Along with his unexpected and unexplained guardianship of her, of course.
Chapter Eleven
Gideon readily admitted to being more than a little concerned as to what Michael Montague’s state of mind might have been when he died.
Firstly, by leaving guardianship of his daughter to a man he hadn’t seen for ten years and who was known to be shrouded in scandal regarding his wife’s death.
Now this, a brown leather journal Lydia seemed to recognize as she opened the cover to read the inscription written there in black ink.
“The date says this is my father’s diary for eighteen hundred and five.”
Ten years ago, and the year Harriet died and Gideon was horribly burned.
Gideon reared back as if struck, but he continued to stare at the journal as Lydia held it in her slender hands. As if its contents might at any moment strike out at him with the speed of a venomous snake.
Lydia eyed him curiously. “Isn’t that the same year your wife died?”
Her lack of certainty in that fact proved again how young she was.
She turned the journal over. “There is a piece of ribbon marking a place partway through the entries— Gideon…?” She voiced her surprise as he snatched the journal from her and turned to the page she had pointed out.
A letter fell from between the two pages, but Gideon paid it no heed once he had seen the date at the top of the page: Chessington Park, Kent, August 3rd, 1805.
A month before Harriet died in the fire at their London home.
He slammed the journal closed with a loud snap after reading the words written on the first line for that date.
Today, I kissed Harriet Rhodes.
Gideon’s heart was pounding so loudly and so fast, he was starting to feel lightheaded. There was also a strange ringing noise in his ears.
Dear God, what if this diary was a deathbed confession of Michael Montague having been involved in an affair with Harriet before she died?
Gideon staggered back slightly at the enormity of that even being a possibility. But if that were the case, it would further explain her aversion to their own marriage.
“Here. Sit down.” Lydia pulled back a chair at the kitchen table before guiding him to sit on it. “I will make us both some tea.” She filled the kettle and placed it on the range before turning back to him, her gaze full of concern. “You have become very pale.”
Unsurprisingly so, if Gideon’s suspicions should prove to be the correct ones.
Ten years ago Michael Montague would have been aged about five and thirty and a widower for the five years previous to that.
Was it possible…
Could Chessington and Harriet have been involved in an affair together…
Surely not.
It didn’t make any sense, if that were the case, for the earl to then leave guardianship of his only and beloved child to the man he had cuckolded all those years ago.
It made even less sense to leave that same man a diary confessing to the affair with that man’s wife.
“Here.” Lydia crossed the room to place a cup of tea on the table in front of him before bending to retrieve the letter from the flagstone floor. “I wonder what Papa—”
Gideon snatched the sealed letter from her before she could read what was written inside. “Your father left the journal and letter to me.”
Lydia looked hurt by the abruptness of his tone and manner. “I only thought that perhaps they might in some way explain why my father chose you to be my guardian when the two of you, by your own admission, had not seen each other for many years before he died. I apologize if I overstepped.”
Gideon at once felt guilty. Of course Lydia was curious as to what her father’s thinking might have been when he had chosen Esher for her guardian, a man Lydia had never so much as met before a week ago.
“Forgive me.” He gave a quick bow of his head. “I am a little surprised your father has left me what looks to be a very personal journal of his thoughts and life.” And most especially surprised by the first line of the entry being August 3rd.
He needed to read more of the journal to know whether or not Chessington and Harriet’s friendship had gone beyond a kiss. Something he was reluctant to do in front of Lydia.
It was obvious from all of Lydia’s comments about her father that she adored him and that he had indulged and loved her. With the other man dead, and so unable to defend himself, Gideon didn’t want to be the reason Lydia’s adoration for her father was shaken or damaged.
They had reached a new understanding this evening. One of both pleasure and tenderness. The last thing Gideon wanted to do was put that closeness in danger.
He placed the journal and the letter on the tabletop, then reached out to lightly grasp one of Lydia’s wrists and pull her between his parted legs before sitting her gently down on one of his thighs.
He curved his arms about the slenderness of her waist. “Whatever is written in either the journal or letter, I first wish for you to know that…that…”
“Yes?” Lydia could barely contain her anticipation as she waited for Gideon to finish his sentence. She had a feeling it was going to be of far more importance to her future than anything her father might have written.
Gideon swallowed. “I respect and admire you very much.”
“Oh.” Lydia was completely unable to hide her disappointment.
Gideon reached up to stroke his knuckles against one of her cheeks. “Your father must have been very proud of you.”
She smiled fondly. “I believe he was quite biased in that regard.”
“Not in the least.” Strong arms tightened about her. “Lydia, I…I…”
“Yes?” Her impatience deepened at this hesitation from a man she knew to be anything but reticent, let alone less than decisive in all his dealings.
He drew a deep breath. “I believe I have come to more than respect and admire you.”
Lydia was having trouble breathing. “You have?”
Gideon nodded. “Tonight, with you, is the first time I have made love to any woman in a very long time— No,” he corrected himself firmly. “You are the first woman I have ever made love with and who has in turn made love to me. My previous encounters were…lacking in that tenderness of emotion or were in some other way less than satisfactory. I tried with Harriet, I really did, but she abhorred everything to do with the physical side of our marriage. In the end, I believe she abhorred me,” he acknowledged bleakly.
Lydia reached up to gently touch his rigidly clenched jaw. “I am sorry for that. But I doubt that was your fault. I know that there are some women who dislike all physical intimacy no matter who it is with. Harriet sounds as if she was one of them.”
As far as Lydia was concerned, Harriet Rhodes’s loss was her gain. How Harriet had ever been able to resist a man as charismatic and sensual as Gideon was beyond comprehension.
“Lydia.” Gideon waited until her head was turned fully toward him and he had her full attention. “Whatever we discover from reading your father’s journal or the letter, I wish for you to know that I have developed feelings for you. Strong feelings.”
It wasn’t a declaration of the love Lydia now believed she felt toward him, but it was definitely more of an admission from Gideon than she had ever dared hope for. “I have strong feelings for you too.”
His smile was one of affection as she deliberately echoed his cautious words. “Then can we agree that nothing we read tonight will change the…feelings we have for each other.” His smile faded.
She gave a puzzled frown. “You sound as if you believe that to be a possibility.”
He remained serious. “Please first promise me that, Lydia.”
“Of course,” she readily agreed in the face of his obvious intensity. “I am not so fickle a creature that I will allow someone else, even my own father, to influence my opinion of another. Of you,” she added huskily.
“And yet you were obviously as puzzled as I when your father mad
e me your guardian.”
She chuckled. “It was a little strange, yes, when the two of us had never even met. But I trust my father’s decisions implicitly. He was not a man to set too much store by other people’s opinion either. He preferred to make up his own mind about a person or a subject. The Prince Regent himself often asked that he share those levelheaded opinions with him.”
“The two of them remained friends even after Prince George became Regent?”
“They did,” she confirmed proudly.
Gideon frowned. “Then I am surprised he did not make you a ward of the Crown rather than my own. It would have been perfectly acceptable in the circumstances, and you would have been able to remain in London Society with your friends.”
“My father obviously considered you to be the man he could trust enough to care for his most treasured possession. Me,” she added in case there should be any doubt.
Gideon nodded slowly. “I always thought of your father as a man of honor and integrity.”
“You are the only other gentleman I know who has that same depth of honor and honesty,” she stated without hesitation.
Gideon released the breath he had apparently been holding. “Then we shall proceed. But with the proviso that you accept that your father, for all that he was a good man, was also only a man, with a man’s foibles and weaknesses.”
Lydia eyed him warily. “What are you saying?”
Gideon frowned. “I read only one line of the journal before slamming it closed, but your father wrote: Today, I kissed Harriet Rhodes,” he acknowledged heavily.
Lydia pulled back sharply to stare at Gideon in disbelief. Oh, she didn’t doubt for a moment that was what Gideon thought he had read in her father’s diary, but she could not and would not believe her father to be guilty of such perfidy.
Not just because of his deep sense of honesty, but Lydia also knew her father had continued to love her mother until the day he died. The last words he had spoken were to express his happiness in at last being reunited with his beloved Alicia.
Lydia reached out to pick up the journal before handing it to Gideon. “Show it to me, please.”
Gideon could see by Lydia’s stubbornly determined expression that she did not believe her father to be guilty of kissing another man’s wife.
“Perhaps we should read the letter first?” He was attempting to delay opening that journal again on the entry for August 3rd, 1805, for as long as possible. Attempting to delay the possibility of losing this closeness to Lydia.
She picked up the missive from the tabletop. “My father has written on the front of this that you are to read it after the journal.”
Gideon bit back his frustration. He was afraid, deeply afraid, that if once lost, this closeness that currently existed between himself and Lydia would be gone forever. He didn’t think he could bear it if that meant he had to return to that barren and unhappy time he had known for so long before Lydia’s warmth and beauty came into his life. Before she came to Cornwall and breathed life and hope into his icy heart.
“The journal, Gideon,” she prompted again firmly.
“Kiss me first,” he gruffly encouraged.
A warm smile curved her lips. “I will happily kiss you any time you wish me to. The contents of the journal will not change that,” she promised before placing the softness of her lips against his.
Gideon returned the kiss with a sense of desperation. He was sure, despite what Lydia said to the contrary, that she would want nothing more to do with him once they had read the rest of her father’s journal for the year Harriet had died.
Chapter Twelve
Gideon continued to hold Lydia tightly in his arms for several more minutes after the kiss had ended. Her face was buried against his throat, her breath warm against his skin, her arms clasped about his shoulders.
But he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. The journal had to be read, as did the letter accompanying it. And he had to believe that Lydia would stand by her promise to him that the contents would not diminish the affection she admitted feeling toward him.
How dearly he wished that emotion could be more than affection. Perhaps with time it might be?
But first, the journal had to be read.
He kept his arms firmly about Lydia’s waist as he once again opened the journal to the date of August 3rd, 1805. It read:
Today, I kissed Harriet Rhodes.
Or, to be more precise, she kissed me, and I was too surprised to stop her.
“You see?” Lydia said triumphantly.
“Let’s read on before you become too jubilant,” Gideon said. Although it had surprised him immensely to have Chessington claim Harriet had initiated the kiss. His wife had never initiated any physical sign of affection between the two of them in all of the two years of their marriage.
The journal continued:
Once the shock had receded, I pushed her away, of course, for she is another man’s wife, and I still and always will love my beloved Alicia. It was only… It had been so long since I had felt a woman’s warmth and tenderness or held one in my arms. I am ashamed to admit that I did not then, or afterward, have any real feelings for Harriet.
I tried to explain that the kiss had been a mistake, but she seemed convinced I was only behaving as a gentleman should by denying the love we feel for each other. A love she believed to have been destined by the gods.
Those are the very words she used, and I believe from that day forward, Harriet developed an unhealthy obsession with me which may have led to her death.
Lydia turned to Gideon. “I am so sorry.”
He gave a rueful huff. “It would seem that my wife was not so sparing of showing her affection toward another man.”
Lydia raised her hand to gently caress the hard clench of his cheek. “She was very young when the two of you married.”
“Only a year younger than you are now.”
“But my father has ensured I am not some romantic miss who became infatuated with a man who was not my husband and then announces that love to be destined by the gods.” She winced as she said the last. “I think we must add blasphemy to her other sins.”
Gideon gave a humorless smile. “I think we must read on to discover exactly what your father means by that last sentence.”
The diary entries over the next three weeks featured many visits to the Chessington estate by Harriet, despite Michael having constantly rebuffed her. In desperation, he had returned to London in the hope of avoiding her and her declarations of love. Harriet had simply followed him there.
Which was how both Gideon and Harriet came to be in residence at Esher House in London when it caught fire in September of that same year.
The married couple had lived in separate households for almost a year before that time. Even when both residing in London for the Season, they had, for the main part, avoided each other and been excessively polite when that couldn’t be managed.
Early that September, Gideon had returned to London from his estate in Gloucestershire. It was a month too early for when the House sat again in October, but having spent the summer months in the country, he had been desirous of some of the distractions to be found in the capital. Such as meeting up with his male friends for luncheon or an evening’s entertainment.
He had thought when Harriet joined him there that perhaps their estrangement was to be over.
He had been wrong.
Harriet was rarely at home, and when she was, she preferred to shut herself away in her rooms. The other days, she had told him she would be out meeting up with friends for luncheon or afternoon tea.
It would seem, from Chessington’s journal, that hadn’t been Harriet’s destination at all. That instead, she had visited him almost daily at Chessington House, despite his having repeatedly told her not to do so.
The entry for the same night as the fire at Esher House made for very unpleasant reading.
I had believed Harriet would eventually tire of this supposed infatuat
ion she feels toward me, but instead, I believe she is becoming more and more unhinged in this obsession she has for me. To a degree I have no choice but to speak to Esher about the possibility of engaging medical help for her. I can think of no other way to persuade Harriet to accept I did not and do not return the love she repeatedly claims to feel toward me.
The saddest part in all this nonsense is Esher. I have seen how Harriet treats him so coldly at social events. A coldness she has assured me, several times, that exists between them, at her instigation, at all times. Esher, for his part, always behaves the perfect gentleman toward his wife. I sincerely hope, for his sake, that he does not love Harriet, for I fear her mental health has deteriorated to such a dangerous degree, she might have to be put away somewhere for her own safety.
I will send word to Esher tomorrow informing him that I need to speak with him urgently.
It was not only unpleasant for Gideon to read such things about his wife’s adulterous feelings and behavior toward another man, but even more so to realize how she had continued to hound and harass a man who did not return her feelings.
Perhaps it had been the unattainable that appealed to Harriet? Mayhap if Chessington had shown any signs of returning her feelings, she might not have become so obsessed with him?
They would never know the answer to that, because that night Esher House had caught fire, trapping Harriet in its flames and seriously burning Gideon.
The events that followed were well known.
It had taken Gideon months to recover enough to be able to travel to his estate in Kent, where he had remained for several more months before decamping to Cornwall.
He had been in Kent long enough, at least, for the gossip in London to reach his ears.
The main part of that gossip appeared to be that he had deliberately set fire to the study in his own house in an effort to rid himself of his estranged wife. That it had been purely accidental that he had been caught in the fire himself, and then burned so badly he was not fit to be seen in Society.
Wayward (Regency Scandal 3) Page 9