“It would be difficult to resent Alexander even if I felt so inclined,” he said. “He really did not want the title or the responsibilities that went with it, you know, and his position was made very much more awkward by the fact that my father’s fortune did not accompany the title and properties, since they were entailed and it was not. The fortune went to my father’s only legitimate child—my half sister, Anna, now the Duchess of Netherby. Alex is hardworking and conscientious and has repaired the effects of years of neglect at Brambledean Court, the ancestral home of the earldom. He has done it with the help of Wren, his wife, who brought a fortune of her own to their marriage. He did not marry her just for her money, I must add. They are extremely fond of each other.”
But it still must have been unbearably painful for Harry, Lydia thought, to see his cousin do what ought to have been his task.
“I put all the blame where it belongs,” he continued. “I suppose you know the story. How my father could have done what he did to his first wife when she was dying of consumption and he married my mother for her dowry I do not know. It was a wickedness compounded by the fact that he hid Anna away in an orphanage even though she had maternal grandparents who adored her and would have been only too happy to raise her. And how he could have done what he did to my mother and ultimately to my sisters and me is beyond understanding—or forgiveness. Generally speaking, one is expected to give loyalty and affection to one’s parents, but in the case of my father it has been impossible to do.”
“I am sorry,” she said. “It was an impertinent question.” And what a dreadful burden to bear—the inability to love or respect one’s father.
“Not so,” he said. “Friends ought to be willing to share some personal details with each other.”
He paused and hesitated a few moments, one hand turning his cup on the table. He looked up at her then, and there was something troubled and hard in his eyes, something Lydia had never seen there before. His voice, when he spoke again, was abrupt.
“But friends should also be honest with each other,” he said. “Of courseI resented Alex. Ihatedhim. Suddenly he hadmytitle andmyproperties andmyresponsibilities. He even had myname, for the love of God. And I hated Anna, who wastotallyinnocent and had grown up in an orphanage not even knowing her true identity. But suddenly she hadmybirthright andmyfortune. She was being welcomed with open arms into the bosom ofmyfamily— of which, by the way, I had so recently been the head—while my mother and my sisters were outcast and lost all the identity they had ever known.And there was nothing I could do about iteven though I was the man of our own family. When Anna tried to insist that she share the fortune with us, her half siblings, I hated her even more. It seemed like such presumptuous condescension. I was consumed with hatred, Lydia. Perhaps I was fortunate to be able to turn it in a very physical form against the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose ultimate ambition was to invade and take overmy country.”
Lydia no longer leaned slightly toward him, her elbows on the table. She sat back in her chair and stared intently across at him. He looked different. His usual expression of open good humor had vanished. Until it returned all in a rush.
“I do beg your pardon,” he said. “That was all probably far more than you wanted to know.”
“But I did ask,” she said.
“You did.” He smiled and then laughed and put the last bite of toast into his mouth with a hand that shook slightly.
“Do you still feel that way?” she asked. She had not seen him as a man who hated or bore grudges. Yet how could he not have done both?
“About Alex and Anna?” He frowned in thought again, his eyes on his mug as he turned it slowly between his hands. “No. And even at first, when everything was too raw for common sense to prevail, I knew that I was being unfair to hate them or even to resent them. Neither had done anything whatsoever to hurt either me or my family. That was all on my father. And Alex genuinely did not want what had been mine. He would have repudiated it if he could. Anna would too, I believe. At the time she was teaching at the orphanage in Bath where she had grown up, and she was contented there and attached to her pupils. It must have been more than bewildering for her suddenly to discover that she had a family—an aristocratic family, no less. And to learn that she was fabulously wealthy. She was pathetically delighted to find that she had a brother and sisters— us. Camille, Abby, and me. We shunned her, turned our backs on her, flatly and contemptuously refused her offer to share her fortune with us. We behaved despicably and shamefully.”
“But very understandably,” Lydia said.
“You are too kind,” he said. “No, I do not still hate them. Or resent them. I can only hope they do not hate me. Or— worse—pity me. It certainly did not help that I was carried home here four years ago, more dead than alive after more than one encounter with an enemy bulletandan enemy blade at Waterloo. Or that Alexander and Avery—the Duke of Netherby, Anna’s husband—helped do the carrying. Hinsford Manor does not even belong to me, you know—or perhaps you did not know. It is Anna’s, though she has tried several times to gift it to me. According to her, I have a moral right to it. And she has insisted upon willing it to me and my descendants. In the meantime we have agreed that I will live here on its income—and pay its expenses. They are good people, Alex and Anna. Better than I deserve.”
Lydia had not heard any of this from anyone in the village, though a number of people understandably talked about him, wondered about him, and speculated. Most people here could remember him as a boy, son of the Earl of Riverdale, being brought up to take his father’s place one day. People remembered his mother, the countess, with respect and affection. They remembered him and his sisters in the same way. And it had always seemed to Lydia that they held Major Westcott in the same high esteem now as they had always done in the past even though he had lost everything, even his legitimacy. But no one, she suspected, knew many inside details of his life now, even though they frequently met him at various social events.
She felt touched, privileged, at what he had told her. He must trust that she would not go about the village blabbing to their neighbors. For despite his friendliness with everyone, he kept himself very private and well hidden behind that mask of cheerful amiability. Though it was not really a mask. There was nothing false about it.
She knew all about masks from her own experience. Nobody here—or anywhere—really knew her. Even her new women friends. Even her father and her brothers. She knew what it was like to project an outer image—quiet, self-effacing modesty in her case—and keep almost everything that was her to herself.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I must be sounding very self-pitying. And very self-absorbed. It is your turn. One thing has been puzzling me since last evening. You told me how protective your father and your brothers were as you grew up. You told me how your late husband came to your house at the invitation of your older brother, and how he courted you and then married you. You mentioned that a few other potential suitors had come there before him. But why is it, since you are the daughter of a gentleman of property and fortune who is therefore, presumably, a member of theton—why is it you were never taken to London for a come-out Season, Lydia? Or were you?”
“No,” she said. “My father and brothers love nothing more than to reminisce about the bold exploits of their youth and the wild oats they sowed, though I suppose I only ever heard strictly expurgated versions of those stories. However, it was those very memories that worked to my disadvantage. They were united in their determination not to expose me to all the wickedness that existed in the world beyond our doors—and they knew all about that wickedness. It was all really quite funny and quite horrible for me. I must be kept away from London and the dangers of a Season there at all costs. One would have thought from listening to them that the balls and parties and masquerades and such for which the spring Season is known were absolute cesspools of vice. They were positively frightened for their dearest Lydie.”
Harry laughed, but he tipped his head to one side and regarded her with what looked like sympathy too.
“They were terrified I would fall prey to rakes and scoundrels and fortune hunters,” she said. “They were not even consoled when my aunt, my father’s sister, offered to bring me out under her sponsorship and supervision. My father quarreled with her years ago when she made what he considered a rash marriage with an unworthy man. I daresay he was afraid she would encourage me to do the like, though on the only occasion when I met my uncle, I liked him considerably and it seemed to me that he and my aunt were happy together. In any case, I had no come-out Season.”
He was leaning back in his chair, one hand playing idly with his cup. “Were you very disappointed?” he asked.
She hesitated. It seemed disloyal to complain, especially when she had never doubted her father’s love for her or that of her brothers. But—he had been honest with her.
“Bitterly,” she admitted, smiling ruefully. “I begged and wheedled. I wept and sulked. I may even have had a tantrum or two. I know I almost made myself ill. I hated them all heartily for a long while and told them so on more than one occasion. None of it did any good. There is no shifting my father when he has once made up his mind on a subject, and my brothers are not really any different. Sometimes, Harry, it is downright painful to be loved.” She laughed softly, though the memories were not amusing ones.
“I know,” he said. “But I am sorry you were deprived of the pleasures of a London Season. It happened to my younger sister too, though for a different reason. Our illegitimacy was discovered just as she was preparing to make her debut. I believe I might have coped with my own situation much better if my mother and my sisters had been saved from suffering. I wish you had not been made so unhappy, and all in the name of love. You must have been full of youthful hopes and dreams.”
Oh, she liked him, Lydia thought suddenly. She had found him attractive for a long while, but she had not really known she would like him too. Shedid, though. He was a vulnerable man, a fact that made him seem more approachable. He was also a kind man. He seemed to care about other people’s sufferings more than he did about his own. And if there had indeed been some self-pity in his reactions to his own sudden loss all those years ago, it was something he had quickly recognized and fought against. Now her long-ago disappointment over her lost Season saddened him even though it seemed trivial when compared with what had happened to him.You must have been full of youthful hopes and dreams.Ah, and so must he have been.
“It must be lovely to have sisters,” she said, surprised by the wistfulness in her own voice. “Tell me about yours. But please do have some biscuits. I made them specially for you.”
“Since they are ginger, my favorite, I will,” he said, putting two on his plate. “Did you really make them just for me?”
“I did.” Lydia fetched the coffeepot and filled his mug again. “Because you had come here to chop wood just for me.”
