But now she felt all of that could be behind them. She could help him get over the lingering grief, or whatever it was that remained on his mind.
She thought back to Juliet’s words. What had she said? About the rumors below stairs?
She shook her head. Well, Juliet was her friend, after all. But she didn’t know Lucien. She didn’t really know anything about life among the Quality, and the way people could talk. She’d never had servants. She had neverbeena servant. She didn’t know the tattle below stairs.
“Marianne,” Lucien called behind her, and she turned.
“Pray take care not to lose your way. My grandfather designed rather a labyrinth of a maze.”
“Henry has already run inside. I can see him nowhere.”
He had caught up to her and took her hand. “Do not fret. Henry has grown up running around in this maze. He knows his way better than I do.”
“My sister mentioned something along those lines. That he knew his way very well. But that he was not very much help for her to get back out.”
He laughed. “Yes, he likes to do that. Henry is an expert when it comes to finding his way through this maze, but he will not help others. He enjoys getting lost and asking for help. He possesses a mischievous nature.”
“A trait inherited from his father, perhaps?” she asked, curling her fingers around his as they walked the maze together.
He shrugged. “I confess to my own share of mischief.”
His hand was warm in hers, and she realized that once again she had forgotten her gloves. Back at the convent, she hadn’t worn them because it was not customary, and she had gotten used to the feeling of her hands unencumbered by cloth.
“Thank you for all you did for him,” he said, his voice tender. “These last few days, and since you’ve arrived here.”
“I do not think I have done very much for him. At least not before he took ill. Yes, I played with him, but I think I was rather difficult. I was excessively reserved.”
“You were, but you persevered. That is all that matters. That is all I wanted—for him to see you as a friend.”
A friend. The words gave her pause, for surely now they were more than that. They had slept together, though not in an intimate way. Yet, it hadfeltintimate to her. Not the way a husband and wife would be intimate, of course —her cheeks burned at the thought. But there had been an intimacy between them, a connection. Something that united them. At least she had felt that way. But now he was speaking of her as though she were a friend.
“I want to be what is best for Henry. I want him to feel comfortable.”
“He does. He likes you very much,” Lucien said.
“I am glad. He asks a lot of questions, though,” Marianne admitted. “A couple of days ago, before he got ill, he asked me why humans don’t leap like frogs. I was quite at a loss for a reply.”
Lucien laughed. “He has a way of posing such queries. The good thing is that he usually forgets them. So if you can distract him from whatever the question was that you do not know the answer to, then he will forget. Although I must say, I have learned a great many things since he got to the age where he will ask questions. I find myself perpetually hastening to the library to read through various encyclopedias to find the answers. Why is the sky blue? Why are there oceans between the continents? Why do birds fly?”
She chuckled. “I remember asking many of those questions myself when I was a child. Although I do not recall the answers. My mother had a way about her that was always similar to your approach. She would tell me stories, and they would make me forget the question I had asked. My father never had time to even listen to questions.” She shrugged. That emptiness within her whenever she spoke about her father had returned.
“I always vowed not to be like my father,” Lucien said. “I wanted to be better than him. I wanted Henry to have a father who caredand a mother who loved him.” He shrugged. “But that wasn’t the case.”
“His mother never had a chance to care for him,” she said quietly. “I’m sure if she had lived, she would’ve been wonderful.”
Lucien looked at her from the corner of his eye. “I think not. She possessed no warmth of heart. She was very much wanting in kindness.” The hardness in his voice struck her. Once again, she thought back to Juliet’s words and what she had discovered about their marriage. Had it really been such a bad one?
“But surely she would’ve discovered tenderness within herself for her own child?”
Lucien’s head whipped toward her, and she saw that she had said something that upset him.
“Your father showed no tenderness towards you. You told me as much.”
Marianne swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “That is true. But I always assumed that for a mother, that would be different.”
“That is a mistaken notion held by many,” Lucien told her. “It is always believed in our society that mothers are tender and kind and caring, no matter what. That is thought to be their natural disposition. And it is thought, too, that it is hard for fathers to have the sort of love and affection for their children that isusually supposed to come from the mother. But that is not the case. I know full well my numerous failings, but I know I am a good father, and I know that Henry’s mother would’ve been a terrible mother. Just as she was a terrible wife.”
Marianne inhaled sharply. She’d been a terrible wife? It was true. Their marriage had been bad.
