“When? While you were still a child? You were too impulsive and naturally demonstrative. I was afraid that if you hugged or kissed me when Robert was around, he would get even more vicious or cause some serious accident. I couldn’t take that risk. But I was with you when they weren’t around. Surely you remember that?”
“It was too late. All I remember is being rebuffed.”
“Is it still too late?” Harriet had some tears in her own eyes.
Brooke was incredulous that she ended up comforting her mother that day. But all she’d ever needed to hear were those three simple words. It was amazing how quickly they could ease all that old pain.
She smiled and hugged her mother close. “It’s never too late.”
Much more was said, but none of it mattered now that Brooke understood her mother’s past actions and behavior. Harriet’s keeping her from dining with the family was to shield her from Thomas’s harshness and his notice. Robert took the brunt of that harshness. Harriet’s fighting so bitterly with Thomas that he even struck her occasionally, but when he slapped Brooke the one time she let her temper loose on him was when Harriet knew she had to convince him she was on his side in everything and come up with ways to keep Brooke away from him. Alfreda had reported to her every single day, every single thing that Brooke had done or learned. They had become good friends.
“I was so looking forward to this Season of yours and getting you away from Thomas for good, before he realized what a prize you are and started plotting for a marriage you would have liked even less. When we got the Regent’s edict instead, I did hope you would be happy with Lord Wolfe. I thought surely he would be getting on his knees and thanking Prinny for giving you to him. I even laughed, imagining it. But it turns out he’s a fool instead, preferring vengeance to his own happiness. So be it. We will find you someone wonderful so you won’t need to give him another thought.”
If only that were possible. Maybe in the next century. But Brooke could try.
“Oh, sonowshe deserts us,” Harriet said as she got up and saw that Alfreda had quietly left. “Come, I’ll help you unpack. I hope you like the room. I had it redecorated for you to use during your Season.”
Harriet started opening the trunks and carrying piles of clothes to a prettily carved bureau. Brooke wondered if her mother had ever before unpacked a trunk in her life. But Brooke got up to help, even if it was absently. Too much had happened that day, finding out about her mother’s ulterior motives, finding out how much Anna Wolfe hated her, finding out how relieved Dominic was to be rid of her, even if it did cost him some coal mines. He’d probably thanked Anna as soon as Brooke was out of the room for doing what he hadn’t thought to do, bribing the Regent to go away. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? Or did he?
“What are you doing with this old thing?” Harriet said as she opened a fan with a flip of her wrist, then grinned when a paper fell out of one of the panels. “Hiding love letters?”
Brooke was surprised. “No, that’s not even mine. It belonged to Eloise Wolfe. I should return it to Dominic.”
“That poor girl.” Harriet picked up the folded paper and set it with the fan on Brooke’s new vanity. “I need to tell Thomas what you said about Robert last night. I might love my son because he is my son, but I don’t like what he’s become and if he’s now plotting murder—”
“Don’t say anything about that.” Brooke admitted, “I was angry when I said what I did, and angry when Robert handed me that vial. I only assumed it was poison, while he said it wasn’t and I didn’t even check it to be sure, so it might not have been. I do hate him. If he got disowned, I wouldn’t shed a tear about it. But he can’t be accused of worse than what you already knew about, his seduction of innocents, and he apparently hasn’t done any more of that since Thomas warned him not to. Besides, Dominic is signing a pledge to leave him alone now. That should be the end of it.”
“I think I’ll have him watched, anyway, just to be sure. It won’t be the first time I’ve had to.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
LUNCH AND THEN DINNER; Brooke was beginning to think Harriet was never going to leave her side that day. Brooke didn’t mind at all. She was also used to Harriet’s nonstop chatter, but today it didn’t seem at all nervous the way Brooke remembered it from her childhood. Today Harriet was just keeping Brooke’s mind offhim.And it mostly worked.
“Your father would like a word, some bit of formal speech now that you’re having your Season.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Not today, of course. I’ve explained that you’re upset. He doesn’t deal well with ‘upset.’ But sometime this week? It will keep him from coming downstairs to see for himself whom you’re receiving.”
“I’m not receiving anyone.”
“You will. I’m accepting every invitation I have, and there will be a lot more after it’s announced that you’re a true debutante now.”
“Don’t overdo it,” Alfreda had cautioned during this discussion. “She needs some time to get over the fact that the wolf let her walk out his door.”
“Nonsense,” Harriet disagreed. “She needs distractions, lots and lots of distractions so she doesn’t have time to think about that—”
Alfreda had interrupted to tell Brooke, “Give him a week and he’ll be knocking on your door.”
She gave him two weeks, two hectic weeks, but she didn’t see Dominic at even one of the events Harriet had taken her to, and then she finally found out why from his friend Archer. Dominic had returned to Rothdale almost immediately after their—broken wedding. His leaving London and apparently giving up on her made her even sadder. She wished she were back at Rothdale, too. So many memories she had from her time in that wild, beautiful north country, the fun she had getting to know Dominic, riding Rebel across the moors, finding Storm. How many times could one heart break?
But her mother did her best to fill her days with distractions. She was surrounded by suitors at each event, andtheywere certainly knocking on her door. She did become as popular as Harriet had predicted.
Brooke was able to avoid that talk with her father for at least a week by tiptoeing past his door—whywas it always left open?—or running past it when she heard him talking with a servant. But he did finally bark her name, forcing her to enter that room. He still hadn’t recovered from this trip to London. She still wasn’t willing to help with the aching joints keeping him abed, especially now that she knew her mother didn’t even like him, and Harriet had balked when Brooke had suggested it a few days ago, claiming, “You don’t want him downstairs scaring away your suitors.”
But maybe she did. She wasn’t exactly interested in any of those suitors yet.
“You have some names for me?” Thomas had demanded when she reached his bedside.
