Was that the appearance she gave? If so, she was glad. She had taken a long time cultivating it. And it had been worse even than he knew.
“Is it just an outer armor?” he asked. “Do you still suffer inside?”
She withdrew her gloved hands from her muff and set them against his chest, slipping them beneath the capes of his greatcoat. It was probably unwise, but she needed the human contact and sensed that perhaps he did too. It could not have been a comfortable story to listen to, and it was wrong—and uncharacteristic—of her to have inflicted it upon him.
“We all suffer, Colin,” she said. “It is the human condition. No one escapes, even those who may appear to others to live charmed lives. But we all have the choice of whether to be defined by the negatives in our lives or to make of our present and future and our very selves what we want them to be. Although I am convinced Desmond was in the grip of a terrible sickness, I also believe that he succumbed to it without trying hard enough to fight back. Perhaps I do him an injustice. Perhaps there was no way out for him. I do not judge him and, yes, I did mourn him and still do, though I doubt my family is aware of that. I loved him, you see. But I refused to get sucked into the dark whirlpool of his descent into darkness. Oh, it was touch and go for a few years, for I blamed myself when his rages came upon him and did all in my power to change myself. I became a cringing creature who tried desperately not to provoke him. But after I left him, I chose to be my own person, the one I wanted to be. It took a while. A long while. I had vowed to love him in sickness and health, yet I had abandoned him. Guilt is a powerful force. But ultimately my will proved stronger.” She thought so, anyway. Perhaps it was just that her will had not been tested. She shivered.
His gloved hands were covering hers against his chest and he took a half step nearer to her. She could feel the warmth of his hands and the comforting strength of them. She could feel his closeness.
“I wish I had your firmness of character,” he said, his face very close to her own, and she had the fanciful thought that there was pain in the very heartbeat she could feel faintly with her right hand.
“Have you known winter, then?” she asked, raising her eyes to his.
He closed his own briefly and dropped his chin.
“There was Roe—Wren,” he said. “She had that great unsightly strawberry birthmark covering the side of her face. No one could bear to look at her. Certainly no one could bear the thought of anyone else—anyone from outside the house—seeing her, and there were always visitors. She spent most of her childhood in her room, often locked in lest she wander. She was not even allowed into the schoolroom because…no one could bear to look at her. I suppose servants took her food and other necessities, but I was the only one who spent time with her in her room. I loved her and enjoyed taking my toys to her and playing with her. I used to read to her after I learned how. I thought she was sick. I used to kiss the strawberry mark better every time I left her. But the strangeness of her situation, the horrible injustice and cruelty of it, did not occur to me at the time. It was just the way things were. If Aunt Megan had not come…But she did come, and Roe’s winter was over, or at least it began to turn toward spring.”
“And did your winter also turn to spring?” Elizabeth asked. But she sensed it had not. The pain in his voice was not just for Wren.
“It had not felt like winter before she left,” he said. “I was told she had gone away to be made better, and was unutterably sad because I had lost my playmate. I hoped and hoped she would be home soon, healed and able to run about outside with me and play with me. And then I was told she was dead and I cried until I was empty of tears. How is it possible for a child to be so deeply hurt that he cannot be consoled? I had kissed her better a hundred times or more but she had not got better. Our aunt had taken her away so that a doctor would make her better, but she had died. The injustice of it struck me then, at the advanced age of six. Not the injustice of the way she had been isolated, but the injustice of…fate. I might have called it God if we had been a godly family. We were not. I asked my nurse why there was no funeral. I knew somehow about funerals. She told me not to be troublesome, so I was not. But I mourned Roe for the rest of my childhood. Mourning her became a part of me. She had not had a chance to live, yet I seemed to have no choice but to live.”
Elizabeth listened to him, aghast. One child in his family had been locked away because she had an unsightly deformity, and another—himself—had had his emotional needs ignored or perhaps not even detected. And why had they lied to him?
He was looking into her eyes, frowning. “Why did they lie to me?” he asked.
Oh, God. What answer was there? “She had been taken to another home,” she said, “where she was the only child and could be given the full care and attention of your uncle and aunt. Your parents probably thought you would forget about her more easily if you thought her dead.” It was a ridiculous answer. The real answer was obvious. When Wren had been taken away, they had been happy to consider her dead.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I ought not to have asked such an unanswerable question. For a few minutes I reverted to that little boy. Why do so many people uphold the myth that childhood is the happiest time of one’s life? It is not true, is it?”
“Not for everyone,” she said.
“Was it for you?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes, it was. I was fortunate.”
“And then you married a bounder,” he said.
She drew a slow breath. “I do not like to hear him called that,” she said. “He was ill. I am convinced he was ill. I loved him.” And hated him for the unforgivable—which she had not yet confronted and perhaps never would.
“I am sorry,” he said. “And I do understand. My brother was a drunk too. Life is not simple, is it?” He grinned suddenly and looked boyish again. “Maybe I ought to write a book. A profoundly philosophical work entitledLife Is Not Simple.”
Elizabeth laughed. “But remember the original analogy,” she said. “Winterdoesturn to spring, Colin, and spring turns to summer. Wren speaks with the warmest affection of her aunt and uncle and her years with them. She became a strong and independent woman even if shedidhide behind a veil until last year. And then she met Alex and is clearly happy with him. Best of all as it relates to your story, she did survive and you found out about it. You found each other again and have a close and loving relationship.”
It was not a happily-ever-after situation, of course. There was still the rest of his family, or its surviving members at least, who had treated both Wren and Colin so cruelly. And who knew what else had happened during his boyhood that had led him now to live in rooms in London when he owned a town house there and to spend Christmas with the Westcott family rather than his own?
He was smiling into her eyes, his face still close to her own. “You have a very soothing presence, Elizabeth,” he said. “Thank you. But I have kept you standing here too long. You must really be feeling like a block of ice by now.”
Strangely, she was not.
“Not quite,” she said. “I believe I still have the use of my limbs.” He was so close. He was smiling. He was very…lovely.
“You are very beautiful,” he said. His eyes dipped to her mouth and his head moved a fraction of an inch closer to hers. But instead of kissing her, he looked back into her eyes and smiled again. And she was relieved and disappointed. “If it is indeed your intention to choose a husband during the Season this year, some man is going to be very fortunate indeed.”
She had never been beautiful or even more than ordinarily pretty, but the compliment warmed her anyway. And it was not the first time he had paid it.
“Thank you,” she said.
“But at every ball you attend,” he said, his lips almost touching hers, “I must ask that you reserve one set of dances for me.”
