She stiffened in my embrace and lifted her chin to look at me. “Mother was trying to save face and not have her family’s name soiled. I was trying to shield Noah from the awful truth. You know Noah, he will take what happened personally.”
“It is personal, Amelia.” I wished to spare him pain, but sometimes a man had to face things head-on, rather like I had with my marriage.
“It is personal for Sally, not for Noah.” Amelia scrambled off my lap, her color high. She began to pace the drawing room, flexing her fingers in and out of fists. “It was Sally’s journey, not Noah’s. He was at sea and had no idea because she chose to keep it from him. She even put on a false smile for me. How self-centered I was at the time not to notice. I dismissed her melancholy as normal because everyone told me it was normal.”
“Ladies are kept naïve for a reason. It wasn’t your fault.” It was a familiar subject Amelia, and I discussed over the years. She wasn’t shy about her desire for women to have more fundamental rights. My peers would be appalled to learn I agreed with many things she’d said. Having grown up around strong women, I had a healthy respect for their abilities. My grandmother hadn’t been shy about voicing her opinion. As a duchess, she was afforded leniency. Amelia would have the same platform.
“For a reason? Why, so we could be ignorant of the horrors of life, or when the horror happens to us, we are clueless as to why?”
“I understand your argument, but what you and your parents did to Noah wasn’t fair. He needs to know what happened so he can have a chance to heal.”
“In the diary, Sally said she hated the twins. She blamed them for stealing her joy and didn’t think she could ever love them. Once he reads the diary, he will know his children’s mother hated them.” She pressed her fist to her mouth, despair showing in her eyes.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean it.” I prayed she hadn’t, but Amelia was right; that would be a devastating blow. At least, it would be for me.
“And Mother let it slip she had felt the same way after I was born. If so, it would explain her animosity toward me. My own mother hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you, Amelia.” Although I wasn’t certain if that were true or not. Lady Ellen never showed any affection toward Amelia like she had for her grandsons.
“She despises me, and I live with that fact every day. The twins were spared that burden by Sally’s death, and I’m not sure if she didn’t purposely take her life because she knew what years of resentment would do to a soul. My mother is proof of thatburden.” She leaned her head back and stared at the ceiling, her entire frame rigid. I’d never seen Amelia cry with such vigor, not even after Sally died. My stomach twisted in knots over my inability to help her. Or Noah, for that matter.
“Regardless, he deserves the truth. What he chooses to do with it will be his burden.” Noah loved his boys more than life itself. I trusted he would keep the information to himself and not tell his children.
“He has the diary. He will read it and will hate us, all of us for not being there for Sally. My brother Albert was always indifferent to anyone but himself. I was too wrapped up with the season, Mother locked her up, and Father let her. All of us are guilty. All of us let Sally down.” Agony twisted her lips, and she fell to her knees, the wrenching sobs coming in waves.
I knelt before her, my hand on her back. There wasn’t much I could do to help her. “Sally made her own decision, and nothing you or your family did could have changed that. You can’t blame yourself, Amelia. You didn’t know.”
“I know now, I know now.” She turned her tear-ravaged face toward me and in a harsh whisper, said, “It happened to Mother and Sally. When I have a child, will it happen to me? Will I hate my child?”
I shook my head and drew her close. “You will not because now we know what to look for. If it happens to you, you will tell me. Promise?”
“I promise,” she said on a hiccup. “Although I am not sure what you can do.”
“I will not shame you because of it. I will try my best to understand the same way you have been with my unusual desires.” The world was ruled by men like me. I had money, power, and prestige. I also had a secret that would shame my family and cast darkness on the house of Hayesford. I was fortunate that my wife accepted me for who I was.
I would be that person for Amelia. And for Noah.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Lord Noah Peterson
I clutched the diary, my heart hammering in my chest. What I had overheard in the hallway was enough to make me terrified to read it. What had Sally done to cause such a rift in her family? I stopped in front of the window in my sitting room, unable to sit for long. I was supposed to be reviewing my estate books for an appointment with my man of business, but I was too upset to think.
Perhaps a walk outside might be in order. It had helped me in the past when Sally was in one of her moods. Nature had a soothing effect on me. I missed the sea and the freedom it represented.
