The Earl's Honorable Intentions

by Deborah Hale

  With obvious effort, Gavin mastered his voice to answer his son’s question. “I am very surprised to see you in London. I hope you had a pleasant journey.”

  Clearly, he wanted to know why she had come here and brought his son. Hannah feared a hostile confrontation like the ones they’d had after his return from Waterloo and more recently when she had refused his proposal. What could she tell him? She scarcely recalled the reasons she’d given herself. Whatever they’d been, she now realized they were only excuses to see him again.

  In reply to his father’s question, Peter gave a vigorous nod. “The road was bumpy in places, but there were lots of things to see. When I grow up I will come to London as often as I can. But I will ride my own horse—a big strong one.”

  Rebecca strode forward and offered the child her hand. “I expect your long drive will have given you an appetite. Shall we visit the kitchen and ask my cook to make us some tea and sandwiches?”

  Hannah knew her friend well enough to recognize an effort to give Gavin and her a few moments to talk in private. Though she dreaded it, she knew that postponing the confrontation would not make it any easier.

  “Why don’t you come with us, Sebastian?” Rebecca beckoned her husband.

  “What about Papa and Miss Hannah?” asked Peter as he took Rebecca’s hand.

  “It might be better if they wait up here for us.” Rebecca led the child toward the servants’ stairs. “Cook gets cross if her kitchen is too crowded.”

  As Peter and the Benedicts disappeared below stairs, Hannah heard her friend laugh merrily at some remark of the child’s. The butler had gone upstairs, perhaps to have rooms prepared for the unexpected guests. Gavin and Hannah stood in awkward silence for a moment. She considered suggesting they retire to the sitting room but decided it would be presumptuous of her as the most recently arrived guest. Instead she turned and headed back into the room, leaving the earl to follow or not as he wished.

  The sound of his firm, quiet tread behind her sent her heart into a skittish jig. Hannah reminded herself not to let hurt or anger make her say things she would regret. Rather, she must trust in Providence to show her the way.

  “You did not need to drag my son all the way to London,” Gavin said as he closed the door behind them. “I was going home tomorrow anyway.”

  The consciousness of her folly slammed Hannah hard. She should have waited patiently and faithfully for his return. That might have shown Gavin that she did not mean any of the hurtful things she’d said during their last encounter. Instead her actions proved she did not trust him to keep his word or do the right thing for his family. He would think she judged him as harshly as his father had.

  She spun around to face him. “Then you have succeeded in your mission?”

  She should have known he would and believed he would return to Edgecombe afterward just as he had promised. Hard as Hannah chided herself, she could not quench a stubborn flicker of hope. If the situation with Bonaparte was resolved to his satisfaction, Gavin could come home to Edgecombe and his children. Freed from the burden of guilt, he could begin life anew.

  Before that flicker could intensify, Gavin doused it with a resigned, regretful shake of his head. “I’m afraid not. My father was right—I have no skill in politics or diplomacy. I should have left that part of the fight to men like Sebastian, who are better equipped to wage it.”

  An overwhelming need to bolster his confidence propelled Hannah toward him, only to be stopped by the consciousness that she had forfeited any right to draw close to him. “I am sorry. It was a worthy undertaking, and I should never have suggested otherwise. You must not reproach yourself. No one could have cared more or tried harder. I am certain Major Molesworth would be satisfied of that.”

  To her surprise Gavin replied, “I believe he would. I am not certain I will ever be entirely free of the guilt I feel over his death, but nothing anyone can do to Bonaparte will bring back a single one of my fallen comrades. If I let my pursuit of him make me neglect my children, it would be a victory I refuse to grant him.”

  His rueful admission made Hannah’s throat tighten. Would he ever have come to that conclusion if she had forced him to stay at Edgecombe? Or might part of him have blamed his family responsibilities for preventing him from discharging this final duty?

  “I did not come here because I doubted you.” Hannah forced herself to seek and hold his gaze. Though it risked betraying her feelings for him, she was determined to persuade Gavin of her sincerity. “I came because I was afraid I might have driven you away from Edgecombe and your children with my unkindness. I should never have said what I did. I should have believed you when you promised to return, only…”

  She stopped herself from making any excuses for her behavior. “I understand if you wish me to leave Edgecombe. The children need their father far more than any governess, no matter how capable.”

  It was not easy to say those words. Her throat grew tighter with each one as she thought of parting from Peter and the dear babies. Everything she had worked and schemed to accomplish—nursing Gavin back to health, forcing him to spend time with his children—had all served a selfish purpose, to keep them with her at any cost. Now she realized that, hard as it would be to lose them, their well-being and future happiness mattered far more.

  If she expected some sign of relief from Gavin, that she was making it easier for him to do what he must, Hannah was disappointed.

  His face fell, just the way his little son’s did when some calamity occurred. “Do not leave us, I beg you!”

  He reached out and grasped her hand. Prudence warned Hannah to pull away, but she could not. Besides, all her attention was concentrated on his words, which were quite the opposite of what she’d expected to hear.

  “I know it is selfish of me to stand in the way of you finding a husband and starting a family of your own, but I am only asking for a little time, for the children’s sake. With your help, I believe I can be good father to them. But on my own…”

  “Of course you can be a good father, with or without my help!” The words burst out of her with fierce conviction. “You are a good father. If I have said or done anything to suggest otherwise, I was wrong. If you and the children need me, of course I will stay. I only offered to go because I thought you must still be angry with me. And I was afraid you would find it too awkward having me in your household after…. after…”

  Hannah could not bring herself to say that he had made her an offer of marriage. It would sound too preposterous. Had she misunderstood him, perhaps, or only imagined it? Besides, if she spoke those words, Hannah feared hear voice would betray her regret that she had not been able to give him a different answer.

  “After I made a fool of myself,” Gavin growled.

  Hannah sensed he was not angry with her but with himself. Once again, he was his own severest critic, as he had been trained from an early age.

  The impulse to defend him from that harsh inner taskmaster shattered all the barriers she’d erected around her heart to protect it. “You did nothing of the kind. Once I recovered from my surprise and had an opportunity to reflect on what you’d said, I realized it was heroic of you to be willing to take such measures for the sake of your children. I should have known it was a sign of how much you care for them, to sacrifice your chance of future happiness with a wife you could love.”

  Gavin tried to interrupt at that point, but Hannah refused to let him get a word in. If she stopped now, she was afraid she might never find the courage to continue. “I should have been honored and touched that you would think me worthy to be a mother to those dear children. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. I only wish I could say the same for myself.”

  She was forced to pause then for she had no more breath to continue. Like the trained warrior he was, Gavin did not hesitate to seize the initiative.

  “Heroic?” he scoffed. “Sacrifice? I cannot let you think so much better of me than I deserve. The truth is I took advantage of a
noble excuse to do something I wanted to for purely selfish reasons. I thought if I could persuade you to marry me for the children’s sake, it would give me all the time I needed to… win… your heart—as you have won mine.”

  It was too plain and honest a declaration of his feelings for Hannah to misunderstand. Part of her wanted so desperately to believe it, even as old dark doubts insisted it could not be true. She had done nothing to win or keep Gavin Romney’s regard because she’d never thought she would want it. Instead she had misjudged him and browbeat him, defied and doubted him. How could he possibly care for her after all that?

  And if he did, against all odds, how could she accept what her friend, the countess, had longed for in vain?

  Could he not succeed at anything? Gavin reproached himself as Hannah’s blue-gray eyes filled with tears. Her free hand rose to her lips in a vain effort to contain the sobs that burst from her lips in response to his bald, clumsy declaration. He had been on the brink of salvaging his earlier mistake and securing Hannah’s presence at Edgecombe for a while at least. Then he’d sabotaged his efforts by blurting out his unwelcome feelings.

  “Forgive me!” He groped in his pocket and produced a handkerchief, which he offered her in a gesture of remorse. “I know it is far too soon to be proper, and you had such a poor opinion of me for so long. I do not want to burden you with obligations or expectations. But I am no good at concealing my feelings or pretending they are anything different.”

  Hannah was weeping too hard to speak, but she shook her head. Was she trying to tell him to stop because the subject was so distressing?

  Just when his sense of failure threatened to overwhelm him, Gavin remembered the only other time he had witnessed Hannah give way to tears. When she had been distressed, telling him about that abominable school, her sister’s death and her father sending her away, she had somehow managed to keep her composure. Only in a moment of intense happiness, when she’d been reunited with her dear friend after a separation of many years, had her valiant restraint given way to open weeping. Was it too much to hope that the tears she was shedding now might be a sign of happiness rather than anguish?

  “Come sit down.” He helped her toward the sofa. “We can talk more when you are calmer.”

  Her tears had already begun to ease. When they sank onto the sofa, she did not protest his nearness. That emboldened Gavin to slip his arm around her shoulders. Hannah did not object to that either.

  “I c-cannot think what c-came over me,” she said at last. “I have soaked your poor handkerchief, and I must look a fright.”

  “Not to me,” Gavin replied, his own voice husky with unaccustomed emotion. “Would I be presuming too much to hope you might return my feelings someday?”

  For an instant, a look of fear came over Hannah. But she seemed to wage a quiet battle within herself and emerge victorious. “Not at all. It is I who should not presume that a man like you could care anything for me. Especially after the rude way I refused you and the terrible things I said. It is a wonder you want anything to do with me after that.”

  She looked away as if ashamed. Gavin could not allow that for there was something he must tell her, and he needed her complete attention.

  With the sort of gentle touch he might have used to caress the babies, he brought the knuckle of his forefinger to rest beneath her chin and nudged her to look directly at him. “You do not need to be perfect for the right person to love you. They will always see the best in you, regardless. Like that bit of Scripture you quoted to me, about sheep going astray.”

  For a moment he thought Hannah might cry again, but she collected her composure. “Do you still believe all those things you said about the Lord setting impossible standards and judging our failures?”

  Gavin shook his head with a rueful grin. “I’m not certain I did even then. Getting to know my children, learning to be a proper father, has made me better able to understand the kind of love that can forgive anything and never fail.”

  Now it was his turn to fight down a lump in his throat. Suddenly the idea of joyful tears was not nearly so mystifying.

  Hannah took advantage of his silence to speak. “If I did not care for you, I would have accepted your proposal without a qualm for the sake of the children. But I was afraid, selfishly afraid, that I would become another unhappy countess, wanting more from you than you could give me.”

  On the verge of the greatest happiness he could imagine, Gavin had never been more conscious of his unworthiness. “Poor Clarissa. I wish I could have made her happy. Perhaps if I’d tried harder…”

  Hannah shook her head. “There are some things that all the effort in the world cannot change. I see that now. The past is one of those things. I have carried mine with me for far too long, like a heavy work basket. I put so much energy into guilt and regret, yet they could not change a single moment of my past. All they did was spoil the present and threaten my future.”

  Her advice made excellent sense to Gavin, especially since he knew what it had cost her to learn those hard lessons.

  “If we can forgive each other,” Hannah continued in a soft, musing tone, “how can we deny ourselves forgiveness?”

  “You are right, of course. But some truths are easier to believe here—” Gavin touched his forefinger to his temple “—than here.” He tapped his chest. “If you were there to remind me of it often enough, perhaps it would sink in at last.”

  An endearing blush spread up Hannah’s tearstained face. Her generous lips arched in a self-conscious smile. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  “If you think it means I never want you to leave Edgecombe, except for an occasional visit with your friends, you would be correct.” Gavin found it hard to stop grinning. “But I spoiled my last proposal by offering it too soon and for the wrong reasons. I may not be able to change the past, but I can learn from my mistakes. If I do that, they will not truly be failures after all.”

  “I like the sound of that.” Hannah beamed her approval. Suddenly the darkened London sitting room seemed full of country sunshine.

  “I mean to take my time.” Gavin relished the prospect. “I want us to become much better acquainted. I want to prove to you what a good father and husband I can be. Not perfect, by any means, but to the very best of my ability.”

  Hannah hesitated for an instant then raised her hand to caress his cheek. “Your best effort will be more than good enough for me.”

  He believed her—not just in his head, but in the most doubtful depths of his heart. “I promise you, I will be entirely circumspect. I will say nothing more of what is in my heart until after I have observed a proper period of mourning for Clarissa. I owe it to her and to our children to respect her memory.”

  “We both do.” Hannah drew back her hand with obvious reluctance.

  Her tender touch had been very pleasant indeed and Gavin was sorry she must stop. Still, he knew it was the right thing for both of them. They would keep their association cordial and professional until the day came when he was free to speak. It would go against his impetuous nature to act with such deliberate restraint. But that would be his tribute to Clarissa… and to Hannah. When the day came that he could make his honorable intentions known, it would be all the sweeter.

  A hesitant tap on the sitting room door made them both start as if they had forgotten anyone else in the world existed. Gavin clasped Hannah’s hands and gave them a swift, warm squeeze that he hoped would convey his feelings until he was at liberty to tell her in greater detail.

  Then he sprang from the sofa and called, “Come in.”

  The door swung open, admitting Lady Benedict, who held tight to Peter’s hand. She cast Hannah an apologetic look, perhaps to beg her pardon for not keeping the child occupied longer. Gavin was not altogether sorry for the interruption. If he’d spent too many more minutes staring into Hannah’s eyes he was not certain his honorable intentions could have prevented him from kissing her.

  “The cook here is ver
y nice,” announced Peter. “She made us up a tray and she gave me a biscuit to hold my stomach.”

  A maid bustled in behind them with the tray and set it on the table in front of the sofa.

  “Is something wrong, Miss Hannah?” Peter climbed up beside her. “You look like you’ve been crying.”

  For a moment, Hannah seemed as if she meant to deny the charge, but her eyes and nose were quite red and she still clutched Gavin’s sodden handkerchief. “I was, but not because anything is wrong. Your father told me he means to come back to Edgecombe with us and that made me very happy.”

  No happier than it made him, Gavin reflected, to think of making a true home with her and the children.

  “Well that’s good.” Peter still sounded puzzled by the strange notion of happy tears.

  While they were talking, Lady Benedict began to heap food on their plates. A smug little smile hovered on her lips.

  Hannah wrapped her arm around Peter’s shoulders. “As soon as you have eaten, we must get you to bed, young man. It is a wonder you have kept your temper so well after such a long day.”

  Much as Gavin wanted to return to Edgecombe, see the twins and begin the next phase of his life, his son’s well-being mattered more to him. “Since you have come all this way, we should show you a bit of London before we go home. If you would like it, that is, and if it would not be too great an imposition on Lady Benedict.”

  “Not in the least.” Her ladyship’s bright tone conveyed her approval of his suggestion. “It would allow me a longer visit with my dear friend without taking my husband away from his duties.”

  Gavin sensed their hostess was eager to learn what he and Hannah had discussed in her absence. He did not mind Lady Benedict knowing that she need not exert herself to find a husband for her friend

  He and Hannah would take care of that in their own time.

  Hannah, Gavin and Peter spent an enjoyable few days in London as guests of Rebecca and Sebastian. They took the child around to see London Bridge, Saint Paul’s Cathedral and other sights that might one day provide a basis for his history instruction.