by Wolf, Bree
The closer Nessa came to the old fortress, the more she felt a shadow linger over the estate. It appeared that something otherworldly truly was at work here. Nevertheless, the gardens looked meticulous and the moment she drew to a halt by the front stoop, a stable boy came running. He grabbed her dapple gray’s reins so Nessa could dismount. Then he led the horse away, a friendly smile on his face as he inclined his head to her.
Nessa smiled, feeling reminded of her own daughter. Still, her skin crawled with what lay ahead and, for a short moment, she felt tempted to simply turn around and leave.
“Lady Wentford?”
The soft voice spoke out from behind her, and Nessa all but flinched for she had no doubt in her mind who had come upon her. Slowly, she turned around and beheld a slender, young woman, her ebony hair in stark contrast to her pale skin. Still, a rosy shine clung to her cheeks and her eyes shimmered in a silvery gray, warm and welcoming in a way Nessa would not have expected. “Lady Remsemere?” Nessa croaked as her voice caught in her throat.
The young woman nodded and took a few steps toward her, the hint of a shy smile curling up her lips. “Welcome to Ravengrove.”
Nessa was thunderstruck by the kindness in her voice. “Why is it that you do not hate me?” she blurted out, unable to hold back the many questions that desired to be heard and answered.
Lady Remsemere laughed, a short, heartfelt sound, melodious and pleasing. Then she stepped forward. “I believe we have a lot to talk about.”
Nessa nodded. That was an understatement if ever there had been one!
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Two Ladies & a Simple Truth
The middle-sized drawing room Lady Remsemere led her to seemed friendlier than the rest of the house and clearly showed the influence of the young woman. Fresh flowers stood in vases on the mantel as well as two narrow side tables flanking the three large windows, which opened up to the gardens beyond. The furniture as well as the wallpaper had clearly not inhabited this room for long, but had been recently added. Lady Remsemere had chosen warm colors and delicate designs, which gave the room a cozy and inviting atmosphere. The curtains that had been pulled back to allow in the sun were of a pale green with small embroidered rose blossoms. The material was so thin and light that the sun shone through it, casting a warm light over the small seating arrangement.
Lady Remsemere rang for tea and biscuits, and Nessa was suddenly reminded that she hadn’t eaten anything since the night before. Her stomach rumbled loudly, and she felt her cheeks turn a dark red. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, embarrassed to appear so lacking in front of the perfect, young woman her husband had married. Why on earth had he let her go?
With a smile on her face, Lady Remsemere waved Nessa’s concerns away and poured her a hot cup of tea. Then she offered her the biscuits, urging her to eat. “You must have been up since before dawn to have arrived here so early.”
Nessa nodded in affirmation as she chewed on the delicious biscuit. Her stomach welcomed the food. She ate hastily so as not to be hindered in her own desire to speak to this woman. “We had a ball at Wentford Park last night,” Nessa told Lady Remsemere, her eyes carefully watching the young woman seated across from her. “My…husband held it in my honor. To celebrate my return.”
Lady Remsemere’s smile did not falter as she took in Nessa’s words, and her eyes held to Nessa’s as though they were merely conversing about the weather. “That is wonderful. I’m happy to hear that you’re settling back in.”
Nessa frowned, unable to believe that this young woman truly harbored no ill will against her. And yet, Nessa felt a certain amount of relief for it seemed her husband had not lied to her on this account. “May I be blunt?”
A soft chuckle escaped Lady Remsemere; her eyes, however, remained serious. “Please, ask what you wish to know.”
Nessa opened her mouth…and then hesitated. What was it that she wished to know? Certainly, there was a myriad of questions coursing around in her mind, and yet, was there not a single one at their root? “After everything you’ve suffered because of me,” Nessa finally began, “I feel awful for asking you this, but I need to know: did my husband…love you?” Heat shot into Nessa’s cheeks at asking such an intimate and inappropriate question. Still, there was no way around it.
Lady Remsemere swallowed and drew in a long breath. Although she did not avert her eyes, Nessa could see that she was far from comfortable being asked such a question. Nevertheless, she answered. “He did not.”
Air rushed from Nessa’s lungs at the simple reply and, for a brief moment, she closed her eyes.
“What did he tell you about me?” Lady Remsemere asked gently. Although she seemed delicate and a bit shy, a hidden strength lingered in her eyes and kindness clung to her words as she spoke.
“He said he married you in order to…” Nessa hesitated, not wishing to hurt the young woman by speaking too plainly. Had Lady Remsemere loved Grant? Nessa wondered. Did she merely hide her broken heart well?
“To protect me,” the young woman finished for Nessa, a knowing smile on her lips. “Yes, I’m well aware that he did not choose me for love and I imagine he’s told you so himself.” A slight frown came to her face. And there was a challenging gleam in her eyes. “Why are you here? Do you doubt his word?”
Nessa shrugged, then heaved a deep sigh and buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know what to think,” she confessed, feeling her heart grow lighter at the mere admission. “Ever since I returned, people have told me who I was and how I felt about them.” She met Lady Remsemere’s gaze and shrugged. “I tried to remember, to feel as was expected, and yet, I felt vulnerable for all I could do was believe them and hope that they would not deceive me.”
Lady Remsemere nodded. “I see.” For a moment, her gaze turned inward and she drew in a slow breath. Then she looked at Nessa once more. “Do you believe he deceived you?”
Nessa shook her head. “I do not think that he purposely misled me. However, he…failed to mention that he had married again after my presumed death.” Lady Remsemere’s eyes widened slightly. “And then he failed to mention that…”
“That I am carrying his child,” the young woman finished for Nessa yet again. Eugenie stared at Nessa before she nodded knowingly. “You learned of it last night, did you not? That is why you’re here.”
Nessa nodded.
“Why would he tell you at a ball given in your honor?” Lady Remsemere frowned. “That seems to be a completely wrong place and time.”
“He did not tell me,” Nessa confessed, realizing that was what bothered her the most, what lay at the root of her insecurity. “He never told me. The day I arrived at Wentford Park, it was my father who thought I already knew and then merely made a mention of you. And last night, it was his mother.”
“You think without being prompted he would never have told you?”
Nessa nodded. “How can I trust anything he says when he would keep such important parts of his life from me?” Shaking her head, Nessa rose to her feet, overwhelmed by the waging war within her. “I don’t know what to do. I’d just come to trust him, to feel at home at Wentford Park, to believe that I truly belonged and then—”
Breaking off, Nessa looked at the young woman, whose hands were folded over the small bump barely visible under her dress. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have come,” she stammered, backing away toward the door. “After everything…it was selfish of me to come. Please excuse my intrusion. I will leave im—”
“Please stay.”
Stopping in her tracks, Nessa looked at the young woman who had risen to her feet and was now coming toward her. Something loomed between them. Something that had turned both their lives upside down. Something that ought to make them enemies.
And yet, Nessa saw none of that in Lady Remsemere’s gray eyes. All she saw was compassion and kindness, and Nessa wondered how it was possible that she did not feel betrayed. For although Nessa felt awful for everything that her return had forced
Lady Remsemere to endure, she also felt jealousy burn in her heart at the thought of her husband sharing his life with this young woman.
Gently, Lady Remsemere reached for Nessa’s hand and then urged her back toward the seating arrangement where they sat down side by side on the settee. “Will you listen?” she asked, her pale eyes searching Nessa’s, a silent plea in them.
“Why are you so kind to me?” Nessa whispered. “How can you not hate me?”
“If you wish to know, then listen.” A small smile played on the young woman’s lips as she waited for Nessa to give her consent. Then she breathed in a relieved sigh and began her story. “When I met Lord Wentford, I was still grieving for I had only just lost my brother and then my father. My guardian did not care. All he wanted was to rid himself of his duty to me and so he thrust me into the path of eligible bachelors whenever possible. As I had little to recommend myself, he was soon frustrated that no proposals followed. He blamed me for he said I did not properly encourage their affections.” A deep sigh full of remembered fear and despair left her lips. “I cannot tell you how afraid I was.”
Gently, Nessa squeezed Lady Remsemere’s hand, remembering how her husband had spoken about her.
I felt for her. I felt the need to protect her. And I married her because I thought we could help each other.
Indeed, Nessa understood how he had felt compelled to help this young woman. At first glance, there was something utterly helpless about her and even Nessa could not deny that she wished there was something she could do to ensure Lady Remsemere’s well-being.
“He married me to protect me,” the young woman continued, her gray eyes searching Nessa’s as though to ensure that she was being heard. “He saw that I was lost, and his mother was urging him to remarry, to find a…a mother for Milly and a wife to…to give him an heir.” An apologetic look rested in her eyes as she spoke, but she did not avert her gaze.
Nessa nodded, grateful that Lady Remsemere would speak plainly and not hold back for fear of uttering something hurtful. As hard as it was to hear that at least, for a time, this young woman had replaced her, Nessa knew that it had been a matter of survival. “You did not love him?”
Lady Remsemere shook her head. “I cared for him. He is a good and kind man, and I considered myself fortunate to be his wife. I tried my best to see to the household, to be a good mother to Milly, to gain his trust and be there for him.” She sighed, shrugging her shoulders. “Perhaps I could have loved him…one day. I’m not certain. However, I soon realized that he would never love me.”
Nessa’s heart stopped in her chest and the breath lodged in her throat.
Seeing her no doubt shocked, and yet, hopeful expression, Lady Remsemere squeezed Nessa’s hand. There was a gentle smile on her face as she looked at Nessa. “He married me for many reasons—good reasons—but not to be his wife,” she said, a conviction in her voice that was a balm to Nessa’s battered soul. “Not in the way you had been his wife. I always knew that his heart would forever belong to you. I saw it in his eyes every day, and I’m happy that the two of you have received a second chance.”
Tears misted Nessa’s eyes, and she had a hard time swallowing the lump suddenly lodged in her throat. “You’re wonderful,” she whispered, “and it makes me wonder why he would even want me, an old woman with nothing to recommend her.” Oddly enough, the thought felt familiar as though she’d entertained it before…a long time ago…a time she could not remember. Had these doubts always been a part of her?
Lady Remsemere chuckled. “He would disagree, I have no doubt.” Sighing, she glanced out the window before her gaze returned to meet Nessa’s. “Love simply happens,” she whispered, her voice ringing with conviction as though she spoke from experience. “There is never a reason for why we love. We may say that we love someone because they’re compassionate and kind, but there are thousands of people who possess these traits. We don’t love them all, do we? Then why do we love that one person that seems unique in a crowd of people who are the same?” Smiling, she shook her head. “No, there is never a simple reason that can be given for why we love. Perhaps it is a deep-seated knowledge of belonging to another, of understanding one another that goes beyond anything we’ve ever experienced before. Perhaps we’re simply not meant to understand why.”
Nessa smiled at the young woman as she blinked away her tears. “I love him,” she whispered then in a way she had never before because here, in this moment, she could speak from the heart, free and unrestrained. “I don’t know why or when it happened, but despite all the secrets I sense around me, I…I want to be his wife. I want him, and I want the life we once had.”
“Then don’t allow anyone to hold you back,” Lady Remsemere replied, encouragement shining in her eyes. “Least of all me for there is no reason, I swear it.”
Nessa swallowed, then glanced at the young woman’s midsection. “What about…the…the child?”
Lady Remsemere sighed, placing a gentle hand on the small bump. “Life sometimes leads us down unexpected paths,” she finally said, and a strange sense of peace rested in her gray eyes. “I’ve spent many sleepless nights thinking about what I should do or say, how to raise my child and whether or not to include Lord Wentford in his or her life.” She shook her head. “The answer is, I simply don’t know. All I know is that I love my child and that I will do what I can to ensure that he or she is happy. Everything else will fall into place as we walk through life.” She turned questioning eyes to Nessa. “Do you not wish for your husband to see the child?”
Nessa froze. Up to this moment, she had not thought about what she wished the future to look like with regard to this child. Certainly, a part of her envied Grant for having another child, especially after the tragedy they’d suffered when they’d lost their own precious son. However, it was the thought of competing for Grant’s love that truly unsettled Nessa.
Looking at Lady Remsemere, Nessa knew that there was no need to worry as the young woman looked at her with such honesty in her gray eyes that Nessa believed her without a second thought. “You truly do not want him, do you? There is not a single part of you that wishes I had never returned?”
Lady Remsemere shook her head as her gaze flitted to the door and a small, but meaningful smile slowly curled up her lips. “If you had never returned,” she finally whispered as she leaned closer, “my life would have taken a different turn and I would never have come here.”
Nessa’s eyes widened when understanding dawned, and her gaze darted to the door as well as though she could see the man who had entered Lady Remsemere’s thoughts only moments earlier. “You mean…? Your husband…you…?” Nessa exhaled a long breath, feeling a smile tug on the corners of her mouth. “You’re happy in your new marriage.”
A delicate red rose in the young woman’s cheeks as she dropped her gaze for the first time that day. “I am hopeful,” she finally admitted, lifting her eyes to meet Nessa’s…and what Nessa saw there momentarily stole the breath from her lungs.
As sure and confident as Lady Remsemere had seemed in advising Nessa with regard to her doubts and fears, as vulnerable and uncertain did she seem now where her own heart was concerned. “Do you care for him?”
The red in her cheeks deepened before the young woman nodded her head. “He is not what people think him to be,” she whispered, and she once more looked to the door as though she feared he might enter at any moment and overhear her words. “He is plagued by something that happened on the Continent. It still haunts him, and he’s retreated from the world, putting on an angry face in order to keep others at bay. I wish he would confide in me for no one should suffer alone.” She sighed, and her hand brushed over her belly. “I know people call him the Beast of Ravengrove, and I admit I was frightened when I first came here. But now I know that he is no beast. There is kindness in the way he looks at me. He tries to hide it, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
Joy flooded Nessa’s heart as she saw the hope in the young woman’
s eyes. Joy that Lady Remsemere had found a man she had come to care for after everything that had happened to her. Joy that the man was not Nessa’s husband. “Have you spoken to him about…how you feel?”
Lady Remsemere’s eyes widened, and Nessa understood only too well the fear to open one’s heart to another without knowing how it would be received. “I would not dare to do so,” she mumbled, wringing her hands in her lap. “In the beginning, he completely avoided me. He barely spoke a word to me, and I sometimes didn’t see him for weeks at a time.”
“And now?” Nessa prompted, placing an encouraging hand on the young woman’s shoulder. Deep down, she sensed that Lady Remsemere was lonely and needed someone to confide in. Nessa remembered only too well how good it had felt to speak to Connie.
A shy smile came to Lady Remsemere’s lips that spoke of hopeful delight. “Something…happened,” she whispered. “I did something foolish, and then…he was there. He came for me, and the look in his eyes did not speak of exasperation or duty alone. It spoke of concern…and fear for my safety.” The smile on her face deepened as she looked up at Nessa. “After that, he’s once more retreated as though he doesn’t dare look at me.”
The joy that stood on Lady Remsemere’s face told Nessa all she needed to know. “You think he has come to care for you and that it frightens him.”
The young woman shrugged. A deep sigh left her lips as she replied, “At least, I hope so.”
“That is wonderful,” Nessa exclaimed, feeling a burden lifted off her shoulders, and she realized that she, too, was hopeful. More than that. A new certainty settled in Nessa’s middle, calm and soothing, and it warmed her heart in a way she hadn’t known before. Perhaps beyond the doubts that had plagued her, she had always felt guilty for ruining another’s life. Someone who in all truth had been as innocent as she herself had been.
Now, that burden was gone. Indeed, if the accident that had taken Nessa from her family had not happened, Lady Remsemere would never even have met her new husband. After all, Grant had told her that his friend never left Ravengrove. And without her precarious situation, Lady Remsemere would never have had a reason to come here either.