“I had not thought of that,” she said. “Do you suppose it is true?”
“If they are prepared to make such a long journey in the dead of winter just to meet you,” he said, “I would say it is undoubtedly true.”
“Oh,” she said, and she closed her eyes.
He let her rest while he poked the fire in order to disperse the flames more evenly. A shower of sparks crackled up the chimney.
“They sent him away,” she said without opening her eyes, “after he had fallen in love with his brother’s wife and then killed his brother in a fight. But she followed him and they married.”
“Your mother?” he asked, seating himself again.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it must have been a great and very painful love. One filled with guilt. I wonder if they ever knew a moment of happiness.”
Probably not. The William Osbourne he remembered had certainly not been an unfeeling brute of a man.
“He wrote,” she said, “that my mother paid the ultimate price when she died giving birth to me and that now it was his turn.”
“But why then?” he asked. “Why did he wait twelve years?”
He thought she would not answer him, and he certainly would not press. This was her story. He had no right to hear it unless she chose to tell him. But she did answer after a while.
“His secret was out,” she said. “He had recently told Sir Charles himself since someone was trying to blackmail him by threatening to expose him. But then sh—. But then thatpersondecided to ruin him anyway by telling untrue stories that surely would have been believed when his past was disclosed too.”
It sounded, Peter thought, like something a woman might do—a scorned woman. And Susanna had been about to sayshebefore she used the more neutralpersoninstead. Poor Osbourne. Perhaps he had tried to find comfort in another woman’s arms, and it had cost him his life.
He was facing disgrace and perhaps worse,she had said earlier. Worse than disgrace?
Hadrapebeen the threatened charge, then?
“It has just struck me,” she said, “that my one grandfather and grandmother lost two sons within twelve years of each other, and that my other grandfather lost a daughter. And that the circumstances must have been particularly painful for all of them.”
“And then,” he said, “they lost you when you disappeared.”
“Theodore told me,” she said, “that they searched for me but could not find me.”
She spread both hands over her face.
He knew after a few moments that she was not weeping but that it was costing her an enormous effort to control her tears. He got up out of his chair, crossed to her, and without really thinking of what he did, scooped her up into his arms, leaving her cloak behind, and sat on the sofa with her on his lap. He cradled her head against his shoulder and held it there when she buried her face against him, her hands still covering it, and wept.
He knew that she was weeping out eleven years’ worth of grief—for her mother and father, for her grandparents, perhaps for her dead uncle. And for herself. He held her and let her cry as long as she needed to. At last he offered her a handkerchief, and she took it and dried her eyes and blew her nose before putting it away in a pocket of her own.
“I am sorry,” she said, resting the side of her head against his shoulder again. “Did you even know I was at Fincham?”
“I did,” he said. “Why do you think I went there this morning?”
“Theodore said something about an invitation for his mother,” she said.
“An invitation for you all,” he said, “but especially for you. There is to be a ball at Sidley on Christmas evening. We have a houseful of guests and I have invited everyone from the neighborhood too. It will be the first grand event that I have hosted at Sidley. You must come.”
“Oh, no, Peter,” she said, sitting up and looking down at him with troubled eyes. “I cannot possibly do that.”
“You can,” he said. “It isforyou. I thought you would be proud of me. It is a very little dragon I have slain, but I have done it anyway. It was my idea, and I have done all of the planning and all of the inviting. Don’t refuse to come. Please don’t.”
He would not want to attend himself if she did not—and that would lead to a mildly absurd situation.
“As host,” he said, “I will have to dance all evening. I will have to waltz with someone else if you are not there.”
“Oh, Peter,” she said, cupping one of her palms about his cheek.
