“I want to see them,” he said. “I want to see Lizzie.”
“And she wants to see you,” she told him. “She knows you are here, not far away from her. At the same time, she is convinced that the girls will no longer like her if they know she has a father, and such a wealthy one. She has told me that if you come she will pretend not to know you. She thinks it would be a funny game.”
And of course it would suit his purposes admirably. But he felt grim at the very thought that for different reasons they must hide their relationship from others.
Miss Martin touched his hand, just as Gwen had done a few minutes ago.
“She is really quite happy,” she told him. “She thinks of these weeks as a marvelous adventure, though she told me last night that she still does not want to go to school. She wants to go home.”
He felt strangely comforted by the thought—strange when it would be far more convenient for him if she went away.
“She may change her mind,” she said.
“Is she educable, then?” he asked her.
“I think she may be,” she said, “and Eleanor Thompson agrees with me. It would take some ingenuity, of course, to fit her into our routine with tasks that are both meaningful and possible for her, but we have never shunned a doable challenge.”
“What personal satisfaction do you draw from your life?” he asked, leaning a little closer to her. And then he wished fervently that he had not asked such an impulsive and impertinent question.
“There are many persons in my life, Lord Attingsborough,” she said, “whom I can love in both an abstract, emotional sense and in practical ways. Not everyone can say as much.”
It was not a good enough answer.
“But does there not have to be one special someone?” he asked her.
“Like Lizzie for you?” she asked.
It was not what he had meant. Even Lizzie was not enough. Oh, she was, shewas—but…But not for that deep core of himself that craved a mate, an equal, a sexual partner.
He completely forgot for the moment that he already had such a person in his life. He had a betrothed.
“Yes,” he said.
“But it is not what you meant, is it?” she asked him, searching his eyes with her own. “We are not all fated to find that special someone, Lord Attingsborough. Or if we are, sometimes we are fated also to lose that person. And what do we do when it happens? Sit around moping and feeling tragic for the rest of our lives? Or find other people to love, other people to benefit from the love that wells constantly from within ourselves if we do not deliberately stop the flow?”
He sat back in his chair, his eyes still on her. Ah, but he did indeed have that special someone in his life. But only on the periphery of it—and always to remain there. She had come too late. Though there would never have been the right time, would there? Miss Martin was not of his world—and he was not of hers.
“I choose to love others,” she said. “I love all my girls, even those who are least lovable. And, believe me, there are plenty of those.” She smiled.
But she had admitted to what he had always suspected, always sensed in her. She was an essentially lonely woman. As he was essentially lonely—on the very evening when a large company of relatives and friends had gathered to celebrate his betrothal and he had persuaded himself that he was happy.
He was going to have to make this up to Portia. He was going to have to love her with all the deliberate power of his will.
“I must try to emulate you, Miss Martin,” he said.
“It is perhaps enough,” she said, “that you love Lizzie.”
Ah, she knew, then. Or she knew, at least, that he did not love Portia as he ought.
“But is it enough that I will not acknowledge her publicly?” he asked.
She tipped her head slightly to one side and thought—a characteristic reaction of hers when other persons might have rushed into a glib answer.
“I know you feel guilty about that,” she said, “and perhaps with good reason. But not for the reason you always fear. You arenotashamed of her. I have seen you with her and I can assure you of that. But you are trapped between two worlds—the one you have inherited and to which you are firmly committed by the fact that you are the heir to a dukedom, and the one you made for yourself when you created Lizzie with your mistress. Both worlds are important to you—the one because you are impelled by duty, the other because you are enmeshed in love. And both are worlds that will pull at you forever.”
“Forever.” He smiled ruefully at her.
“Yes,” she said. “Duty and love. But especially love.”
