by Mary Balogh
He hated to think of his own mother in such a way.
Was this one of the dragons he must fight? If so, the price was high indeed. Nothing would ever be the same. But the same as what? He had brushed much beneath the metaphoric carpet five years ago. He would do so no longer.
“You do not know how I have suffered, Peter,” she said, tearful now-as she had been the last time. “If he did it for revenge, he certainly had the final word. Do you think I have not felt like a murderer all these years? But it is unfair. I did not mean him any harm. I was fond of him. I have always been your mother, and I know it is hard to see your own mother as a woman. But I am a woman, and I was lonely. We were both widowed. He had loved his wife as I loved your father. He even told me at the end that he could not continue with me because his heart had broken at her death and he could not forget her. But for a time we were almost happy. We were not hurting anyone.”
He almost felt sorry for her. She had done something monstrous, but she was surely not a monster. And the worst thing about her monstrosity must always have been that she could not atone-Osbourne was dead. Would she have brought false accusations against him if he had lived? There was no way of knowing, and he did not want to know. But she had done irreparable harm anyway.
He was very tempted to get up, to take her hands in his and draw her to her feet and into his arms, to comfort and reassure her, to send her off to bed. But he had done that the last time, after Grantham. If she needed forgiveness, it was her own she must seek, not his.
Besides, there was one more thing he needed to say, and it was best to say everything now tonight and hope that tomorrow they could both start piecing their lives back together.
She spoke before he could, though.
“Peter,” she said, “you cannot marry his daughter. You must see that. It would be an impossible, horrible situation.”
He drew a slow breath.
“And yet it would have been perfectly fine for me to marry Bertha?” he asked her.
She did not reply.
With the commonsense part of his mind he agreed with her, though. The past would always be there between him and Susanna, the knowledge that his mother and her father had been lovers, that she had caused his death. It would be far better to allow Susanna to return to Bath, to go to London himself after Christmas and set his mind to choosing a suitable bride during the Season. Eventually they would forget each other, and when they did remember, they would both be glad they had not taken a chance on happiness.
But he had renounced simple common sense since leaving Bath behind him a few weeks ago. He was reaching for happiness, or if happiness proved impossible, then at least for self-respect. He would no longer avoid the darker corners of his life.
It was altogether possible-even probable-that Susanna would not have him after all, but he would not lose her just because he had chosen to tiptoe his way past his dragons. Even after she was gone he would have to live with himself. And finally he was determined to like the person who lived inside his body.
Not that he particularly liked himself at the moment.
“The only question to be settled on the issue of Miss Osbourne, Mama,” he said, “is whether she will marry me under the circumstances. She has already refused me once.”
She looked sharply at him with a curious mixture of indignation and hope on her face.
“Mama,” he said after drawing a deep breath, “I want Sidley to become my home.”
She stared at him.
“It is yours, Peter,” she said. “If you do not spend more time here, it is your own fault. You know how often I have urged you to come.”
“Because it has always been more yours than mine,” he said.
“Sidley has been yours since you were an infant,” she said. “I have always kept the household running smoothly for you. I have always kept it beautiful for you. Lately I have begun some refurbishings, all for your sake.”
“But I have never been consulted about anything,” he said.
“Because you are never here, ” she cried.
It was true enough. She did have a point there.
“I ought to have taken over both the house and the estate when I reached my majority,” he said, “but I did not for reasons we need not rehash yet again. I have my own ideas on how both should be run, and now I am ready to implement them. I want to make friends of my neighbors. I want them here for frequent entertainments. I want them to feel welcome, to feel at home here. I want to live here most of the time.”
“Peter,” she said, looking more herself again, “this is wonderful! I shall-”
“I want it for myself, Mama,” he said, “and for my wife and children if I marry.”
She smiled uncertainly at him.
“Perhaps,” he said, “you would like to redecorate and refurnish the dower house and move there when it is ready.”
“The dower house?” Her eyes widened in indignation.
“I have always loved it,” he said. “You could surely be contented there.”
“It is where the governesses and tutors always lived,” she cried.
“Then we will look around for a suitable house for you in London,” he suggested. “There will be company there for you most of the year, and plenty of entertainments, and all the shops. And you will always be welcome here as a visitor.”
She leaned back in her chair and stared at him-and there was a moment at which he was aware that her chin tilted slightly upward.
“I have always lived here in order to keep it for you,” she said. “You are my only son. I took on the responsibility when your father died, and I have not relinquished it since. I have given my life for you.”
It was, he realized, a moment when some rebuilding was possible.
“And I will be eternally grateful,” he said. “I had a marvelously secure childhood. I was never in any doubt that I was loved. And I am glad I did not marry too young. I have had the chance to live out my early manhood and find out who I am and what I want of my life, secure in the knowledge that you and my home were always here for me. But now I have arrived at that point of self-discovery, Mama, and I can set you free to enjoy your life in any way you choose. I know you have been lonely here.”
It was not entirely the truth that he spoke, of course, but there was truth in it nevertheless. And despite everything, he would always love her and always be grateful that she had loved him during his childhood.
“I think,” she said, “I would like to live in London.”
Perhaps she did not speak the entire truth either. And yet it struck him that she probably would be happier there. And there was a certain relief in finding that she had rejected the idea of moving to the dower house.
“We will see to it after Christmas,” he said. “But I have kept you up very late, Mama. You must go to bed now. Tomorrow will be busy, I daresay.”
“Yes.”
But she did not immediately get to her feet.
“Peter,” she said, “I could never love another man as I loved your father. William Osbourne, George Grantham-they meant nothing to me, though I was fond of them both. I certainly did not mean to do anyone any harm.”
“I know you did not.”
He knew no such thing, alas, but it was not his place to pour recriminations on her head. He got to his feet and offered her his hand. When she was standing before him, small, fragile, still lovely, he kissed her forehead and then her cheek.
“Good night, Mama,” he said.
“Good night, Peter.”
She left the room without another word, her back straight, her step light and firm.
He looked toward the brandy decanter but rejected the idea of pouring himself a glass. If he started drinking tonight, he knew he would not stop until he was thoroughly foxed.
Several times during the course of Christmas Eve Susanna thought about Claudia and Eleanor and Lila and the girls who would be at the school for Christmas. They were there right now, she thought. She tried to groun
d herself in the reality of that thought, but it was hard to believe in it. It was hard to believe anything that was happening around her either.
It was as if she had stepped into some strange dream.
Life had been so routine, so predictable, so dull, until the end of the summer. And yet there had been a certain contentment, even happiness, about the dullness.
Yesterday seemed unreal. Could she really have gone willingly to the dower house at Sidley Park with Viscount Whitleaf? Had she really gone to bed and made love with him there? Twice? The second time entirely initiated by her?
And today, were these strangers with whom she was spending almost all her time really turning so quickly into familiar, even dear, relatives? Was it possible to feel a close familial connection to people of whose very existence she had been hardly aware until yesterday morning?
But her grandfather Osbourne looked so very much as her father would have looked, if he had lived so long, that she would hardly have been able to drag her eyes away from him had her grandmother not had Papa’s eyes-and if she had not insisted upon holding Susanna’s hand much of the time and patting it and gazing at her in fascinated wonder. And her Grandfather Clapton really did have her own eyes, though their color had faded closer to gray than green, and she could imagine, looking at his thin gray hair, that it really had been auburn at one time. He had a way of nodding and smiling quietly, leaving most of the talking to the other two, that drew her eyes and tugged at her heart.
Grandmother and Grandfather Osbourne had no surviving children, and she was their only grandchild. Their lives must have been filled with the most terrible sadness. They had had two sons.
By running away, she thought, she had robbed them of knowing her from the age of twelve until now. But then, they were the ones who had banished her father. Not that she would judge them for that. He had interfered with their elder son’s marriage and then caused his death in a fight. She longed to know details of that fight. Had the death been entirely accidental? Had her father’s brother fallen and hit his head on a stone, for example? But she would not ask.
Her grandfather Clapton had three surviving daughters and eight grandchildren apart from Susanna. Her aunts and cousins, he told her, smiling his quiet smile. The eldest was married to his successor in the village church-and their son was a curate in a church not far away.
She had aunts and uncles and cousins.
“How different my life would have been if I had not left Fincham in such a hurry all those years ago,” she said.
“And ours too, dearest,” her grandmother said, patting her hand.
“But would you go back now and change your life if you could?” Grandfather Clapton asked gently. “I believe our lives unfold in perfect but mysterious ways, understood clearly only by our Lord.”
“That is something you would say, Ambrose,” Grandfather Osbourne said irritably. “I have not seen much perfection in the lives of my own family, only endless mystery. And if the Almighty is responsible, I will have a quarrel to pick with him on Judgment Day.”
“I cannot know if I would change the course of my life or not,” Susanna said, smiling at all of them and understanding already that her grandfathers did not always see eye-to-eye upon every issue. “I wish I had known you all sooner, and I do look back upon the couple of weeks I spent in London with some horror. But I spent six happy years at Miss Martin’s school, and I have loved my teaching job there during the past five years. I am proud of what I have made of my life.”
Her grandmother patted her hand.
“Teaching is all very well,” Grandfather Osbourne said, “for a lady with no family or for a lady whose family has only slender means. I am not an enormously wealthy man, Susanna, but I am certainly not poor either, and you are all we have. It is time you came home with us. It is time we found you a good husband to look after you when we are gone.”
Her grandmother smoothed a hand over hers, and Susanna could feel her bent arthritic fingers against the back of her hand.
“I think, Clarence,” she said, “Susanna may have already found him for herself. Viscount Whitleaf is a very handsome and charming young man, and it seemed to me yesterday that he thinks the world of our granddaughter. He has invited us all to attend the ball at Sidley Park tomorrow evening, but I had the feeling that it is Susanna with whom he wants to dance more than anyone else.”
“I daresay it would not be me, Sadie,” Grandfather Osbourne said with a bark of laughter. “But a viscount. That is aiming high, though not impossibly high. We have a perfectly respectable lineage. And so does Ambrose.”
“And you were a colonel,” Grandmother Osbourne reminded him.
“Hmm,” her grandfather said. “I shall have to find out what that young man’s intentions are.”
Susanna pulled her hand away from her grandmother’s in order to clap both hands to her cheeks.
“Oh, Grandfather,” she said, “please do not say anything to him.”
She was blushing, she realized. She was also laughing. Her grandfather had known her for less than twenty-four hours, and already he was trying to take charge of her life.
Could it possibly be less than twenty-four hours? She already loved them, all three of them. How absurd!
How indescribably wonderful!
She had just realized something, though. They must not know about Viscountess Whitleaf’s part in the death of her father. They had not reacted in any way to his name.
They were not alone together all day, the four of them. Lady Markham, Theodore, Edith, and Mr. Morley were all tactful enough to remain in the background most of the time, but they all came together at mealtimes, and after luncheon Susanna and her grandmother went up to the nursery at Edith’s invitation to see Jamie since this was apparently the most wakeful, alert, and cheerful part of his day.
“And of course,” Edith said, “I want you to see him at his very best.”
They stayed up there talking for longer than an hour after admiring the baby and handing him from one to the other and coaxing smiles from him. Susanna’s grandmother held him in the crook of one arm while they sat and talked, and cooed down at him when he demanded attention.
It was during that hour and a bit, Susanna discovered later, that Viscount Whitleaf had called with two of his brothers-in-law and young Mr. Flynn-Posy.
She also discovered that during the visit her two grandfathers had gone off to the library with Viscount Whitleaf while the others had visited in the drawing room. Neither of them volunteered any further information-about who had initiated the private meeting or what the topic of conversation had been. And Susanna did not ask lest her grandparents think that she really was interested in him.
He was gone by the time she came downstairs.
But she would see him at the ball, she thought, with a heart that tried to sink and soar at the same time, leaving her feeling horribly confused and not a little upset.
She must not begin thinking that an impossibility might after all be possible.
It was Peter who had asked to speak privately with the two elderly gentlemen who were staying at Fincham. While he was disappointed to learn on his arrival that Susanna was up in the nursery with Edith, he was also glad to find his plan easier to implement than he had expected it to be. He had merely asked Theo if he might use the library for a few minutes in order to have a word or two with Colonel Osbourne and the Reverend Clapton, and Theo had agreed-with a smirk.
Peter had come to the point after a few preliminary conversational niceties. Or, to be more accurate, it was the colonel, frowning ferociously and harrumphing through his large mustache, who brought him to the point.
“I understand, Whitleaf,” he said, “that you had my granddaughter out in a curricle yesterday afternoon, without even so much as a groom up behind.”
Peter felt very much as if a shotgun had been pressed to his spine.
The other old gentleman gazed genially at him-with perhaps a thread of steel behind the mild eyes.
“I did,” he confessed-no point in lying and pretending to have had six eagle-eyed grooms all clinging to the back of his curricle to play chaperone. “I hope, sirs, to ask your granddaughter during tomorrow night’s ball to honor me with her hand in marriage. I would like the blessing of both of you before I do so.”
It had occurred to him last night that this was perhaps something he ought to do. Less laudably, it had also occurred to him that she might look more kindly upon his suit if he had their blessing.
A third thing that had occurred to him, of course, was that they might be very familiar indeed with the name of Whitleaf, and that he might be dooming his hopes to a horrible dashing if he approached them thus.
The Reverend Clapton beamed at him from his chair by the fire.
The colonel frowned fiercely at him from his stance by the desk.
“Why?” he barked. “Why do you wish to marry our granddaughter?”
“I have conceived a deep affection for her, sir, “Peter said.
“Even though she was a dowerless nobody when you did it?” the colonel asked him, and Peter felt sorry for all the soldiers who had served under this man-theirs must not have been a comfortable life.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
“Then you are a fool, Whitleaf,” the old man said.
Peter raised his eyebrows.
“If loving Miss Osbourne for herself makes me a fool, sir,” he said, “then I can only plead guilty.”
“Which you must confess, Clarence,” the clergyman said in a mild voice, “is an excellent answer. I would be inclined to give my blessing without further ado.”
“Hmm,” the colonel said, and it suddenly occurred to Peter that the man was enjoying himself. “Well, she isn’t a dowerless nobody, Whitleaf. She is a not inconsiderable heiress. What do you have to say to that?”
“That it is very pleasant for Miss Osbourne, sir,” Peter said, “but that it has no effect whatsoever on my feelings for her.”
“And what do you have to offer her, young man, apart from your affections, which may come cheap for all I know?” the colonel asked.