At Last Comes Love hq-3

by Mary Balogh

  Now her control seemed to be slipping. "What is it?" he murmured again. /I have been so lonely/, she almost blurted aloud. /So very, very lonely. I am so lonely/.

  It was all very well to be cheerful and practical, to make plans for a workable marriage and a home that would be comfortable and welcoming and not unhappy.

  But it was impossible to fool the heart all the time. /I am so lonely/.

  It was abject. It was selfish. It was despicable.

  It was not like her. "Nothing," she said again. "Maggie," he said, "I wish there had been time to court you as you deserved to be courted. Time to win your love. Time to fall in love.

  Time to do everything properly. I wish there had. But since there was not – " She set two fingers across his lips. "There never would have been time," she said. "If we had not both been desperate for different reasons when we collided, we would not have stopped for anything more than a hasty, embarrassed apology. The only time is /now/. Now is the only time there ever is." "Then I will court you now," he said, and his eyes were very deep, very dark. "I will make you fall in love with me. And I will fall in love with you." "Oh," she said, "you need not make such promises just because I have been shedding tears, Duncan. I do not even know why I have been doing so." "You are lonely," he said just as if she had spoken her thoughts out loud, "and have been for a long while. So am I – and have been for a long while. It is foolish to be lonely when we have each other." "I am not lonely," she protested. "Liar," he said, and kissed her.

  She kissed him back with a sudden, desperate ardor. She had everything.

  If she were to write a list, it would be a long one indeed, and it would include almost every imaginable dream any woman could possibly want or need to make her happy. Except something at the core of her being.

  Something for which she searched blindly in the kiss and knew she would not find there.

  Could one make a conscious decision to fall in love? Could two people? "I do love you, you know," she said, drawing back from him. "Yes," he said, "I /do/ know. But it is what you do in life, Maggie. It is what you have always done. You have always selflessly loved others and given of yourself for them. It is not enough." She looked at him, stricken. "But you have been a giver too," she said. "You gave up everything in order to shelter Mrs. Turner from harm – your family, your friends, your home, your good name. You are no stranger to love. That is what love does when it must." "It is not enough," he said again. "We have to fall in love, Maggie, and falling in love is different from simply loving. It calls for the willingness to receive as well as to give, and you and I are probably better at giving." She stared back at him. Was he right? "Opening ourselves to love is to make ourselves vulnerable," he said. "We might get hurt – again. We might lose the little of ourselves that we have left or that we have pieced back together. But unless we can open ourselves to receive as well as to give, we can never be truly happy.

  Shall we take the risk? Or shall we decide to be content with contentment? I think we can learn to be content with each other." She still could not find words.

  He tipped his head back and shut his eyes. The arm beneath her head was tense. She guessed that he had spoken from impulse, that he had not known what he was going to say until he said it.

  He had already made himself vulnerable.

  He was afraid to love. No, not that. He was afraid to /be loved/.

  Was she? Oh, surely not. But she thought of how she had always hidden her emotions even from her own family – /especially/ from them – so that she would always appear strong and dependable. Of how she had cultivated a cheerful placidity during the years when the absence of Crispin had been a constant pain gnawing at her heart. Of how she had hidden from them her intense grief when she heard of his marriage, though they had guessed at it. Of how she had planned to make this marriage work in the same way as she had made her family life work – by being placidly cheerful, or cheerfully placid.

  She did love him. She would not be able to live a lifetime with him if she did not. But could she let him love her? What if the love he had to offer turned out to be not strong enough or deep enough or devoted enough or passionate enough? What if he could never be heart of her heart?

  It would be better to guard her heart instead. /Or not/. "How is it to be done?" she asked him. "How are we to do it?" But before he could answer they both became aware of the clopping of horses' hooves and the crunching of wheels over gravel in the distance on the other side of the house.

  It was the reason they had not gone far from the house all day, Margaret realized, though neither of them had put it into words. They had wanted to be within earshot of any approaching carriage.

  He tensed again, listening. So did she. But they had not mistaken. "A carriage," he said. "Yes." They scrambled to their feet and half ran up the steep bank to the terrace and around the west side of the house, Duncan slightly ahead of her.

  A heavy traveling carriage had just drawn up before the portico, and the coachman was opening the door and reaching inside even before he set down the steps. Someone was shrieking in a high treble voice, and the coachman swung him out and set him down on the ground – a slight little boy with a mop of blond curls, Margaret saw as she stopped running and walked forward more slowly.

  The child must have seen Duncan at the side of the house. He came running as soon as his feet touched firm earth, still shrieking, his arms stretched out to the sides. "Papa!" he cried as he came. "Papa!" He did not have far to run. Duncan had not slackened his pace. He bent down and swung the child into his arms, spun him in a circle, and held him tight. The boy's arms were wrapped about his neck.

  Margaret stopped some distance away. "Papa," the child was saying over and over again into the side of his neck.

  Duncan turned his head and kissed him. "I thought we would /never/ get here," the boy said in his high, piping voice. "I was a trial to Mrs. Harris – she told me so. Mr. Harris slept most of the way. He was /snoring/. I thought you would not be here. Mrs.

  Harris said you might not be. She said we might race you home. I thought maybe you would never come and I would never see you again and I would not have a papa. But you /are/ here. And now Mrs. Harris will tell you all the bad things I have been doing, and you will frown and tell me that I have been unkind, and I will be sad. Don't be cross, Papa. Please don't." And he lifted his head, spread his little hands over Duncan's cheeks, and kissed him on the lips. "I won't ever be bad again," he said, all wide, innocent eyes and wheedling tone, "now that I am home and now that I am with you again." "I daresay," Duncan said, "you have been driving poor Mrs. Harris to distraction with all your prattling, have you, imp?" "Yes, I have," the child admitted, and patted Duncan's cheeks before wriggling to be set down. His eyes alit upon Margaret. "Who are you?" "Not a very polite question, Tobe," Duncan said, taking his hand. "I would have told you if you had waited a moment. This is Lady Sheringford, my new wife. Your new mama." "No," the child said, shrinking against Duncan's side, trying to hide behind one of his legs. "/Not/ my mama. I don't /want/ a mama. We don't need her, Papa. Send her away. Now." Margaret made a slight hand gesture when Duncan would have spoken, his brows knitting together. "Of course I am not your mama, Toby," she said. "I am your papa's wife, that is all. You fell out of a tree a little while ago and bumped your forehead, did you not? Your papa told me. Do you still have the mark there?" He leaned against Duncan's leg and circled one finger about his forehead. "I think it's gone," he said. "But it was the size of an egg. /Two/ eggs." "I wish I could have seen it," she said. "My brother fell off a horse once when he was about your age or a little older, but the lump on his head was certainly no bigger than one egg. He used to get cuts and bruises all over too – and scabs." "I have a scab on /my/ knee," Toby said. "Do you want to see?" "I am sure – " Duncan began. "Oh, yes, please," Margaret said, stepping closer. "How did you get it?" "I was /trying/ to catch Mrs. Lennox's cat," he said, bending to pull up his breeches and roll down his stocking to expose one knee. "She /neve
r/ lets him out, and when he does escape, he will not let anyone pet him because he is not used to people. I had my hands on him, and then she stuck out her broom and I tripped over it." "Nasty," Margaret said, and bent closer to look at the dried scab that covered his kneecap. "Did you bleed?" "All over my breeches," he said, "and they were not even /old/ ones.

  Mrs. Harris had to scrub them for an hour to get it all out. And then she had to mend the hole. She said Papa would have paddled my bottom if he had been there." "It sounds to me," Margaret said, stepping back as the boy bent to roll up his stocking again, "as if perhaps it was Mrs. Lennox who deserved to have her bottom paddled." He shrieked with surprised laughter and reached for Duncan's hand again. "Is this /really/ home, Papa?" he asked. "Forever and ever? No more moving?" "This is really home, Tobe," Duncan assured him. "And you are not going away /ever/ again?" "Ever is a long time," Duncan told him. "But we are going to live together here, you and I and – " He glanced at Margaret but did not complete the thought. "Come and see your room. And I expect you are hungry. Cook, I hear, has been baking some special cakes just for you." Toby climbed the steps at his father's side, his hand clasped in his.

  But he stopped before they reached the top and looked back at Margaret. "You can be my /friend/ if you want," he said. "Can I?" Margaret asked. "I'll think about it and give you my answer tomorrow or the day after." "All right," the child said, and disappeared through the door.

  Blond delicacy beside dark strength.

  A garrulous, active, mischievous child, who was quite innocent of all the ugliness that had surrounded his birth and early years.

  Now he was home.

  They all were.

  She could be his /friend/, Margaret thought as she entered the house more slowly. He had already disappeared upstairs with Duncan.

  She smiled. It was better than nothing.

  And she and Duncan were going to fall in love.

  Would they succeed?

  21

  DUNCAN spent the rest of the day with Toby. He had tea with him, showed him the schoolroom, which was part of the nursery, and the toys and books that had been there from his own childhood, and he took him outside to show him the river and the wide lawns to the west of the house, where they would play cricket and other games that needed wide open spaces. He took him to the stable block to see the horses and the puppies in the far stall, jealously guarded by their mother, a border collie. And no, Toby might /not/ take one of them into the house – though Duncan did not doubt he would be coaxed and wheedled until he consented to allow one to be adopted, once the animal could be taken from its mother without crying all night in the nursery and keeping everyone awake.

  He had dinner in the nursery and suggested that they invite Toby's new friend to join them there. "But she is not my friend yet," Toby pointed out. "She said she would let me know tomorrow or the next day. Perhaps she does not like me. Do you think she does, Papa?" "I think," Duncan said, "she will like you a little bit more if you invite her to dinner. We gentlemen have to be crafty where ladies are concerned, Tobe. If we are always polite and considerate and include them in our various activities, they will usually be our friends." "What does /considerate/ mean?" Toby asked. When Duncan told him, he nodded and agreed that Maggie really ought to be invited to dinner.

  After the meal, Duncan spent an hour listening to Toby's much-embellished accounts of the adventures he had narrowly survived in Harrogate before telling him a few stories and tucking him into bed for the night. "Sleep tight," he said, kissing the child on the forehead. "Tomorrow we will play again." "You will be here, Papa?" Toby asked. "Promise?" "I promise." Duncan smoothed a hand over his soft fair curls. "And we can stay here, Papa? For always? Promise?" "Maybe not for all the rest of our lives, Tobe, unless we want to," Duncan said. "But for a long, long time. This is home, a place to play and grow up in, a place to come back to whenever we go somewhere else for a little while. A place to belong." "Together," Toby said. His eyelids were growing heavy. "Just you and me, Papa." "Yes," Duncan said. "You and me. And perhaps my wife, your new friend – /if/ she decides to be your friend, that is. I think she might, though. She was pleased to be invited to dinner, was she not?" "It was kind of us to ask her. We will do it again," Toby said, yawning hugely and closing his eyes. "Am I safe now, Papa? Nobody will come and take me away, as Mama always used to say?" "You are as safe as safe can be," Duncan assured him, and sat where he was until he was sure the child was asleep.

  He hoped he had spoken the truth. Devil take it, but he hoped so.

  Perhaps after all he should have kept Toby's identity a carefully guarded secret. But no, Maggie was right. The time for secrecy was over.

  Except that there were still secrets – heavy ones, which perhaps he ought to have divulged with the others. But Laura had always been adamant that for Toby's sake, and hers, the truth must never be told. And he had promised her over and over again … Did a promise extend even beyond the grave?

  Should loyalty to a new spouse supersede all else?

  His life had been defined for five interminable years by secrets and the certain disaster that would result if they were uncovered. It was not easy to shake himself free of those years. It was not always easy to know what was the right thing to do – or the wrong.

  Especially as it was an innocent child who would suffer if he were to make the wrong decision.

  Had he already made it?

  What would happen if he went downstairs now and told the whole truth to Maggie? But he feared he knew the answer. She would persuade him that it was in everyone's best interest that the truth be told openly at last, that nothing good ever came from secrecy and subterfuge.

  The very idea that she might talk him into agreeing with her made his stomach churn uncomfortably. There was far too much risk involved.

  He sighed and stood up, touching his fingers to Toby's hand before tucking it beneath the covers.

  He had not forgotten the strange conversation he had had with Maggie down by the river just before Toby arrived with the Harrises. In fact, it had been very much on his mind ever since.

  He had no idea where the words had come from. Or the idea behind them.

  Falling in love was as much about receiving as it was giving, was it? It seemed selfish. It was not, though. It was the opposite. Keeping oneself from being loved was to refuse the ultimate gift.

  He had thought himself done with romantic love. He had thought himself an incurable cynic.

  He was not, though.

  He was only someone whose heart and mind, and very soul, had been battered and bruised. It was still – and always – safe to give since there was a certain deal of control to be exerted over giving. Taking, or allowing oneself to receive, was an altogether more risky business.

  For receiving meant opening up the heart again.

  Perhaps to rejection.

  Or disillusionment.

  Or pain.

  Or even heartbreak.

  It was all terribly risky.

  And all terribly necessary.

  And of course, there was the whole issue of trust … He found her in the drawing room, working at an embroidery frame, something he had not seen her do before. She looked up and smiled when he entered the room. "Is he asleep?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Maggie," he said, "I am sorry he was so rude when he arrived." "You must not be," she said. "He was not deliberately ill-mannered, only honest in the way of young children – and very frightened. He saw me as someone who could take you away from him. I was touched when he told me I could be his friend." "It was inspired," he said, "to tell him you needed to consider the matter and would give him your answer another time." She laughed. "He is a sweetheart," she said. "And a little devil," he said. "He almost toppled into the river looking for fish when he had been here scarcely two hours – after I had told him not to lean out beyond the edge of the bank." She laughed. "But I did not come here to talk about Toby," he said.

  She rested her hand holding the nee
dle on her embroidery and looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and somehow fathomless in the candlelight. "Didn't you?" she said. "I will spend time with him each day," he said, "because I must and because I wish to. And of course I must spend time about estate business just as you will go about the business of the house. There will be visitors soon, I do not doubt, and calls to return. But there must be time for you and me." She looked down at her work and with the forefinger of her free hand traced the silk petal of one embroidered flower. "To fall in love," he said.

  She looked up at him. "Can it be done so deliberately?" she asked. "How else are we to do it?" he asked in return. "Let us not call it falling in love. Let us call it courtship instead. There was no time for it before we married, but it is not too late for it now. Is it?" "But courtship is a one-way thing," she said. "A man courts a woman." "Let us be rebels, then," he said. "Court me too, Maggie, as I will court you. Make me fall in love with you. I will make you fall in love with me. There will be magic." Her eyes filled with tears suddenly, and she bent her head to thread her needle into the cloth and set it aside. "Oh," she said, and her voice sounded a little shaky, "that is it, is it not? The grand dream. There will be magic." She looked up at him again. "Will there be?" "The moon is almost full," he said, "and the sky is clear. The stars are a million lamps. Let me fetch you a shawl and take you outside. What setting could be more conducive to romance?" "What indeed?" she said, laughing softly. "Go and fetch a shawl, then." Ten minutes later they were at the bottom of the flower garden and stepping onto the humpbacked wooden bridge that crossed the river. They stopped halfway across it to gaze down into the water, which gleamed in the moonlight. She held the ends of her shawl with both hands, and he had his hands clasped at his back.

  He was thirty. So was she. The first flush of youth had passed them both by, ending abruptly for him just before his twenty-fifth birthday, leached gradually out of her after the death of her father and the departure of her lover and his ultimate faithlessness.