by Liz Carlyle
Anaïs closed her eyes, sagging inside with relief. “So what did you wish to tell me?” she managed.
“Nothing to do with that,” he said, and he sounded as if he meant it. But Geoff’s reticence oddly returned, his jaw stiffening almost imperceptibly, and Anaïs was reminded once again of the man she had met with that day in the society’s bookroom. He was a pensive, stubborn man, yes—but a good man, too.
And a gentleman to his very marrow.
Whatever it was that troubled him now, it had something to do with that, she sensed. And it had been nagging at him for a while.
He cleared his throat a little sharply. “You came to realize, I think, whilst we were away how deeply concerned I was for Giselle Moreau,” he said. “From the very first, her safety—her future—was paramount to me.”
“You felt a great sympathy for her,” Anaïs acknowledged, “and on some deeply personal level I cannot quite fathom. But I cannot know what it is to carry the sort of burden people like you and Giselle carry—and for that, I am truly grateful.”
After a moment had passed, he reached out and covered Anaïs’s hand with his own, curling his fingers through hers. “My childhood was much like Giselle’s,” he said. “Or like what hers could have been. Until I was twelve, I had no one to turn to. No one to help me.”
“Yes,” said Anaïs slowly. “And I have wondered at that, honestly.”
His mouth turned up in an almost bitter smile. “My mother blames herself for it,” he said. “But it was not her fault. She . . . she was so young; barely seventeen when she conceived me—and she could not have known what to expect.”
“That’s what I don’t understand,” Anaïs murmured, dipping her gaze to catch Geoff’s. “Wasn’t Lord Bessett her cousin? The Gift is carried in the blood. Everyone who has it knows that much.”
“My mother was the great-granddaughter of the fourth Earl of Bessett, yes,” he said. “However, her marriage to her cousin was but a marriage of convenience—which is to say, it was convenient for everyone save her. And me. And—”
Anaïs looked at him encouragingly. “And—?”
Geoff’s throat worked up and down for a moment. “For my real father,” he finished.
It took a moment for that to sink in. “Ah,” she finally said. “I begin to comprehend.”
His smile turned from bitter to grim. “I’m sure I need not ask your confidence in this,” he said. “The implication is clear.”
“Geoff, none of this matters to me,” she said swiftly, setting a hand to his face. “I’m sorry for your mother—to have conceived a child so young and out of wedlock must have been an unspeakable horror—but it matters not one whit to me who your father is. You must believe that. You must.”
He laid his hand over hers where it cupped warmly round his cheek. “I have never doubted it,” he said quietly. “You are not the silly sort of woman, Anaïs, to whom such things as blood and propriety matter unreasonably. And I have never been ashamed of who and what I am.”
“I would think less of you if you were,” she said.
He turned his face into her hand and kissed her palm lingeringly, then laced his fingers through hers and settled their hands in his lap as if to better study them. “I have also never been ashamed of my background,” he said quietly. “I was conceived in love by two parents who wanted me very much. I was also conceived in wedlock—or perhaps a day or two before it. And therein lies the complication, you see.”
Anaïs felt her eyes widen. “I should say,” she murmured. “Do you . . . wish to tell me about it?”
He lifted one shoulder and sighed. “Just a few weeks into her come-out season, my mother eloped with a near-penniless Scot, and married at Gretna Green,” he said. “But my maternal grandfather was a cruel man. He managed to catch them soon after, and to convince my mother by means of some forged documents that my father had married her for her money—which was considerable—and that he had paid my father off to annul the marriage. He even showed her the papers.”
“Oh!” Anaïs set a hand to her mouth. “But that’s monstrous!”
“He was a powerful politician,” said Geoff. “He had arranged a political marriage for her, one which served his own thirst for power. He thought he could cover over the elopement and cow her, but he didn’t count on me. Now, it is one thing to dupe a young man into taking a wife who is not a virgin, and quite another to foist off a bride who’s already with child. Even Lord Jessup—my grandfather—dared not try that. My mother, therefore, became worthless to him.”
“But he . . . he would not let her go back to your father?”
Geoff shook his head. “Never,” he said. “He was far too vindictive and prideful. Moreover, he’d had my father beaten and left for dead. My mother believed herself abandoned. So Jessup quickly foisted her off on her mother’s first cousin—on Alvin’s father—for Alvin needed a mother, and Bessett had his nose so deep in his history books he could scarce be bothered to act as a father.”
“That sounds selfish.”
Geoff hesitated for a moment. “Just self-absorbed, I think,” he said pensively. “Bessett was a decent sort, and in his way he cared for Alvin and me—and for my mother, too. He must have done, or he wouldn’t have married her knowing she carried me. I console myself with that thought when the night feels long.”
Anaïs was turning it over in her mind. The horror of it. The unspeakable sadness of it. “And so you were raised by Bessett as his child though you were only his second cousin,” she muttered. “And the Gift . . . your mother knew nothing of it?”
“She knew almost nothing about my father,” Geoff replied. “She knew he was a Scot, and possessed of an artistic temperament. She knew she loved him madly. But she’d lived the whole of her life in Yorkshire. She’d been in London scarcely above two months when they eloped. And following her marriage to Bessett—if one can even call it that—they went immediately abroad for several years. Until she took me down to London to find your aunt, she did not even know my father was still there.”
“But then she found him?”
Geoff’s smile was rueful. “Oh, aye,” he said. “She found him—quite by accident. And good Lord, did the sparks fly then. When he realized I was his, hellfire practically spewed out his nose.”
“Heavens!” Anaïs widened her eyes. “What did he do?”
“Snatched me up by the scruff like a lost kitten, slung me in his coach, and hauled me off to Scotland before any of us could so much as sneeze,” said Geoff. “And I thank God for it. He knew at once, you see, that what Lady Treyhern had said all along was true. That there was nothing mentally wrong with me.”
“But this is amazing!” said Anaïs. “Your poor mother. What did she do?”
“She came with us,” said Geoff. “Father left her little choice. He still carried their marriage lines in his pocket. And I—well, I spent the next several years with my grandmother, who had close ties to the Fraternitas in Scotland. And they were good years, too. They made me what I am. And I know that Charlotte understands, on some level, what Giselle is. But that is not enough, Anaïs. The child needs a true mentor, and in Essex, she will have it.”
“And what of your mother?” Anaïs murmured. “Your father? How did they manage?”
“After a time, they quietly married again,” he said. “Not that they needed to. It was all for show, Anaïs. All done to preserve the illusion of my parentage, and to keep my mother from being branded a bigamist.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Anaïs breathlessly. “I never thought of that.”
“Well, I have,” said Geoff grimly. “And I’ll not have it said of her. I’ll not make her the subject of gossip. Not for anything.”
“So your stepfather isn’t a stepfather at all.” Suddenly, Anaïs grinned. “Which means that when you signed my drawing in the park, what you signed was your real name?”
“I suppose it was,” he said with a faint, inward smile. “And the name I use today—well, that’s my real
name, too.” His face fell a little. “Mother wanted to change it when she remarried, but Father . . . well, he said it didn’t matter. That he knew who I was, and I knew who I was, and that the rest of the world could go hang.”
“I begin to see where you get your independent streak,” said Anaïs. “And you did rightly, I think.”
He shrugged. “It was the name Alvin and I shared,” he said. “I don’t give a damn for the Bessett title, mind—I wish to God I could give it back to him—but I’m stuck with it now.”
“But you are descended from the Archard line,” Anaïs pointed out. “Though the title could never have passed back up and through your mother—or could it?”
He stared pensively into the depths of the room, which were dark with shadows now. “Actually, Mamma says the oldest title and the actual estate would have done,” he said. “Something to do with it once being held as an ancient barony by writ. But no, there was no provision for the female line to take the title of earl.”
“So . . . have you another cousin somewhere? Someone who . . . who . . .”
“Whom I’ve cheated out of an earldom?” As he so often did, Geoff lifted a hand and tidied one of her loose curls. “No, Alvin was the last of the lot, both up and down the tree. The earls of Bessett were not prodigious breeders—too busy reading, I collect—so I think my mother might actually might be Baroness Something-or-other now, and I’d be her heir. I don’t know, and I don’t give a damn. I’ll call myself the Earl of Bessett until I die before I’ll let my mother suffer an ounce of mortification.”
“My heavens, this is confusing,” said Anaïs, sagging back against the sofa. “But this—none of it—has any bearing on how I feel for you, Geoff. You did not have to tell me any of it.”
“I felt that I did,” he said quietly. “But not, perhaps, for the reason you might think.”
For about the third time that day, Anaïs felt her heart sink a little. “Then what was your reason?”
He turned sideways on the small sofa—no easy feat given his long legs—and took both her hands in his. “I’m telling you, Anaïs, because I feel that a woman should always go after what she wants,” he said. “My mother did not. She was young and timid and beaten down by her father. But worse than all of that, she had no faith in herself. No faith in her ability to have chosen wisely; to know what she wanted and go after it. And we all paid a price for that.”
“And how does this affect me?”
“Don’t ever be faint of heart, Anaïs,” he said. “I think you are probably the last woman on earth anyone needs to say that to, but I have to say it. Go after what you want. I intend for it to be me. But in the end, if it’s not—if you think Raphaele or someone like him is really what you need—then throw me aside. But only because you want it. Not because your nonna wanted this thing or that thing, or because your family expects something else. Family expectations left my mother longing for an early grave—and had it not been for me, I think she might have found one.”
His words were so heartfelt, so humbling, Anaïs dropped her head. “I know what I want, Geoff, and it’s not that,” she said quietly. “Besides, it was just a silly notion anyway. Something Nonna Sofia took into her head, no doubt, and it played out in the cards because . . . well, because she wanted it to.”
“In the cards?” he asked, clearly confused.
Anaïs jerked her chin up, and realized she’d never really told him the whole of it. “Oh, never mind that!” she said on a rush of embarrassment. “None of it matters now, Geoff. I know what I want—at least in part—and it is you.”
He held her gaze for the longest time, his blue eyes drilling deep, as if he looked straight to the heart of her to make perfectly, perfectly sure. Then he relaxed, released her left hand, and shifted from the sofa and onto her parlor floor, going down on one knee.
“I’m taking you at your word, then,” he said in his quiet, calm voice. “Anaïs de Rohan, will you make me the happiest man on earth, and be my wife and countess?”
Anaïs closed her eyes, and tossed at least half of her grandmother’s silly dream to the four winds. “Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, Geoffrey. I love you. And I will marry you, and account myself fortunate indeed.”
He kissed her hand and rose. “Thank God that’s settled,” he said, sitting back down beside her. “I was a little afraid you’d go tearing off to Tuscany to make one last search for Mr. Right.”
“I have decided that you are my Mr. Right,” she said quietly, touching her fingertips to her heart.
“Oh, Anaïs, I have always known that,” said Geoff certainly. “I just wasn’t sure you did. Now when will your father be back? I must speak to him.”
“A few weeks, at most,” she managed, her throat constricting. “But he just wants me to be happy, Geoff. He knows nothing of nonna’s strange notion. Don’t worry.”
“How can I not?” His intense hot-and-cold gaze held to her. “You are everything to me now, Anaïs.”
She realized she was blinking back tears. “Oh!” she said softly. “Oh, Geoff. I love you so much. And that story—about your mother and father—it’s just so tragic. Promise we will never, ever let anything like that happen to us.”
“Never. Ever.” With each word, he kissed a tear away. “But I have another, better story—one with a far happier ending.”
“Oh, good,” she said witheringly. “Let’s hear it.”
“Once upon a time,” he whispered, brushing his lips over the shell of her ear, “there was an earl who wasn’t really an earl who fell in love with a strange, fey girl with wild black hair and an even stranger name. And they got married, broke the Bessett breeding curse, had a houseful of children, and lived happily ever after. In Yorkshire. Or London, if you like that ending better?”
“I don’t care about that last part,” she said, settling her head onto his shoulder. “But yes, I like that story much, much better.”
Epilogue
Heaven encompasses yin and yang, cold and heat, and the constraints of the seasons.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Anaïs Sofia Castelli de Rohan was wed on a spring day in a dashing red and white gown in the gardens at Wellclose Square beneath a brilliant sun and a swirling snowstorm of apple blossoms that dappled Geoff’s matching red waistcoat, and caught like fat snowflakes in the brim of his hat. It was not, perhaps, the most fashionable address for a London wedding, but having denied Nonna Sofia her dream, Anaïs decided it was the least she could do to honor her beloved great-grandmother.
The Reverend Mr. Reid Sutherland officiated—with a bit of a gleam in his eye—and pronounced them man and wife amidst a score of their closest kin and half the St. James Society. Afterward they retired to the massive withdrawing rooms to mill about on Maria Vittorio’s new Oriental carpets while nibbling at tidbits and drinking Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, toasting the happy couple’s health, wealth, and fertility, until Lord Lazonby began to leer a little too openly at one of the housemaids.
Mr. Sutherland called at once for their carriage—but not before Lazonby launched into a wild tale about the irony of having first met the groom in a Moroccan brothel. Lady Madeleine gasped and covered her daughter’s ears. The Preost caught Lazonby a little violently by the coat sleeve, and steered him out and down the front steps, lifting his hat in salute as he departed.
From there, the remaining guests began to take their leave in a flurry of shawls and carriages. Including Nate, the earl and his new countess possessed several brothers and sisters, requiring three carriages to haul them back to Westminster. Another ten vehicles carried off the remaining guests as the happy couple kissed cheeks and waved good-bye, until at last no one remained save Geoff’s parents.
On the doorstep, Lady Madeleine swept Anaïs into her embrace for about the sixth time in as many hours. “Oh, my dear, dear girl,” she said a little tearfully. “It seems that only yesterday I was holding Geoffrey for the first time, frightened out of my wits, and so terrified he would never se
e this happy day. But now he has, and I am so glad, Anaïs. So glad he has found you.”
“Oh, Lady Madeleine, how kind you are!” Anaïs drew away, still clutching both her new mother-in-law’s hands. “But why were you terrified? Was he frail?”
Lady Madeleine shrugged, and blushed. “Oh, no, but I was so young!” she said. “And I felt so very alone, so unable to grasp what was going on. I passed out from exhaustion, I think, and when I awoke, I just remember the midwives kept whispering, che carino bambino—or maybe it was the other way round?—until I began to cry, I was so frightened.”
At that, Geoff laughed, and kissed his mother’s cheek. “What a goose you are, Mamma! I think they were just complimenting your pretty baby.”
She shot him a withering look. “Do not dare laugh at me, young man!” she cried, trembling now. “I was barely conscious and spoke not a word of that language!” Suddenly, she turned to her husband, her eyes welling with tears. “And I somehow took it into my head that carino was carry no. That they were saying she carried no baby. It seems foolish now, but I thought he was gone. That there’d been some terrible mistake. Or I’d imagined it all.”
“Oh, Mamma!” said Geoff softly. “You had been under a long, terrible strain.”
“Yes, there, there, Maddie,” said her husband, opening his arms and folding her to his chest. “You could not have known, my love.”
But it was as if the stress of the day had taken its toll on Lady Madeleine. “Oh, Merrick, I thought I’d done something wrong!” she cried, sobbing into his cravat. “By the time they bathed him and gave him to me I was heartsick. I counted his fingers and toes for two days, and dared not go to sleep for fear he might die! And now—just think! He is married!”
“He is also thirty years of age,” said Mr. MacLachlan, with only a hint of sarcasm. “Your duty is done, my love. And now it is Anaïs’s job to keep up with his fingers and toes.”
By then, however, no one noticed that all the color had drained from Anaïs’s face, for Geoff had gone back into the withdrawing room to pour his mother a tot of brandy. When he returned, Lady Madeleine drank it down a little gratefully, apologized over and over again for her tears, then kissed them both again before taking her leave.