He watched Margaret as he addressed her husband. “I will be mindful of her feelings, but she has to realize—”
“I realize, Raeburn, even if my wife does not. I can only begin to fathom your shock and your pain. When you are ready, come to me, I will tell you what I can. For now, go and see her and know that you shall have all the time you need.” Robert reached for the latch. “Molly, you may come out, if you please, and retire for the night.”
The young maid peeked around the door and stepped cautiously out, dropping a curtsy and trying valiantly not to look bewildered before she stepped between them and vaulted down the stairs.
“Take your time, Raeburn.”
Robert turned and strode down the stairs, catching his wife in his arms and hugging her to his chest. “It is all right, love, she will be safe with him. Give him a chance, love, that is all he wants.”
Looking away from Robert and his sobbing wife, Lindsay opened the door. What was he doing? He knew nothing of infants. Had never even held one. But this was his child—his daughter.
He stepped into the room that was bathed in rose light from the pink glass oil lamp that sat atop a table in the corner of the room. Beside the table was a rocking chair, with a set of knitting needles attached to a half-completed pink baby blanket that rested atop the chair cushion. A rosewood cradle with ivory lace curtains draped over the frame sat beside the chair. In the opposite corner, a bed was pressed against the wall.
Silently Lindsay took a step forward and his heart faltered with nervousness and uncertainty. What would he see lying in the bassinette? What would he say? He almost turned to leave until he heard a soft whimper and saw a swath of white lace peek out from beneath a mountain of blankets. His heart began beating again—a mad, frantic pace. He took another step and peeked down, searching through the layers of silk and lace to the plump, pink cheeks that were nestled lovingly in the Broughton family linens.
With shaking fingers he pulled back the corner of the blanket and saw what he had created with Anais.
Tears stung his eyes and he pressed his fingers to his lids, stemming the tears that sprung up with urgency. Such beauty. Such innocent wonder. Tears spilled freely from his eyes as he looked down at the sleeping baby, and he could not keep from staring at her or stem his tears. His arms ached to hold his daughter and his heart felt as if it were breaking into a million little pieces because she did not know him.
22
“May I get her for you?”
Lindsay straightened and saw Margaret Middleton standing in the doorway. She was still clutching her square of Nottingham lace, but she had composed herself and only the faintest sound of a distant hiccup remained. He tried to speak, but it came out as a harsh and strangled “please.”
Margaret stepped into the room and padded softly across the carpet until she was standing over the cradle. With an ease that amazed him, she swooped down and lifted his daughter from the silk linens, covering her pink cheeks with butterfly kisses and murmured endearments that came naturally to a mother’s lips. And then she turned and presented him with a sleeping cherub—an angel he could not take his eyes off of.
Margaret placed his daughter in his arms and he continued to stare down at the babe in wonder. A life. He had created a life!
His gaze, blurry, roved over her chubby cheeks and red bow mouth, hungrily cataloging her features, embedding them for eternity in his mind. Margaret removed the lace bonnet that shielded the babe’s head and he sank, almost unthinking, onto the chair.
Beautiful black curls, which were in the image of him, covered her small, round head. The profoundness of what he was seeing stunned him and his arms began to tremble as the full realization of what he was seeing began to sink in.
“Call if you need me. She may need to be fed,” Margaret said, running her fingers through the babe’s locks. As she did, the child stirred and opened one eye that was edged with long, sooty lashes, and then she looked up at him, seeing him—her father— for the first time.
“Her name?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Mina is her name, my lord. Anais named her. We did not change it.”
“Mina,” he repeated.
Margaret left, closing the door so that a sliver of light from the oil lamp in the hall filtered into the nursery. He looked down at the sleeping bundle in his arms and marveled at the beauty—the perfection of his daughter.
She squirmed in his arms and he saw her pink little toes curl when they met the cold air. He smiled, such perfect little toes, all five of them. He counted her fingers next—all there. His hand, large and tanned, ran over the silky curls. She pressed her cheek into his arm and he felt her heat sear him through his linen shirt.
She had his dark hair, his lashes, and from the glimpse he had, she bore his eyes, as well. But the shape of her face, a perfect oval, was her mother’s. She had Anais’s cheeks. Anais’s lovely mouth and proud chin. He kissed her chin, feeling the softest of fluttering against his cheek—baby’s breath. There was nothing sweeter than the feel of an innocent child’s breath against one’s cheek—nothing more wondrous than knowing that the baby was your own flesh and blood.
Mina stretched against him, yawning widely and throwing her arms up wide alongside her head. He laughed through his tears and reached for her little fist and brought it to his mouth, kissing her with such love he thought he would die of it. “You will consume me, little Mina, just as your mother has.”
She yawned again and he released her hand, allowing his fingers to trace the delicate blue veins on her wrist. His blood. Anais’s blood. The blood that now swam in Mina’s veins.
He looked down at his child and squeezed her to him. Mina was a beautiful visual of his love for Anais. It was out of love that Mina had been born. But Anais had not wanted that love—the life they had created.
But he wanted it. God, how he wanted this child. He closed his eyes and brought her to his chest, not caring that his movements were awkward and stiff. This was his child. This was his right.
He rose from the chair and walked to the bed. Reclining, he brought Mina’s chest to his chest, and he slipped her inside the opening of his shirt so that she was lying against his skin and she could hear his heart beating beneath her ear. He hugged her and cupped her head in his palm, loving her as she breathed her innocent baby’s breath against his chest.
“She never gave us a chance—gave me a chance,” he said to his sleeping daughter. “She never allowed me the opportunity to show you how very well I could love you—how well I could love you both. I could have stopped. If only I had known, Mina. I would have been a good husband and a good papa. If only I’d known…”
The sound of pounding feet on the stairs made his arms tense. Instinctively he held Mina tighter to his chest. Feminine weeping echoed along the walls, and he braced himself to see Anais—to see the woman he had loved so desperately; the woman who had betrayed him so mercilessly.
She appeared in the door, the warm light from the oil lamp illuminated her from behind, and her golden curls, which were spilling from her coiffure, glistened like a halo around her head. At one time he thought of her as an angel; now he could not even bring himself to look at her.
Heavy silence made the atmosphere taut, and he did nothing to relieve the obvious strain she was feeling. He did not comfort her as she sagged against the door and wept. Instead, he looked down at his sleeping daughter and willed himself to maintain some semblance of calm.
“Your revenge upon me has been complete, Anais,” he said, his voice hoarse with pent-up emotion. “I trust you are well-satisfied with the events. We are even now, are we not? I have broken your heart, and you have destroyed mine.”
She flew from the door to stand beside the bed in a whirl of blue satin. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, as if she had been sobbing for hours. “I didn’t plan it this way.”
“How could you?” He reached for her wrist and brought her forward so that she could see Mina lying against him. “How c
ould you have done this to me—to us—to our daughter? How could you not love her enough to fight for her?”
A strangled gasp whispered past Anais’s lips, and Lindsay saw how she stared at their daughter as if she were seeing Mina for the first time. Anais’s trembling hand reached out to touch the babe, but she snatched it back as if she were afraid to touch her.
“You don’t understand, Lindsay….” Anais’s voice trailed off as Mina began to squirm against him. “I never meant for any of this to happen. You weren’t supposed to find out—”
“And that’s what hurts so damned much—that you would deliberately hide this baby from me. I have rights, Anais, but you took those away from me. You never gave me a chance.”
“My pride ruined everything,” she whispered. “Had I not allowed my vanity to rule my mind I would not have had to make this choice. But I was so angry with you and hurt. I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was thinking only with my heart, and it was broken into a thousand pieces after I found you with Rebecca. But despite that, I knew if I saw you again, I would be just as much in danger as I ever was—for I knew I loved you, despite everything that Garrett had told me, despite what I had seen. I didn’t want that, Lindsay. I didn’t want to be weak. I didn’t want you to think that you could do anything you wanted and I would always be there waiting for you, ready to take you back. I didn’t…” She choked on a sob and brushed the back of her hand across her eyes, wiping away her tears. “I feared you would think you could always placate me with a smile and an empty compliment.”
She sobbed a loud, choking sound that seemed to come from some well deep inside her. “Oh, God, I never wanted to have to make up excuses for you the way you made up excuses for your father. I didn’t want you to think that the words I’m sorry would be enough.”
“So you wanted to punish me.”
“In the beginning my pride was wounded. I felt betrayed and used and a part of me did want you to suffer. I know that it is childish, but God help me, it was never my intent to make you suffer like this. But that is all in the past, we cannot change the past.”
“So you allowed your pride to destroy us?” He looked up at her expectantly and she crumpled to the ground, weeping. He felt the urge to cup her face in his hand and brush her tears away with his thumbs as if he could make everything all right with a soft touch and a whispered word.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right. I allowed my pride and anger to ruin everything we had—everything we might have had. I have no justification for my actions, only that I feared that I could so easily become your mother and that you would be like your father. I didn’t want that, you see, to be someone you thought you could walk all over. I wanted to be strong, to prove to myself that I was strong.”
She rose from her knees and placed her shaking hand along her midriff. “I know you will not believe me, but it is the truth that I never meant to deny you your child.”
“I no longer know what to believe,” he mumbled. “I only know that what I have truly longed for is no longer mine.” She nodded and turned away from him. When she reached for the door, he called, “You will not run away again, Anais, not before I have the answers to all my questions. Be waiting when I come to find you.”
“I do owe you that much, do I not?” She looked over her shoulder at him and he saw her gaze slip down to Mina, who remained contented in his arms. “Perhaps one day you will begin to see things from where I stand, Lindsay. Perhaps one day, you will understand and you will forgive me. We, both of us, have failings. I have forgiven you. Will you not forgive me?”
New Year’s Day passed very quietly at Eden Park. Lord Weatherby spent the day recovering from his drunkenness while everyone else in the house seemed to lounge about on settees, reading and napping and generally attempting to recover from the Christmas festivities. Lindsay’s whereabouts remained unknown and Anais worried for him—fearing that perhaps he was indulging in behavior that was not good for him. Herself, she had decided it prudent not to join the rest of the family below stairs, fearing an unexpected meeting with Lindsay.
For the next two days, Anais kept herself hidden inside her chamber, lest she come face-to-face with Lindsay. The truth was, she was terrified to see him. No one knew what sort of mood he would be in, and she feared she would only make his demeanor more foul if he were to set eyes on her.
Feeling stifled and confined after two days of solitude, Anais reached for the shawl that was draped over her window bench and left her chamber. It was late, nearly midnight, and the house had long settled down for the night. The lure of a quiet walk through the halls called to her if for nothing other than a change of view, and perhaps a clearing of her increasingly anxious thoughts.
Anais padded down the stairs and headed to the ballroom where she intended to slip through the French doors and out onto the balcony to look at the stars in the cold night air. She wanted to clear her head, to formulate a plan or at least some semblance of an explanation of her actions for when Lindsay came to call upon her.
He had left her stewing in her juices, making her contemplate and worry over when he would come for his answers. But he had not come, and it had left her feeling befuddled. She had even sought him out in his private den, fully prepared to discover him smoking opium. But he had not been there.
Striding to the terrace doors, Anais felt a gust of frigid air swirl beneath her gown. It was then that she noticed the doors were already partially opened. Wrapping her paisley shawl about her shoulders, Anais reached for the latch and peered up at the full moon and the smoky clouds. Another gust of wind rose up, causing snow to swirl in circles along the terrace floor.
Shivering, Anais let her gaze drop from the sky as she gathered the woolen shawl tighter around her. As she reached to swing the door closed, she saw Lindsay standing alone at the balustrade with his back to her, his ungloved hands gripping the icy stone.
How lonely and bereft he looked standing alone with his head bent. How her heart ached to see him this way, to know that she, and she alone, was the cause of his misery.
The wind howled and the air billowed in, lifting her shawl from her shoulders and carrying it outside on the breeze. The wool tangled between Lindsay’s legs and he bent down to retrieve it. He looked back, and before she could escape his notice, he pinned her with his gaze. He said nothing, but held the shawl out to her. Stepping quietly onto the terrace, she reached for it, whispering her thanks as she flung it around her shoulders.
“You should go back inside,” he muttered, turning from her. “It’s cold tonight.”
She stood behind him, watching his shoulders tense further beneath his black evening jacket. How she wished she could reach out and touch him, to run her hand along his back. She once would have thought nothing of doing such a thing. And now things were so very different between them.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
“Oh?”
“Your valet says you have not been home these past two days.”
“I did not wish to be found.”
“I was worried.”
“You needn’t have bothered.”
“The opium—”
“Is no longer your concern. I know your feelings about it. And you know mine.”
Which meant he was still using it. In all likelihood he was probably under its influence even now. She wanted to beg him to stop, but what right had she to ask anything of him, especially now?
“We have received word from my aunt,” she said awkwardly as she twined her fingers around the fringe of her shawl. “She is sending us a carriage. It should arrive within a sennight to take us back to London.”
“Make certain your father is ready for travel. There is no need to leave before his health permits it.”
Silence stretched on and Anais struggled to find the words to tell him what he wanted to know. Why wouldn’t he ask her?
Unable to find the words needed to start the conversation, she took a step back, her boot heel sliding against the stone. His
shoulders tensed at the sound, and he looked back at her, his face etched with fatigue.
“I can go no longer not knowing. What were your thoughts when you first discovered you were carrying my child?” he asked quietly.
Anais gripped the wool shawl tighter, as if it were a shield. How she dreaded this conversation, despite the fact she wished for nothing more than getting it over and done with. What a coward she was.
“Did you weep when you realized you were with child?”
“Yes.” He would know if she lied. He had always expected the truth from her and she had failed him miserably these past weeks. She could not fail him now.
“What was it like, having a part of me inside you?”
The pain in his voice whipped at her flesh, stinging her. These were not the questions she had expected from him. She found she could not answer them. She could not bear to think of when she was pregnant, let alone talk of it. The memory of carrying Lindsay’s child alone was enough to bear without having to feel those emotions all over again.
“Did you hate the babe, Anais? Did you wish to rid yourself of your shameful secret?”
She reached out a trembling hand to him, but dropped it and looked away from his set shoulders. No, she had never wished anything to happen to the child. She had loved their babe and it had nearly killed her to let their daughter go to another. But he could not see beyond his own pain to understand her turmoil. And she suspected that he would not be able to for a long while.
“What was it like?” he asked again when she didn’t answer him. “Could you feel her growing, moving inside you?”
Anais’s eyes welled with hot tears as her lips trembled with barely controlled sobs. “Yes.”
He lowered his head and exhaled. “Did you ever think I might have wanted to do the same?”
The wind rose up again and Anais’s eyes blurred and stung in the cold. The blustery air stung her cheeks as the crystal drops trickled from her eyes, freezing the tears onto her skin.
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