by TJ Bennett
Matthew, an oasis of calm, had no hope of competing with the vortex of Gerard’s magnetism.
Some women preferred the storm, and some preferred the calm. I knew to which category I belonged.
Gerard stood. “That should do it. How does it feel?”
Matthew rose and tested his knee by bouncing gingerly on it at first, then more firmly. “Right as rain. Thank you, Master.”
Gerard brushed off his gratitude and turned to me. “Come, Catherine. It is time to say good-bye.”
And though I had been prepared to do so only moments before, something in me rebelled at his attitude of authority over me. After everything that had happened between us—after he’d refused to speak honestly with me last night and yet had exposed, quite possibly, his true nature to me this morning—those were his first words to me? I was not prepared to deal with him just yet. I needed to sort through this mess and figure out a way to proceed before Gerard had an opportunity to influence my judgment.
“I am having tea with my friends,” I said. “I will be along when I am finished.”
I held Gerard’s gaze, so I sensed rather than saw the Pangburns’ surprise at my refusal to leave with him.
His eyes narrowed. “I understand you have had a very trying day. It is best if you come along now, so you might rest before dinner.”
I gave him a tight smile. “How kind of you to be concerned for my welfare. However, I’m quite capable of judging my own needs. And what I need now is a spot of tea.”
He took a deep breath, and a muscle in his jaw worked. Though he wasn’t unkind, being polite did not come naturally to Gerard. He struggled not to command me outright in front of the Pangburns. I watched with a sort of fascinated detachment to see how he might proceed.
“I find that my throat is dry,” he finally said. “Perhaps there is a cup to spare?”
So he’d decided to wait me out. I nearly smiled. He was learning that in dealing with me, discretion was often the better part of valor.
“Of course,” Mrs. Howard, ever the hostess, murmured.
How could she refuse, no matter how much she might wish to, without appearing unforgivably rude?
While Gerard made himself at home in the only spare chair in the room, looking far too big for the delicately turned wood rocker, Mrs. Howard produced another cup and poured the now-lukewarm tea into it. She did not offer to heat the water nor did she ask how he preferred it, omissions which I am certain neither man missed. We sat there, the four of us, in utter silence, a clock on the mantelpiece ticking off the seconds while Gerard stared at me with a brooding frown. Only Matthew seemed relaxed, a quiet look of amusement on his face.
Finally Matthew rescued us from the silence. “My cousin was just inquiring as to your health, Master. You are well?”
“Yes.”
Matthew waited for Gerard to expound further, but when no other words were forthcoming, he soldiered on. “And what do you think of this changeable weather we are having?”
“I do not think of the weather. It is of no consequence to me.”
Matthew rubbed a hand over his chin, hiding a grin. “And thus we exhaust the topics of good health and the weather.”
I had to suppress a snort of laughter, and his gaze darted to mine in sympathy.
Gerard’s scowl deepened. He shifted the cup from his knee, which jiggered in a subconsciously restless motion.
“More tea?” Mrs. Howard inquired, though he had barely drunk what he had.
“Only if she intends to have more,” Gerard countered, looking at me.
I sighed and rose from my chair to go, tying on my bonnet. “No, I suppose I am finished. Thank you for your hospitality, Mrs. Howard, Mr. Pangburn. We will see ourselves out.”
Matthew rose easily, now that his knee was healed. “In two days then. Wear your prettiest hat.”
Gerard, preparing to deposit his teacup on the tray, checked his movement. “What is that about a hat?”
I folded my hands in front of me. “I will be attending the annual autumn festival with Mr. Pangburn and Mrs. Howard, as their guest.”
His brow furrowed. “The annual autumn festival?”
“Yes, it happens every year about this time,” Mrs. Howard observed drily. “You do remember?”
Gerard set down the cup with a snap and glared at her. “Of course I do. I simply do not think it appropriate for Catherine to attend.”
“Why not?” Mrs. Howard interjected. “She is still young enough to enjoy such festivities, and since you will not be available to escort her, it makes sense for us to act as her hosts. Or do you plan to attend this year?” Her direct gaze held an unspoken challenge.
Gerard ground his teeth. “I will not attend.”
“Then do you wish to deny Mrs. Briton a chance to meet the villagers and have a bit of fun because you choose not to?”
Put that way, how could he object?
“I would deny Catherine nothing that is within my power to give her,” he said quietly. “She already knows that.”
No one made a sound. I could not look at the others. The cottage seemed too small, and I flushed with embarrassment.
“Gerard,” I admonished helplessly.
He had no sense of propriety, no restraint. He didn’t understand how the game was played, didn’t know he was supposed to pretend he did not care.
“Will it make you happy to attend the festival?” he asked, his steady gaze on my face.
I nodded, unable to speak, my cheeks hot.
“Then do so. Your happiness means everything to me.” He flicked a cool glance first at Matthew, then Mrs. Howard; their twin stricken expressions said they had not missed the implications of Gerard’s words. “I will loan you one of my carriages. You may call for her at Alexander Hall as agreed.” Gerard stood and held out his arm to me. “It is getting late.”
He had staked his claim. Whether I denied him or not, he had made it obvious to everyone in the room that he’d laid his feelings at my feet, and they were mine to trample or exalt.
I hesitated a moment too long, and Gerard’s gaze darkened with a vulnerability I could not withstand. I went to him then and took his arm, but turned to Matthew at the last moment.
He’d thrust his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched, his expression closed. I could not bear to see him hurt either.
“You’ll come for me on Saturday, then?” I asked tentatively, allowing that he might wish to change his mind.
I did not think he would answer at first, but he straightened, and something in his posture said he had arrived at a decision of his own. His jaw firmed.
“Of course I will come for you, Catherine. Your happiness is important to me as well. You can count on me.” His subtle emphasis on the last word was a gauntlet thrown down before Gerard, and from the tightening of the muscles beneath my hand, Gerard well knew it.
Matthew could squire me about in the daytime. Matthew was open and honest and had no secrets. Matthew would not ask me to compromise my virtue for his pleasure.
I sighed, feeling like a bone between two contentious dogs as Gerard escorted me from the vicarage. Once outside, I saw the carriage and his horse, tied to the back, awaiting us. He handed me inside and climbed in after me, snapping the door shut behind him, plunging us into darkness, but not before I saw Matthew standing at the window watching us go. Mrs. Howard was behind him. As I watched, her fingers clenched on the tray, the knuckles turning white, and then she turned and disappeared through the kitchen door.
I turned back to Gerard and wondered what he would say next.
Chapter Seventeen
In fact, Gerard said nothing to me at first. Instead he ordered the carriage light lit and we pulled away from the vicarage, the clopping of the horses’ hooves and the creaking of the wheels beneath the axle the only sounds to be heard. The air was heavy with the scent of rain. I hoped it would hold off until we reached Alexander Hall, or the footmen riding on the back of the carriage would be soaked, as wo
uld the driver.
I faced Gerard, refusing to be the first to break the silence between us.
The carriage was too small, his frame too big. His long legs crowded me, his knees on either side of mine brushing against my skirts with each bump and jolt of the wheels, giving me a shock of pleasure every time we touched. His woodsy scent, mixed with the smell of leather and polish, seduced my breath. I curled my fingers in my lap to keep myself from smoothing down the wayward strands of his hair.
This constant attraction to him was inconvenient in the extreme.
For Gerard’s part, he simply stared, drinking in the sight of me.
Unable to bear the burgeoning silence rife with charged emotions, I opened my mouth to reproach him for his high-handedness toward the Pangburns. Before I could, however, he stopped me with a surprising question.
“Was it a love match?”
I blinked in confusion.
“Your marriage. Did you love your husband?”
I had expected him to ask me to account for my whereabouts during the day. I had thought he would berate me for being with Matthew despite his expressed wishes otherwise. I had been braced for an argument. Instead, he’d cocked his head and asked me a question which had nothing to do with any of that.
Leave it to Gerard to find a way to throw me off the track.
I should have told him that my life with my husband was none of his concern. But instead, I told him the truth.
“One may as well ask whether one loves one’s right arm or left foot. It is a part of you, and you would miss it terribly if it were gone.” I turned away, staring out the window at the passing scenery, wondering why I wanted to tell him now. Perhaps it was time. Perhaps, if I told him my secrets, he would tell me his.
“Jonathan and I simply…belonged together. He told me he had known from the time I was eight and he was ten that I would become his wife. When I turned sixteen, he asked my father’s permission to court me formally. We married on my nineteenth birthday. We would have married sooner, but my father had a lung ailment, and when he died I went into mourning for a year. I’d lost my mother years before and had no other relations. I was, except for Jonathan, all alone in the world.”
Gerard said nothing, his entire manner alert. That was fortunate, for once I began, I could not stop the tale from spilling out.
“Jonathan had a promising future in law, due to my father’s patronage, and he was being mentored by friends of Papa’s at the Inns of Court. Papa had always impressed upon me that we must return to others the blessings God had given us, and while Jonathan worked toward securing our future, I made a few benevolent visits to the poor and sick. I met Miss Nightingale on one such occasion, and we became friends. It was she who inspired me to truly understand what service to others meant.”
I looked down at my Spencer and toyed absently with one of the clasps dangling from the front of it. I stared at it, trying not to see the images of my lost life. “I sewed quilts for various causes, contributed food, served tea for endless meetings of ladies’ associations. It was all very diverting, but when I learned I was carrying our child, I was happy to set aside my activities and raise our beautiful little girl.”
Gerard shifted opposite me. “You have a child?”
I smiled wistfully, remembering Eliza, and my fingers strayed to the cameo beneath my jacket. “Had.” I lifted out the locket and laid it against my gloved hand for him to see. “This was Eliza. Jonathan had an artist carve this image of us only a month after she was born. She was my most precious gift from Heaven, now returned.”
He looked at the locket, then at me. “I am sorry,” he said softly, and I believed him. “What happened?”
I blinked away my impending tears. “When Eliza was eighteen months old, I found myself restless. My marriage had survived a period of…” I paused, searching for the right word, “difficulties, and I suppose I was seeking a sense of meaning. Raising my child was a fulfilling occupation, but I could not avoid the thought of the poor, hungry women walking the streets with filthy babies clutched in their arms, others clinging to their skirts. These were women who had lost their husbands due to war or misfortune or drink—through no fault of their own. How it must break their hearts when they could not feed them or find a safe place for them to sleep at night. What was to become of them, I asked myself? I was so much more fortunate and guilty as a result.”
“Did you go back to your volunteer work?”
“And I lost my family as a result.”
“Did your husband leave you because of it?” His voice held suppressed anger.
“Not in the way you mean.” I tucked my fist beneath my chin.
He settled against the squabs. “Tell me, then.”
This would be the hardest part of my tale—admitting my complicity in my family’s death. I continued to stare out the window, the landscape passing slowly outside of it.
“There was a fever sweeping the city. It was not a killing fever amongst the upper classes, who had clean homes, medical care, access to fresh water, and wholesome food. But many of the working class women I had ministered to died, and their children, too. With Miss Nightingale’s advice, I organized a contingent of servants loaned out by society ladies to clean one of the smaller benevolent homes I supported. I needed to supervise their activities—I could not rely on the servants to do the work on their own, you understand.” My hand beneath my chin clenched and unclenched, tears crowding my eyes.
“Jonathan feared for me, but I insisted, and we all took precautions. We wore scarves over our faces scented with camphor and I was very careful not to breathe the air too deeply. But not careful enough.”
“You got sick.”
I closed my eyes. “Yes.” My throat tightened. “And I carried the sickness home to my family. I did not know it, at first, but soon I became deathly ill. And when Jonathan and Eliza got sick as well…the servants would not stay. They left us there, in that house, alone with no one to care for us. It was ironic, really, when you think about it.”
He reached up and, taking my hands in his, removed my gloves, spreading my fisted fingers out, massaging the tender skin between each digit. “What did you do?”
“It all happened so quickly. The doctor was away, taking care of too many others. My husband’s parents had moved to the Isle of Man and were elderly. It would have been dangerous for them to come, so I did not send for them. I had fallen ill first, but I am sturdier than I look.”
I smiled wryly, but it quickly turned down at the edges. “I tried to care for my family myself. By the time they were at their sickest, I had begun to recover a little. But I was still so weak, and one night, I heard my daughter calling for me—she’d been fractious all day, and I had been running back and forth between her and Jonathan, caring for them, feeding them broth when they could hold it down, bathing them when they could not…”
“While you were still so ill yourself?”
“It was my fault they’d gotten sick. It was my duty to see to their care,” I insisted hotly.
He made a sound of impatience but did not comment. “What happened then?”
“I had only sat down for a moment when I heard Eliza calling for me from the nursery. I thought if I could just sit for a bit, and then I would go to her. Just for a few minutes…but when I opened my eyes next, the dawn was coming in the window and I realized I had slept for hours. I jumped up, ran to my daughter’s room…but it was too late. She was already gone.”
A low rumble of thunder sounded overhead, and the rain began to patter softly on the roof of the carriage. My tears came now, tracking down my cheeks at the memory of Eliza’s silent accusing stare, her blank eyes devoid of life. “My precious daughter died alone, calling for her mama, who never came.”
I barely choked the last words out, the memory of that day breaking me all over again.
“Catherine,” Gerard murmured, pressing my fingers in his. He held my hand, closing his eyes, and to my astonishment the worst of the ter
rible pain in my heart lifted. The ache was still there, but it was a remembered echo—something I recalled, but which no longer pierced me to my very soul.
“And your husband?” he finally asked, his voice rough.
“He’d slipped into unconsciousness sometime during the night. He died the day after our daughter, never realizing she was gone or how I had failed them both. I suppose there was a blessing in that.” I had buried them in the same coffin, Jonathan’s arms around his daughter so she would never be alone again.
“I nearly succumbed to melancholy. I could not understand why Death had taken those I loved and left me behind with my memories. I wanted”— I swallowed the lump in my throat— “I wanted to die, too. I think I may have tried to hurt myself—I do not remember. So much of the days following their deaths are a blur to me, and no one will tell me the truth.” I leaned back against the squabs and sighed. “Eventually, however, I returned to myself and discovered that a letter from Miss Nightingale had arrived. She begged me to join her nurses bound for the Crimea, to aid the soldiers suffering there. Purpose, she said, is the cure for many a heartache, and she was right. And so I went. Once the war was over, I opened a home for the forgotten children, the ones no one else wanted.”
“And thus you have spent the last seven years of your life trying to make up for your perceived failure of your family,” he said, his voice tight.
“I suppose you could say that I have spent the last seven years of my life trying to be there.” I touched the cameo at my breast. “I wear this to remind me of the consequences of my weakness because I cannot afford to be weak again. I cannot afford to fail the children who depend on me now. I will not fail again.”
“You did not fail your family, Catherine.” Gerard leaned forward and grasped my chin in his hand, ruthlessly turning me to face him. “You blame yourself for showing kindness, for falling ill, for needing sleep. You’re human, for God’s sake, not a saint. Sometimes circumstances are beyond our control. Sometime we make mistakes, and there are terrible consequences. You did the best you could. No one would blame you for it, least of all Jonathan, who loved you.” He released me. “If you were mine, I would not.”