by Megan Mulry
The two of them met up at the kitchen door at eight o’clock the next morning and headed out onto the beautiful, sprawling grounds of Dunlear Castle. Claire started talking about her life in London, and her frustrating attempts at reining in her wild daughter, Lydia. Bronte tried to keep her facial expression bland at the mention of the little tart.
“I suspect, from your atypical silence and her version of things that I already received, that she was not particularly polite when she met you in New York.”
“She was fine.”
Claire laughed and caught Bronte’s right upper arm in a quick, affectionate hold, then just as quickly let go. “I shall assume that she was not fine as in a fine bottle of Château Margaux or fine Connolly leather.” Bronte smiled and Claire continued, “Let’s just say I have been more preoccupied with keeping my marriage together than with parenting for the past few years and it has not been an easy time for Lydia. I adore her, of course—how could I not? She’s mine after all—but she has been let alone for too long and my mother has begun to plant the seeds of righteous indignation that I have spent my entire adult life trying to shed.”
Bronte was beyond surprised at Claire’s intimate honesty. Their ten-year age difference had seemed vast when they’d first met last night. Claire’s innate formality and firm posture gave a rather grim, haughty first impression. But after they had spoken for a few minutes, Bronte realized that, unlike her brother Max, who projected casual ease while harboring a very concise and particular view of the world, Claire was quite the reverse. Her rigid posture was perfectly at odds with her obvious desire to embrace the new.
“I can tell you are probably taken aback by my openness. Max has always lumped me together with Mother in many ways. Our age difference was more or less cataclysmic in terms of fostering sibling affection between Max and me. I was living in London with Mother by the time he was learning to walk. And then Devon and Abby came in rapid succession and the dynamic was pretty much codified.”
Bronte’s look begged her to continue.
“Basically, Mother made it clear to me that my place was with her and the ‘others’ were, well, the others. Father was periodically allowed into our private, special world on those wonderful occasions when he would come into London with us and take me to the ballet or the theater. I dreamed that we were a proper family, the three of us.”
Bronte looked sad and Claire tried to clarify again. “That sounds cruel, I know, but it wasn’t like that. I honestly did not resent Max or Dev or Abby… it was just, oh, it’s so hard to describe one’s perspective as a child. Well, actually, you of all people understand the simultaneous loneliness and suffocation of being an only child. That’s how it was for me. Mother never encouraged me to play with the little ones, as she called them. They were a pack unto themselves… always being rough and tumble with Father… and Mother always made me feel that she and I were cut from a separate cloth.”
Claire shook her head in a cheerful attempt to mentally clean the slate. “That all sounds utterly moribund. Of course, I could have been a more attentive big sister, but I was a vain, adolescent young girl with a doting mother, so I suppose I was just lazy.” Claire regarded Bronte. “When I look at you, I see this confident, tall, independent, brash woman who has captured Max’s heart. Maybe you don’t relate… you seem the type who wouldn’t be lazy when it came to expressing your own thoughts.”
Bronte gave a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not sure that’s an attribute I am proud of, but yes, it’s probably true. And, being an only child, it is chilling to hear stories of big, supposedly bubbly families that are populated with siblings whose childhood memories are, in fact, as cool and isolated as my own.”
They were crossing out of the kitchen gardens and walking down several beautifully worn limestone stairs into a formal parterre boxwood garden. Bronte looked around and wondered at the splendid, precise perfection of the design. She started to veer down one of the pretty lanes, then turned to Claire. “Do you want to get out and have a real walk for exercise, or do you want to amble?”
Claire tilted her head to the side, almost imperceptibly, just as Max did. She was fair, with pale blond hair, pale blue-gray eyes, and a very fine porcelain complexion. But the genes didn’t lie.
“Max does that exactly.”
“What does he do?” Claire asked, not aware she was doing anything.
“He tilts his head in exactly that tiny way when he is trying to memorize something or think of a reply. It’s just a tiny gesture, but you are all alike in different ways. I enjoy seeing that.”
The cool morning breeze was starting to warm, and the mild wind felt lush across Bronte’s face and neck. She turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes for a few seconds as they stood in that beautiful, peaceful place.
“Max is a lucky man. Don’t let him get all controlling on you. This garden is the perfect example. This is what the Heyworth men are all about. It’s beautiful and peaceful, but it is also immaculate and still. This garden was laid out in 1746 and it has not been altered since. Maintained, refined, perfected, but never changed. Just a thought.”
“It is probably for the best, since I am somewhat unpredictable and flighty and could use a good reining in.”
The two women continued their walk through the formal garden then out into the main park, returning two hours later, flushed and happy with the exercise and the promise of an unexpected burgeoning friendship.
Bronte got back after ten that morning and was surprised to see Max was still reading in their bedroom. He was in a comfortable armchair by the window, and when he looked up, Bronte’s heart gave a little leap.
“Aren’t you a bonny lass? All rosy and fresh,” he said. “Ready for a morning tumble?”
“You are just plain naughty. I am going to jump in the shower and then curl up with a book somewhere. By the way, your sister Claire is nothing like you described.”
Bronte was changing out of the T-shirt and shorts she had worn on her walk and stepping into the en suite bathroom as she spoke.
“You don’t even know each other,” she called from the large white, tiled room. “Not that I do either—know her, I mean—but I think you might become friends somehow.”
She turned the shower on and stepped into the torrential mid-twentieth-century waterworks: one shower head was directly above her, cascading down her back like a waterfall, and three side jets could be angled wherever she chose. The tiny, white-square tiling that lined the floor and walls of the entire room was immaculate, despite a half century of use.
She took a quick shower, dried off with one of the huge white Turkish towels that seemed to be in miraculous abundance, and then wrapped the bath sheet around her body and padded out to the bedroom. She picked up her train of thought as if she had never left off.
“She’s pretty intense, I guess, but she’s certainly not out to get anyone. I think she feels generally ill at ease. Your mother certainly hasn’t given her a wealth of tools for dealing with people. It sounds like the duchess kept her daughter close at hand for her own personal amusement. Pretty grim, actually.”
“Oh, Bron. Please. Spending endless months at a mansion in Mayfair, shopping, being taken to lovely suppers and parties and—”
“Look, she’s the first to admit she had a spoiled adolescence. Even she knows it was perverse, but she’s forty for chrissake. Give her a break.”
“I’m not going to argue with you. I’m happy that you two hit it off.”
He looked back down at the book he was reading and Bronte threw on her now-ironed beige linen pants and a loose smock shirt and sandals.
“I think I’d like to go read in the library.” Bronte tried to say it in a haughty British accent, but it came out sounding more like “lie-bree.” Max looked up from his book, put his index finger between the pages to hold his place, and got up out of the large leather armchair.
“I’d be delighted to take you there,” he said as he offered her his arm. She picked u
p her book and threaded her arm through his.
They spent much of that day in happy silence, reading in the upper gallery of the spectacular Elizabethan room. The wood paneling had mellowed to a gorgeous chestnut over the centuries. Throughout the day, Bronte found herself trying to process the magnitude of the wealth and splendor that surrounded her, often retreating instead into visions of Max in his More Cowbell T-shirt in front of the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier. The idea of great-great-great-great-grandparents who had been painted by Holbein and van Dyck was almost instantaneously terrifying. The idea of that shy royal grandmother whose father and brother had been kings made Bronte weak. Much better to stretch her bare foot across the red velvet sofa that she shared with her perfectly normal fiancé and rub his leg instead.
The elegant smell of thousands of hand-tooled leather bindings surrounded them; the midsummer sun streamed in through the clerestory windows. Max smiled again as Bron’s foot made casual contact with his. He was happy to see her happy, but his mind was momentarily elsewhere. In his attempts to ignore his unresolved feelings for Bronte during their time apart, Max had stayed mind-numbingly busy. He had spent numerous extra hours at the office and nearly all of his free time putting together all the arrangements for a memorial in honor of his father. The final product of those efforts was to be set in a secluded part of the rolling forest to the south of the castle and was ready to be unveiled. The one-year anniversary of his father’s death was the next day, and he wanted to make sure everything was in order. He put his book down and reached into his pocket for his cell phone, scrolling through his emails to make sure everything was up and ready.
He had worked very closely with the head gardener and the consultant from the National Trust to make sure his idea was in line with the overall site plan at Dunlear. Then he had contacted a contemporary sculptor whose work he had long admired and commissioned him to create some version of the piece he had in mind.
Martin Ellsworth had graduated from Oxford several years ahead of Max, but his reputation had already been established within a few years of leaving university. He was trained as both an architect and a sculptor in the classical tradition, and his work ranged from large-scale abstract and figurative bronzes that were mildly reminiscent of Henry Moore to outdoor structures that were neither sculpture nor dwelling but evocative of both.
It was one of the latter that Max had commissioned. Something that would represent his father’s love of the outdoors, but also express his firm attachment to structure and order. Max had been able to meet with Ellsworth on several occasions to describe his father through anecdotes and memory.
He had also found and forwarded several of his father’s diaries, nothing personal, really, but a lot about the years he had spent at Dunlear and how the physical property and landscape had affected him so profoundly. Ellsworth had found those particularly endearing, and Max was certain the final piece would reflect both the artist’s vision and his father’s worldview. The unveiling would be tomorrow afternoon, and Max was very pleased that everyone would be there to see it. Abigail still hadn’t arrived, but she had finally called to say she would join them sometime later today.
Max responded to two relevant emails, ignored a couple from work, then glanced up at Bronte, who was blissfully immersed in Wolf Hall. He smiled to himself and refocused his attention on his book. As much as he felt a fool to admit it, his heart beat faster when he looked at Bronte: sitting on a couch and reading a book with this woman was the equivalent of skydiving while drinking champagne with any other.
Bronte sat up a while later and pulled Max’s hands into hers. “Please tell me more about what this all means.” She gestured vaguely around the two of them.
He was momentarily confused; he didn’t know if she wanted to talk about Wolf Hall or Dunlear or their relationship. “What exactly?”
“You know, the dukedom, this place… the reality of your life here at Dunlear—”
“Our life,” he corrected.
“Okay, our life. But… what do you envision? How will it all work?”
They had spoken very little about what it would really mean for him to assume the full spectrum of his ducal responsibilities with her as his partner, and everything that simple, loaded word partner implied. He had no sexist notions of Bronte quitting her job to attend to their marriage, but he shyly confessed his own secret desire to give up his so-called real job and devote himself entirely to Dunlear and its numerous possibilities.
“It sounds so old-fashioned, I suppose,” he continued haltingly, “but I think my father’s love of this place… and what it meant to him, to us… represents something profound and worth… maintaining.”
Bronte saw a shining glimmer of hope in that desire to carry on his father’s legacy, but it was clouded, as if he had tamped it down or, at the very least, postponed it for months, or maybe years. She felt a sudden, deep sadness for those lost years, the ones he had taken for granted while his father was still alive, when he might have shared and formed new hopes and plans with his father’s input and blessing. Those years he could never regain. “Of course it is worthwhile,” Bronte encouraged. “Your father would have loved that. What do you have in mind?”
“Oh. I don’t know exactly, but there are so many options… for agriculture and education and the arts and… making this place a teaching institution or think tank or a cultural center of some kind… it’s all just silly ideas that probably—”
“Stop that. It sounds glorious.” She rubbed the back of his hand. “You are allowed to make something beautiful, you know?”
He leaned in and kissed her; it felt like gratitude against her lips. He withdrew and continued speaking. “For so many years, my mother pounded all of that weight into my brain… the ponderous importance of it all, the weight of the responsibility, what it meant to be a Duke with a capital D, to live up to the title… that I still feel a whiff of dread and, oddly, shame about the whole enterprise.”
Bronte felt the slow rise of sadness and then anger on behalf of that little boy who’d been made to fear and worry over his inevitable future. One day, when she was in full possession of her confidence and wits—and maybe even her own ducal son—she would take her mother-in-law to task for such a wretched parenting failure. Max may have been a duke in training, but he was still a boy in need of a mother.
“Why are you crying, Bron?” He smiled as he wiped the solitary tear from her cheek.
“Because I love you so much and I can’t believe your mother—”
“Shhh. It doesn’t matter. She’s not worth fighting against… I promise. She thrives on getting a rise out of people.”
“Then she must grow like a weed!” Bronte joked.
Max smiled, then stilled. “Seriously, I am not trying to avoid anything that needs to be addressed or to put off some confrontation between the two of you—I suspect it will come regardless—but she decided to show up this weekend, after all, and that has to be a victory of some sort. She’s not heartless, she’s just… a product of her misconceptions, I think.”
“You are too good, for which I suppose I owe her some reluctant debt of gratitude.”
He smiled again, but this time with a sweet, childlike innocence. Bronte had the fleeting desire to slip her entire body inside his shirt.
“I suppose I should be grateful,” Bronte conceded, “that your mother, albeit inadvertently, taught you patience and tolerance… especially for those of us who are hamstrung by our own misconceptions of what we can or cannot be.”
Max pulled her up along the full length of his body and stretched the two of them out along the soft red velvet cushions. “I think you are quite aware of your own capabilities, my darling lady wife.”
“Oooh, I love it when you go all medieval—”
He pulled her face to his and kissed her before she could finish her sentence, and the two of them set about the happy task of necking like a pair of teenagers in the middle of their historic, learned surroundings. A few long
minutes later, an unmistakably aristocratic “ahem” punctured their careless fun.
Bronte flew up to a sitting position and quickly looked down her front to make sure Max hadn’t commenced unbuttoning her shirt, only to realize she was (thankfully) wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt. Max sat up more slowly, completely unperturbed.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Hello, Max.” Sylvia paused. “Bronte.”
“Hello,” Bronte replied, proud of the even tone of her voice, despite the fact that her flushed face, plump lips, and disheveled hair cemented every hideous prejudice the duchess probably held regarding the unsuitability of her future daughter-in-law.
The three of them stayed silent for a few seconds and Bronte was surprised to acknowledge that Max’s mother didn’t look particularly judgmental or angry. In fact, Bronte was the one most ready to pick a fight. On the other hand, the duchess would probably look equally beatific—pale-peach Chanel summer jacket, off-white trousers, perfectly unscuffed shoes—as she drove a stake into the heart of her sworn enemy.
Max sat patiently. Bronte turned toward his chiseled profile and marveled at the power of that patience. She had a split-second vision of him at some imaginary negotiating table in London, and feared for his pitiable opponents.
At last, the duchess spoke, her gaze resting on Max. “I was just looking for you since we didn’t really get a chance to speak at dinner last night. I hope it’s acceptable that I decided to come down for the weekend. I may have been a bit peevish on Wednesday.”
Bronte thought she’d misheard. It almost sounded like an apology.
Max stared at his mother for a few seconds. “Of course it is all right. I was very much hoping you would change your mind… about everything.”
“Well…” She looked from Max to Bronte—more of a flash of her eyes than an actual look—then back to Max. “Let’s take it one thing at a time, shall we?” She nodded her head in a single, conclusive gesture, as if to answer her own rhetorical question, then turned on her heel and left.