Someone Perfect (Westcott Book 10)

by Mary Balogh

  It rained all of one day and the guests entertained themselves in the house in varying ways, a few in the library, several in the drawing room or the morning room, others in the billiard room, a crowd of young people in the gallery with the children playing vigorous games, blindman’s buff and three-legged races among them.

  Justin had invited them all here for Maria’s sake so that she could get to know the various branches of her family and perhaps establish an ongoing relationship with them. But he was happy for his own sake too. He had hated being back at Everleigh— so large, so magnificent, so cold and silent, so lacking in soul. But now, wherever he went, with the exception of his own apartments, he came upon relatives or steprelatives, all of whom were genial, all of whom were happy to talk to him and draw him into their groups.

  Even the children. Doris’s two had found him after breakfast when they had escaped from the nursery undetected. There had been no ride that morning because of the rain. They had appropriated one of his hands each and dragged him off to the nursery to—

  “Play horsey, Cousin Justin,” Edward had demanded, though he was already five and might have been expected to have outgrown such an infantile game. “Papa says he has bad knees, and Mama says we are too heavy. Grandpapa says if he gets down he will never get up again, and Grandmama is too old.”

  So for half an hour Justin was a horse, bucking and neighing and plodding and occasionally galloping while four children— Cousin Bevin Ormsbury’s two as well, aged five and three— bounced and shrieked and squabbled over whose turn it was and drummed their heels against his sides and gripped his hair and urged him to “Gee-up!”

  The vicar and two neighbors made brief separate calls to the house to report that several sightings had been made of men who might have been Ricky Mort but had turned out not to be. One had been a fourteen-year-old lad running an errand for a local butcher. Another had been a seventy-two-year-old former farm laborer, out for an afternoon stroll with his grandson. None of the others had been simpleminded or from the West Country or lost. All had been indignant at being mistaken for the missing man. One of them, indeed, had been out and wandering only because he was looking for the unfortunate young man himself.

  Justin went out despite the rain. He was too restless to remain indoors all day. He took Captain and went walking off to the lake and across the bridge and a mile or so beyond it before climbing the hill on the house side and gazing about in all directions. There was, of course, no sign of Ricky. Visibility was not good anyway in the rain. He was terribly afraid Ricky would never be seen or heard from again. Which would be worse in a way than finding … his body. And he would always blame himself. Ricky loved him. He had waited all of July for Justin to come and it had not happened.

  He was reminded of how Lady Estelle and her twin had waited for their father to come home during the years when they had lived with their aunt and uncle, and of how, even when he did come, he did not stay. However had they brought themselves to forgive the man eventually? Yet they seemed to have done so.

  Could he ever forgive his father?

  He shook off the thought, as he always did when it somehow sneaked under his guard and popped into the forefront of his mind.

  His father was dead.

  Would Maria ever forgive him? Had she suspected the truth after he had told that wholly inadequate story? Would she ever believe it, even if she had? Or would she cling to what her mother had told her?

  It had been his fault, that incident.

  Throughout the year following his return home to stay after his university years he had been careful to avoid being alone with his stepmother. He had learned during the last few vacations while he was still a student that it was necessary to do so. He had become quite adept at it, even while she was just as busy maneuvering chance meetings or deliberate tête-à-têtes it was difficult for him to avoid. If she had wanted to walk to the village, for example, on some drummed-up errand and had deliberately chosen a day when she knew Justin’s father would be unable to accompany her, she would pout playfully and tell him she would forgive him this once and take his son instead. Justin would declare himself happy to oblige and would suggest bringing Maria with him. She would be delighted to have an outing, he had always said. And of course she was delighted.

  But then had come that morning. He had seen his stepmother about to settle to some letter writing in the morning room, but that had been an hour before he went dashing into her room in pursuit of Maria and had found his stepmother there. Instead of continuing through to her dressing room as his sister had obviously done just moments before, uttering some abject apology as he went, he had pulled to an abrupt halt, somehow incapable of moving either forward or back, and quite unable to think of a thing to say. Though of course she had just seen Maria, shrieking and giggling, and must have understood the situation at a glance.

  She had stepped into his path, set one arm about his neck, lowered her dress from the other shoulder, grasped his nerveless hand and pressed it against her bared breast, and breathed his name into his mouth. All that in a few seconds.

  He had not even begun to react— his mind had been stupidly reeling— before his father stepped into the room, presumably having come through his own dressing room and then hers. She must have heard him coming, for her amorous advances had suddenly turned to struggles and sobs and admonitions and finally hysteria.

  And Justin had stood there like a prize idiot, his mouth agape, his heartbeat drowning out all else for the first fateful minutes. No, not minutes. Just seconds really. They had felt like years.

  She was lonely, she had once told Justin. His father did not pay her enough attention. He was old. He did not really love her. Justin on the other hand was so young. And vigorous. So handsome. They could have so much fun together.

  Fun.

  In an affair with his father’s wife. Whom he did not even like. Whom he actively disliked, in fact, because the only person in the world Lilian Wiley, Countess of Brandon, cared about was herself. Because she had made his father unhappy—though he never, ever gave any outer sign that it was so. Because she neglected Maria, who doted upon her. Because she had driven away everyone whom she deemed a threat to her consequence— her own relatives, her husband’s relatives, her husband’s former in-laws. Justin disliked her because she had had the portrait of him with his mother and father removed from the gallery, having protested tearfully one day that it was disrespectful to her to have it hanging there for all to see— even though everyone told her she was far prettier than the first countess.

  His father had banished him because he had seen—with his own eyes— his son attempting to seduce his wife over her protests and hysteria. Because Justin had refused to defend himself except with a simple denial. How could he have defended himself? She was his father’s wife. If Justin was not guilty, then she was. How could he have told his father that? How could any son tell his father that? His father was an honorable man. He had taught his son the importance of honor above all else.

  Perhaps his father would not have believed him anyway even if he had fully explained what had happened. Or perhaps he would have. Perhaps, even, he had believed his son’s simple denial. But what could he have done? Called his wife a liar? Banished her? He had married her and made sacred vows to her. They had a daughter.

  Perhaps on that morning he had had as little choice as Justin had had.

  So things had been as they had been.

  And were as they were.

  The countess had told her daughter that Justin had stolen from her and been banished as a punishment.

  Perhaps, Justin thought, he did not need to forgive his father. His father had been as much a victim as he had. Perhaps more so. He, Justin, had had a chance to make a new life— and had taken it. His father had not had that chance.

  It did not rain on the following day, though clouds remained overhead and made the weather rather dreary. Most of the guests stayed indoors, enjoying the company of several visitors, al
l of whom brought stories of sightings that had turned out not to have any significance. Some of the guests ventured outdoors, a few to stroll as far as the lake.

  Justin once more took Captain and went walking across the Palladian bridge and up into the wooded hills on the other side of the valley. This time, though, a few of the young people went with him— his cousins Ernie, Sid, and Rosie Sharpe, Frederick and Paulette Ormsbury, Gillian Chandler, Maria, and both the Lamarrs.

  The wooded hills had always been a favorite playground of Justin’s when he was a boy. They were less contrived than the hill behind the house, with its ironically named wilderness walk, though he had always loved that too. Here he had been free to let his imagination run wild. Today he could think only of getting free of the trees, somewhere close to the lake and at a higher elevation than the hills opposite, where he had stood yesterday in the rain. Visibility was better today too. The cloud cover was unbroken but high.

  The others were more interested in climbing straight up the hill so that they could descend the other side and walk into the village for refreshments at the inn— and perhaps for some news.

  “I’ll keep going this way,” Justin said, pointing off to the west, when they were halfway up. “But do not let me stop the rest of you. Perhaps there will be some news.”

  He looked at Lady Estelle, but he had been avoiding her— or she had been avoiding him— since the night they had met in Maria’s sitting room. He had been embarrassed by what had occurred, and doubtless she and her brother had been too. Any plans he had had to court Lady Estelle seemed to have evaporated. And she would be leaving here soon. They had promised two weeks, she and her brother, and there were only a few days left.

  She was looking back at him now while Ernie was chatting with her on one side and Paulette was hovering at her other side.

  “I will come too,” Lady Estelle said. “I want to see the view from higher up.”

  Captain woofed, impatient at the delay.

  “I will come—” Paulette began. But Watley had moved to her side and was offering his arm.

  “The hill is a bit steep straight ahead of us,” he said, giving Paulette his most charming smile. “Allow me to assist you. Or, if worse comes to worst, perhaps you can assist me.”

  Paulette blushed and giggled and slid her hand through his arm, any idea of following where Lady Estelle went forgotten.

  Had that been deliberate? Justin rather thought it had been— which was interesting in light of what Watley had heard the other night. He gazed at Lady Estelle as she crossed the hill to join him. The others were already trudging onward toward the top.

  “I will look with you,” she said. “Perhaps my eyesight is better than yours.”

  “I hope it is,” he said. “I hope you can see all the way to Gloucestershire.”

  Captain went bounding off ahead of them.

  “Thank you,” Justin said after a few moments, and she turned her head to smile at him.

  Eighteen

  Estelle had sat for a while in the morning room with Maria while Mrs. Sharpe, at Maria’s request, told them stories of growing up with her beloved elder sister, the Earl of Brandon’s mother. Doris Haig and Sidney Sharpe had joined them, bringing fresh coffee. They had added their own stories of their aunt as they remembered her, fond memories, full of humor and nostalgia.

  Maria had listened quietly and smiled and even laughed, especially when Mrs. Sharpe had recalled how her sister always used to wince at the bright mismatched jewelry she loved to wear, in the form of rings and bracelets, necklaces and earrings and brooches, and tell her that she positively jangled— on the nerves if not always on the ears. Her sister in contrast had always been quietly and faultlessly elegant, and Mrs. Sharpe had envied her good taste.

  Yesterday Maria had asked her Cornish aunts to tell her about their childhood here with her papa and their parents, her grandparents. The memories had come spilling out, of games they had played, of mischief they had got into, of squabbles, of one horror of a governess who had left finally— and abruptly— the day after their brother had accidentally on purpose capsized the boat and spilled her into the lake after she had refused to let him take the oars because he was only fifteen. Their children too had gathered about them to listen and laugh.

  Last evening Mr. Leonard Dickson and Mrs. Patricia Chandler, his sister, had become the focus of attention with a sizable group in the drawing room after Maria had asked them to tell her about her mama as a child and about her aunt Sarah and their family life generally. Their voices had grown louder and more boisterous, their Yorkshire accents more pronounced, as one memory provoked another and their children and spouses egged them on. After the busy day of making plans to find the missing Ricky Mort, the laughter their sometimes outrageous stories provoked had felt very good.

  It was all making Estelle miss her own family— her mother’s side, her father’s, her stepmother’s. And it struck her that when she and Bertrand returned to Elm Court within the week, she might not be as contented with their solitude there as she had been for the past couple of years. Family, all those people who had some connection with one another, however slight, was of such huge importance to one’s well-being. It gave one identity and a sense of belonging. It was the answer to loneliness and any sense of disconnection with the world one inevitably felt at times. There were all sorts of exceptions to that ideal, of course, but … Well, she was going to value her own family more than ever after being here. And Maria was coming to see how much she had missed all through her childhood and girlhood because she had been cut off from her own family.

  Estelle was mulling these thoughts as she walked diagonally up the hill with the Earl of Brandon. His thoughts must have been moving along similar lines.

  “How did you bring yourself to forgive?” he asked her.

  The question was not specific. But she knew what he was asking.

  “My father?” she said. “It was not terribly difficult, you know. We always longed to do so. At any point in our childhood we would have forgiven him if he had given us the smallest opening.”

  “He deserted you,” he said.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “He did. He blamed himself for our mother’s death. He was the one who had opened the window from which she fell. And they were bickering at the time. He had just got us both to sleep after a difficult night when she came storming into the nursery, angry with him for staying up with us when they paid a nurse to do just that. After her death he did not trust himself to raise us. Then Aunt Jane turned up, confirming him in his beliefs, taking over very ably and very forcefully.”

  “So he slunk off,” he said, “and left you to her for … what? Sixteen, seventeen years?”

  “Sixteen,” she said. “Yes, he did. He punished himself with a life of riotous … debauchery. I make no excuses for him. He makes none for himself. Forgiveness does not consist in making excuses for the transgressor, Lord Brandon. It consists in acknowledging the facts, understanding the reasons for them—not the excuses—recognizing the pain it all caused both the one who was wronged and the one who did those wrongs, and admitting that forgiveness is not something given by the innocent to the guilty. No one is innocent. We all do stupid things, even when we know they are stupid, and even when we know we are causing unhappiness for someone else and for ourselves. Forgiveness is given despite all those things.”

  “It sounds like pious nonsense,” he said harshly as their climb took them up clear of the trees. Captain was waiting for them. His ears flopped and his jowls shook as he came toward them and nudged Estelle’s hand with a cold nose. She patted his head and smoothed a hand along his back.

  “That way, Cap,” the earl said, pointing off to the west. “I beg your pardon. Those were ill-mannered words.”

  “The point is,” she said, “that if we had not forgiven our father, or at least listened to him and given him a chance to listen to us at last, we would have carried the hole in our hearts where he ought to be for the rest of our
lives. For the sake of pride. And righteousness. Forgiving him was not just about making him feel better. Indeed, for a while I was more furious with him than I had ever been in my life. I had planned a surprise fortieth birthday party for him— when I was seventeen. I was so proud of myself. And he simply did not come. When I went halfway across England to find him— Yes, I did, even though I had never asserted myself before. Nothing was going to stop me. I went, taking Bertrand and our aunt and our father’s brother with me. And when we found him, he was with a woman. He had run off with her instead of coming home to us.” She laughed quietly, almost to herself. “She is now our stepmother. Oh, forgiving him was not about making him feel better, Lord Brandon. It was for us, for Bert and me, so that our hearts would finally heal and be whole. If that is pious nonsense, then so be it.”

  The lake was below them on their right. Behind them, to the left, the village was half hidden behind trees and some lower hills. They walked past the lake until the only way to go was down on one of three sides or back the way they had come. They took the fourth alternative and stopped.

  “This has not been all about me and my father anyway, has it?” Estelle said after they had been silent for several minutes. “Are you unable to forgive your father, Justin?”

  She heard the echo of his name on her lips. She did not know if he had noticed. He was gazing ahead, his eyes squinting against the rather chilly breeze.

  “Why would I need to forgive him?” he asked her. “I was the transgressor. He punished me with banishment.”

  “For something you could not possibly explain to him,” she said. “Not without accusing your stepmother. Your father’s wife. Maria’s mother. That is the truth of it, is it not? You sacrificed yourself so that his life would not be impossibly wrecked. So that Maria’s would not be.”