“Because—because—” There was a knot in his gut. In his heart. A wound he’d lived with as long as he could remember, suppurating within him. “It’s my fault,” he said, “that you can’t bring yourself to leave the house. My very existence has caused you nothing but pain. If not for me, we would not now be in the position we are. If not for me—”
“Oh, Henry.” The words emerged on a muffled sob, and Mother dragged her hand away from his to stifle it with her fingers. “Oh, my sweet, darling boy. That’s not true. I swear to you, it isn’t.”
“You and father always warned me,” he said in a low voice, “not to repeat your mistakes.”
“You have never been a mistake!”
The sharp cry surprised him, and he glanced up at last to see Mother flying out of her seat. For the first time in months she embraced him—like he was again the child he had once been. Her fingers ruffled his hair with the same affection they had always had.
He had never doubted her love. But he had always thought it had been hampered by the weight of what he had cost her.
“My mistake,” she said, “was in burdening you with this before you were even born. You were always innocent, and I—I brought you into a world filled with so much uncertainty. I loved your father from the very beginning, as he loved me, and if I had only trusted that love a little more, a little sooner, I could have spared you so much pain.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “I could have spared you a childhood filled with brawling.”
Henry startled. “You knew?”
“Always. Every time. Even if you would never tell me yourself.” Another tiny sound, almost a whimper. “For whatother reason does a boy so kind and well-mannered come home with blackened eyes, if not because he was put into a position where he was forced to defend his mother’s honor? My heart broke for you, each time. Every time you came home with a bruised cheek or a split lip, I knew it was on my account.” Again a soft riffle of her fingers through his hair. “I have made mistakes,” she said, “and you, my sweet boy, were made to pay for them. Butyouwere never a mistake. You are my pride and my joy, and there had never been a single moment in which I was anything less than proud of you.”
All these years, he had tried so very hard to be perfect. To be a son shecouldbe proud of. To alleviate that shame he had brought to her. “I thought—I always thought—I had to be perfect,” he said, with a tremulous breath.
“Henry, no one is perfect. Not even you, sweetheart. The most we can ever do is our best.”
He hadn’t even done that, lately. In fact, he’d been at his very worst. So determined to be perfect that he’d fallen shorter of it than ever. But perfection had never been mother’s expectation of him, nor father’s. It had only been his own muddled mind which had demanded it.
And in that moment when he’d let his own anxiety get the best of him, when he’d thought he’d blundered in the same manner he had always been warned against, he had let those anxieties—those insecurities that had been his since childhood—hurt Grace.
He’d given to her the very same pain he’d suffered.
The mistake hadn’t been in loving, or in being loved. It had been in leaving things unsaid. In letting fear sink its vicious claws in and rip away any possibility of joy. Was it already too late for him? Had he, in trying to avoid it, made it a self-fulfilling prophecy?
“I had no idea you felt this way,” Mother said as she releasedhim at long last to dab at her eyes. “Oh, Henry, I am so very sorry. I should have spoken to you long ago.”
But how could she have known? He had never told her until now. It had taken a whole dismantling of his life to bring him to this point; to the point where he had nothing left to lose—quite literally. “I should have told you,” he said. So many things he ought to have told her. For so long, now. “I’m afraid Grace won’t have me,” he admitted. “I behaved very poorly evening last. I made her think something that wasn’t true.”
Mother settled into her chair once more. “Which was?”
“That I had to marry her,” he said. “Instead of that I wanted to marry her. I didn’t—I didn’t want to place her in the position you had once been in. To give her a reason to be ashamed. Nor to let anybody else shame her.” And in the doing of it,hehad shamed her.
“Oh, Henry,” Mother said softly, reaching for his hand once again. And where he would once have expected to find judgment, he found only comfort.
“The truth of it is, I have wanted to marry her for some time.”
“Then you must clear up this misapprehension immediately,” Mother said, squeezing his hand. “Don’t let things fester and rot between you.”
“I would,” he said, “but she won’t see me.” He winced. “Possibly I compounded my error,” he said, “by visiting this morning to declare my intentions to her brother-in-law, the duke.”
“And he said?”
“Some very impolite—though justified—things which I won’t repeat in your hearing. Suffice it to say I do not expect to be welcome within their household anytime soon.” That weight settled once again in his stomach like lead. “I have to see her,” he said. “Even just once. Even if she tells me to go to hell.”
“Surely she wouldn’t.”
Henry chuckled weakly. “You don’t know Grace.”
“No,” Mother admitted. “But I would like to.” Another squeeze of his hand in gentle reassurance. “Do you suppose I have still got an invitation to attend tea? Would she…turn me away?”
Henry thought for a moment. Naturally his welcome had disappeared entirely. But he could not imagine Grace turning away anyone who had not personally offended her, for any reason—not even his mother. “I don’t believe she would,” he said. “But, Mother, there’s something you must know.” He held her fingers in his, hoping it would lend her strength. “Despite my best efforts—despite Grace’s—Uncle Nigel has gotten his hands on the evidence he requires. Probably he is even now putting it to use.”
For a moment Mother froze. “Oh,” she said at last, in a small voice.
