by Regina Scott
Chapter Five
Catherine could barely wait to find her mother. How could Uncle start announcing courtships? Nothing had been decided. She felt as embarrassed for Channing as she did herself and then horrified at what Salsbury might think. She threw her things at Moorsby, picked up her feet, and ran to her mother’s room. Knocking, she entered without waiting for a response. “Mother.”
She sat in bed, the candles still lit at her side, a book in her hand. The peace on her face gave Catherine pause. Since the loss of Catherine’s father, peace was a precious treasure for her mother. She walked more slowly, reconsidering what she could say.
Her mother patted the bed at her side, and Catherine climbed up to sit beside her. “What are you reading?”
“Our family journals.” Her smile lit her face.
Curious, Catherine moved closer. “Really? What are you learning?”
She sighed, a great glow of happiness so foreign to her usual pinched face. “The story of my grandparents. They loved each other very much.” Her smile was wistful. “And then I’ve been reading my letters from your father.”
Grandparents. Perhaps they would have answers as to what happened with the Salsburys.
“Tell me the stories. Of our grandparents.” She loved to hear them, all the fun family anecdotes passed down over the years, from the times before the Salsburys ruined their family memories.
Her mother patted her hand. “Another day. Now I want to read you some letters.”
She read, “Dear Julianne.” Her voice smiled while she read, and Catherine leaned her head back against the wall, listening. “You are my sun, my moon, and my stars all in one. Please ease my suffering and say you’ll be mine before that weak-minded Salsbury even asks for your hand.”
Catherine gasped. “Salsbury?” She widened her eyes.
Her mother nodded. “Yes, they both vied for my hand. And I flirted with the two of them, equally enamored. I suppose I loved them both, for different reasons.” She sighed.
Catherine was left reeling. “Father and Salsbury both wanted to marry you?”
“They did. They courted me, both often visiting at the same time, competing to stay longer than the other.” She giggled. “I received more flowers that month than I ever had.”
Catherine could see nothing funny at all in the situation. “One was bound to be hurt when the other won your heart.” She thought of the older Salsbury and for the first time felt a bit of pity for him. “Once Father convinced you he was the one . . .”
She sighed and shook her head. “It was Salsbury who convinced me.”
“What?” Catherine didn’t know what to say. “You preferred him to Father?”
“I did at last. But even after I explained that to both men, it was Aster who came for me. He said Salsbury had given up his suit.” She read the paper again, folding it up and placing it in her box. “He never came calling any more after that. He dropped out of my life, leaving room for only Aster.”
Catherine couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “And Salsbury never forgave Father?”
“I don’t imagine he did.”
“Is that why they have done so many awful things to us all these years?”
“I fear it is they who have great reason to hate us.”
“What?” Catherine was astounded at the thought. “But Uncle is always vilifying . . .”
“I know. He has his reasons too, I’d imagine.” A great sadness filled her eyes, and Catherine regretted asking so many questions. “I’m sorry, Mother. Let’s talk of something else.”
“You must know the truth. Sometime I will tell you all.” She leaned her head closer to Catherine. “Let me read you more.”
“I met the Duke of Salsbury.”
Her mother’s hands stilled. “He is the image of his father.” Her small voice held a lilt of yearning, and Catherine wondered how much and for how long she had preferred the previous Salsbury.
“Why must we hate them so?”
Her mother shifted between journals and pulled out an old and worn book, the leather scratched, the pages yellow. “Someday I will tell you. Is he . . . a good man?” Her eyes searched Catherine’s face.
“I think so.”
She nodded, then waved her hand as if the discussion were over. She ran a hand up and down the old journal, as though it were precious to her.
Though Catherine waited, her mother would not speak more of it.
Chapter Six
Four days passed before Stephen could again go to the park with Penelope. They always went early in the morning with the hopes of avoiding most everyone of high society. The existence of a Salsbury sister was known by only a few; the knowledge that she had some challenges and behaved in such a juvenile manner even at the age of nineteen was known by almost no one outside their family. He had never personally spoken of it to anyone but Lady Catherine. He shocked himself as the words came out of his mouth. But though that moment carried with it certain risks, he could not regret it. Even though she was an Aster.
They guarded the potential in their family line to birth such children as Penelope with a careful eye. If you looked at the family journals, it was obvious that every other generation claimed someone of questionable age and behavior. In the early years, unthinkable things happened to these relations. Sent off to live in solitude as wards was the most merciful thing he had read.
As he and Penelope made their way across the street to the expansive park, he shivered to think of what someone would do with Penelope in such a time. Even now, the gossip and tongue of the ton could be ruthless.
His eyes searched the snow-covered ground for Lady Catherine. He had little hope she would come, especially since it had taken him so many days to return. If she held him in any kind of regard, what had she thought, all those days when he and Penelope had not come outside?
“Snow!” Penelope laughed as she reached down to grab a handful. She threw it up in the air, the soft powder falling all around her, lighting on her eyelashes.
“You will get all wet.”
“Not wet. It’s too cold.” She reached down again and grabbed a handful as if to throw it above her head again but instead threw it in his face.
He coughed in surprise. Loud, musical laughter called out to them from across a small expanse of green between two trees. Lady Catherine ran to approach them. “Good throw, Penelope.” When she stood at their front, her cheeks rosy, her eyes alight with energy, he had to resist a strong urge to swing her around in his arms in welcome. “Hello, Your Grace.” She curtsied, her suddenly shy smile warming him.
“Your Grace, she says.” He shook his head. “The woman who will agree to a dance with a stranger insists on calling me Your Grace.”
“What would you like me to call you?”
A wicked idea nudged him. His interactions with Lady Catherine were already so clandestine, he longed to hear his name from her lips. “I’d love you to call me Stephen.”
She gasped. “Surely not.”
He tilted his head. “But as we don’t know each other as well as I would like, would Salsbury do?”
She cringed.
“Salsbury carries with it a certain hesitance, does it not, given our ridiculous family situation?” He didn’t have another suggestion, and he longed to hear his name on her lips.
She stepped closer, her expression pensive. “I wanted to share something with you—something I learned—and to ask you a question.”
He gestured to a bench. “Shall we sit?”
“No! No sit.” Penelope put her hands on her hips. He had almost forgotten she was there.
Lady Catherine stepped toward her. “Oh Penelope! We are talking quite a bit, are we not?” She stooped to gather her own bit of snow. “Too much talk when we could be doing this!” She threw it up in the air above Stephen, and it fell all around him.
Penelope laughed and grabbed more.
“Oh no. You two. That’s hardly fair.”
“Fair. No fair, Steph
en.” Penelope threw snow over her shoulder at him as she ran away. He barreled after her until he heard the sought-after squeal of her laughter.
Lady Catherine’s face lit with happiness.
He stopped, caught by it, the magic of her carefree joy filling him as a good snow at Christmastide would. He held out his hand. She took it, their gloved fingers interlocking. “Will you be in London over Christmastide?”
She nodded. “We will. Mother does not wish to travel.”
He nodded. “Mine neither.”
They paused a moment. Stephen assumed both in respect for the mourning of their mothers. Then he said, “I’m sorry for your mother’s sorrow.”
Her eyes misted. “And I yours. These past two years have been sad ones for both our houses, I would imagine.”
He nodded.
Penelope began lifting piles of snow onto the bench. He turned to Catherine. “What did you want to tell me?”
She burned bright red, and he found her even lovelier.
“I . . . well . . . I came upon my mother reading old letters and journals.” She stepped nearer to him, and as her big eyes widened further, he fought the desire to wrap his arms around her. “She said that your father desired her hand, that they were to marry at first.”
His eyebrows raised. “Were they?” He had not heard. “I shall dig up what I can to find out what happened there.”
“Would you? I cannot get any more information out of my mother. And I . . . I’m interested.”
He lifted her chin. “As am I.”
The air between them crackled, pulling them together. She leaned in. “When will I see you again?” Her face showed a touch of pain, and he considered the torture of the past four days.
“Perhaps I shall come call?”
Her face blanched. “You mustn’t.”
He shook his head. “This feud is not mine. I share no animosity for your family that others seem to cling to.”
“My uncle.”
“Is he always at home?”
“Whether he is or isn’t doesn’t signify. He rules the household. My brother, the duke, he is too young and hesitant to cross our father’s brother.”
“Then meet me here? Or at the opera?”
“We just went. And so many attend. People we may not wish to see.” She looked down.
He remembered their uncomfortable conversation with her uncle. “Are you to be married?”
“No!” She cleared her throat. “Nothing has been decided, nothing discussed openly, except by my uncle the other night.”
He felt an undeserved relief. He couldn’t ask for her hand, not without alienating his family, not without bringing more Aster wrath and threats on them all. And yet he was happy things were still undecided between her and Channing.
“And Lady Fenningway?” Her small voice warmed him.
“I cannot abide the woman.” He held up his hand. “I apologize for my abrupt manner. But we have nothing in common.”
“But there are expectations.” She looked away, her hand still in his.
“There are, yes. For you as well, I’d imagine.” The hopelessness of their situation settled around him again, dropping the corners of his mouth. “And yet, I long to see you. I have made no promises. Shall we meet here again, as often as we are able?”
She nodded. “And, perhaps, the museum?”
His heart picked up. “Capital idea! Tomorrow?”
She grinned. “If I can manage it. I’ll be there during the afternoon, after tea.”
“Perhaps we shall come to an epiphany while admiring the great creative genius of our time.”
“Perhaps.” Her eyes, her countenance, her shoulders all seemed to droop for a moment, then she squeezed his hand and stepped away. “Penelope. What are we doing here?” She moved to help her collect snow for the pile she had gathered on the bench.
He watched the two of them, marveling at Lady Catherine’s large and sweet heart, wondering how fate had smiled on him in such a way as to enable him to know her.
But the more he spent time with her, the more he watched her with Penelope, the more he wanted her in his life. As yet, he could find no easy way to court her, and the longer he waited, the more they each became entrenched in other entanglements. Perhaps the solution lay in the source of their family’s age-old hatred for each other. The fact that his father had courted her mother, however unsuccessfully, gave him hope. He determined to discover those secrets that very night.
Chapter Seven
The packet of letters weighed his pocket as he and Lady Catherine moved through the museum together. Her maid followed behind. How could he tell her what he discovered? It had shattered him on behalf of his father, crushed him on behalf of his mother. Did his mother know the history? How could she have put on such a happy front all these years, knowing her husband loved another?
Lady Catherine kept glancing in his direction. Likely she sensed something in his quiet mood. Remarkable how connected they were, how connected he felt to her.
They moved to sit in a quiet room against the far wall. A large sculpture took up the space in the middle of the room and shielded them from many who would be walking by. He pulled the packet of letters out of his pocket.
Lady Catherine’s eyes widened.
“I have made some discoveries.”
Her eyes held concern along with the open curiosity that filled her face. “What? Tell me what you have learned.”
“It is a sordid tale. Of sorts.” He cleared his throat. “And a romantic one.”
He enjoyed the sparkle in her eye even though it was clouded by hesitation, by the expectation of bad news.
“So, it turns out, my father did indeed love your mother.”
Her eyes widened, and a delicious awkwardness settled between them, the kind created by two who had yet to disclose any sort of feelings for the other, feelings he suspected existed in her and he knew ran powerfully through him.
He rested a knuckle at the side of her face, allowing the moment to linger. “He writes of his feelings, pages and pages. The man was a terrible poet.” He grimaced, and Lady Catherine laughed.
“Tell me. What happened between them?”
He looked out over the room. “My father and your mother arranged to meet. He was to come for her and ask for her hand. She waited for him at the back swing. I have a letter from her as well.”
“From my mother?” she reached forward. “May I see it?”
“Of course.” He handed her a well-worn piece of parchment, the fold lines rubbed bare, the words still visible, the handwriting fading.
My dear Jorge.
You never came. I risk much in writing you, but I must know if your feelings are still engaged. You seemed so distant at the musicale the other evening. It was as if we had not spent the past summers admitting what we have. I love you still, Jorge. If you are to continue with the plans we discussed, please ease my mind as to your feelings. I am left with a great deal of uncertainty regarding your many promises. Mother is pressuring me to make a decision. I am ever yours.
Amelia
“What?” Her hands shook. “What could this mean?”
“I have discovered the rest of the tale through my father’s words in this old journal.” He reached for her hand. The trembling made him wish to pull her into his arms. “It seems that on the very day they were to meet, the day my father would approach Amelia’s father to ask for her hand, my father received a visit from a caller.”
She squeezed his hand, a troubled expression crossing her face.
He regretted what he was about to say to her. “It seems His Grace Lord Aster had similar designs on your mother.”
She grimaced. Then nodded.
“When my father was unmoved by his petition to allow him the opportunity to court her as well, for Salsbury to hold off on his proposal, Lord Aster turned angry and with many threats demanded that my father step aside. All of which my father ignored until your father mentioned Agatha.”
&nbs
p; “Agatha?” Her voice shook, and she cleared her throat.
He nodded. “My father’s aunt. She is very much like Penelope. Every other generation, someone special is born into our family line.”
Her eyes widened.
“And the knowledge is kept secret, especially for that particular generation, as they were certain to give birth to someone who might behave . . . might be . . .”
She moved her hand to his forearm. “It’s all right. I understand.”
“History was unkind to some of the past Salsburys, and there have been many who viewed these siblings as an embarrassment, a scandal, even. What family would want to unite with our bloodline, knowing a member might need Bedlam or worse?”
“No, Penelope would never need Bedlam.” Her face pinched in pain.
Stephen warmed toward her even more. Her appreciation for Penelope showed a gentle and caring heart. “She would not, that is true, but for many generations, the treatment of the Salsburys with her condition has been suspicious and often unkind. Until my father. He wished for Agatha to live with him, to be a part of the family. His father and mother supported the idea, but as was wont to happen, knowledge of her existence and condition leaked out, and Aster became aware.”
Lady Catherine dipped her head. “I don’t know if I want to hear the rest.”
Great sympathy filled him. “I don’t have to continue.” He waited.
She was silent. At length she said, “I fear I know what you are about to say. Keeping it from me does not make it untrue, though I wish it were. I need to know.”
He wished to know what thoughts ran through her head. His sorrow grew. How dreadful to be the one to discover any bit of unpleasantness about another’s family and especially to be the one to deliver the blow. He continued. “My father’s journals claim that Aster threatened to reveal the family secret, to tell your mother what she would have to bear as a mother to a child like Agatha, like Penelope. He promised to shout it to the ton in the most negative terms if my father didn’t immediately back away and withdraw his attentions.”
Stephen’s anger for Aster simmered just under the surface. When he had read the account last night, he punched the wall, anger coursing through him at the injustice dealt his father. But soon a sense of logic entered. His father had been happy in his marriage, with his family. And his mother had happily accepted the existence of Agatha and had loved, did love, Penelope with the fiery love of any mother. He received a great amount of peace in the happy turn for his father, for his family. But he didn’t think his father had ever fully recovered from the loss of his first love.