by Geneva Lee
“That is not giving yourself to her. That is giving yourself for her,” he corrected me. “A man must open his heart to the woman he loves. He must bare his soul—his scars and his fears.”
“Why?” I asked in a defeated voice. “Why must she bear my mistakes? My sins? My burdens?”
“Because she vowed to share your life—your whole life.”
“I want her to be happy.”
“You make her happy, Alexander.” He leaned forward, shaking his head as if annoyed to have to point out something so obvious. “Your troubles cannot take that from her.”
“I haven’t told her about my other brother,” I admitted. “Without knowing more about why he was kept a secret, I don’t want to worry her.”
“Why do you think it will scare her?” he asked.
“I’m not certain.” I searched for a reason for my own fears but I couldn’t find it.
“Has she asked you to protect her from worry?”
I shook my head. “She hates it when I keep what’s bothering me to myself.”
“A wife takes joy in sharing her husband’s troubles. She chose her place at your side, and you chose a place at her side. When secrets creep into a marriage, they push you apart and leave space for lies and distrust.”
“I don’t lie to her.” But hadn’t I? I’d kept secrets from her before and Norris was right, it had created distrust between the two of us. I’d worked hard to open myself to her, but here I was still protecting her from myself, even when she begged me not to.
“A secret is a lie to everyone but the one who keeps it,” Norris advised. “If I may, have you ever considered that you keep these things from her so that you can ignore your own fears? If you share what scares you, you can no longer control the reality of it.”
“I don’t know how to tell her,” I confessed. I didn’t know what any of it meant. I had no idea what the repercussions of pursuing my father’s past would be.
“Start at the beginning.” Norris stood and straightened his jacket. He took a step toward the door but thought better of it. Pausing, he turned to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “You married a strong woman with a fierce heart. Believe in her as she has believed in you.”
Reaching up I clasped his hand in a show of solidarity. Our eyes met and I nodded before releasing my grip. Norris looked to the painting of my father and sighed.
“You should take that down,” he suggested.
“It is rather hard to get things done with your father reproaching your every action,” I muttered in agreement.
Norris chuckled softly. “It might feel that way, but you should take it down because you must stop seeing yourself through his eyes. Stop looking at yourself from the past and accept the man you have become.”
“What kind of man is that?” I whispered, unsure what his answer would be.
“A good one.”
11
Luggage waited inside the bedroom, and I stared at it, wondering if Clara had bothered to pack for me. Despite my recent conversation with Norris, I had waited for the morning. She was due to leave for Balmoral in an hour. If she wouldn’t speak to me, I wouldn’t ruin her Christmas. It was a cowardly thing to wait until the last moment, but the the very real possibility that I would spend the holidays drinking bourbon won out over bravery. Even through the walls I could hear the flutter of activity in the nursery. I took one deep breath to steel myself and followed the convenient passage that led from this room to my daughter’s. Inside Clara and Penny were busy checking for all the last minute items they needed to gather for travel.
I watched my wife, her hair gathered into a knot at the back of her neck and her slender body showcasing a lovely navy dress that offset the fairness of her skin. I imagined slipping it from her shoulders and kissing each of the dozens of freckles that dotted them. We’d seen each other in passing, but I had done my level best to give her the space she desired. It wasn’t a selfless act. It was one of desperation. I’d hoped time would heal the rift between us, and that if I could show her that I respected her wishes it would undo her pain over that night. But she fled from me in the halls and took her meals in private. She had granted me access to Elizabeth, but on those occasions, she’d left me alone with Penny. With each passing day my resolve to allow her to find her way back to me—if she so chose—weakened a bit.
Penny glanced up and froze. Of course, it wouldn’t go unnoticed to the nanny that my wife and I weren’t speaking. Her sudden awkwardness caught Clara’s attention. My wife swiveled to face me, and we stared across the room at each other.
“Penny, will you go check in with the driver?” I asked her. It was a pointless errand, meant to send her away. We all knew it, but she curtsied and dashed away. I didn’t wait for Clara’s reaction. Instead, I went to Elizabeth, who was busy gnawing on a wooden block on the floor.
“Come to your daddy, Princess.” I picked her up and held her close. Without Clara by my side, our daughter had been the one tangible link I had to my wife.
Clara had made it clear that she had no intention of leaving me. Or had I merely imagined that? The thought of losing either of them was unbearable. I buried my nose against Elizabeth’s fine curls and breathed in her baby scent. I’d always known that I didn’t deserve Clara, but I knew now that I needed her. I wouldn’t survive without them. After a few moments, I decided I couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Can we talk?”
She planted her hands on her hips as if considering the request. Finally, she shrugged. “We’ll have the entire trip to Scotland to talk.”
So, she did expect me to come. I hadn’t expected that to be the case, so I hadn’t made preparations. “I won’t be coming,” I told her softly. I felt a small squeeze of hope when disappointment flitted over her face. “Not yet, poppet.”
Facing her, I knew that I had to find a way to put the past behind me before I could give all of myself to my family. I planned to take Norris’s advice. Clara needed to know what I had been keeping from her. But that wouldn’t make the issue go away. If I ran away to Scotland, this mystery wouldn’t be solved. Once I laid it to rest, I’d be able to be the father and husband they both deserved.
Clara turned away, but I caught the slide of her throat. Was she swallowing back tears? I couldn’t stop myself from going to her. With Elizabeth in my arms, I couldn’t touch her but I needed to be near her. I needed her to know I was there. When I reached her, she shook her head. “You have to come! Everyone is expecting you, and Elizabeth will be disappointed.”
“She won’t know.” As much as I’d like to think that my daughter missed me in my absence, she was far too young to realize when I was missing. I couldn’t blame Clara for pretending to be concerned for our daughter though.
Clara dared a glance at me, tears swimming in her eyes. “She will, and Edward will want you there.”
Apparently, she was going to continue to cast her own desires onto others. I couldn’t allow her to suffer over this situation any longer. “Sit down.”
“Don’t order me around,” she snapped.
“Please sit down and talk to me.” This was what she wanted. She’d begged me to open up to her. Why did she have to be so infuriatingly stubborn and beautiful and kissable? To my relief, she sat down in one of the nursery’s rocking chairs. Crossing her arms, she glared at me. I hadn’t expected her to make this easy, but how could facing my angry wife be scarier than addressing Parliament?
“I’m listening.”
It was a start. I decided it was best to jump right in rather than risk testing her patience. “First of all, I don’t want to push you away, and I don’t want to keep secrets from you.”
“Then stop keeping secrets from me,” she said in a flat voice.
“Okay, I’ll try that.” I paced in front of her, clutching our daughter. Elizabeth seemed to sense my anxiety and she placed a tiny, reassuring hand on my cheek.
Clara held her arms out. I hesitated, not wanting to give up my lifeline. Then I thought better
and handed her the baby. I needed Clara to stay calm. I needed her to listen. There was a better chance of that if her maternal instinct was turned on.
“I’ve spent most of my life keeping secrets. My secrets. My family’s secrets.” It was an excuse, but I needed her to understand where I was coming from. “I don’t want to keep things from you. I don’t think I even mean to most of the time.”
Clara raised her eyebrow in doubt. “That might be true, but when I ask you directly, you still refuse to open up. I thought we were past this when we got married…”
“And I keep doing it,” I finished before she could. “I wish I had some brilliant insight as to why I’m so thick. I really do. All I can do is try and plead for your mercy when I fail.”
“You can start by telling me what has you so worried that you’re acting like a git.”
This time I raised an eyebrow. “You’re sounding more British everyday, poppet.”
“God, I hope so. I’m the Queen of England,” she shot back. Her eyes followed me as I made another loop around the room. “Will you sit down? You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m making you nervous.” I laughed at the absurdity of that idea. “I’ve spent the last week going crazy wondering if you still love me.”
“It’s not a light switch, X. I can’t just turn it off.” She paused to glare at me before adding, “Even when I wish I could.”
I deserved it, but it stung all the same. I never wanted to stop loving Clara. I could no sooner give her up than I could cut out my own heart. I had driven her to this point, and I had to atone for that. I thought of Norris’s words of wisdom. I had to start at the beginning and hope that she would hear me through to the end. I cleared by throat and began. “Sometimes I think I keep secrets from you because I don’t want to admit that some things are true.”
“Do you hear how stupid that sounds?”
Trust my wife to not make this easy on me.
“I’ve been looking into my father’s death.” I had told her otherwise, but I’d never believed she was foolish enough to accept that. Judging from her non-reaction to this bit of news, I hadn’t managed to convince her. “I told myself I wasn’t lying or keeping secrets, but I was.”
A smile twitched at her lips. I imagined she was enjoying my admission. I didn’t often confess to being wrong. “Continue.”
“I felt it was my duty. To him. To our family. I suppose I have a bit of an obsessive personality.”
This time the smile broke fully. I could have fallen at her feet. Instead, I took the chair across from hers. “I have a brother.”
A weight lifted from me as soon as I said it, but it remained to be seen whether I’d simply handed my burden over to her.
“I’ve met him,” she said suspiciously. It was an understandable reaction. “Are you feeling well?”
“Not Edward,” I said quietly, silencing her clever retorts. “My father had another son. He hid it from us.”
“Who is he?” She shook her head as if rattling loose cobwebs. I knew exactly what she was feeling. It was one of the reasons I’d kept it from her in the first place.
“I don’t know. I asked Brexton to look into it.”
There were a million questions she could ask. Why did my father hide it? What would I do when I found him? Did he want to be found? Did he know about me? They were all the questions I asked myself when I found out. Instead Clara asked the one question that hadn’t occurred to me. “Does it matter?”
“Of course, it does.”
“Why?” she pressed. Elizabeth began to squirm in her arms and Clara released her to the ground. She crawled off, and I couldn’t help but note the vacancy in my wife’s arms. I didn’t dare try my luck though.
“He could be behind everything.”
Clara sighed. It was heavy sound as if she’d been carrying it for a long time. “I know the world hasn’t given you a lot of reason to have faith in people. But you have to stop expecting the worst.”
“I don’t expect the worst.” It was a ludicrous idea.
“You wouldn’t tell me about this because you didn’t think I could handle it. How am I doing?” she asked pointedly.
I didn’t want to admit that she had a point. Brex had made a similar observation.
“If,” she continued, “you wanted to find him because you were curious or because he’s your brother, I could understand that. But you don’t have to seek out conspiracies everywhere.”
“I nearly lost you to a conspiracy,” I reminded her. I would never take that chance again. There was good reason for me to be unsatisfied by the findings of the inquest into my father’s murder. It had revealed that whoever helped Daniel was still at-large, and he had no problem sacrificing his puppets to keep his identity unknown. I’d thought it would end with Hammond. His untimely death proved otherwise. “I can’t chance it.”
“Life is too short to chase sorrow.” Clara’s eyes pleaded with me. “Be here with us. With me.”
“I’m trying to,” I promised her.
“Why aren’t you coming to Scotland?” she asked in a small voice.
“I need to see this through. Maybe you’re right, and it doesn’t matter. Maybe I need to look at this from a different perspective, but I know I’m close.” She turned away from me, and I tried to see the situation through her eyes. “Clara, I am not choosing this over you.”
“It feels like you are.”
“I will never choose anything over you.” I meant it with every fiber of my being. “I will be with you on Christmas morning.”
“What about the night before or the day after?” she demanded. A sob wrenched free and she stood, trying to hide her emotions. Now she was the one keeping something from me. I could see it in her eyes. I had no right to demand she share it with me though. Not after I’d been so stubborn about opening up to her. Dashing over to Elizabeth, she picked her up. “They’ll be waiting for us.”
I blocked her at the doorway. I didn’t dare touch her. Not yet. Not while things were still so tenuous between us. She hadn’t forgiven me, and I hadn’t apologized. But I leaned forward and kissed Elizabeth’s forehead. She cooed appreciatively. “You are always with me.”
“Prove it,” she commanded me softly. “Come back to me. When you’ve let this go. Find your peace and then find me.”
Without thinking I reached out and brushed her cheek. “I will always find you.”
Before she could stop me, I bent and captured her lips. After so long without contact, I expected to be driven by my more primitive needs, but as soon as our mouths met, it was enough. The bittersweet contact, full of longing and hope, tugged the shattered pieces of us back together. When she broke away, she didn’t turn from me. Instead she allowed me to press my forehead to hers. We lingered like that for a moment.
“I love you,” I whispered, “and I will prove I’m worthy of you.”
She didn’t respond. I watched her leave, feeling ripped apart. Clara was my soul, and as she walked away, I questioned my decision. She might not understand why I had to see this through, but I did. So long as she was breathing, I would give everything, even my own life, to protect her. It was one sacrifice that I would never question, even if she did.
I’d started at the beginning as Norris had suggested. Now it was time to see this to the end.
12
Christmas had come early to Scotland, indeed. When Edward claimed the tree didn't meet his standards, he had apparently overcorrected to remedy the problem. Now the Christmas tree took up at least half of the estate's family parlor. The rest of the house was dripping to the core: fresh garlands covered mantels and wrapped around stair railings, large arrangements of poinsettias and roses dotted every flat surface. There were so many presents it looked as if St. Nicholas had come early. Clara stared at them, wondering exactly where she would put the presents she had brought. A familiar arm dropped over her shoulder and she leaned against her brother-in-law.
"Did I do okay?" he asked.
Edward swiveled toward her, his teeth biting into his lower lip. He looked guilty as if he was about to deliver bad news. It wouldn't be the first time he called off his wedding, but this time might be his last. Clara was getting as tired of the delays as David. Perhaps, they could stage a coup.
"Nope." She clicked her tongue in disapproval. "You aren't getting out of it this time."
"That's not it." He rushed to assure her. "It's just the more David and I talk about it, the more we want only close family at the wedding."
"Do I qualify?" Clara asked.
"Shut up." He ignored the question rather than pander to her sarcasm. It was further proof that he knew her well. "I know your family will be here for Christmas, and while I love the Bishops—"
Clara cut him off with a raised finger. "You don't need to say any more than that. My lips are sealed."
Planning a clandestine wedding turned out to be harder than she thought. Edward filled her in on the numerous preparations the housekeeper, Mrs. Watson, had been busy making. She insisted that there be a cake, but that meant that they had to hide a cake.
"It's not just any cake," Edward told her. "She went up to the village herself and picked up a pair of lovebirds for the top of it. She was terribly disappointed when they told her they didn't have two grooms."
"If only everyone were as bighearted as Mrs. Watson." Clara couldn't help laughing. Edward had spent nearly every family holiday here since he was a baby, which meant the woman had watched him grow up. It was impossible not to love Edward, and his fiancée, David, was quite lovely, too.
"What will we wear?" Clara asked, motioning toward the couch. She wanted to hear all the details. A wedding was exactly what she needed to take her mind off the bombshell that Alexander had dropped before she left.
Just thinking about it made her twitch. If Alexander had told her, had he told Edward? It didn't seem a good idea to bring it up when he was preoccupied with his wedding but he deserved to know. She pushed the thought out of her mind. It could wait. Everything could wait. Right now, the only thing that mattered was that one of the people she loved most dearly was about to say I do.