“You’re welcome.” Her whisper was so quiet that he scarcely heard it.
“Your face does not feel as if it is scarred. Have the years healed your wounds so thoroughly?”
“My face, thankfully, was never burned. It was my nightgown that caught fire. The scars still remain on my hand and arm, down the side of my body, and on my leg. Fortunately, few are where they are easily seen.”
He wondered suddenly how she had fared that day at the modiste. He had not accompanied her into the shop, but he now realized it might have been a hardship for her to be measured and fitted for gowns and other clothing. Perhaps that was also why she had refused Mrs. McNeil’s offer of an additional dress when she had first arrived.
He sought to reassure her that what she looked like did not matter to him. “Our scars are evidence of our triumphs. They show what we have overcome. You need not be ashamed of them.”
“Yours were earned honorably in battle. It has been different for me. My aunt—” She broke off, and he imagined her shaking her head as she held back whatever it was she had been about to say.
“Your aunt what?” he prodded.
“I should not tell you. It would only cause problems if she found out, and—”
“Your aunt is not here. Nor does she have reason to ever be, as my betrothal to her daughter has been officially ended.” He leaned forward, placing a hand upon Beatrice’s arm. “Tell me, please.” He had to know what troubled her. He had to know so he could fix it.
“She spread a rumor that it was I who—”
Theodore waited, hoping his patience would encourage her.
“It is too awful. I cannot say it.”
His fingers slid to her hand. He grasped it tightly. “It may be that you will feel better for telling it.”
“It may be that I will feel worse. That you will view me as others do.”
“My opinion of you is based solely on our past month together. Nothing your aunt has said will sway that.” He squeezed her hand once, then released it and leaned back. “But I will not force you to share something you do not wish to.”
“I want to tell you, but I do not wish you to think the worst of me as everyone else does.” The tremor in her voice filled him with sorrow.
“You are the first person—the only person, aside from my uncle—who has ever treated me kindly, who hasn’t thought me a terrible person.”
Had he not done just that upon her arrival? Theodore squirmed uncomfortably, regretful of those first days with her and the things he had said, the way he had behaved. If he was the kindest person she had known, then her life had to have been misery.Years of it.He’d had only months of suffering and yet look what it had reduced him to before she came. How had her years of loneliness and suffering molded her into the gentlest soul he’d ever known?
“Tell me,” he said once more. “Trust me.”
“I do.” She reached for him as he did for her so often. He enfolded her hands in his, reassuring, promising that all would be well.
“My aunt—” Beatrice took a deep breath. “She told everyone thatIstarted the fire that killed my family. Anyone who has seen my scars views them as well deserved and the mark of a murderer.”
Theodore held back words not appropriate for polite society. “I might just becomea murderer if I ever cross paths with your aunt again. What an abhorrent thing to do—and toward a child. What possessed the woman to say—? Perhaps she is possessed.”
“Onlyobsessed,” Beatrice said sadly.
“What do you mean?” Theodore tilted his head, his curiosity growing.
“She cannot forget the past. She is obsessed with my mother, or rather the relationship my uncle had with her. He courted my mother before he met my aunt. He even asked her to marry him, but she was in love with my father and chose him instead.”
“Your mother spurned your uncle for his untitled younger brother?”
“She loved my father,” Beatrice said, her tone defensive. “They went to India to get away from my uncle and the hard feelings between the brothers—or at least that is the story I’ve gleaned from the servants over the years.”
“So, when you came back to live with him...” This was starting to make sense now. Albeit in an unpleasant sort of way. This was no fairy tale with a happy ending.
“I didn’t know about any of this for a long time,” Beatrice said. “I had no idea until a few years ago when I overheard my aunt and uncle arguing. She accused him of never loving her the way he had loved my mother. My uncle told my aunt that she was right—that hedidn’tlove her.”
“Seems the wrong thing for him to have said,” Theodore muttered.
