A Return of Devotion

by Kristi Ann Hunter

  The room was dark now, with the rain clouds rolling in and obscuring the sun, but Daphne didn’t mind. She knew what it looked like when golden light streamed into the room and lit on the Bible in the center of the carved altar.

  Just closing the door behind her made it easier to breathe. Lowering herself onto the back bench cleared a bit more of her mind.

  It was here she’d first found forgiveness after Benedict was born. It was his second birthday, and she’d sat on this very bench and sobbed. She’d poured everything out. Everything. Her fears, her insecurities, her guilt. She’d held nothing back.

  And God had forgiven her.

  But somehow, when she’d poured everything she was out to God, she’d forgotten to pick any of it back up.

  Everything Daphne did, everything she had become was in relation to someone else. It was as if Daphne didn’t exist if someone else wasn’t in the room. Whenever she was alone, she escaped into her imagination. When had she started doing that? What used to be an occasional tactic to handle social interactions when they became particularly terrifying had turned into an escape from reality that was almost more of a prison.

  How much had she missed because she didn’t want to be alone with herself?

  Was it possible that while God had forgiven her, she’d never quite forgiven herself? She always told the children that God had made them special, in His image, to be exactly who they were. God didn’t make mistakes or have accidents.

  But it was possible she’d been believing that truth for everyone but herself.

  Jess was right. “God,” Daphne prayed on a groan, “I’m so tired of saying that sentence. Could you provide your next revelation through someone else, please? Anyone will do.”

  The door behind her opened and she felt who it was without looking back. She didn’t know how he’d found her when she’d told no one where she was going, but he had.

  He didn’t say anything as he lowered himself to sit beside her on the bench. At least six inches of space was between them, a proper distance by any standard, but she could still feel the warmth emanating from him, making the hairs on her arm stand up.

  “Seeking God?” he asked after several silent moments.

  Daphne tilted her head and looked at the altar, considering his question. “Seeking myself, I think.”

  “I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.”

  He fell quiet, waiting for her to answer. Daphne wasn’t sure she could. “I think,” she managed to whisper as she ran her hands over her lap and let the softness of the fabric ground her in the present, “I don’t quite know who I am anymore.”

  “Who do you think you are?”

  “A caretaker, a mother of sorts. Perhaps a friend. More recently a housekeeper. But I don’t know who I am when no one else is in the room.”

  He was silent for a while. His soft, steady breathing and the pounding of her own heart filled her ears, the rush of blood proving she was alive. Perhaps if she went back to where she lost herself in the first place, the last time she’d known who she was, she could figure out who she’d become.

  “I never had many friends,” she began. The deepening shadows made it easier to be honest. “Only one, really.”

  He’d been looking at the altar and when she spoke his face swung in her direction. “When?”

  “In London. Growing up.” She gave a short little laugh. “Ever. People . . . frighten me. New people, anyway.”

  She fell quiet and so did he. Did she have the courage to say what it felt like she needed to say? What if she told him and he walked away? What if he didn’t care for her anymore?

  A deep breath stretched her chest until it was almost painful. If what she said made him leave, then he hadn’t really been seeing her either. And if finding herself meant losing whatever this was that they were on the verge of experiencing, it was a loss worth taking.

  “I literally wasn’t myself that night.” Her tongue felt thick as she stumbled over the words. “I mean, yes, I felt like another person wearing a mask and a wig and a dress from another century, but it was more than that. I was actually pretending to be Kit. I was living her life. The idea had been scary at first, but she was convinced people needed to think she’d been at that party, so I became her.”

  She looked down at her toes. “Despite going everywhere with Kit, I’d never experienced her life. I’d never received attention like that before. Nothing seemed real, so somehow, it didn’t frighten me.”

  William blew out a harsh breath but didn’t say anything.

  “Part of me blames him, but I don’t think he meant for it to . . . to . . . happen like that.” Daphne paused to dash away a tear. Even after all these years, after begging for and receiving forgiveness, she still felt a bit of shame for her actions that night. While she certainly hadn’t known what she’d been doing, she’d encouraged Maxwell Oswald every step of the way.

  Sliding out of that ballroom had been an exciting adventure. Kissing him had been a new experience.

  And an enormous betrayal of the friend she’d been claiming to help.

  “I think I gave him an opportunity he hadn’t expected and he took it.”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” William growled.

  “It doesn’t make him wrong either,” Daphne answered. “At least, not the only one who was wrong.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him? Tell anyone?”

  This was the difficult part, where the blame and guilt shifted solely onto her own shoulders. “He was already married by the time I knew there would be . . . He was married by the time I knew there were consequences. I refused to tell my father who he was because there was nothing that could be done at that point. He kicked me out. Since I’d been pretending to be Kit, her reputation was in ruins as well, so she left with me. We ended up here. Then the children gave me purpose.”

  The tears came faster now and she let them fall, just like she always did. They splashed onto her lap, making the faded pattern look even murkier. “Without them, I don’t know who I am.”

  His hand slid across the bench and covered hers. “Can I tell you who I see?”

  She lifted her watery gaze to his. His face didn’t look anything like what she expected to see. His gaze was soft, his mouth curved into a gentle, caring smile.

  “I see a strong woman who didn’t let a mistake take her faith or her future. I’m a little in awe of you, if I’m honest. Because I’ve never even considered helping others if it required a sacrifice from me. You still love life. I can see it when you play the piano, when you guide Eugenia and Sarah, even the way you direct the new maids and sing when you wash linens.”

  Daphne blinked. He’d heard her singing? “I only sing when I hang them to dry.”

  “It’s possible I’ve ridden by the area in the afternoons.”

  A smile broke through the tears and she wiped her cheeks dry.

  He wasn’t finished, though. “I see an incredible woman, but it doesn’t matter what I see. It matters what you see. And I think you’ve forgotten something.”

  “What?”

  “There’s life after forgiveness.”

  Such a simple concept. It seemed like such an obvious truth, but sitting there, Daphne knew that she’d missed it.

  She did love life. But she loved this day, this moment. She took whatever came and said it was what she wanted.

  But was it? If she could choose instead of simply letting it happen, what would her life be like?

  “When my mother died,” William said, “I did things I’m not proud of. In that respect, I don’t know that I’m any better than my cousin. When I came to my senses, I hated who I had become. I let my father think I was traveling the world, but I only went as far as Ireland. Over time, I realized I needed to not just change my ways but ask God to forgive the old ones.” He took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. “Forgiveness is an interesting thing.”

  “How so?” Daphne asked.

  “Unlike a lot of other things in l
ife, it’s easy to ask for and hard to accept.” His hand, still covering hers, shifted until he could twine his fingers through hers. “I like you, Daphne. I don’t see a mistake when I look at you. I don’t see your past, any more than I see mine when I look in the mirror.”

  “But I bungled so badly.”

  “Who hasn’t? Some of us are simply able to hide our bungling easier than others.”

  Daphne didn’t speak. She looked down at their joined hands and the story told by their linked fingers. She had calluses and one of her nails had cracked and torn to the quick. They were so very different. In more ways than she could begin to count. “That kiss—”

  “Was not a bungle.”

  She lifted her gaze to his, prepared to refute his claim, but where before his features had been soft and welcoming, there was now a hard glint to his eyes and a firm set to his jaw.

  “I’ll agree to it not needing to be something we repeat in the immediate future, but that was not a bungle.” He swallowed hard. “You will not put it in the same room as being taken advantage of or coerced or being swept away or however you need to phrase what happened before. It’s not the same.”

  It hadn’t felt the same. She’d known where she was and who he was the entire time. And her heart had been delighted in the identity of the man on the other side of the kiss. It had been wonderful because of him—not because of what she’d imagined could come next.

  “Please,” he said.

  She gave him a quick nod and a smile while squeezing his hand. “What do we do now?”

  His other hand reached across and clasped their joined fingers. “You take your time. I already see you, flaws and perfections alike. You need to see yourself. Because if we do this, we need to both be present. It will be real, Daphne, not some secret dancing in the dark.”

  “Real life has consequences,” she whispered.

  “So does dancing in the dark,” he answered. “Everything you choose to do leads to another set of decisions. That’s called living.”

  “When did you become so wise?” Daphne asked with a smile.

  “When I decided to take each and every decision that came my way and go the opposite direction my father would. It was the only way I could think of not to become who he was. I never realized until then how many choices I made every day.”

  She laughed, but the humor didn’t last. What he was suggesting wasn’t a simple decision. She knew enough about life, about the aristocracy, about London to know that she would not be easily accepted. Kit had married the heir to an earldom and in the last letter she wrote before they went on their honeymoon trip, she’d bemoaned the stares, the whispers, and the general dislike of an impertinent upstart stealing one of the most eligible matches around.

  And Kit had the ability to talk and charm and hold her own in a crowd.

  Daphne would get slaughtered.

  She glanced up to see William’s mouth pressed into a thin but determined line and knew he was thinking the same. He was admitting she wouldn’t be a very good aristocrat.

  Never would Daphne have thought brutal reality would be so appealing, but knowing he saw her as she was and life as it was and wasn’t willing to hide from it, that sort of strength was something she wanted to cling to desperately.

  But she had to find it in herself as well. She couldn’t just use his.

  Chapter thirty-five

  People were funny creatures. What was easy for one person could be an insurmountable obstacle for another.

  It was simple for William to see Daphne, who she was, who she could be. Any woman who could do what she’d done—start life over the way she had, learn to do laundry and care for children and who even knew what else—well, that was a woman who would stay by a man’s side through anything.

  After watching his father abandon others in his life at the first indication of difficulty, someone who wasn’t afraid of hard work was more than a little appealing.

  He should have told her about his father in the chapel that morning. He should have talked about her father in the chapel, since it was too late for him and his father. William would never get that chance.

  Her father was still alive, though. If he sought her out to talk about him now, would she see it as pressure or see it as he intended, as a reminder of one more issue she needed to consider while on this soul-finding mission of hers?

  If he started basing decisions on how he thought she’d react, he’d go mad. His intentions were good and as long as he conveyed it that way, she’d understand.

  Wouldn’t she?

  There was only one way to know.

  It took him twenty minutes to find her, as she wasn’t staying in any one place but seemed to be flitting about the house like some sort of distracted cleaning nymph. Horatia said she tucked in the corners on one half of the bed linens before moving on to sweep the stairs. Derek said he saw her briefly in the portrait gallery, where she dusted three picture frames before rolling up a rug and dragging it to the back porch. Cyril had brought the rug back inside since it was currently raining but had no idea where Daphne had gone.

  Finally, William caught her as she was running a polishing cloth over the tables in the front hall.

  “Daphne,” he said, catching her by the arms to hold her in one place. “What are you doing?”

  “Thinking. I can’t seem to focus on any one task at a time while also thinking about everything else, so I’ve been moving about.” Her face screwed up into an adorable frown. “Do you think Jess has cooked the bread yet? There may be pots in the scullery that need cleaning.”

  William laughed. He tried to smother it, but there was no keeping it in. How very different they were and how glorious it was.

  “I wouldn’t know about the pots,” William said, “but I did think of something I wanted to tell you.”

  Her face cleared and her full attention landed on him with enough force that he sucked in a sharp breath between his teeth. So many times when he’d been talking to her before, she’d been distracted. He recognized now that it was a combination of her guilt and her secrets, but with that removed from between them, her gaze was clear.

  And fully on him. She might be a bit flighty in other areas, but it was clear that when it came to people she cared about, she could home in like a sniper. He’d seen it with her dealings with Benedict.

  To be given that same consideration was humbling. And energizing. “It’s about your father.”

  Her frown returned, but her gaze didn’t drop from his. “Is he making another trip here?”

  “Eventually, yes, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.” He took a deep breath. This was only going to work if he exposed a bit of himself, if he told her why he thought this decision mattered. “I wasn’t ever close to my father.”

  Her hand lifted to cup his cheek and he felt the touch to his soul. No one had really shown him physical affection since his mother. No one who really cared about him, anyway. Perhaps that was why he was having such a difficult time releasing his grip on her arms.

  “Did you fight a lot?”

  “No. Probably worse than that. We ignored each other.” William took a deep breath and plunged on. “My mother was an advantageous marriage for him. She brought money and old connections. They only met one time before they married and that was in the presence of her entire family.”

  He rubbed his hands along her arms, feeling the warmth of her beneath the ugly faded fabric. And it was incredibly ugly. Possibly the ugliest dress a woman could own.

  He’d rather think about her dress than his parents, but that wouldn’t help anything. “My mother thought him a wastrel, my father thought her a moral braggart. Neither was exactly wrong, but not completely right either. Mother had high standards, but she also had a great deal of loyalty and a sense of honor, which was why she married my father in the first place. He wanted to live in London, near his club and other social gatherings. She wanted to spend more time in the country, doing charitable works in the area a
nd raising a family. They put up with each other long enough to have me, and then my father walked away.”

  “What did your mother do?”

  “She raised me. Most of the time we acted like he didn’t exist. He would come home, berate me however he could for two weeks, spin glorious tales of all the fun he was having in London without us there to weigh him down, then he’d leave again.”

  “That’s awful.”

  He had to agree with her. While it had seemed terrible as a child, looking at it through the eyes of an adult made him angrier. That his father hadn’t been able to put his pursuit of pleasure aside long enough to be a father to his heir was reprehensible. That his mother had been too stubborn to search for a compromise wasn’t much better.

  “The point is,” he said, “my father never felt a bit of remorse for our separation.” He took a deep breath because this was where he was afraid he’d lose her. “Your father does.”

  She blinked up at him, and her face dropped all expression. He knew well enough now to recognize that blankness meant she felt too much. “He does? How do you know?”

  “He mentions regrets, gives advice, talks about taking time to think so that he knows he can live with his decisions.” William licked his lips. “I want you to consider it. I won’t tell him you’re here without your permission, but, Daphne, I’m going to be working with him on this new factory. If you . . . If I . . . If we . . .”

  “I understand.”

  There was a fine trembling beneath his hands. Was the fact that any sort of future with him was going to include her father going to make her walk away? Would he never again get to hold her in his arms or listen to her play?

  He shook his head. He was getting lost in a future that might be. Perhaps he was picking up her habits. Not that it would be a negative to not be quite so obsessed with facts and figures, but he didn’t want to get lost in possibilities and miss opportunities.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “Do you—”

  Her sentence was cut short by a sharp knock on the door.

  Daphne swung her head to the side. “Were you expecting someone?”