by Mary Balogh
“No, Your Honor,” Gil said.
“My suggestion,” Judge Burroughs said, looking from one table to the other, “is that you get together in a private room, the four of you—the father, the stepmother, and the grandparents—and lock the door upon your lawyers while you come to a sensible, workable arrangement for the future of the minor child you all want. Consider what is best for her, if you will. And consider the accepted and traditional roles of parents and grandparents and be sensible.
“People cannot always be sensible, however, when passions run high, and I daresay that if locked together in a room the two men at least might come to fisticuffs. I would still suggest the meeting, but I will make a judgment in the event it should not happen or will not yield results satisfactory to all. I certainly do not wish to see you all back in my courtroom anytime soon. I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians. And I do believe I will arrive home before my dinner grows cold and thereby avoid a scold from my wife.”
“All rise,” the bailiff said as the judge got abruptly to his feet.
And they rose while Abigail felt pins and needles dance painfully in her hands and her feet and Gil stood almost at military attention beside her, every part of his body, including his jaw and his face, looking as though they were sculpted of granite.
Beauty, also on her feet, woofed hopefully.
Twenty-two
Gil’s mind was no longer functioning. It had been so overloaded with information and emotion and hopes he dared not hope and fears he dared not deny that it had simply shut down. Yet as the door closed behind the judge, he knew it was all over, that arguments had been made on both sides, and judgment had been passed. And he heard the echo of something that had been said—
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
Other things had been said too, all of them lodged somewhere in his mind waiting to come forward to be heard and digested. But—
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
He turned toward Abby to find her gazing back at him, her eyes wide and suspiciously bright. “She is coming back to me?” he asked, afraid to believe.
“Yes.”
And he grabbed her and held her tightly against him as though to save them both from falling off the world. He would have folded her right inside him if it had been possible. Something in his brain told him this was not the way a gentleman behaved in public, and they were in public, were they not? He could hear a buzz of sound around them. But to the devil with behaving like a gentleman. He rocked his wife in his arms, his eyes tightly closed.
Abby, Abby.
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
And Katy! He was going to get her back. He was going to be able to take her home to Rose Cottage. He and Abby. They were going to be a family. Perhaps after all dreams did come true.
Her arms were wrapped as tightly about him as his were about her, he realized. Obviously it did not bother her to behave in unladylike fashion with a roomful of people looking on. Or else his obvious need to hold and be held had taken precedence with her over keeping a proper distance between them, as a lady ought.
And other snippets of what had been said began to make themselves heard in his head.
She would accept no support from me for either herself or her son—our son. Any gifts I sent were refused.
I was proud of him.
So I returned to viewing his career from afar.
In an ideal world this case would have the simplest of solutions. General Pascoe, you and your lady are Katherine Bennington’s grandparents. I daresay you love her . . .
Grandparents are supposed to love their grandchildren.
I daresay you love her . . .
My suggestion is that you get together in a private room, the four of you . . . while you come to a sensible, workable arrangement for the future of the minor child you all want.
Consider what is best for her.
. . . the minor child you all want.
I daresay you love her.
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
Perhaps only seconds passed before Gil loosened his hold on Abigail and became fully aware again of his surroundings. The Pascoes were still behind their table. The general was saying something to their lawyer, but they were all beginning to turn away. Beauty still sat beside their own table, her tongue lolling, her tail thumping on the floor. The Westcotts were turning to one another, shaking hands, hugging. The Marchioness of Dorchester was making her way toward Harry. And . . .
At the back of the room stood a stranger, tall, dark, though his hair was silvering, probably in his mid- to late fifties. A stranger Gil was seeing for the first time. A stranger whose voice he had heard for the first time a short while ago.
He stared at his father for the span of a few seconds before movement caught the corner of his eye and he turned his attention back to the Pascoes, who were following their lawyer from the room. Gil grasped Abigail’s hand just as Grimes began to address some remark to them, and they moved away from the table together, stepping around Beauty.
“General,” Gil called in the voice that had always made itself heard on a parade ground.
“Lady Pascoe,” Abby called at the same moment.
They turned back, their faces masks of hauteur.
“Sir. Ma’am,” Gil said, not even noticing that silence had fallen upon the rest of the room. “I believe we should hold that private meeting Judge Burroughs suggested.”
“For what purpose, Bennington?” the general asked. “You have got what you want. What more is there to be said? You wish to gloat?”
Abby answered before Gil could. “You are Katy’s grandparents,” she said. “You have loved her and cared for her for two years. She knows you and loves you. She must continue to do so. Family is . . . oh, it is more important than anything else in this world. A child’s affections should not be torn between her parents and her grandparents. She ought not to be made to choose, and no one should choose for her. Please let us sit down and talk, remembering that this is all about Katy far more than it is about any of us. Come to the Pulteney Hotel, where we are staying. Come for tea this evening or tomorrow morning or afternoon if you would prefer.”
Lady Pascoe glared back at them, her chin high, her eyes cold, her mouth a thin line—an expression that was all too familiar to her son-in-law. General Pascoe looked long and hard at Abby and then in the same way at Gil.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said curtly, holding Gil’s gaze. “At ten o’clock.”
“At our home,” his wife added.
Both of them turned away again and left the room without looking back.
Gil released Abby’s hand and swung about to look at the other people in the room. All Westcotts. No one else.
His father was gone.
He held up a staying hand when it looked as though Abby’s mother was about to come hurrying toward them.
“I believed,” he said, “indeed I still believe, that I did you all a wrong by allowing you to befriend me during that week at Hinsford when I did not explain to you who I was or where or how I grew up. It did not seem a very terrible wrong, however, as I expected never to see any of you again. But then I compounded it infinitely by marrying Abby. When I came here to London and refused to attend the family celebration Lord and Lady Hodges wished to arrange for us, I did so not out of any fear that I would be rejected and made to feel my social inferiority, but out of a concern that I would be stretching your good nature beyond a limit. It seemed to me that Abby could remain on good terms with
her family while I kept my proper distance. It would appear I have been wrong about everything and that Abby has been right about her family all along. You are not going to let me go, are you?”
“I believe, Lieutenant Colonel Bennington,” Lady Matilda Westcott said. “No, enough of that cumbersome title when you are family. I believe, Gilbert, that we might all have been here today even if you had not married Abigail. You were extraordinarily kind to Harry, and you were every bit the courteous gentleman when we all went to visit him. You were patient and good with the children. We all noticed it. Mama, do sit down and allow me to wrap your shawl more closely about your shoulders. There was a draft when—when someone opened the door behind us a short while ago.”
Anna came toward Abby then to hug her, and the Marquess of Dorchester came to shake Gil by the hand and inform him that he and his wife were delighted that they were soon going to be able to welcome yet another grandchild into their family in the form of young Katy. The marchioness was demanding of Harry why on earth he had risked his health by coming all the way to London in person when a letter would surely have done just as well. Beauty, released at last from the command to both sit and stay, did a couple of exuberant dashes about the room before accepting the invitation to become acquainted with Lady Hodges and better acquainted with Lady Jessica Archer.
And reality struck Gil again with the force of a bolt of lightning.
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
He was going to see Katy again. Soon. He and Abby were going to take her home with them. He was going to see her. And hear her voice.
His daughter.
But—
“Who invited Viscount Dirkson here?” he asked of no one in particular. “How did he even know about this?”
Quiet prevailed again while everyone waited for someone else to answer.
“I believe perhaps it was I,” young Bertrand said. “I happened to hear that his son—I mean Adrian, another son—was in town and I thought I would go and see him. We were quite close friends at Oxford, though he finished there the year before I did. I called on him and we talked. His father was there too. I suppose I happened to mention your name, Lieutenant Colonel. In connection with Abby, perhaps. And I daresay I mentioned this.” He gestured vaguely at the room about them.
Gil looked hard at him. Why did he have the feeling there was more to the story? Some of the famous Westcott meddling, perhaps?
So he had a half brother, did he? Adrian. But he did not want to know. He did not want to know anything about his father’s life.
He nodded at Bertrand before Lady Molenor, one of the Westcott sisters, hugged him and congratulated him.
“Once you marry a Westcott, Bennington,” Lord Molenor said, “you become one forever after, even if you do retain your own name. You might as well get accustomed to it.”
“Katy is now officially my granddaughter,” the Marchioness of Dorchester said, extending a hand for Gil’s. She was beaming at him. There might even have been tears in her eyes. “I am very happy for you . . . Gil.”
And, taking her hand and glancing at Abby, who had tears on her cheeks as well as swimming in her eyes, he fought not to break down in front of the lot of them.
It was true. It was true.
“It is a blessing,” the Duke of Netherby said with a languid sigh, “that the judge is no longer present. He would surely be handing out handkerchiefs and complaining about his dinner.”
* * *
• • •
Lady Pascoe had not said where their home in London was, but it was not hard to discover. Alexander had volunteered the information even before they left the courtroom, and Colin had confirmed it. General Sir Edward Pascoe had a house on Portman Square.
Abigail and Gil arrived there promptly at ten the following morning, though neither had been looking forward to it.
“I think,” Gil had said the previous evening, “we should just leave for Essex in the morning, Abby. It will be easier going there to fetch Katy when they are not there. And they will probably be relieved not to see us again.”
But there had been no real conviction in his voice.
“You cannot just go there and snatch her away, Gil,” Abigail had said. “She has not seen you since she was a baby. She will not even remember you.”
He had grimaced and frowned.
“Besides,” she had said, “we are the ones who offered the meeting, albeit here rather than at their home. It would be . . . dishonorable not to go.” And besides again, the general and his wife were Katy’s grandparents.
He had not argued the point. He had not been really serious anyway.
And so here they were, being admitted to the house on Portman Square by the general’s butler and then to a small but elegant salon on the ground floor. Abigail smiled and was filled with dread as their hosts welcomed them with stiff courtesy—which did not involve handshakes—and directed them to two chairs before sitting down themselves. They were the child’s grandparents, and they were soon to be deprived of the granddaughter who had lived with them for the past two years.
Winning the case had been the easy part, Abigail thought during an uneasy silence while the coffee tray was brought in and Lady Pascoe poured and offered a plate of macaroons.
“Judge Burroughs was wise to suggest that we meet, just the four of us together,” Abigail said as a conversational opener, cup and saucer in hand.
It was the wrong thing to say. But was there a right thing?
General Pascoe sat like a block of granite—was it a military thing, that posture and look? But Harry had never had it. Lady Pascoe’s mouth was set thin in a face that was cold and haughty.
“Judge Burroughs,” she said, “ought to be removed from the bench in disgrace. The comments he inserted constantly into the proceedings were frivolous and inappropriate. We would have had a fairer judgment if there had been a jury. Your husband, Mrs. Bennington, is a cruel and abusive man. I daresay you have not discovered the truth of that yet. You will.”
“What I have discovered, ma’am,” Abigail said, “is quite the opposite. But I do understand that you are hurt and fearful for the granddaughter you have cared for throughout the past two years. You need not be afraid. I am to be her mama. My family, as my cousin the Earl of Riverdale said yesterday on behalf of them all, will take her under their collective wing as they have done with all the children of the family. We will bring her to Essex to visit you and the general, and we invite you to come to Gloucestershire to see her whenever you wish. I will even send you specific invitations. Any child who is surrounded by a large and loving family is fortunate indeed. I was such a child, and I am still surrounded by them despite the unsettling discovery that was made several years ago about my parents’ marriage.”
“You have a glib tongue, Mrs. Bennington,” Lady Pascoe said.
“Ma’am,” Gil said, “allow me to tell you, if you will, about the day Katy was born. Caroline had had a hard time and was exhausted. After holding my daughter for a minute or two, I was expected to relinquish her into a maid’s care and go away to celebrate. I held her for a number of hours instead. My heart almost hurt with the love I felt for her. And I made the vow to myself that I would love her with every breath I drew for the rest of my life. And care for her. And allow her to grow into the sort of woman she was—is—meant to be. I have never broken that vow and never will. If there has been cruelty in my life—and there has been on the battlefield—it could never, ever spill over into my domestic relationships. Either with my wife or my daughter or any other children with whom I may be gifted. I have dreamed all my life of home and of family and of love.”
His tone was clipped, his voice apparently without feeling. Abigail felt her heart break a little bit. He was thirty-four years old. He had had a desperately hard and lonely childhood
, and life had been harsh for him in the army. But he had had a dream and had never relinquished it.
“An affecting speech,” Lady Pascoe said.
“An olive branch,” the general said, speaking for the first time. “It is easier to be magnanimous as the winner of an altercation than it is as the loser. My wife and I are the losers, Bennington, thanks to a judge I would dearly like to see strung up by his thumbs. But we have nothing to gain by calling you a liar or refusing the offer your wife has made. Caroline was our only child. Katherine is our only grandchild. My wife would not wish to cut herself off from all contact with her merely to spite you. Now . . . you will be wishing to see the child. Perhaps even to take her, though I am not sure the Pulteney Hotel is the best—”
“What?” Gil had shot to his feet. “Katy is here? In this house?”
“I see,” Lady Pascoe said coldly, “that you are as uncontrolled as you ever were. I cannot have my granddaughter—”
“Ma’am,” Abigail said, “is she here? Not in Essex?”
“She is upstairs in the nursery,” General Pascoe said. “Her nurse is awaiting your visit.”
“Oh.” Abigail got to her feet and took Gil’s hand. It closed about hers like a vise.
Lady Pascoe sat like a statue.
“I would ask,” the general said, “though I cannot command, that you give her a little time, that you not take her away this morning. Give her a day or two. My butler will be waiting outside the door to escort you upstairs.”
Abigail hesitated when they were at the door, and looked back. The general was on his feet, his hands at his back. Lady Pascoe was still seated, her gaze directed straight ahead. Abigail hurried across the room toward her.
“Ma’am,” she said. “Oh, ma’am, I understand your pain. We will deal with this gently, I promise you. We will take her home when she is ready to go. And we will see to it that her grandparents remain central to her life. I will not let a day go by without reminding her of you, and I will make sure she sees you regularly, either here or in Essex or at Rose Cottage. And I do commend you from my heart for the care you have given her all the time Gil has been away at his military duties.”