Dawn in My Heart

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  “I shall leave you here.” Gerrit touched her lightly on the cheek. “Don’t look so forlorn. I was, and am, a thorough blackguard, and I suppose it’s good you finally found out.”

  As she stared at him, finding it hard to accept the calm way he was taking her refusal, he smiled as if reading her mind and said, “As for me, you mustn’t worry; I never lack companionship for long.” He gave her a small salute. “I wish you well with your new husband.”

  She stood watching him walk back into the shadows, his parting words confirming what she already knew. He’d behaved at the end with that boyish insouciance she’d once fallen in love with as a girl. Now she felt only sadness that she’d ever given herself to him. It was clear his feelings had never been deep. To him, she’d been just another conquest. His parting wish revealed he harbored no ill feeling, but it also showed how little he’d ever cared.

  She couldn’t help contrasting it with the blinding rage of her husband. The thought brought her back to the present with a shudder.

  Gerrit might be able to coolly walk away, but what of her?

  Her night’s rendezvous had shown her what a shallow, contemptible woman she was. She could no longer claim the ignorance of youth of her first fall. She was a grown woman now who had willfully blinded herself to everything but her own childish desire for revenge, and now she had destroyed any chance she had for any sort of happiness with her husband.

  Where could she go? There was no place far enough to escape from herself.

  Tertius sat across from Katie in the dark coach. When the housemaid had first told him of his wife’s assignation, it was as if he’d received a mortal blow. Despite all his forebodings, a part of him had never really believed it possible.

  But when he’d not found Gillian anywhere, he’d had a moment of panic. The sight of her empty bedroom and sitting room gave him the sudden conviction that she had gone. She had left him.

  He searched her drawers and dressing room like a madman, but it looked as if little if anything had been taken. But she had so many things that it was impossible to tell if she’d only taken a few garments. Perhaps she wanted to erase all traces of her former life.

  He clutched at one of her gowns and fell onto a chair in her dressing room, breathing in the softly sweet scent of her cologne on it.

  He had failed. The overwhelming reality of it hit him. It hadn’t mattered how loving and patient he’d behaved toward her in the past weeks. All of his efforts had been in vain.

  Why, Lord? Why? Why go through the effort of loving one who couldn’t return his love no matter how much he tried?

  Is it not Your will to save my marriage? Was it a mistake from the beginning? Maybe You desire to give her a second chance at happiness. Is the man she has loved all along, long before she knew me, the one worthy of her?

  Oh, God, he groaned, falling from the chair onto his knees. Not my will, but Yours, Lord. She’s Yours. I’ve tried all I can and it’s not enough.

  I’m not good enough for her. Perhaps this officer is. He has fought bravely on the battlefield. He bested me in our fencing match. Is that it?

  In the midst of his surrender, Tertius felt a supernatural peace descend on him and an overwhelming desire to worship God. He realized as he fell on his face that it didn’t matter if his wife never came back, the Lord would fill him. The Lord was all he needed, all he would ever need.

  In the midst of his tears, the joy began to flow through his spirit, sadness mingled with an overwhelming joy, so that he didn’t know where one ended and the other began.

  Later, when he left the bedroom, he found Katie waiting for him in the corridor, her face expressing her concern.

  “The note says she is to meet this officer, Major Hawkes, at Vauxhall Gardens,” he informed her. “I shall go there…to ensure her safety.”

  “May I…go along with you, my lord?”

  He gave the maid a look of understanding. “Of course. Come along.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  As the coach rolled along on the cobblestones southward toward the Thames, Tertius leaned his head back against the leather squabs, wondering what he would do when he arrived at Vauxhall. Most likely, he would not even see Gillian in that immense garden full of tree-lined walkways, groves and hidden temples, nooks and crannies designed for lovers’ trysts.

  Gillian had mentioned going with Lord and Lady Billingsley and her friend, Charlotte. She had covered her tracks well, Tertius realized with a curious resignation.

  “My lord?” Katie’s hesitant voice came to him across the shadowy interior of the coach.

  “Yes, what is it, Katie?” he asked with a smile. She had proven herself a true ally.

  “I’m sorry about the mistress. I’m sure there’s some good explanation.”

  “I’m sure there is,” he reassured her. “Thank you for being so faithful.”

  “Oh, I haven’t done anything any good servant wouldn’ta done.”

  “Yes,” he murmured, “what any good servant would have done. That’s put very well. That’s what we are all called to do, isn’t it? Be faithful servants?”

  “I hope I can fulfill my duty.”

  “You have. When…when this is over—” What did that mean? When his wife was gone for good? He cleared his throat and began again. “When this is over, I’d like to do something for you. Is there anything you need, or perhaps your family?”

  She was silent a few minutes, her face turned toward the window, so that he thought she might be hesitant in voicing a need.

  Finally she answered softly, “Well…there’s my mum and dad. They haven’t been well. I’ve tried to help, but it hasn’t been much.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want them to end up in the poorhouse.”

  He reached across the carriage and patted her hands. “Don’t worry. We’ll see to them.” His heart felt a surge of gladness that he could perhaps help someone else at a time when his own heart was breaking.

  “Thank you, my lord,” she whispered.

  The carriage was going over Vauxhall Bridge. They both turned toward the windows then back to each other.

  “We’re almost there,” she whispered fearfully.

  Gillian, too upset to rejoin her party, found them only long enough to plead indisposition. One of the gentlemen immediately offered to see her home in his coach. She accepted the offer gratefully, knowing Vauxhall was no place for a woman alone.

  By the time they were able to maneuver the coach out of the long line waiting outside the Gardens, it seemed hours had passed.

  When she finally returned home, the house was silent. The servants had all gone to bed except one lone footman, lolling in an armchair in the entryway. She roused him gently, and he sprang up, frightened.

  “It’s all right. Lord Skylar, is he still out?”

  The young man rubbed his eyes. “I believe so, my lady.”

  “Very well. You run on to bed,” she ordered. “We’ll leave the lamp here.”

  He looked more asleep than awake. When he hesitated, she gave him a slight push. “Run along. I shall wait for his lordship.”

  “Very well, my lady.”

  When he had left, she checked the lamp, and lighting a branch of candles for herself, she made her way to the library.

  Her heart heavy, she went toward the couch. She knew she couldn’t stay here any longer. She must confess her sinful behavior to Skylar and let him decide her fate. This time, Yorkshire wouldn’t be far enough. Perhaps he had a remote hunting lodge in Scotland, she thought with bitter humor.

  As she curled her legs under her on the couch and wrapped herself in her cloak, the self-pity came and, with it, the tears.

  What would Sky’s God say now? Strike her dead and send her to eternal damnation? That’s probably the only thing that would satisfy Tertius.

  Oh, God, all she’d ever wanted was to love and be loved. Why was that so wrong? Why was that so much to ask? she cried out to that silent god.

  The earlier exhilaration gave way t
o shame, which now gave way to a weariness, as if the weight of her sin were bowing her down like a bundle of thatch on a farmer’s back.

  Sky closed and bolted the front door behind him. The entryway was empty, the lamp’s wick curled over and black.

  He turned to Katie. “Thank you for coming with me.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t find her.”

  “Yes, I am, too,” he said quietly. “Go, get some sleep. There’s no need to arise early in the morning.” His mouth twisted. “Your mistress won’t be needing you.”

  With a sad, understanding smile, she turned away and headed toward the back stairs.

  He took the main stairs slowly. He must trust that Gillian was safe. Throughout the evening, he’d had to put images of her set upon by robbers or cutthroats out of his mind and pray for her safety. He must trust that if she was with the major—and whom else would she be with?—he would treat her well.

  Before he reached his own door, he stopped by hers, his hand on the knob. Perhaps…

  He opened it and shone his candle in its interior, but it remained as empty as it had been earlier in the evening.

  His shoulders slumped. Part of him had kept hoping it had all been a nightmare.

  When he reached his room, Nigel was dozing on a chair. Sky shook his head. He had told the man not to wait up for him. He didn’t bother to wake him now, but removed his own coat and boots and replaced them with a dressing gown and slippers. Sky knew it was useless to lie down. He would go downstairs and read. He picked up his Bible and candle and turned back to the corridor.

  He entered the library and immediately saw the guttering candles. He entered, curious to its occupant. He didn’t see anybody until he reached the back of the sofa.

  There, nestled in her cloak, lay Gillian, peacefully asleep, her head resting on an arm.

  The waves of relief washing over him were so great, he had to clutch the back of the sofa.

  Had she returned to tell him she was leaving definitively? Relief turned to caution. He made his way around the sofa and set his candle down carefully beside the branch of candles. Then he adjusted the cloak around Gillian, thinking he should let her sleep until morning.

  Before stepping away from her, he studied her sleeping face a moment. Why did she have to be so beautiful, with her rosy cheeks and innocent mouth? Unable to help himself, he reached up and brushed a cheek with the back of his fingertips. Her eyes opened and gradually they focused on him.

  As recognition dawned, she turned her face away, and Tertius felt the power of her repudiation afresh.

  Then he noticed the tears forcing their way from between her tightly squeezed lids.

  “Oh, Tertius, you can send me away. I’ll go away…I won’t shame you ever again. This time I’ll stay away…I swear it. I’m so ashamed…I feel so dirty…I’ll never feel clean again…”

  From thinking she was telling him she was leaving him, to a gradual understanding that she was back and telling him in an incoherent way that she was sorry, he saw that something had gone terribly wrong for her.

  “Did he hurt you?” he asked softly but tersely.

  But she didn’t even hear him, so wrapped in her pain.

  She turned her face further away from him and deeper into the sofa. “I’ll go away, I promise. Only, don’t hate me…don’t hate me….”

  He knelt at the sofa close to her face and asked softly, “Why must you go away?”

  “I’ve done something so f-foolish!” she stammered through her tears. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “You can’t have done anything to make me send you away,” he argued gently, touching her cheek with his fingertip. “Only you can choose to leave me.”

  “Oh, no! No! But I can no longer stay.”

  “What is it?” he asked more sharply. “Did he hurt you?”

  His meaning finally penetrated. She opened her eyes and stared at him in horror. “You…know?” Her voice faltered at the enormity of this fact.

  “About Major Hawkes? Yes.”

  Her tear-filled eyes grew rounder. “And you let me continue—”

  “I surmised he was your first love.”

  “Oh, no, no!” She shook her head vehemently against the sofa cushions. “That wasn’t love! I was a silly, stupid young girl.”

  “And now?” he asked her, hope refusing to die within him.

  She sniffed and groped for a handkerchief. He handed her his own.

  “Now?” she replied after she’d wiped her face. “Now, I’m a foolish woman who has no excuse.”

  “You’re still a young girl to me,” he insisted gently.

  She sat up and pushed herself into the corner of the sofa. It was then she noticed his position, and she became overwrought once more. “Please don’t kneel there. Stand over me. Strike me…anything, but don’t kneel before me. I don’t deserve it.”

  Seeing her agitation only grow, he finally rose, but only to sit beside her on the sofa. “Is that better?” he asked mildly. When she said nothing, he tried to help her. “I know you were lonely. I shouldn’t have sent you away—”

  She shook her head, looking away from him again. “Maybe I thought the only way I could punish you for what you did was to—to—oh, I don’t know anymore what I thought.” She looked down at the knotted handkerchief in her hands. “I only know that this evening taught me how foolish I was. I don’t know what I saw in him before, but this evening opened my eyes. He…he only wanted to use me.” She reddened, her fingers working convulsively in the handkerchief.

  Tertius clenched his hands but forced himself to remain silent.

  “I felt so dirty and disgusted by his manhandling. I could only think, how could I have let myself…how could I have given myself to him before…given him my most precious gift?” Her eyes looked at him in anguish.

  And all he felt was the most profound relief, he could only bow his head.

  She interpreted his reaction differently. “I’m so sorry, Tertius. I should never have agreed to our betrothal without telling you about that. That I wasn’t pure.”

  He covered her hands with his. “Shh.”

  She looked at his hand and, with a shudder, removed hers and pressed herself farther against the sofa arm, as if trying to move away from him as much as possible in the confined space.

  “I feel so dirty.”

  “Did he hurt you tonight? Please tell me, Gillian.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t let him. I pushed him away. I never should have agreed to meet him alone. I don’t think anyone saw me with him. I wouldn’t want you to be involved in another scandal because of me. That’s the last thing you deserve to go through.”

  He found his voice at last. “I would rather know what it is you wish.”

  She pressed her lips together as if tempted to speak. Still not looking at him, she finally said, “It doesn’t matter what I want. It’s too late for that.”

  “It matters to me. For if there is any power in me to give you what you want, I’ll move heaven and earth to give it to you.”

  “Don’t say that! I don’t merit your pity. You must hate me. You have every right to banish me now. I’ll go anywhere you say.”

  “I don’t hate you, Gillian.”

  She looked at him in disbelief. “How can you not hate me? I lied to you since the day we met. And now, I have deceived you in the worst way a wife can deceive her husband.”

  “The Lord burned all the hate out of me that night He saved me.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I couldn’t hate you even if I tried.”

  He watched the confusion grow in her eyes. “There are a few other things I can’t do,” he added.

  She waited, still, as if not understanding the language he was speaking and yet straining to hear.

  “I can’t force you to love me. I can’t force you to stay with me.”

  “You knew I was thinking of leaving you?” she asked breathlessly.

  He nodded.

  “And yet, you still let me correspo
nd with him? Go to him?” she asked in wonder.

  “I took away your freedom once. I vowed I wouldn’t do so again. I thought tonight you had chosen to leave me. I wasn’t going to stop you.”

  When she said nothing, seeming to be digesting this information, he continued. “I never want you to stay with me against your will.” After a moment he added, “There is something you can do, however.”

  She looked at him fearfully.

  “You can hurt me. I thought you might today. I was preparing myself for it.” He cracked a smile. “So, you see you are not powerless.”

  He rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes as if weary.

  Gillian studied his features—the dark, straight hair against the dusky skin, his still-too-thin cheekbones, angular even now in repose. She scarcely knew this man from the one she’d been betrothed to. In one thing he hadn’t changed. His manner continued self-deprecating. A sudden wave of tenderness swept over her, and she stretched out her hand and touched a lock of his hair, her own guilt and shame momentarily pushed aside.

  He opened his eyes lazily, a question in their dark depths. When she made no move to withdraw her hand, he reclosed his eyes and turned his face into her palm. Gently, he placed a kiss in it. It was like a courtier’s kiss and oddly touching to her. It demanded nothing from her, as Gerrit’s hot, hungry kisses had.

  It merely communicated his complete acceptance of her.

  Still acting on instinct alone, she leaned across the space between them and placed her lips on his. Her heart thudded as she felt his warm lips against hers and an answering wave of warmth swept through her.

  It was a light kiss, since he did nothing but stay still under her, and so she lingered, loath to break the contact with him. Slowly, hesitatingly it seemed to her, he responded to the slight pressure of her lips against his.

  He drew away a scarce few inches from her along the sofa back and eyed her through half-closed lids. She felt unfulfilled, wanting more.

  He stroked her face with long fingers, and she closed her eyes like a kitten for a caress. When he stopped, she reopened her eyes, feeling bereft. “Why did you stop?”