While Robert had expected her to voice an instantaneous ‘Why’, she didn’t. Instead, she closely examined his face and expression with the same continued calm. Then she slowly retrieved back the book, lowering it to her lap to hold it with both hands while saying "And so we come to what has bothered you these two days."
Robert’s gaze retreated from hers, focusing safely on her long and graceful fingers. He again swallowed hard, remembering the close regard he had noticed during their journey. Yet she had never mentioned them, so he had assumed she had only been considering a harmless thing about his person…
“Robert,” Rachel pressed, the calm of her voice colored with a hint of surprise.
Robert gave a slight twitch, and his quick glance to her features clearly saw her reaction to that.
“You appear more than a little troubled. I haven’t seen you thus since the revelation of my identity on the train.”
An opportunity squandered. Robert cleared his throat. “I am troubled, yes.” She continued an examination of his profile for several tense seconds. Lord…. Dear God in heaven, have mercy.
“I have never before seen such an intense dread and fear,” she admitted as she continued to regard him.
Then, forcing himself to meet and hold her gaze, he admitted “I don’t want to confess the reason for my trouble,” he admitted, “but the Lord keeps pressing me to do so.” He let out a long and deep breath. “I would rather rip out my own tongue….”
“The confession will damage our tentative friendship?”
He held his breath for a pained moment before forcing himself to speak the words “You will likely come to hate me.” Silence scrutiny followed; a regard unlike any he withstood before.
“Why have you not previously confessed this… fact?”
Her continued calm scratched like nails on his heart and soul. He tightened his fisted hands. “Cowardice?” he attempted through clenched teeth. “Stupidity?” He scoffed. “I didn’t think it necessary since I had decided against the course, choosing what I believed to be the better option. Perhaps it was, but I still didn’t follow through with my promise of complete honesty. Instead, I have purposefully misled you.”
He could practically feel her eyes boring into the side of his face as she regarded his expressions. “For my protection?” she finally asked, so slowly that each word was a torture in and of itself.
“That was how I had rationalized it to this point.” You are a fool!
Again the thoughtful silence and consideration of his response in tone, body language, and dialogue. Her complete scrutiny serving to give him hope while at the same time heightening the dread.
“And the confession now?” she queried. “Done also for my protection?”
Sending her a sidelong glance, the guard in her emerald eyes brought a lump to his throat. “You deserve to hear it from me and not my father, or yours, or anyone else,” he said in a somewhat gruff whisper, immediately swallowing the tightness of his throat. Why didn’t I confess before? But she hadn’t begun to trust him until recently. Will this sabotage even that? Would he be able to begin again?
“This confession is a ‘truth’.” He slightly inclined his head. “Have you known of it since my revelation of identity?” Again, he wordlessly nodded, feeling the doom rise again within the pregnant pause. “Have you misled by omitting facts? Or have you blatantly lied?”
This time he met her calmly serious and intensely thoughtful expression. “I’ve tried my best to never lie to you, Rachel, but….” Any other words would not be had, for what could he say to justify it?
“Misleading feels to be as wrong, in retrospect,” she finished.
To which he could only incline his head, unable to allow himself an answer or the hope of any future with her.
“I see.”
Then, to Robert’s horror, Rachel retrieved his hand and placed the ring within it. Once done, she faced forward. Robert closed his eyes as he tightened his hand around the ring, his insides twisting when he heard the rustling of her skirts as she stood–
“Oh,” she said in a voice colored with mild surprise. The tone drew Robert’s focus to her face, which showed the same. “You are the gentleman previously met at Lynette’s party,” she continued. “I apologize my intrusion into your private moment, sir. I was in search of a diversion and so decided to wander. I did not know there were other restless souls about; and one of a previous acquaintance.”
Robert gazed up at her in continued dumb shock, only her surprising smirk rousing him to answer. “Pardon?”
She made a graceful motion toward him with her closed fan. “Such must have been deep thoughts indeed. Again, do forgive me for the intrusion.”
“Oh… erm…” Robert stood, his confusion evident as he watched her face and the guarded amusement upon her features. “No… not at all. No intrusion, by any means.”
Rachel extended a hand. “My name is Rachel Samson, sir, forgive my presumption. I have often been accused of having a too-modern approach in my thinking; however, due to the fact no one else wonders these halls, who better to perform the duty?”
Staring down at her offered hand, Robert absently rubbed his left against the side of his leg, his other still fisted around the ring. Her ring. It had always been hers. It had to be hers. “Miss Samson, I….” He forced himself to meet her gaze, emerald eyes holding controlled calm darkened by a fear of what his confession could entail. “Miss Samson, I have been firmly instructed not to meet with you,” he admitted, his voice tight and barely controlled.
“Not meet with me?” she repeated, her emerald eyes widening ever-so-slightly as she lowered her hand. “But we’ve only just met. Who would have given you such an absurd instruction?”
He swallowed hard, the role-play making it hard not to harbor a whisper of hope. “Your father and mine.”
“Surely you jest. What ridiculous notion could my father have in the ordering of this? You seem an honorable gentleman, and I’ve met many a rogue and cad in my time abroad.”
Robert’s throat constricted around the words, but he shoved aside the fear; instead, giving his relationship with her up to God as he confessed, “I– I was your betrothed,” in a voice racked with the agony of his guilt. Tension stiffened Rachel’s body, her expression blank as she stared at him. “Your father has had us paired since your birth,” he continued in a low and gruff voice.
Rachel…. Rachel, please. His gaze held hers. All I have said has been true. I wanted to give you this choice.
She finally blinked, very slowly, and barely shook her head as she said, “No,” in a hushed voice.
Painfully, as if he tore his head from his body, Robert nodded. But I was going to your father to stand against the betrothal. Remember? Please, Rachel. Please remember.
She lowered her eyes, one hand fisted at her side while the other clutched her fan, white-knuckled. Body rigid. Breathing shallow and rapid as she more frequently blinked. Robert bit back the words he so wanted to say; fighting back, also, the overwhelming desire to take her hands. He could only watch her expressions while praying that it wasn’t the end. Hoping that his own stupidity hadn’t caused a possible rift. Praying that he hadn’t misheard the whisper upon his heart–
Rachel suddenly lifted her gaze, her green eyes dark and her face pale even as her voice remained calmly controlled. “You said ‘was to be’.”
Hope soared as he briefly nodded, swallowing all the words but “Yes. I decided to refuse the betrothal.”
“After so many years… Why now?”
All the reasons, deliberations, and rationalizations disappeared. Instead, he leaned forward while stretching his arms out in a gesture of pleading. “I couldn’t, Rachel.” He clearly noticed her twitch even as he continued. “After our meeting at the party and on the train again, my reluctance to follow through with the betrothal grew. All these years I had felt this… this hardness in my spirit that what they planned would only hurt us both, poisoning our relationship and t
ainting that which I saw could be a wonderful friendship. It didn’t matter that the rebellion would likely mean an end to a life of wealth. I hadn’t ever wanted my actions defined by that. I had to follow God’s press on my heart, and that meant saying ‘No’ and offering you a choice you deserved to have. One that we both should have been trusted with.”
Robert swallowed hard at the continued cool calmness of her face; her almost determined hold of his gaze. The stark rigidity of her form. “Rachel…” he said, his voice gruff, “Rachel, I’m sorry for this betrayal. Please forgive me. I should have confessed to it sooner, but I… I had put it out of my heart as a ‘truth’ to be confessed once I decided to rebel against the betrothal. I refused to view my relationship with you as anything but your choice to accept or not. If you rejected my favor, I would have never bothered you again. I promise that, Rachel. I would not have allowed you to be brow-beaten into a marriage with a stranger. How could I? I had come to despise his weakness and complacency–”
“Stop.”
Robert clamped his mouth shut, tightening his fisted hands as he slowly straightened and fought against the fear and desperation. Your will, Lord. Not mine. Your will. Yours. Yours…. He swallowed hard as Rachel continued to stand silent and chilled. Calm, but with a pale face and dark-green eyes that tore at his soul as he fisted her ring and held her gaze, silently begging God to perform a miracle he didn’t deserve.
“The Robert Trent introduced to me thus far has been neither weak nor compliant,” she informed finally, her voice taut. “He understood duty. He understood responsibility and admirably performed his best to follow requirements made upon his person. Through the duty he continued to trust God, showing a dedication to a dual purpose that not many in such a position can claim.”
Robert’s head began to throb with the tightness of his clenched jaw and the intensity of his prayers as he forced himself to hold her guarded emerald gaze.
“Even now,” she continued, her head tilting upward somewhat, “confessing what could be a truth that causes an end to a tentative friendship and fondness, this man presses determinedly forward while dedicated to truth and honesty as well as a continuation of the following of a supernatural press in his soul. Is this gentleman weak and complacent? No, and you do him wrong by calling him such.”
Robert blinked in shock, especially at a surprising spark – though brief – within her depths of green. It had seemed one of determination and yet… indignation. “I apologize,” he said absently, still not certain whether or not to believe she had spoken in his defense. To him.
“I accept,” she voiced stiffly.
Then Rachel crossed her arms and looked away, her hand still white-knuckled as it clutched her fan, and her left foot taking up the duty of tapping the lush carpet as her cheeks flushed. Green eyes now sparkled with determination, causing a burning in Robert’s chest at how such an intensity made her even more beautiful– He lowered his gaze and clenched his jaw.
“Surprisingly,” Rachel finally said, “I do not blame you. Nor am I angry.”
Robert’s head snapped up. “What?” he hissed. How could he hope that what he had heard her say wasn’t his own wishful thinking?
“It is my father and yours to blame for this path of hard choices and challenging calculations into responses and necessary confessions. If they had but chosen to be as honorable in presenting us the opportunities of building a friendship and relationship beforehand, many of these decisions could have been put off and our passions focused elsewhere.”
She sharply met his gaze, determination glowing within emerald. “This is not to mean I am not irritated it has taken this long for you to confess this particular aspect of your role within the betrothal. Your reasoning is understood. Your decision against the betrothal is appreciated further. Your loyalty to my person and my friendship, again, making it difficult to remain angry with you.”
Rachel pressed her lips into a pale line. “Which is another irritation, due mostly to the fact that I would very much like to slap someone’s face, though it would be cruel to do so to you since you seem to have been slapping yourself down for months, if not years, already.” Then she uncrossed her arms with a harsh motion, pressing a finger deep into his chest as her green eyes sparked. “Mislead me in such a fashion again, Robert Trent, and I will have it out with you. Audience or no.”
Robert wordlessly nodded his head, his eyes slightly wide as the shock at her unexpected response ate at the corners of his mind, only allowing a vague and slightly dazed prayer of thanks.
A curt nod was her response, and then she again presented her free hand. “Now. The ring?”
He presented his fisted hand, having a bit of a challenge to open it after such a long period of clutching. When he did, the impression of the ring had dug itself deep into his scar, causing an odd shift to Rachel’s expression. Her features softened, burning in him a temptation and desire to caress her face. Instead, he remained rigidly still as she reached out her hand to tenderly caress the scar while retrieving the ring. Her fingers then tracing the scar and the ring’s circular impression made by his desperate hold.
Then she finally lifted her dark gaze to hold his. “I do not understand why I am able to continually trust you. Such an action goes against my training. It goes against the business mind that I feel continually fighting against the woman Mother taught me to be. Yet my determination to not allow fear the upper-hand continues to press me forward. With the accepting of this ring. With the acceptance of your apology. With the acceptance of your affection. Your courting. Your friendship. Your opinion. You.”
Rachel lowered her gaze to her hand still in his, missing Robert’s heavy swallow and his quick action of fisting his free hand behind his back.
“Instead, I become addicted to the feeling of trust and tenaciously fight to keep it, even after this revelation. Would I have so accepted your apology if I had not come to know you through your actions of honor and regard for my person? If I had not come to view your friendship as an asset? Would I have believed your intensity if it did not almost perfectly equal what you have vaguely confessed up to this point?”
She released a long and deep breath before moving her hand away from his and once again meeting his gaze. “I have never before met a man as desirable in appearance and persona as you, Robert Leonard Trent, and though Miss Samson battles against her, Rachel Byron wishes to continue forward in this desire. She wishes to have that which previously hid in dreams: A hero and prince for husband and lover. You have but to continue your fight against the chilled Miss Samson.”
Again, Robert swallowed hard as he slightly nodded, his fist tightening to the point that he heard his knuckles pop and could practically feel the bones of his fingers begin to bend with the threat of breaking. God… help…. Then the desire and love for her drowned the remaining prayer, leaving it to impressions and feelings of an overwhelming need to protect and encourage her–
Rachel stepped close to hold his face in her hands, the warmth of the ring in her fingers a welcome feeling against his skin. “Do not give up your fight against her, Robert. She loses the battle against your honor and intensity. She begins to love you.”
“Rachel.” He drew her tight against him, focusing his eyes heavenward as she accepted his touch, his faults, his self, and her ring.
Fourteen
Mirrors
“I was your betrothed.”
Staring down at Robert’s leather journal, Rachel remembered the sharp pain within when he had said those words. Remembered the confusion and the disbelief. Remembered the desperation that had arose; a desperation to offer him a chance to explain, so that she wouldn’t lose his stability. His presence. His laughter at life and its challenges. She had come to… seek his companionship and strength, feeling it encouraging and firming her own security and independence.
How companionship with another could shore up her own abilities, Rachel didn’t understand. Not when her training had firmly impressed upon her to
rely on none other save herself. Yet Robert had proven again and again that he could be trusted. Relied upon. Looked to for humor and comfort. Sought when she needed friendship and compassionate honesty… all in the span of less than two weeks.
Rachel released a deep breath as she slowly opened the journal, skimming through those pages already read to find the– Rachel blinked and sat up within her bed, brushing the errant blonde curls from her face as she read and reread the beginning of the journal entry…
‘Rachel. Rachel Byron. Rachel Byron Samson. Rachel Byron Samson Trent. Rachel Trent. Rachel Byron Trent.
‘I hope the Lord forgives me my weakness today of hoping and wishing that my betrothed is, in fact, His choice for my bride. So long have I kept from writing and uttering your name, instead dedicating myself to a simple title of ‘Lady of Letters’ and girding myself against thinking further.
‘Yet today I had to write it but once. I had to feel the flow of the name paired with mine and see if it fit. I had to determine if the name made me feel a peace or a discomfort in my soul. Then I could be at peace with the decision to view my heavenly intended as but a mysterious lady waiting in the distance…
‘Rachel Byron Trent.
‘Oh Lord, what torment have I written myself into now, for how it seems to fit.’
“Good morning, Rachel,” Maggie greeted as she entered Rachel’s room from the adjoining. The sudden interruption caused a twitch as Rachel lifted wide eyes from the journal to Maggie’s smiling face. Maggie noticed the expression, smile wavering as she came to sit on the edge of Rachel’s bed. “Why, Rach, what’s the matter? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Rachel again lowered her gaze to the page of the journal, wondering at the extreme coincidence of not reading but one page further last night before going in search of him. Wondering at the timing of his confession and how… it had fit with her excessive calm, saving him an extreme and unfair judgment. Wondering how so many… coincidences could fit together to… relieve her heart and mind of an ache and an overwhelming thirst to trust someone again.
Broken Angel Page 30