by Darcy Burke
Anna released Millie and Percy, taking in their faces, knowing staying was the right thing to do.
She turned her head until her gaze met Henry’s. She was not met with hostility or anger, but with an unconditional love she could no longer seek refuge in. It was no longer hers to claim.
Chapter Twelve
Hearing his words thrown back at him was unnerving, especially with the knowledge of how Percy had used them against Anna. Had he known this was what the boy intended, he might have advised otherwise. He might have been able to avoid the rupture this family was about to endure. And it would be his fault.
But that’s not what happened.
Anna stepped closer to Percy and wrapped her arms around him, like a mother would her child. Percy sighed and returned her embrace. After a long moment, Anna pulled Millie into the hug.
Henry didn’t move. His stark disbelief in Anna’s reaction was met with something rather unpleasant, something he’d been wrestling with all week.
This was how a family was supposed to behave towards with one another. With love and respect. With acceptance.
Anna didn’t hate Percy for veering from the path he’d been born to. She didn’t berate Millie for her not understanding her feelings. And they both loved Anna fiercely despite her disagreement with their actions.
You can always choose love and kindness, over hostility. It doesn’t take much, just you deciding that is what you want to be.
He knew her words to be true, but seeing them in action was another thing entirely.
This realization was quickly doused by another.
Anna turned and her eyes met his, but they were not filled with love as he hoped. He saw sadness and regret in her hazel depths.
And he knew. It reverberated through her gaze and sank into his being.
It was over. They were over.
She wouldn’t leave them, not now when Percy had just dropped such a revelation and Millie was on the brink of a scandal. They both needed her much more than he did.
He held her gaze, hoping for the right words to comfort her, to reassure her everything would work out. But none came. How could he ask her to walk away from this life she had built? She might not have built a life with her husband, but she’d built one with his children.
“Henry...” Her voice was soft, filled with pain, but he shook his head and put on a brave smile.
“I understand,” he said quietly, shaking his head. Louder he added, “As this is a family matter, I will leave you to each other.”
And with that, he fled the room.
Already Henry felt his defenses start to rise, the walls returning to their rightful place. The worst part was he couldn’t hate her for rejecting him. How could he? The people she loved dearest needed her. He would be a brute to try to convince her to leave.
He’d placed his trust in her, decided to love her as fiercely as she deserved, and this time she was the one who chose to walk away. Despite his despair, he understood, just as he understood the best thing he could do for her was let her go.
Henry was so wrapped up in his own thoughts he nearly barreled over his uncle where he stood in the hall.
Lord Stratford frowned as he took in Henry’s guarded expression. “You don’t look well.”
Henry swallowed a retort. His uncle was not the one to unleash his ire upon, nor did he need a recap of the past half hour. “I am not well. I’m heading to my room. I plan to depart in the morning and need to be rested for my journey to London.”
His uncle nodded. “Come with me first.”
Henry didn’t want to, but knew an argument was pointless. He fell into step alongside his uncle and followed him to the study where Henry had met with his aunt and uncle upon his arrival at the castle, before his father’s siblings had joined them.
As he stepped inside the study, he realized this was a similar ambush from his relatives. He’d not even time to take in the occupants of the room before they launched into a tirade. Everyone spoke over each other, so Henry had no idea what anyone said, but their message was clear. Somehow, he’d messed up again.
Henry fought the urge to react in anger. Anna’s words of love and kindness over hostility rang loudly through his mind and he focused on the possibility of changing his relationship with his family.
“Are you lot just going to yell at me all evening?” He forced a hint of levity into his tone. “I’ve been in the army; I could stand here for hours and you would tire long before I will.”
He caught Aunt Cornelia’s eye as her lips quirked into a rare smirk. At least she’d heard him. None of the others seemed to notice he’d spoken at all.
“Enough!” Henry had to shout over them to be heard. He forced as much command as he could muster into his voice, and it did the trick. Shocked faces turned to him, but at least they’d stopped talking over each other.
“Now,” he continued; his voice returned to a normal volume. “I am happy to hear your grievances, but they must be done one at a time.”
“How can you make light of what an embarrassment you are?” Aunt Winifred demanded. Her face was flushed in agitation. “You wear my father’s title, and I will not have you disrespect it further!”
“Disrespect it further? What have I done to disrespect the title now?”
Her lips pursed. “You know of what I speak.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Winifred huffed. “You continuously flout the rules of good society and do as you please!”
“I’ve always done that. How is... whatever I’ve done now any different?”
Winifred glared. “Your affair with Viscountess Rycroft has gone too far.”
That caught his attention. “I’ve done no such thing.” Which was mostly true. From a certain point of view.
“We saw you!” Winifred pointed her finger at him. “Everyone saw you chase after her through the ballroom, off to heaven knows where! This behavior can longer be tolerated! I simply will not have it.”
“It would not be surprising if you ran the earldom into the ground,” his Uncle Howard added. “Unrepentant reprobate that you are.”
A glance at his amassed aunts and uncles showed most felt the same.
Except for Aunt Cornelia and Uncle James, the two who had always been a light in the dark Allerton tunnel.
Cornelia’s gaze was gentle and she nodded in encouragement.
“I am sorry you have this opinion of me, Aunt Winifred,” Henry began, and looked at Howard and then George, who had arrived since Henry’s last encounter with his family. “I cannot imagine what I did to deserve such a powerfully negative sentiment.”
Winifred sneered. “For starters--”
“I was not done speaking, Aunt Winifred. You’ve said your part, now you will listen.” His hard gaze flickered to each of his relatives. They all watched him apprehensively.
“Were I having an affair with Lady Rycroft, it would be none of your business. And to answer why I was chasing her through the ballroom-- I was in fact following her as she moved through the crowd after she’d witnessed her stepdaughter in distress. Did no one see Miss Newbury’s exchange with Mr. Pennex, or how it upset her?” No one gave an affirmative reply and Henry nodded. “Then I suggest you make sure your understanding of the situation is factual before you start throwing accusations.”
“Your scandalous treatment of Lady Rycroft the last time you were here is a testament to what you are capable of,” Winifred reminded him.
His aunt didn’t deserve the courtesy of an explanation, but Henry knew he had to offer something. “You talk about it as though I kidnapped Lady Rycroft and ran off with her against her will. I don’t have to explain my actions to you, Aunt, but we were young, impulsive, and we were in love. The scandal was regrettable, but I will not apologize for a decade-old mistake. Everything you judge me for was over ten years ago, when I was headstrong and reckless. Of course I was going to race curricles too fast, and stomp mud all over Aunt Cornelia’s
marble floors, and make numerous other mistakes.”
Howard crossed his arms over his chest, his face still turned down in a frown. “We’ve not seen anything of you for ten years, and now you expect everyone to welcome you with open arms.”
“Well, no,” Henry admitted. “Which is why I am going to America. And I know you don’t want to believe it, but I have matured past the recklessness of youth. I learned a trade, I went to war. I did something with my existence that allowed me to not rely on the handouts of the earldom.”
“It is not exactly something the son of an earl does,” Howard added.
Henry laughed. “You’d rather I’d have stayed and lazed about town, racking up gambling debts, and proving to be utterly useless? I swear, you lot would not have thought better of me no matter what path I took. Either I am too reckless and lazy, like many of my peers and classmates, or I am embarrassing the family by putting my skills to use.”
That seemed to get their attention, as the siblings looked at each other as if trying to gauge how the others were reacting to his statement.
“I hardly see what building bridges and canals could teach one about running an earldom,” George interjected.
“I was trained to move thousands of men, horses, equipment, artillery, and command stations at a moment’s notice. You could say at the basest level, my role as a combat engineer was to problem solve. You may not know it, but I’m exceptional at maths, I understand supply chains and serving a demand, as well as negotiating policies and politics. It might not have been a traditional education in terms of managing the Carrington earldom, but it was just as comprehensive.”
“How do you plan to manage the earldom when you are halfway across the world?” Howard asked.
“With an efficient well-placed estate manager,” Henry answered. “The Carrington earldom mostly runs itself. My estate manager will tend to the needs of the tenants and he has authority to act on my behalf. Should there be something he truly does not know how to handle, the adjacent landowner has agreed to act in my place.”
Aunt Winifred scoffed. “And you can trust this person?”
Henry nodded. “I trust him to act in good faith on my behalf.”
“I think we have a right to know the name of the person you’ve entrusted to act as the Earl of Carrington in everything but name!”
Henry swallowed back his irritation painfully. Snapping at his tiresome aunt would only worsen the situation. His tone was calm and even as he replied, “All due respect, Aunt Winifred, but you bear no rights here.”
Anger pooled in her gaze. “My father was the Earl of Carrington long before you were, boy!”
“Exactly, your father. When he died you inherited the last you would receive from the Carrington estates. Your interest here, now, is purely sentimental.”
Her eyes flared as she puffed her chest up in indignation, but her husband set a calming hand on her shoulder. “Listen to what he is saying, Winifred. He makes a valid point. The Carrington earldom bears you no further obligation.”
“It bore your children an obligation,” she snapped at her husband before returning her glare to Henry. “My brother—your father—promised my children an inheritance from the estate, and they’ve yet to receive a cent. I bet you’ve spent the lot of it already!”
“They haven’t received anything because the terms of their inheritance state they must be five and twenty,” Henry explained.
Winfred opened her mouth to speak but snapped it shut in surprise. “I didn’t know there was an age stipulation.”
“I haven’t changed those terms nor the amounts. That was set forth by my father and the Carrington estates will honor it.” Henry glanced at his Uncle George and Uncle Howard. “The same was set for your children. And those funds are protected. Even if the estate were to go bankrupt, those inheritances remain intact.”
He sighed. He didn’t need their approval; he simply needed them to not interfere with how he planned to execute his time as earl. “As much as you all want it to be true, I am not my father. No matter how hard you push and twist, I will never fit into the mold that was expected of the Allerton men before me. I recognize their greatness, their leadership, and how effortless they made it all seem. They stood taller than the clouds as the world moved around them, the earldom, the peerage, it all orbited them. But I am not them. I was never going to make my mark in politics or lead a forlorn hope on the battlefields. At best I am an academic; at worst a skilled laborer. This canal in New York is something I can create and build with my mind, and is my way of leaving something to the earldom. If I manage the earldom as it has been done for generations, I guarantee you I will fail. But please, trust me to do this my way, and the earldom will flourish.”
His declaration washed over his father’s siblings, hoping this would buy him a little peace.
“I know I am not the earl you wanted, but I am the one who survived. You need to give me a chance.”
His relatives glanced between one another and Henry could see the argument was won.
Chapter Thirteen
The following morning, Henry only had two people left to say goodbye to.
The first was his Aunt Cornelia.
She was awake early, which he was grateful for as he didn’t want to delay longer than needed. Lazing about the castle did not fit into his already degraded timeline.
“When do you leave?” She sipped her tea before setting it on the tray before them.
“Soon. I’ve things to attend to in London. I cannot delay any longer.”
She nodded knowingly. “Then I can surmise your search for what your father left you was concluded?
“I never found it.”
Cornelia sighed. “I didn’t think you would. After your first search came dangerously close to its discovery, I hid it from you.”
His brows pinched together in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
“It is here.” She turned in the chair and pulled a wooden box from the table beside her. He hadn’t even noticed it.
She set it on the table before him and sat back.
It was a dark wooden box, with a carved lion and stag on the lid. His family crest. He’d seen this before, in the curio room on that first morning in the castle. He had spied it during the hunt with Anna and Millie, but when he’d returned to search more thoroughly it had been empty.
He glanced at her. “This is what I came for then?”
She nodded. “Your father left this in my care some years ago. While you were on the Continent.”
“Before his death?”
She nodded. “And before the deaths of your brothers.”
Henry stared at the box with apprehension. He’d thought this had been something done during his father’s illness, or shortly before his death. The contents of the letters had baffled him. He had assumed it was letters his father had written to him, had hoped this would provide some closure to the turbulent relationship they’d had.
He pulled the box towards him and flipped the lid open. Inside was a thick stack of letters, tied together with thick twine. But it wasn’t his father’s handwriting etched across the cream paper in black ink. It was his.
His letters to Anna.
He untied the twine and sifted through the folded parchments. They were all here. One nearly every day for an entire year. The seals had not been broken, so they’d remained unread. Either they’d been returned in this state, or they’d never made it to Anna.
“My father had these, all this time?”
“It would seem so. Though his reasoning for keeping them he took to the grave.”
He looked at up her. “And he sent them here to you?”
She nodded. “In a way, he was returning them. Or reminding me of them.”
“Why would he interfere in my correspondence?”
“He didn’t. Not directly.”
Confusion washed over him. “I don’t understand.”
“No, I suppose you don’t.” She studied his face as she s
truggled to find the words. “Do you remember what you were like back then? When you were sent away from your home because of the trouble you’d caused?”
Henry’s brows furrowed. “I was wild, in my own way, I suppose.”
“You were impulsive, reckless, and headed for disaster,” she corrected. “Eloping with that girl was the best thing for you.”
“Except our elopement was unsuccessful.”
“Exactly. You were so desperate for someone to love you, you jumped at the first chance you had to escape. You could not start a marriage at nineteen and one-and-twenty, and expect to have a successful marriage. Not when you were too immature to understand the ramifications of what you were doing.”
“You informed Anna’s father of our elopement.”
The apology in her gaze was confirmation. “You couldn’t have loved her, and accepted her love for you, if you thought yourself unworthy. And even if you disagree, ten years ago you thought yourself quite undeserving.”
Henry leaned back against the soft cushions of the chair, knowing she was right. He’d already realized the truth for himself long ago. “But then why did my father have my letters?”
“Because I told him to stop them.”
Henry stared at her in shock. His aunt had prevented his letters from reaching Anna? The cool wash of betrayal came over him, and he took a deep breath to steady himself.
“I advised my brother to stop any correspondence you might send to her. You have to understand, Henry, I was doing what I thought was best.”
“Preventing the woman I loved from knowing I hadn’t abandoned her? That I would come back for her? How was this for the best?”
“You needed to find yourself first, something that would have taken more than a year to accomplish. You can be angry with me for the rest of your days, but I stand by what I did. Look at yourself, Henry. The work you did in the army, and engineering the canals in Scotland, and now America, this was something you needed to do for yourself. You would not have achieved this if you’d married Anna. You needed to grow up separately before you could be happy together.”