation, and I do not want my life to be based on such shaky ground.”

  “I understand, really I do. But if you leave it and leave it, if he marries that dreadful Lady Eleanor, it matters not when you tell him for there will be nothing he can do about it. You see, you are taking his choice away in this, even though I understand entirely why you would do it. Catherine, I wish I could offer advice so sensible that it could only help, but this is a most unusual set of circumstances, and I can only tell you to go with your heart.” He smiled at her mischievously. “But if it was me, I know I would tell him.”

  “If it was you?” Catherine laughed heartily. “If you were a woman of eight and twenty with a child and had no husband, really, Philip.” She laughed all the harder.

  “Stop being silly.” Philip reached out and gently pinched her arm.

  Catherine squealed dramatically and reached out to pinch him in return, only he ducked out of her way, and she was forced to chase him through the great entrance hall and down the long corridor towards the drawing room.

  “So, this is what you were like when you were children!” Aunt Celia said, appearing suddenly in the drawing room doorway.

  “Sorry, Aunt Celia,” Philip said and looked suddenly like a giant boy.

  “What are the two of you quarreling about?” Celia was clearly highly amused and very touched to see a brother and sister who still got on so well in adulthood.

  “I have had a letter from Thomas asking me to meet him. He says he has something to say to me. Philip thinks I should go, and I do not.”

  “I think you should go too,” Celia said.

  “Five minutes we have been here and already you are on Philip’s side in everything.” Catherine laughed and felt a sudden warm glow.

  She felt as if she were a part of a real family again, more than she had ever felt when she and Philip had been there alone with their father.

  It gave her such a sense of well-being she decided that she would, after all, meet with Thomas. If she had a family such as hers to go back to, she could be comforted and protected by them if need be. And she knew if she did not go, she would always wonder.

  And so it was, just an hour later, that she set off on foot in the direction of Stromlyn Lake.

  She had not walked that way since she had returned to Hertfordshire, not wanting to feel the great swell of emotion that would undoubtedly waylay her when she saw the place that had once meant so much to them both.

  The day was sunny, although not terribly warm, and she was glad that she had picked up a light woollen s
hawl on her way out of Barford Hall.

  As she walked along the familiar pathway, she felt a little twinge of the old excitement that she used to feel in the days when she had met him there quite secretly. She could not have imagined then striding purposefully out of her father’s house having announced to all where she was going and who she was meeting. How much had changed, and how much of it was for the better, in the Ambrose household, at any rate.

  When she reached the high point of land that surrounded the recessed lake, she peered over the edge and down into the glassy water. She could see Thomas already there, sitting on a large dry rock and throwing little stones into the lake.