She couldn’t deny that a part of her was glad to have seen him, to know he was safe and well. A part of her had even considered accepting his ludicrous proposition to teach him, not so much to get out of unbuttoning her bodice, but simply to have the opportunity to spend a bit of time with him. But she had to protect her heart. It was too vulnerable. She didn’t want to place herself in the position of having to leave him again—and she quite simply didn’t think she could stay there much longer without losing the final vestiges of herself.
Oh, she had adapted and adjusted and played the role of an aristocrat’s stepdaughter, but she’d never felt that she’d shown her true self to these people. She’d wanted to be accepted, and so she’d changed. But then so had her mother and her sisters. They would gather in the quiet of the garden, practicing their enunciation. It was more than replacing the drawl. It was learning the proper words, inflections, style.
When her stepfather had stumbled across them one afternoon, exchanging words they’d heard, trying to decipher their meanings, attempting to use them correctly…a look of regret so incredibly profound had crossed his features that Lauren had been certain he would put them all on a ship and send them back to Texas. Instead, he’d hired a series of tutors to teach them diction, etiquette, walking, dancing, riding, dining, piano, singing, painting, and letter writing. No conceivable aspect of their behavior was left unschooled.
Tom wanted her to teach him what he needed to know. The man had no idea what all was involved. It would take months. Dear God, it could take years. He was brash and bold, a man of uncultured habits and wicked temptations.
And a part of her had no desire whatsoever to see him tamed.
Hearing the rustle of skirts, the quiet footsteps of a graceful stride, she wasn’t at all surprised when a moment later her mother sat on the bench beside her, and said softly, “I’ve always enjoyed this section of the garden.”
“Me too.”
“As have I,” her mother corrected gently.
“I’m not in the mood to play English to night, Mama.”
Her mother wrapped her hand around Lauren’s where it rested in her lap. “Dinner is ready to be served.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Samantha encountered Tom in the foyer. He offered his regrets, but apparently he remembered another pressing engagement and was unable to stay for dinner.”
“Apparently.”
“You spoke with him before he left?”
“Before he took his leave,” she corrected out of habit, the same habit that had made her mother correct her only seconds earlier. Among the Texas ladies of the house hold, when it came to emulating those with whom Ravenleigh associated, they recognized no hierarchy, simply a heartfelt desire to help each of them fit in.
“Yes,” Lauren continued. “I spoke with him.”
“Did he say anything of interest?”
She couldn’t quite identify the tone of her mother’s voice. It was as though she’d expected him to reveal some horrible truth.
“He wants me to teach him to be a gentleman.”
“He can hire someone to oversee that task.”
“He was seeking to hire me. I refused, of course.”
Her mother squeezed her hand. “I know it must be difficult to see him again after all these years…”
Lauren didn’t realize until she reached up and wiped the cool dampness from her cheeks that the tears she’d felt earlier had continued to fall. She swallowed hard. “Difficult scarcely defines what I’m feeling. His place is here now, and I don’t want mine to be.”
She felt her mother’s hand twitch.
Twisting around slightly, she studied her mother in the garden’s yellowish light. Her transformation from a hardworking cotton farmer into a countess had happened so gradually that Lauren sometimes had difficulty remembering what her mother looked like before they’d left Texas. What she did remember was her mother’s insistence that Lauren not spend time with that “incorrigible boy.”
Lauren’s heart kicked up its beat as realization began to dawn as slowly as the sun easing over the horizon. “Tom told me that he wrote me, Mama. All these years. He wrote me.”
Her mother rose to her feet, took several steps forward, crossed her arms over her chest, and gazed out on the darkness.
“You kept his letters from me,” Lauren said, with a boldness born of undeniable comprehension.
Her mother turned around. “You were so unhappy—”
“And you thought keeping his letters from me was a way to make me happier?” she asked incredulously, coming to her feet and fisting her hands at her sides, infuriated beyond reason.
“I thought it would make the transition to this new life easier if you didn’t have the constant reminders of what was back in Texas.”
“That’s faulty reasoning if I ever heard it. You didn’t keep Lydia’s letters from me. Or Gina’s.” Gina had been one of her dearest friends in Texas. Now she was the Countess of Huntingdon, the wife of Ravenleigh’s cousin, Devon Sheridan.
“That was different. I didn’t think their letters would serve as continual reminders of what you’d left behind. You weren’t sneaking out at night to meet with them.”
“You had no right—”
“It’s a mother’s responsibility to protect her children.”
“What did you think you were protecting me from?”
“Heartache. Lauren, I was trying to make the adjustment easier on you.”
“Well, you failed miserably.”
Even in the darkness, she thought she saw her mother flinch. She immediately regretted the harshness of her words, but she hardly knew what to do with the anger roiling through her. She’d never been so angry, so hurt. Never felt so betrayed. She’d often heard that the path to hell was paved with good intentions. She’d never truly understood what that meant, until that moment. Her mother had led her there—whether intentional or not. Maybe she’d never understood exactly what Tom had meant to Lauren, for surely she’d have not diverted his letters had she known.
“May I please have the letters now?” she asked, with resignation. The damage was done. Lashing out at her mother, whom she’d always respected and loved, wasn’t going to undo it.
“I’m sorry, Lauren. I burned them.”
Lauren felt as though she’d been struck. “He says he wrote every day for two years,” she said quietly. “That’s over seven hundred letters, Mama. Did you ever read any of them?”
Her mother slowly shook her head. “No, that seemed wrong.”
“While taking and destroying them didn’t seem wrong to you?”
“It didn’t seem as wrong because I had a good reason for doing it.”
“You had a reason, but I’m not convinced it was a good one. Didn’t you ever feel guilty?”
“Eventually. The boy’s perseverance astounded me, but by the time I discovered he wasn’t one to give up so easily, it was too late. If the letters suddenly started arriving, you might have questioned what had happened to the others. I thought any explanation I might have given would have been inadequate.”
“You mean you were afraid that I would hate you for what you did.”
“I was afraid you might have difficulty forgiving me, yes. But regardless of how many he sent, my reason for taking them remained the same: to protect you, to keep you from having false hope. To give you a better life. It’s too dark to show you my hands—”
“I know your hands, Mama, as well as I know my own. They’ve comforted me for as long as I can remember.” And kept Tom’s letters from me.
“They’re scarred, still rough and brown after all these years,” her mother said, as though Lauren needed to be reminded. “Do you know the mortification I feel every time we dine with guests, ladies who have never had to bend with the strain of picking cotton, who have never lifted anything heavier than a fan? My ugly hands say more about me than Burke’s Peerage says about them.”
“They’re not ugly, Mama. They
speak to your strength, your determination. They’re not something to be embarrassed by. Why would you be ashamed—”
“They’re a constant reminder of what life was. I loved your father, Lauren, he was a good man. But the work was hard and the day was long and I was old while I was still young. Your father meant everything to me, and I sometimes wondered how I’d go on after he died. Then I met Christopher Montgomery and fell in love with him—when I never expected to fall in love again. He brought me to a world where my back never ached and my hands never bled. He pampered me and my girls, and I’ve grown to love the life he’s offered me.”
Grown to love? No, Lauren, unfortunately, had never experienced that emotion.
“I wanted my girls always to have this life,” her mother continued. “I’d always hoped that you would grow to love it as well. Do you remember all the practicing we did, how often we’d laugh at our clumsy attempts to appear educated and refined, the list of elegant-sounding words we memorized—”
Fighting back tears, Lauren turned her head to the side, stared into the darkness that had so reflected her life. Looking away was easier than watching her mother wringing her hands, easier than remembering their loyalty and support for each other as they’d faced a new life.
“All I ever wanted was for you to be happy,” her mother said quietly.
Lauren blinked away the tears and swallowed. “That’s all I want as well, but I’ve been so lonely here. I don’t belong. I never have. I never will.”
“Your stepfather mentioned that you’d announced plans to return to Texas.”
Lauren detected sadness in her mother’s voice. “Yes.” She took a deep breath, knowing the following revelation wasn’t going to be well received. “I’ve been working in a shop, earning a wage, saving so I can pay for my passage back to Texas.”
She’d sought the position shortly after Kimburton had delivered his proposal, when she’d realized that she couldn’t bring herself to marry him. And if she couldn’t marry him, as kind and generous as he was, she would never marry anyone—at least not anyone in England. Texas might be a different matter. She felt more at home there, had more in common with the people. She didn’t have to put on airs, could be herself. Could find the happiness that had eluded her in England.
“When could you find time to work with all the volunteering you do at the mission, helping the poor?” her mother asked.
Lauren gave her mother a sad smile, which she wasn’t certain she could see in the darkness. “I lied. I wasn’t volunteering. It appears deception runs in the family.”
Her mother took a step toward her. “You will resign your post tomorrow. Taking a job is beneath you and will cause your stepfather untold embarrassment if word gets out that his stepdaughter is working in a shop, of all places. What in the world were you thinking?”
“That I would wither and die if I had to stay here much longer. Ravenleigh is no longer responsible for me, Mama. And neither are you. I love you, but not the life you’ve given me. I’m going back to Texas; if it kills me to do so, I’m going back. So in a way, I guess you did me a favor. If you’d given me the letters, I might be married to Tom by now—then what choice would I have had except to be the dutiful wife of an earl?”
Having left Ravenleigh’s more than an hour ago, Tom now sat in his fancy library, surrounded by objects that had belonged to those who’d come before him. The only things he’d contributed to the room were several bottles of whiskey he’d brought with him from Texas, the latest opened bottle held to his mouth as he gulped the brew.
Lauren’s hair had darkened over the years to the rich sheen of golden honey. Tom had wanted to release it from the pins holding it in place and have it pour over his hands. He’d wanted to keep his mouth fastened to hers. He’d wanted to hold her in his arms and never release her.
But she had plans to return to Texas, and apparently it made little difference to her that he would no longer be there when she arrived. How could he compete with what Texas had to offer when he hadn’t wanted to leave either?
He hadn’t expected Lauren to be waiting for him, but it still disconcerted him to realize that a small part of him had held a measure of hope that she would be. Maybe from the beginning, he’d had unrealistic expectations where she was concerned, which was an odd thing for a man who had lived his life always being realistic about the possibilities and his options.
In the letters he’d written to her, he’d described his plans, his dreams, and Lauren had been part of them all. When she never wrote back, he should have hopped on a boat to find out why she was ignoring him. Not that he’d been in a financial position to go anywhere. He’d spent ten years working hard, saving money, and planning for the day when he could come for her.
He’d had everything in place, had actually been planning his trip to England when the investigator had found him. And everything he’d been preparing had suddenly seemed to be for nothing. None of it mattered. None of it was going to accomplish anything. He was going to have to leave his cattle business in someone else’s capable hands. The house he’d recently built had no one living in it.
His land, his house, his dreams…they all belonged to another man, the cowboy he’d thought he was. And now here Tom was, trying desperately to figure out exactly who he truly was, the place in this world that was his by right of birth.
The Earl of Sachse.
He figured he didn’t look much like an earl. Didn’t act like one either. Not that he was bothered by either of those things. He was used to a man being judged on his character, the strength of his handshake, the integrity of his word. Not his speech, his clothes, or his ability successfully to balance a teacup on his knee.
A man could reek to high heaven, but if he kept his word, he was worth his weight in gold. Dependability. Common sense. Integrity.
He lifted the bottle to his mouth and gulped the amber liquid, relishing it as it burned its way down his throat, warming him from the inside out. He wanted to pack up his things and catch the first steamship out. He couldn’t blame Lauren for wanting to do the same.
It was close to being summer, but he had a fire burning in the fireplace. A chill and dampness saturated the night. He wondered if he’d ever get warm living there, wondered if he’d ever come to love it the way he loved Texas.
Sometimes he thought the cruelest thing his mother had done was to give him a glimpse of a life that he couldn’t hold on to forever. He’d reached for dreams not knowing that he’d have to betray them for the duty that was predetermined from the moment he was conceived.
He didn’t need any of this, but it needed him. They thought the barbaric American didn’t understand, but he understood it all too well. He was British by birth, American by upbringing. Something within these walls called out to him. Something beyond them touched him.
He couldn’t explain it. To be part of two countries, to love one and to want to love the other. To want to belong and to know that, deep down where it mattered, he didn’t. And he probably never would.
Chapter 7
Lauren sat beside her bedroom window, the curtain drawn aside just enough that she could look out onto the fog-shrouded street, see the dim glow of the gas streetlamps. A kerosene lamp—the flame low—on a table beside her bed provided the only light flickering in the room and served well her melancholy. All these years she’d felt abandoned. All these years, Tom had kept his promise.
Would receiving his letters have made any difference at all? Would reading his words have eased her loneliness? Was her unhappiness rooted in leaving Texas or only in leaving him?
She remembered crying herself to sleep so many nights, missing him so dreadfully; but when his letters never came, she’d begun to shift her thoughts to Texas, to all the things there that she missed. It was a lot easier to yearn for something that could never betray her than continually to risk being hurt by longing for someone who already had.
Only he hadn’t. That was the irony behind the entire situation. She had live
d the past ten years through the prism of deception.
Looking inward more than outward, she suddenly realized that she was listening intently for the pop of rocks against her windowpane. Tom had always come at night, long after everyone was in bed, and Lauren would crawl out the window and climb down the old gnarled tree…
When she’d first come to England, she’d chosen her bedroom in the London residence based on its easy access to a large tree outside, as though she thought some night Tom would be standing outside trying to get her attention, surrounded by shadows and moonbeams, inviting her to join him. She wasn’t certain when she’d given up on his coming for her. It was as though one moment she suddenly realized that the hope had vanished, leaving behind a gaping hole of loneliness that she’d despaired of ever being able to fill.
She couldn’t help but believe that he’d experienced the same loss. A promise broken not by their hand but another’s. It hadn’t been fair to either of them.
The click against the windowpane nearly caused her heart to stop. She peered into the street. And there he was. Her cowboy, with his black duster reaching his calves and his hat in his hand. A cowboy in the streets of London.
She parted the curtains a bit more, so he could see that he had her attention, gave a quick wave, extended a finger—that she wasn’t certain would be visible to him—to signify that she would be down shortly, closed the curtains, and hurried to her wardrobe where she found a simple dress that required no confining corset. Its loose fit and buttons in the front freed her from needing assistance in putting it on. It was something she’d purchased when she still had the hope that he’d come for her, something she wanted to have on hand so she’d always be set to go the moment he appeared. She’d taken such pains always to be ready, and yet nothing had truly prepared her for his arrival.
She unbraided her hair, brushed it out, then pulled it back, using a broad silk ribbon to hold it in place. She certainly didn’t look elegant, but she couldn’t help but notice that she did appear as though she was anticipating something. Being with Tom. At a scandalous time of night. After so many years. For just a moment to be a young girl without cares.
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