by Nina Rowan
“Come with me to this blasted meeting with my mother,” he said. “Since you’ve met her before, you ought to be there now.”
Clara shook her head. “This must be done between you and her. And what if Fairfax sends word about Andrew? Someone needs to be here.” She took his right hand and gently ran her fingers across his. “Go speak with your mother, please. I’ll be with Uncle Granville most of the day anyway. Everything will be fine.”
Her voice was certain, a cool shade of sapphire blue that belied the darkness shadowing her eyes. She lifted his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss against his wrist, on the fraction of skin below his sleeve. Heat shot through his arm.
He wrapped his other hand around her nape and pulled her to him, lowering his mouth to hers. Her soft gasp slid into his blood, settled in the middle of his chest. He kissed her deeply, driven by some unnamed desire to remind her she belonged to him.
“Sebastian.” Clara gripped his lapels, her violet eyes filled with a mixture of emotions that he could not begin to discern. “I want you to remember that you have always meant more to me than you will ever know.”
Sebastian frowned at the strange finality of her words. “For God’s sake, Clara, what are you doing? If you are thinking of approaching Fairfax alone—”
“Bastian.” A knock sounded at the closed door, followed by Darius’s voice. “Best be moving along.”
“Go,” Clara whispered.
With a muttered curse, Sebastian eased away from his wife. Troubled and not knowing how to unravel the source of his apprehension, he pushed his right hand into his pocket and went to the door.
She no longer looked like Catherine Hall, Countess of Rushton, the woman who wore her beauty like delicate armor, whose eyes were cool glass. His shoulders tense, Sebastian stopped in the doorway of the dining room at the Albion Hotel as his mother approached.
Her dress was elegant but simple, and she wore no jewelry. Her dark hair was pulled into a neat chignon, a few tendrils lacing her long neck. As she neared, he saw the silver threads streaking her hair and the thin lines radiating from the corners of her eyes. A tan had darkened her porcelain skin, and freckles dotted her nose.
Freckles.
His mother?
She stopped in front of him, lifting a hand as if she wanted to touch him and then letting it fall back to her side.
“Sebastian,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat, his nerves taut with unease over Clara’s behavior and now this meeting with a woman he hardly recognized. “Hello…Catherine.”
Beside him, Darius clamped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Then he turned and left, leaving Sebastian alone with their mother.
Mustering a bit of chivalry, Sebastian went to pull a chair from one of the empty tables. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“Not yet, no.” She spoke English, though with a bit of hesitation and a more pronounced accent than Sebastian ever remembered hearing. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“I didn’t want to.” Sebastian hadn’t intended the bitter tone, but it was there, coloring his words like the dark smear of a pencil. A thousand questions bubbled and popped in his mind.
As they sat, Sebastian noticed her hands tremble as she brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. She sat back and studied him, her dark gaze—so like his brothers’—both wary and hopeful. “Why did you change your mind?” she wanted to know.
“Clara.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “I like her.”
“Why did you come back?” Sebastian asked, not wanting to discuss his wife with a woman who had severed her own marriage through infidelity.
“I came back to see you,” Catherine said.
“And I’m to be grateful for that?” Anger pierced Sebastian, and he leaned across the table to fix her with a glare. “For the love of God, you caused a scandal and ran away, leaving your family to clean up the mess. You forced the earl to divorce you. You left your daughter with all of society thinking she was no better than her dissolute mother. Did you not once think about what a wreckage you created?”
“Of course I thought about it.” Although regret weighted her words, Sebastian detected no trace of shame. His anger hardened at the notion that she would not be ashamed of what she had done.
“I thought about nothing else after it all came to light,” she said. “But what else could I have done but leave? If I’d returned to London, it would have made everything worse. I knew that if I fled, everyone would cast blame upon me and claim my children had fallen into misfortune because I was their mother. I hoped you would be spared any condemnation.”
“We weren’t,” Sebastian said bluntly. “But we might have withstood it if we’d known what happened.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” She looked down at her hands. Once soft and white, her hands were now browned and wrinkled. “I wish I could tell you it was a mistake. That I didn’t want it to happen. That I never meant for it to happen. But when it did, I felt like…I don’t know. Like something had broken inside me. Broken open.”
Like when I met Clara. Sebastian pushed the thought aside, not wanting to draw any more similarities between him and his mother.
“Catherine.” Sebastian tried to keep his voice level. “What did happen?”
“I fell in love.”
Bloody hell.
“I’d taken a trip back to St. Petersburg,” Catherine said. “Do you remember? My sister had an invitation to a Court ceremony for regimental troops. She didn’t want to attend, so I went in her stead. I met him there. Alexei. He was a captain in the army, younger than me by six years. He didn’t care. He was handsome, bright, courteous. He made me feel like the only woman in the room.”
“So you abandoned your family for him.”
She almost winced. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t…vulgar.”
“A married woman…a countess, for God’s sake, having an affair is the height of vulgarity, Catherine.”
“To you, perhaps. To society. Not to us. Do you have any idea what it was like being married to Rushton? We never loved each other, not really. I know he is not a cruel man, but he was so…rigid. So strict. He had no life inside him, no fire. Every day I felt as if I had to hold myself together so tightly or I’d otherwise break like glass. I didn’t even realize I felt like that until I met Alexei. In that moment, I knew I had to make a choice. I had to either plunge into a world of brilliant, dangerous colors that could shatter us all or return to a life in which I felt dead.”
“You didn’t think of us?”
“Of course I thought of you. But, Sebastian, you were all living your own lives. I rarely saw any of you, did you even realize that?”
“No, but how much did we ever see of you?”
“That didn’t mean I didn’t love you,” Catherine said. “I always loved hearing you play the piano, even when you were a child. Do you remember?”
He cleared his throat. “You used to play as well.”
Only when he had watched Catherine play the piano, her hands skimming with such grace over the keys, had she been real to him. Alive.
“I played more for myself than an audience,” Catherine said. “I so admired you when you began performing and earned such accolades. I wish I’d had such courage.” She traced a scratch on the table with her finger.
“You all grew up so quickly,” she continued. “And Alexander became busy with his company, Darius with his studies, you with your music. Even Talia spent all her time with friends and charities, and of course Rushton was never there. I drifted around his vast house like a ghost. Until I realized that it would be my tomb if I didn’t escape.”
Sebastian dragged his hand over his hair, hating the gleam of understanding that sparked to life within him. He knew well what it was like to feel as if you no longer had anything. And that if you didn’t do something about it, you would cease to exist. It was that urge, like a hammer striking a piano string, reverberating and echoing into his blood.
; He looked up. She was watching him, concern and wariness etched into the face that both belonged at once to his mother and a stranger. He wondered if she would have made such a confession to Alexander or Nicholas. Or even to Talia.
“Do you still play the piano?” he asked.
She smiled. “I did. Especially for Alexei. He loved to hear me play.”
She didn’t have to say that Rushton never seemed to notice. She gestured for one of the servers to bring them more tea, and then she told Sebastian about the man who was apparently the love of her life, a solider who’d moved up in the army ranks through determination, strength of will, and proficiency in battle. She told Sebastian how she’d waited for him, withstood the disapproval of her family, and longed for Rushton’s divorce petition to free her.
She must have loved Alexei Leskov to distraction, Sebastian thought, to have followed the man into battle because she could not bear to be parted from him again. And him too, waiting, then returning to her, asking for her hand in marriage, while knowing he would never be welcomed into her family, that she wore the mantle of disgrace, that she would never bear his children.
They both had known they would be alone together. Just two. And for them, that had been enough.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian finally said. He was still not able to comprehend how she could have cut her life in two with such irrevocability, but a faint understanding wove through him at her confession of overwhelming love.
“I loved Alexei deeply.” Sorrow flashed in Catherine’s dark eyes. “I was blessed to have known and loved him for as long as I did. I was blessed to have known him at all. You’d have liked him. He had a love of life that was not unlike yours.”
Sebastian’s hand clenched. Too late, he realized that the subtle movement drew his mother’s attention. She lifted a hand as if to cover his, then settled it on the tablecloth.
“And you?” she asked. “I knew the moment I heard about your departure from Weimar that something was wrong. Will you not tell me what happened?”
Realizing there was no reason not to, especially after her confession, Sebastian explained. He pushed his hand into his pocket and told her the entire truth of his disability and resignation. Tears spilled down her cheeks by the time he’d finished the unpleasant tale.
“I knew you wouldn’t have forsaken your patrons without a reason,” she said. “Did any of them know?”
Sebastian shook his head. Some part of him recognized that he had kept his secret just as she had kept hers, both to protect others and to protect himself. Oddly, the thought was fitting. He realized now that he and Catherine shared certain instincts—foremost the need to be free from the trappings of expectations. It had taken her thirty years of a stifling marriage to discover that.
He, at least, had always lived as he pleased, and his marriage to Clara had reminded him of the importance of such a desire.
Sebastian pushed to his feet. A strange but welcome sense of calm settled over the turmoil of his emotions. Catherine came around the table and took his hand in hers. He didn’t know if he would see her again, but at least now he finally had answers to the questions that had plagued them all.
“Will you try to see Talia?” he asked.
The light in Catherine’s eyes dimmed. “I don’t know. Darius refuses to facilitate a meeting with Talia. I fear she must despise me.”
Sebastian couldn’t reassure her otherwise. They would all impede Catherine’s access to Talia for no other reason than to protect their sister from further hurt.
“Where will you go now?” he asked.
“I’m staying with my sister in Kuskovo. Please know you can always contact me there.”
Sebastian nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, he bent and brushed his lips across her cheek. Then he turned and left, pulling his hand from his pocket and unclenching his fingers as he stepped back outside.
Chapter Seventeen
Rain streamed down the arching windows. Charcoal clouds foamed overhead, spilling heavy drops that pooled on the streets into wide, greasy puddles. Inside the studio of Blake’s Museum of Automata, the piles of satin and silk appeared muddy in the gray light, the ribbons and streamers dulled, the paint thick and congealed.
Clara pushed a needle through a square of silk and glanced at the clock. Two thirty. Her stomach tightened. The hour between now and the moment when she had to execute her plan seemed almost impenetrable.
She pushed the cloth aside and paced to the window. Please stop raining. If the rain didn’t cease, Andrew and his tutor wouldn’t go to the park…and Clara had no secondary plan in place.
She glanced at the clock again. She couldn’t wait another day in the event Fairfax left London sooner or Sebastian discovered the truth. She also had to act before Sebastian returned from the Albion, rain or not.
Although she wanted to know the results of his meeting with his mother, Clara feared that if she saw him again she would capitulate and confess everything. She could only hope that even if a full reconciliation was beyond their reach, Sebastian and his mother could reach an understanding of sorts.
Unlike her and Fairfax.
Pain seized her chest. She stared out the window, allowing images of her mother and brother to form in her mind. How different this all would have been had such tragedy not struck.
The sound of the doorbell rang faintly in her good ear. Her nerves taut with tension, she turned and headed into the foyer, where the housekeeper was greeting a visitor.
Clara stopped at the sight of the Earl of Rushton. His large, broad-shouldered frame seemed to fill the entrance. He shook raindrops from his hat and greatcoat as he removed them and handed them to Mrs. Marshall.
“Welcome to Blake’s Museum of Automata, my lord.” With a rustle of her skirts, Mrs. Fox approached the earl and swept a hand out to encompass the rooms. “Please have a look around on your own, and should you enjoy a tour, I’ll inform Mr. Blake of your presence. The fee is one shilling.”
“Mrs. Fox!” Clara hurried forward. “His lordship is most certainly not required to pay the admission fee.”
“Visitors are visitors, Mrs. Win…Hall, and I daresay that his lordship…”
“Mrs. Fox, please.” Embarrassment rose to heat Clara’s cheeks. “Lord Rushton, welcome to my uncle’s museum. I’m sorry we’re not better prepared for your visit. Mrs. Marshall, please bring in a tea tray while I seat his lordship in the drawing room.”
Rushton, who appeared baffled rather than affronted by their indecorous greeting, gave Mrs. Fox a swift nod before accompanying Clara to the adjoining room.
“I apologize again, my lord, but we weren’t expecting you.” Clara closed the door and ran her damp palms over her skirt. “Sebastian is away at the moment.”
“I didn’t come to see him, in any case,” Rushton replied. He strolled around the room, examining the automata and mechanical toys lining the shelves and tables. He turned the key on a musical mouse and watched as the creature lifted a flute to its mouth and piped a merry tune.
Rushton’s deep chuckle eased the tension from Clara’s shoulders. She nodded as Mrs. Marshall entered with tea and poured for both of them.
“As Mrs. Fox explained, my uncle will be glad to provide you with a tour,” Clara said after the housekeeper had left.
“I would enjoy that,” Rushton agreed. “I was most impressed by the demonstration at Lady Rossmore’s charity ball. I’ve another son who would find your uncle’s inventions quite fascinating.”
“Darius?” Clara spoke without thinking, then winced inwardly at her use of his Christian name.
Rushton lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Has Sebastian told you about him? A very fine mind, that boy has always had. Last I heard from St. Petersburg, he and my daughter-in-law were supporting the invention of machines that calculate arithmetic.”
Clara nodded. Did Rushton still not know Darius was back in London?
“I…I look forward to meeting them all one day,” she said, unable to prevent the tr
emor in her voice.
She glanced at the clock. Half an hour. The rain seemed to pound harder, hitting the windows like thousands of pebbles.
A deep sense of foreboding filled her. Andrew would not be at the park. And Clara had no other idea how to reach him.
“My lord, please excuse me while I fetch my uncle.” She couldn’t stand here conversing with Rushton while her plan shattered around her. “He’ll be most pleased to know you’re here.”
Rushton peered at her. “A moment, Mrs. Hall. I had thought to invite your father for dinner before he returns to Surrey.”
Clara’s heart plummeted. “Er, my lord, I—”
“However,” Rushton continued, “Bastian has told me of your estrangement. Though he explained it is a personal issue that will not affect my family, I should like your assurance on the matter.”
God in heaven. Two weeks ago, she could have granted him such assurance. But now? If Fairfax were to approach Rushton…
Fear gripped her nape. She took a breath and tried to think past the looming sense of hopelessness.
“May I inquire as to what Sebastian told you?” she asked.
“Nothing beyond that,” Rushton replied. “That is the reason I am here.”
The sound of the rain filled Clara’s head. She looked to where water cascaded in sheets over the windows, the clouds a blanket of gray overhead. Thin, pallid light filtered into the room.
“The estrangement involves my son, Andrew, my lord,” she confessed, her gaze still on the windows. “I…my deceased husband, Mr. Winter, granted my father custody of Andrew upon his death.”
“Is this the reason you have not seen the boy recently? I recall you asking Lord Margrave about him.”
Clara nodded, her breath burning her throat. She paced to the hearth and back, crushing the folds of her skirt in her fists.
“I love my son, my lord,” she said, desperation coloring the words. “Not being able to visit him has broken my heart. I would…I would ask that you please believe me when I tell you I love him more than anything.”