“Mama did not collapse outwardly,” she continued when he said nothing. “But she did suffer some sort of emotional... shutdown, if there is such a word. Like a candle being snuffed. My father was no longer perfect in my eyes. He was human. He was flawed. I was fifteen and ought to have been old enough to realize that even before the great collapse. But I did not. I was still living in the dream world of happy children who have not yet been nudged out of the nest to experience the harsher realities of life.”
“I know just what you mean,” he said.
Didhe? Was not the process of growing up and maturing far more gradual and therefore far more gentle for most people?
“Then, a few years later, he died,” she said. “Suddenly. Of a heart seizure. It happened at the village tavern, which added a horrible element of farce to the whole tragedy. I had never stopped loving him, Lord Roath, though I had been dreadfully disillusioned when I was confronted with his flaws. I still have not stopped. I loved him and I love him.”
“That is the hard part, is it not?” he said. “Even while one hates with a terrible intensity, sometimes one comes to realize that hate and love are just two sides of the same coin. Hatred is impossible to sustain. For love is more powerful. And more enduring.”
She gazed mutely at him. How did heknowthat? How was it he understood?
“I did hate him for what he had done to our family,” she said. “Mama blamed Devlin for making such a public scene over Papaand his mistress when he caught them together. She told him—Devlin, that is—to go away. That was why he went, and Ben went with him for reasons of his own. They were gone for six years. I hated Papa for what he had done to my mother, for it was clear she had alwaysknownand had lived with the knowledge that she had a faithless husband. I hated him—selfishly—for what he had done tome.I was fifteen years old and bubbling over with happy dreams of parties and balls and beaux in the near future. But the dreams all faded away in one single night. I hated him. As time went on, though, I could not keep on hating. You are right. He was the same person I had known and adored all my life. The only change was that my eyes had been opened to his imperfections. For the last three years of his life I saw him as he was. I did not like everything I saw, but there were other things... He was still my father. He was still warm with affection for us and for everyone else, and... Well.” She shrugged.
“I am sorry,” he said. He held up a staying hand when she drew breath to speak again. “I am sorry you had to suffer that way. I am sorry you had to grow up so abruptly.”
“Did you come here this morning to make me a marriage offer, Lord Roath?” she asked him.
He sighed audibly. “I was not sure of the answer to that question even as I was knocking upon the door,” he said. “I came because my grandfather had arranged it—without my knowledge—and the Earl of Stratton had agreed to it. It would have been a terrible discourtesy to both of them—and to you—if I had refused to come. I did not know if your brother was aware of what once happened between you and me. I did not know if I would tell him if he was not. I rather thought I might, though I was not sure. It occurred to me that if you had kept it secret from everyone all these years, you might wish it to remain that way. If Strattondidknow,as it turned out he did, then I did not know what to expect. I did not know if I would be given the chance to speak to you. I was certainly not sure either way that I would make you an offer if I were given the chance. In other words, Lady Philippa, my mind was abuzz with contradictory thoughts as I came here this morning. There was one thing I knew with absolute certainty, however. If I had the opportunity at least to speak with you, I was going to tell you a story I have never told a living soul before and believed I never would.”
They gazed at each other. His face looked pale and troubled. Philippa wondered if hers looked similar.
“About my father?” she asked.
He nodded. “About your father.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lucas’s thoughts touched upon his grandparents, who at this very moment were probably imagining that he had worked out an amicable marriage settlement with Stratton, shaken him by the hand, and made his offer to Lady Philippa herself, complete with bended knee and lavish floral bouquet. Despite his warnings to the contrary, they were probably convinced that all was now smiles and celebration at Stratton House. They would be persuading themselves and each other that they were not at all anxious or impatient as they awaited his return.
It would seem extremely unlikely, to his grandfather at least, that she might actually refuse him. It would seem impossible that he would not even make an offer.
But here they were, he and Lady Philippa Ware, seated on opposite sides of the fireplace with its unlit coals, as unloverlike as any two people could be, frowning at each other.Notin anger, it was true. But frowning nonetheless.
And he realized, even more than he had before, the enormity ofwhat he had done. Those words he had spoken, which would have been cruel and hurtful at any time, had destroyed what had already been fragile and extremely vulnerable—her belief in any possibility of a happy future.
After he had told her his story, he was going to feel that he was suspended over an abyss, just waiting for the inevitable drop. Silence on the matter had become a part of his very being for the past eleven years. Now he must break that silence. He owed her that much.Herand no one else. But what she did with the knowledge, as he had told her brother, would be up to her. He could not—wouldnot—force an oath of silence upon her.
“I was fourteen years old,” he said, “and on holiday from school. It was late summer, but we were not having summer weather. The sky was heavy with gray clouds, the wind was blowing, it was raining—mostly drizzle rather than heavy stuff. It was chilly and downright miserable and had been that way for several days. I had gone to the study at Amberwell to read, but I knew there was no fire in there. I had brought a big pillow and a blanket from my room and made a warm nest for myself on the wide sill of one of the windows and made sure there was no gap between the curtains after I had settled there. The curtains were always kept drawn in that room because it was south facing and sunlight would damage the books on their shelves. When I heard someone come into the room after a while, I stayed very quiet in the hope that whoever it was would choose a book or find what else they needed and leave. Therewasa fire in the drawing room. But it was actually two people, I soon realized—my mother and father.”
He paused for a moment at the sound of voices in the hall beyond the door, but silence was restored within a few moments and no one came to disturb them.
“I kept quiet anyway,” he said, “for I knew that if I revealed myhiding place, they would accuse me of being antisocial and send me to find my sisters. For the past twelve years I have bitterly regretted that I didnotreveal myself. Within minutes it was impossible to do so.”
“Being an eavesdropper rarely turns out well, I suspect,” Lady Philippa said softly. She was thinking, no doubt, of the evening in that barn, when she had very probably been trying to overhear what he and the other men were saying some distance away from where the women were gathered.
“The doctor had been to the house to see my mother,” he said. “It was at my father’s insistence because she had been unwell for some time, though she had kept insisting there was nothing wrong with her.‘So,’my father said within moments of my hearing the library door close.‘You are with child. And are showing it already. The doctor’s considered opinion is that you are four months along.’ ‘Yes,’she said. She did not sound thrilled. Neither did he. I was simply open-mouthed with shock. Jenny was already eleven. Like boys everywhere, I suppose, I thought of my parents as old and past anything as embarrassing as the sort of activity that produced babies. Pardon me for such plain speaking. It was a bit horrifying to think of my mother having another child at her age. She was not far off forty. I can remember wondering how I would tell my friends at school, or if I would tell them at all. If only that personal embarrassment had been the worst of it.”
Lady Philippa had moved back in her chair. Her hands were gripping the arms, though not to the extent of turning her knuckles white.
“It is strange,” he said, “how some words spoken years ago can be seared upon one’s memory while others spoken yesterday are already forgotten.”
“Yes,” she said.
“My father spoke one word:‘April.’My mother spoke six: ‘It must have happened in March.’But it could not have happened in March, my father pointed out. She had had her courses the week before she left for London. I beg your pardon again for speaking so bluntly. At the time I did not even know what he was talking about. And then he went on to remind her that she had gone to London without him at the invitation of a cousin whose home was in Scotland but who was making a rare visit to town for the six weeks following Easter. It was the middle of May before my father went there himself.”
He watched Lady Philippa stretch her fingers before they gripped the arms of the chair again.
“There was a horrible quarrel,” he said, “while I battled with the almost overpowering urge to sneeze. I have probably forgotten most of what was said, though I remember the gist of it all too well. My father stated the obvious conclusion—that the child my mother was expecting was not his. She denied the accusation over and over but finally gave in and turned to defiance. What was he going to do about it? She sounded frightened as well as angry when she asked the question. My father sounded like a dead man. He demanded to know who the father was. It seemed for a while that she would hold out and refuse to tell him. But she did in the end.”
