“And went home to your mother and brother,” he said softly.
“Yes,” she said. “I lost the child there a few days later.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Don’t,” she said, drawing him onto the path and turning to walk back in the direction of home. “Itwasan accident, the falling downstairs. I was trying to get away from him and I was going too fast. He did not push me.”
And the first time?
“You went home to your father the first time?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But he did not know about my…condition. No one did but the two of us. It was too early. I had only just found out.”
She did not explain exactly when her first miscarriage happened or how closely connected it was to her reason for running home. But she did not need to. There obviouslywasa connection. Oh dear God, Elizabeth!
“I am so sorry I pried,” he said. “And how inadequate any sort of apology is. I have no right to know.”
“And I had no right to say anything,” she said, frowning. “And to a near stranger, and a man at that. I do not know why I did. Forgive me. The second time everything was explained as a tragic accident—as indeed it was. I saw a physician in London after I had recovered, and he assured me that I could still have children. That was seven years ago. But…Oh, this issuchan inappropriate conversation. Let us talk about something else. You must know that you have become the most eligible bachelor in town.”
“I do feel a bit besieged,” he admitted. “And a bit humbled. There are many very sweet young ladies in town, Elizabeth.”
“But who is special among them?” she asked. “Your name is often coupled with Miss Dunmore’s.Isshe special? And who else?”
“Miss Madson is more sensible,” he said. “And Miss Eglington is more modest. And…Well, I could go on. No one feels special to the exclusion of all others. Perhaps I am too difficult to please, which would suggest a horrible arrogance in me. I do not suppose I am particularly special to anyone either.” He paused and sighed. “I have a dream, Elizabeth, of having a family like yours. I want to celebrate a Christmas like last year’s with my own family, even though it is much smaller. I have a mother and three sisters, each of whom has a spouse. There are children. Yet it does not function like a family and I am not sure it ever can. Indeed, I am pretty sure it cannot. Certainly it cannot if I do not work very hard at bringing it about. And that involves choosing the right wife. But what young woman fresh from the schoolroom could possibly deal with…Well, with my mother.”
She drew breath to speak but did not do so, perhaps because there was nothing to say.
“But enough of me,” he said, “How about you? Codaire seems to be a definite beau. He has a proprietary air when he is close to you. Is he special, Elizabeth?”
“He is very attentive,” she said. “It is flattering.”
But she had not said he was special.
And then he saw the carriage that had just driven through the park gates onto the main driveway—white and gold and ornate and pulled by four white horses. Like a fairy carriage conveying a fairy queen to and from her fairy palace.
“Lady Hodges,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes,” he said. His mother—just as though his words of a few moments ago had summoned her.
They were some distance away, and there were plenty of other conveyances and pedestrians to hide among. There were four outriders, two on each side of the carriage, black horses ridden by young men clad in black. Good God. Oh good God. It was like a circus parade. He could die of embarrassment. And the whole entourage was attracting attention, as it always did. Though he understood that her public appearances were rare these days.
Colin had seen his mother occasionally during the past five years since she always spent the months of the Season in London. It had always been from a distance, however. He had not come face to face with her or spoken with her since just after his father’s funeral when he was eighteen. He had decided then that he never wished to see her or speak with her again. He had tried to cut all ties with her, to forget her, to carry on with his own life without her. It could not be done indefinitely, of course. Not when he was the only remaining son, Baron Hodges of Roxingley, head of the family, owner of all the property and possessor of the fortune. And there was always gossip, some of which inevitably reached his ears—as in that letter of complaint after Christmas. There was also his conscience, which whispered to him that she was hismother, and a son ought to honor his parent.
His mother had always been sociable to the exclusion of all else in life. She had always loved to surround herself with people, mostly young, mostly men, who admired her and paid lavish homage to her beauty. There had been rumors of lovers—Lord Ede, for example, who was still a faithful member of her court though he was no longer young—but Colin had never known, or wanted to know, the truth of the matter. She had always loved to amuse herself with large house parties in the country, and sometimes he and his brother and sisters—with the exception of Wren—were brought down from the nursery floor to be displayed for the admiration of the guests. The guests themselves, Colin had understood after he grew up, were not always or even often chosen from among the most respectable elements of society.
Times had changed, of course. She now avoided balls and any entertainments at which she would be exposed to the raw and unflattering light of chandeliers. Rather, she chose places and occasions at which she could be staged in dim and flattering light and keep herself at some remove from those who gazed upon her. The theater and the opera were among her favorite venues. There she could arrive late, after everyone else was already seated, make a grand entrance, and sit in her private box, where she would be seen from some distance. She was always accompanied by young men who vied with one another for the privilege of waiting upon her. And almost always she had Blanche attendant upon her—Colin’s eldest sister—with Sir Nelson Elwood, her husband. Blanche was an essential part of the tableau—blond and exquisitely lovely, but not more lovely than her mother. And, from a distance, often looking the older of the two.
On one occasion Colin had witnessed the spectacle before fleeing. She had caused a stir. For though she must now be close to sixty or even past it, she had looked like a girl. Even from a distance, however, it had been obvious to him that the blond hair, puffed and curled and ringleted, was not her own, and that the youthful color in her cheeks and on her lips and the dark luster of her long eyelashes owed more to cosmetics, heavily applied, than to nature. Even the eyelashes themselves had been noticeably fake. The notice she had inspired, mostly from men in the pit—cheers, whistles, catcalls, courtly bows, and kisses blown from fingertips—had held as much mockery as genuine homage. Or so it had seemed to her mortified son. For she had looked like a caricature of a young girl rather than the real thing.
And on rare occasions, as today, she rode in her carriage in the park at the fashionable hour, sumptuously clad all in white, her face veiled as she wafted a hand in greeting to acquaintances and even received a favored few at the open window. Blanche was usually at her side.
He did not know if she was today. The carriage drove on by without slowing, and Colin drew a deep breath of relief.
“You are entirely estranged?” Elizabeth asked.
“We have not spoken or come face to face for eight years,” he said. “Soon after the guests had left the house following my father’s funeral, at which she had been swathed in black, she appeared in the drawing room in her customary white, demanding that I help her write invitations to a house party. She needed cheering up, she told me when I protested. And when I asked her how it would look if she held one of her house parties so soon after my father’s death, she patted my cheek as though I were still a child and told me I was a sweet innocent. It was what everyone would expect of her, she told me. She was certainly not going to lose a year of her life and her youth dressed in black and going about with a long face and living in a silent house. I tried to lay down the law, but the law, it seemed, was not on my side. I was Lord Hodges of Roxingley, possessor of all that went with the title, but I was also a minor. Three guardians would see to it that for the following three years I lived my life wisely—according to what my mother considered wise, I understood. So I did what an eighteen-year-old would do. I washed my hands of the whole thing and left home, never to return.”
“Except that now you intend to do just that,” she said as they crossed the road and made their way along South Audley Street.
