by Mary Balogh
It was for Rachel that she grieved tonight. If it was too late for her to change the direction of her own life, so be it. But something had to be done for Rachel. She owed it to her daughter....
The door opened again and then closed behind the back of another man. Her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness. There was no mistaking his identity even for a moment.
“I have brought you a shawl,” he said, coming toward her. “Luttrell told me you had come in here.”
It was a warm woolen shawl. He set it about her shoulders and she held it close.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Did I do wrong, Christina?” he asked her. “Should I not have encouraged her to dance?”
She did what she had no idea she was about to do until she did it. She burst into tears and realized even as her hands shot up to cover her face that there was going to be no way of controlling them for a while. She felt his hands close about her shoulders, but she had leaned into one man already this evening for comfort and found none. She turned away from him and went to stand before the embers of the fire, her back to the room.
He handed her a large handkerchief without a word when her sobbing finally ended. She wiped her eyes and blew her nose firmly. She was not even sure herself why she had wept. It just seemed to her in a moment of painful clarity that she had never learned how to cope with life and that she had dragged her children into her own helpless darkness. And so the cycle would be perpetuated....
He was kneeling before the hearth, she realized, in all his evening splendor, building a fire and then lighting it. He drew a chair close to it and motioned her to sit down.
“Tell me,” he said, standing before her, one elbow propped against the mantel. “Did I do wrong? I did not mean to hurt you.”
“You did not,” she said, watching the flames catch hold, feeling the first thread of warmth. “I am the one who has done wrong. Always. All my life, it seems. Bringing misery to everyone I have ever loved. To Rachel.” Only as she heard her own words did she realize how melodramatic, how self-pitying they sounded. And how true.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
And so she told him about Rachel as a very young child, quiet and affectionate and trusting. Choosing Gilbert as a hero. Worshiping her father. Following him about whenever she had been allowed out of the nursery. Always wanting to do things for him to win his approval, his praise, his smiles. Persevering even when it had been obvious to her mother that even for his own child there would never be any warmth.
“She found her way into his study one day,” she said. “She had watched him trim his pens once and thought she could do it herself to please him. When I came into the room with him, she was busy ruining his favorite pen, and she was humming a tune and dancing about the room at the same time.” She swallowed awkwardly. “She smiled at him with all the sunshine behind her eyes and held out his pen.” She bit hard on her upper lip.
“He was angry?” he prompted.
“He hit her so hard across the head,” she said, “that she fell over. Then he spanked her more methodically. Then he made her stand on a chair in the hall for two full hours—at a time when the vicar and his wife were expected for tea. It was not just the broken pen. It was the singing and dancing that really infuriated him. He told her she was a child of the devil. She was four years old.”
“The bastard!” the Earl of Wanstead said, barely suppressed fury in his voice.
“And I did nothing to defend her,” she said, staring unseeing now into the fire. “Nothing—except to keep her away from him as much as possible afterward and to make sure that she did nothing to attract his attention. No singing, no dancing, no smiles, no laughter. I did nothing to defend my own child, and now I fear she will never recover.”
“She will,” he said. “All the beauty is there inside her and she is capable of letting it out. You saw that tonight.”
“But she has me for a mother.” She spread her hands over her face again, but wearily this time. There were no tears left.
“She is fortunate,” he said. “You must not blame yourself, Christina, because she had a brutal father.”
The silence extended between them. A silence that was gradually filled with unspoken words, almost as if their minds connected though they did not speak. She knew what he was going to ask next and was powerless to stop him. The words were quietly spoken.
“Christina,” he asked her, “did he ever beat you?”
Sometimes out of anger, vicious cracks across the face or arms, once even with a whip. But he considered uncontrolled anger sinful and usually apologized very formally for such outbreaks—though he always went on to explain what shortcoming in herself had tempted him. At other times the chastisement had been more formal and methodical, punishment for sins, usually involving the way he claimed she looked at other men—correction he had called it. Painful and deeply humiliating.
“I cannot forget,” the earl said, “that on two separate occasions you have cowered away from me as if you expected me to strike you. He was a wife-beater?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“It is as well for him,” he said, “that he is already dead. He would suffer this night if he were still alive, Christina. He ruled you with terror? No, do not answer that. He is dead. Gone. I am the Earl of Wanstead now. I am master here now, though never yours. You and your children are free to be and to do whatever you wish. You are free. Look at me, please?”
She raised her eyes to his. To the golden boy who had lit her world for a couple of months one springtime long ago— so little happiness to occupy the space of twenty-eight years.
“You are free, Christina,” he said. “Perhaps I did not like your choice of husband, but you could not have known what your decision would involve you in. I did not suspect it myself though I grew up with him. You must not blame yourself—for anything. You did protect your children as best you could and I can assure you that your love for them is quite apparent to them. You must not bear the burden of guilt any longer. You must understand that you are free. He died over a year ago. He is gone. You mourned him very correctly for longer than a year. You have paid your dues to both him and society. You owe nothing more to his memory.”
She was still gazing at him. “Do I understand,” she asked him, “that you are forgiving me?”
He stared back, the side of his hand against his mouth, his eyes unusually bright. “Yes,” he said at last. “I am forgiving you, Christina.”
She had not even known until that moment how much she had always craved his forgiveness—and his understanding. He still did not understand, but he had forgiven her anyway. The bitterness that had been between them for over a week was gone, she realized. It seemed like a precious Christmas gift.
“Go to bed,” he told her. “I must return to the drawing room. I will make your excuses for you.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“And, Christina?” he said as she got to her feet and crossed the room to the door. “Rachel is very precious and not in any way crushed in spirit. She learned to go inward for strength—it is not a bad lesson to learn. But she is still capable of an outpouring of beauty for those around her. She will be a rare gem. I will not betray the trust she showed in me last night. I will write to her—all my life. And you will love her all yours—it will be sufficient.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
Chapter 16
THE snow was beginning to melt—not off the lawns and fields and hills to any significant degree, but off paths and roadways from which it had already been partly shoveled. It was sad, some of the guests declared as they came down in gradually swelling numbers to a late breakfast. Their lovely white Christmas was almost at an end.
But it had been lovely, they reminded one another, and all good things had to end.
In fact the warmer weather and the melting snow were a blessing, Lady Hannah declared. Clear roads and driveways would enable all the invited guests to come to Thornwood f
or the ball. Her words served to remind everyone that in fact Christmas was not yet over after all. Perhaps the best part was yet to come.
And the snow was by no means gone. There was still at least one full day in which it might be enjoyed. The earl had purchased two sleds at the same time as he had bought the skates. Two ancient ones had been dug out of the loft of the coach house and put into smart working order again. One of the gardeners had made another new one.
A number of guests went sledding late in the morning— on the once forbidden hill. The earl went with them though he was aware that there was a great deal of work to be done in preparation for the ball. The countess was busy directing operations. He would only get in her way, he persuaded himself, if he stayed and tried to help. There was some truth to the old adage about too many cooks. Besides, it would not do to neglect his house guests.
He was rationalizing, of course. The truth was that he accompanied the sledders because he wished to escape from two problems, both female.
He had carried Lizzie Gaynor down to breakfast, though she had protested—through the person of Lady Gaynor— that she did not wish to be a nuisance and would gladly eat in her own room. And then he had carried her into the morning room, where he had left her with other company. She had insisted that she did not wish to keep him from his duties—and for once he had taken her at her word. But he could sense entrapment with every passing hour. His friends were even teasing him about it.
“I suppose,” Ralph Milchip said when they were on their way out to the hill, “you will be carrying the fair Lizzie to the altar within the next month or so, Gerard?”
“You know, Ger,” Luttrell added, “when you allow a young lady in your care to stumble on the ice and, ah, sprain her ankle, it is clearly understood by all her relatives and friends that you are obliged to make amends by marrying her.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Ralph agreed, shaking his head sadly.
And then there was Christina. He found it hard to look her in the eye this morning. He had spent a sleepless night remembering how he had always hoped vindictively that she would live to regret her choice of husband, that her marriage would prove to be a less than happy one. He had hoped she would grow sorry for putting money before love. He had never for a moment suspected how thoroughly his wish had come true.
He felt guilty.
He had wished her harm and Gilbert had done her harm. Was there any essential difference between what he had wished and what his cousin had done? He felt savagely regretful that he could not get his hands on Gilbert in order to punish him—but was it himself he found impossible to punish?
Christina—his beautiful, sunny-natured, warm, passionate Christina—had been the terrorized victim of a wife-beater, who had hidden his viciousness behind a mask of religion and morality. And now she blamed herself.
How could he look her in the eye?
But he had no choice when he came back from the hill with everyone else, all of them noisy and laughing and chilly. She appeared in the great hall while they were all disentangling themselves from scarves and muffs and other outdoor garments, and touched him on the arm.
“May I speak with you, my lord?” she asked him.
She looked her usual calm, dignified self—but he had learned last night, if he had not suspected it before, that she had had long practice at donning this particular mask, The hint of violet shadows beneath her eyes suggested that perhaps she had slept as little as he.
“I will come to the library in a moment,” he told her. It was inevitable, of course, that she would need to consult him several times in the course of the day on the preparations for the ball.
She was standing in front of the large oak desk when he entered the room a couple of minutes later, her hands spread flat on its surface, her head bowed. She looked elegant and fragile and—and he did not know how he could speak to her except briskly, impersonally, as if he were speaking with a business associate.
“Is there any problem?” he asked. “I should have stayed instead of leaving the whole burden with you.”
“No,” she said. “Even my presence in the ballroom is unnecessary. The servants have everything well under control.”
He stood where he was just inside the door. He licked his lips and rubbed his hands together. “What may I do for you?” he asked her.
“You said I was free,” she told him. “I have never been free—very few women ever are. How free am I? Am I free to—to leave here without sacrificing my allowance?”
Ah. So he was not going to have even the dubious comfort in the coming years of picturing her living here in comfort, was he?
“I know you are my daughters’ trustee,” she said. “The law, so ably administered by men, cannot trust a woman to look after her own children, you see. Are my children free to leave?”
“Where are you planning to go?” he asked her.
He heard her draw an audible breath as she examined the desktop with lowered head. “Home,” she said. “I need to go back there.”
To her father? In a way it was surprising she had not fled there soon after Gilbert’s death. Surely being with her father would have seemed a more pleasant fate to her than remaining here when he was the new earl. Why had she been forbidden to communicate with her father? Why had she almost fainted when she had received his letter? Had it been the first in over ten years?
“The answer is yes,” he told her. “Yes, you may leave. Yes, you may take your children with you—and the quarterly payments that are rightfully yours. Was that your first letter from him, Christina?” But she had been bound to remain here over Christmas because she had agreed to be his hostess?
“The first in his own hand,” she said. “I have had two other letters in the past year, both written by someone called Horrocks.”
“Your father is ill?” he asked gently. He remembered his impression from the handwriting on the outside of the letter that it had been written by an elderly or infirm person.
She shook her head slightly but did not immediately answer.
“It must be a shock,” he said, “after ten years to find that his health has broken down. Would you have gone to him immediately if you had been under no obligation to me? I am sorry, Christina. Shall I arrange to have my carriage take you tomorrow. I will even escort you if you will allow me.”
He was, he realized without any real surprise, quite irrevocably in love with her. Her joy was his; her pain was his. There was no point in further denial—not to himself at least.
But she was shaking her head more firmly.
“I think I should go alone at least at first,” she said. “I shall leave Rachel and Tess with Aunt Hannah and Meg. They will not mind, I think. I do not know quite what I will find.”
He acted from instinct. He had not realized he had moved up behind her until his hands were clasping her shoulders. She turned and looked at him with a pale, wan face—the shadows beneath her eyes were quite pronounced now.
“What happened?” he asked her. “May I know? Was it me, Christina? Did I do something? Did I not do something? It was not just Gilbert’s fortune in comparison with my mere competence, was it?”
She was shaking her head slowly and biting her lower lip. “You did nothing wrong, Gerard,” she said. “Nothing was your fault. You were young and high-spirited. You did some foolish things, like risking your neck by racing a curricle to Brighton. You used to tell me some of your escapades. I daresay you drank and gambled and—and had women—”
“No!” he said sharply. “Not after I met you, Christina. I loved you. I wanted to marry you. I could not crave any other women when there was you. I can remember only three occasions in my life—not one of them during the months I knew you—when I drank to excess. Each time I vowed never again. The most I ever won at the gaming tables was fifty guineas. The most I ever lost was sixty. Both times I decided afterward that I had been rash. Money is not easily earned. It should be spent wisely and well. Did you believe at the time that I
was irretrievably wild?”
“He told me what I already knew and then made me realize I did not know the half of it,” she said. “He made me— see you as you really were. Or so it seemed at the time. I believe now that I was mistaken. I know I was.” She closed her eyes and rested her forehead with every sign of weariness against his cravat.
“Gilbert?” he said. That bastard Gilbert! He might have guessed it. That had always been one of his favorite methods of getting his cousin in trouble at Thornwood—establishing the truth, twisting it and turning it without ever lying a great deal.
“Yes,” she said.
“And he convinced Pickering too, I suppose,” he said.
“And your father forbade you to see me again. You believed that you had been deceived in me and married Gilbert instead.” It was simple really—and quite worthy of Gilbert. “You might have trusted me more, Christina. You might have confronted me, given me a chance to defend myself.”
She lifted her head and looked into his face. She raised one hand and cupped it lightly about one of his cheeks for a few moments. “I had to believe it all,” she said. “I had to go on believing it all these years. Only so could I remain sane.”
She drew away from him and walked over to one of the long windows. Melted snow was dripping from the eaves across her line of vision, he could see. He did not attempt to follow her. He stood where he was.
“The whole world loved my father,” she said. “Everyone thought him amiable and charming. Even I was not immune to his charm.”
Why should she have been?
“And I knew him.” She rested her forehead against the glass of the window. “I do not suppose there were many people who suspected that he was two persons—the gay and charming and very likable public gentleman and the dark, moody, often violent private man. He had enough control over himself or enough pride—call it what you will—to do most of his drinking alone. He drank only enough in company to be the life of every party. In his defense I believe it was like a disease with him—if drinking can be called a disease. He could not stop even though he always said he could if he wanted. He did his heavy gambling in private halls. The public gentleman appeared comfortably wealthy—he was generous and spent lavishly. The private man was often plunged dangerously deep in debt. The two conditions—uncontrolled drinking and reckless gaming—made his moods very unpredictable. My mother was the one who suffered from them.”