This startled him. Her petulance was pushing her into uncharted waters, and he wondered where this sudden need for confession was heading. He thought about his response and said with all the patience he could muster,
“Yes. I think you’re right. It was spite that drove him to appoint me and not the Duke, because he wanted retribution for being banished from the Roxton family fold. So what better revenge than to make his lowly and unwitting neighbor his daughter’s guardian, and to stipulate she not be permitted to visit her mother’s relatives. Still, the unintentional outcome of such a stipulation, to which I am certain Gerald never gave consideration, is that I consider it a privilege to be Teddy’s guardian.”
“How can you continue to be so philosophical? To be so forgiving? You always see the good rather than the bad. And as for patience!” Kate gave a snort of derision. “Well! You didn’t get that from me.”
“No,” he replied, turning to the door as a wide-eyed Carlo tiptoed into the room carrying a tray of coffee things. “My parents instilled forbearance. A most necessary quality for a farmer. Fran, if you would do the honors with the coffee pot, I’ll sort through the pages and hopefully be able to pull together at least one letter. And while I sip my coffee to keep me awake, I’ll read to you,” he said to Kate, who he noticed still had her fists clenched, “but only if you allow Fran to brush and arrange your hair so that it better complements your beautiful face.”
“No small wonder why you were a celebrated cicisbeo. You always know what to say to a woman—in any situation!”
“Not every situation,” Christopher replied pensively. “I never know what to say to Mary… That surprised me at first; to find myself tongue-tied in her presence. And then I realized it is because I love her, and so everything I say to her must have meaning. It is important I be sincere. Just as it is important that I am sincere with you because you do know that I love you, too—in a different way, you understand, but—”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Just stop it! I hate it when you’re being-being—you.”
“My lady! No! I’ve held m’peace long enough!” Fran announced, roughly handling the coffee cups so that they clattered on the tray. “You can’t go on berating Mr. Bryce in this way after all he’s done for you. You love him, so why be cruel? I know you aren’t intentionally unkind and unthinking, but—”
“It’s none of your affair, Fran, and no one asked for your opinion. Go back to your corner and your crocheting and leave me to my-to my—misery.”
“Dear me,” Christopher muttered. “Fran, Silvia, and Carlo have all had a rough couple of days—”
“Rough couple of days? Fran, Silvia and-and Carlo? What would you know? What would they? I’m the wretched one, the blind fool who—”
“While they would never doubt they are your servants, I would hazard a guess that not even the pompous Sir Gerald, if he’d been blessed with such a faithful and selfless companion as Fran, who has been with you now for ten years, would order her to go back to her corner…”
There was a moment’s conversational pause. Kate stared up at him, wishing with all her heart she could look upon his face, see the love in his damp brown eyes, eyes that were so very like his father’s, and his fine straight nose, and his smile, which were all hers. She knew it the first time she gazed upon him. Not the momentous day they sat opposite at dinner when he was just a boy of fifteen, but the day of his birth, when she had finally held him in her arms, exhausted and overwhelmed, and had lied to herself that she would never, ever, let him be parted from her; she would die first. All memories now, his birth, that dinner, those eyes, his smile, her straight nose…
Now she relied on his voice to tell her what she needed to know, to calm and reassure her. There was never any derision or correction in his tone, just patience, copious amounts of patience. He was always so tolerant and forgiving of her, and all of it, however much he tried to hide it, underscored with the sadness of her predicament.
A smoldering log in the grate popped, cracked, and fell apart, and brought her hurtling back to the immediate present, to the sounds of Fran lifting the silver coffee pot and pouring the hot dark liquid into a small porcelain cup, and Christopher shuffling paper near to her, steady, constant, reassuring, and so necessary to her happiness…
“Oh God, why are you always forgiving? Why am I continually ungrateful?” she blurted out on a shuddering breath. “I so hate myself!”
Christopher flicked out the skirts of his frock coat and sat beside her. Taking hold of her hand, he was pleased when she did not pull away, even though she kept her face averted. He shifted on the cushion so when she did finally make the decision to look at him, it would be more comfortable for her to see him.
“Kate,” he said quietly, pressing her fingers. “Kate. I told Mary my name.”
At that she turned to face him, shocked.
“What? Your birth name?”
“Yes.”
Kate was so disbelieving she had to say it out loud. “You told Mary that as an infant you were called Cavendish?”
“Yes. I thought it was time.”
Kate burst into tears.
THIRTEEN
SITTING IN the window seat in the sun with his arm about her and she leaning against his shoulder, Christopher recounted the previous night’s surprising events, deliberately omitting the kiss. He was interested in what Kate could tell him about Mary’s long lost cousin.
“Evelyn Ffolkes is a rascal,” Kate stated as a fact, not as a judgment. She sat up, which allowed Christopher to reach for his coffee cup. “And he has the worst possible timing to return from the dead.”
“An understatement, my dear!” Christopher said with a short laugh, a picture in his mind’s eye of Mary and her cousin huddled together on her bed, so deep in conversation that they had forgotten his presence. “But as Mary was delighted at the reunion, for her sake I can’t be angry with him. Annoyed. Frustrated. Suspicious of his motives. Most definitely…” He sipped at his coffee, and took a moment to savor the bitter sweetness of the warm, treacle-like liquid. He hoped he would soon feel less tired. Bathed in the warmth of the morning sun, he was reminded that he had slept very little the night before. “So what can you tell me about Mary’s rascal of a cousin?”
All Kate’s aggravated self-pity had evaporated, along with her petulant mood, knowing Christopher had taken the monumental step of confiding in Mary about his birth. He may only have told her the name she had given him as an infant, and nothing yet of his illegitimacy, but it was a beginning. There had been a time when Christopher had refused to believe the facts, or to acknowledge her existence. That changed in Italy, when she had sought him out. His own life experiences had made him better able to deal with the truth, about himself, and about her. All she had ever wanted was to be part of his life, however small, and when the answer to her prayers came, it was almost too late.
This new and fascinating turn of events at Abbeywood now occupied her thoughts, and was enough to temper her interest in her correspondence, though Fran was dutifully sorting the discarded pages into their respective correct order and letters.
“I know of him through his mother’s letters,” Kate told Christopher. “Evelyn was a musical genius. Truly gifted, and not just because his mother said so. Others praised his compositions and his playing. But his mother worried his musical virtuosity would hamper his willingness to marry and provide her with grandchildren. And she considered his preferred occupation unfit for the nephew of a duke. She was a haughty creature, prone to the dramatic, the granddaughter of one duke and the sister of another, and not just any duke, but M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton—”
“Your old beau?”
“Yes,” she replied evenly, and though there was no hint of disapproval in his tone, she still felt a modicum of unease discussing the lax behavior of her past, something that had never bothered her at the time. “My old beau, as you call him, wasn’t old then. And just so you are aware, Roxton and I were lovers well before his mar
riage—”
“—and when he did eventually marry, this great rake reformed himself for his beautiful young wife. Yes, I remember you telling me about their love story—a fairy story of sorts. You and everyone else of their acquaintance could not have been happier for the couple. I have always been desirous of meeting the heroine of a fairy love story. Mme la Duchesse particularly, because you tell me Mary has a great look of her.”
“It’s what others have told me. I have yet to meet the Lady Mary Cavendish, though I knew her grandmother Augusta very well indeed.” Kate gave a little shudder. “She, too, was a very beautiful woman, but with a heart of stone.”
“You will meet Mary, and I hope soon. But you were telling me about Evelyn Ffolkes’ mother, the sister of M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton…?”
But Kate wasn’t to be distracted from her own history, saying in a rush, “Roxton and I were lovers on not one but two occasions—”
“It’s perfectly all right for me not to know.”
“—and it is the second occasion you—and Polite Society—know about because we never sought to hide our affair. Most noblemen with mistresses do not see the need to do so; their reportage in the newssheets is mundane in the extreme. But that first time we—connected—”
“Were lovers,” Christopher stated and grinned. “You’re not talking to Teddy, Kate. Perhaps you forget I am almost forty years old?”
Kate shook her head, smiling, but said seriously. “A woman never forgets the day she becomes a mother. Regardless of the circumstance. That day… It is as if it were yesterday for me… I still wish it was yesterday…”
Christopher’s mouth dried raw at the sadness in her voice. He cleared his throat.
“Mary said the birth of her daughter was the happiest day of her life. I cannot imagine how she would’ve coped, if at all, had she been forced to give Teddy up at three months old.”
“She wouldn’t. I almost didn’t. A supportive lover helped ease the pain—well, to at least distract me from my sadness. Naturally Roxton could not empathize with my situation, but he did sympathize. I don’t know if he fully appreciated the depths of my sadness, but he saw the fragile creature that I was, and we managed to keep our affair private. He helped me see that, with a few adjustments, my life could go on tolerably well. And this at a time when my head was befuddled with thoughts of killing myself—”
“Kate!? Oh Lord! No! Why?”
She put out her hand, and when he took it, squeezed his fingers, her smile widening with happiness at his concern, and to show him such dark thoughts were well in the past.
“Roxton had this gift for putting everything into blunt perspective. Those who did not know him well, who did not understand his haughty arrogance, thought him callous and self-absorbed, which he was to a degree—why wouldn’t he be? He was a duke, for God’s sake! But he was not so arrogant with those he cared about. Far from it… He said if I killed myself I would never experience the joy and disillusionment that came with watching offspring grow. Did I not see I had the best of two worlds—the convenience of having my child raised by a loving family, who took on all the responsibility while I need have none. My life would remain blissfully unaffected. He was as ever sardonic. And infuriatingly right!”
She sighed, shook her head gently, and took a deep breath, as if putting those memories aside. Fran materialized at Christopher’s shoulder, offering more coffee, and a cup for Kate, which he carefully placed in her hands, before saying casually,
“Mary also told me that the happiest time in her life were the years spent as a young girl living with M’sieur le Duc and Mme la Duchesse—”
“Oh yes! I’d forgotten about that.” She took a sip of her coffee and teased him, saying with deceptive sweetness, “Cousin Evelyn’s return from the dead truly could not have come at a more inconvenient time in your protracted courtship of the Lady Mary, if she has finally begun to share confidences about her past, dull as that no doubt is. I confidently predict—”
“Now, Kate, she—”
“—Teddy will be one-and-twenty before the two of you share your first kiss!”
“How quaint,” he cut in dryly, hoping his abruptness did not give him away. “Tell me what you know about her time living with the Roxtons.”
“I remember laughing out loud at a letter from Roxton complaining that with old age came the revelation that he was losing his edge. He had to concede that he was less terrifying than his reputation. That while he could still quell a servant or toady with one look, it was becoming increasingly difficult to do so with his sons and younger relatives.” Kate gave a snort. “Of course his wife had never been taken in by his cold arrogance. And he wondered if her unconditional love over the years had turned him soft. I knew he was being rhetorical, for where Antonia was concerned, he was always emotional custard. In one of his letters he singled out Mary for special mention. He called her a flame that could not be extinguished. He said she had an insatiable curiosity and an unvanquished spirit that was woefully tiresome for an old aristocrat who was unused to having his omniscience questioned by a twelve-year-old brat. Truth told, he was secretly pleased, because the girl worshipped him. Much like Teddy worships you. Don’t shake your head, because you know it’s true!”
“All I’ve done is try and provide Teddy with the best example I can of what a father should be, and my example is my father, who was the best of men. Whereas Gerald was a woefully inadequate parent. But who can blame him when his example was Sir George?”
“Your father was a most excellent man—and I do mean Henry, not George. You could not have wished for better parents, my boy. And I count my blessings in that respect, every day believe me—”
“Kate, I—”
“Teddy’s exuberance and zest for life, her heart of gold, and her optimism are reminiscent of her mother as a young girl living with the Roxtons,” Kate said, quick to shift the conversation away from Christopher’s birth, because enough had been said on that painfully emotional topic for one day. “I hope nothing happens in her life to make that change.”
“Not if I have any say in the matter. The last breath will leave my body before I permit her to marry a man like her father, because I don’t doubt Gerald took the snuffer to Mary’s exuberance and optimism. But we were talking about Mary’s cousin,” he said in a more even tone. “What else can you tell me about Mr. Evelyn Ffolkes?”
“For one thing he is not Mr. Ffolkes but Lord Vallentine, and heir-presumptive to the Stretham-Ely earldom—”
“He’s an earl?” Christopher huffed. “But of course he would have to be, wouldn’t he!”
Kate ignored Christopher’s incredulous sarcasm.
“He will be, as soon as his identity is verified. The earldom has stood vacant for a number of years on the presumption Evelyn was dead, and because the next in line to inherit, a much older cousin, does not want the burden of the title, and so has refused it until the requisite seven years has elapsed to declare Evelyn officially dead. And now Evelyn has returned within the seven years, he can inherit what is rightfully his. It’s all turned out rather neatly, wouldn’t you say?”
“Roxton won’t be able to contain his delight in having another noble cousin back in the family fold. And command Mary to join them all at Treat for a homecoming celebration.”
“Ah. That could be more problematic.”
“Problematic? In what way?”
She thrust out her coffee cup, which Christopher took and handed off to Fran, then settled back against the cushions, gathering her thoughts on past events, knowing Christopher was all rapt attention.
“There is the fact that Evelyn eloped with a wholly unsuitable bride, which sent him into exile from his family, and he hasn’t been officially, as far as I am aware, welcomed home.” Kate shrugged and mused, “I suppose his death meant there was no need to forgive him. His hasty marriage broke his mother’s heart—”
“Yes. It must have. Mary told me a little about her cousin’s elopement, and that
it was she who helped him and his bride flee France.”
“Did she? How enterprising of her, and uncommon, too, to go against the family’s wishes.
“She said the girl deserved to be married.”
“Yes. I dare say she did…”
“And I had assumed that if he is to inherit an earldom, Roxton would see his way past the slight done the family by his cousin’s elopement, particularly after all this time, and the death of the wife.”
“Oh, undoubtedly, except for one small but significant event that I am very sure even Mary has no notion about. She would not know that this was the second time he had attempted an elopement. The first was thwarted by M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton. You see, Evelyn attempted to run off with Deb Roxton when she was little more than a girl—”
“What? The present duchess?”
“Yes, the very same. The whole sordid business was quickly wallpapered over. Which is why I am skeptical of Mary’s cousin receiving a warm reception from his Roxton relatives. You see why I call him a rascal.”
“Indeed.” Christopher did not tell her about Evelyn’s spying activities for England’s Spymaster General, or the threats he had made towards him, which he considered hollow at best, but pondering, he did voice niggling concerns about why Evelyn had chosen to show up at Abbeywood Farm, when he could just as easily have pounded on Brycecomb’s door to get answers about Sir Gerald’s spying activities,
“So is it a coincidence he has chosen to return from the dead at Abbeywood, an isolated farmhouse, where his closest cousin, a widow no less, just happens to reside, or are his motives rather more complicated?”
Kate was skeptical. “I doubt it’s a coincidence, my boy.” When Christopher ground his teeth and locked his jaw, she added, cementing his suspicions of an ulterior motive, “London and Society would have been a far more appropriate venue for him to announce his return, particularly for one with such a theatrical temperament.”
“Theatrical temperament? Ha!” Christopher was thinking how the wild-haired Evelyn had announced his return dressed in Sir Gerald’s large nightshirt, looking every bit a specter “The man oozes drama from every pore.”
Proud Mary Page 17