He took a long breath. ‘Harriet’s inside. She’s been waiting for us.’
Cornelia glanced towards the door and back again. Her mouth dropped open as if to speak, before she promptly closed it and hurried past him into the house. Lawrence turned to Esther.
Concern darkened her eyes. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘If Harriet’s here, it means my mother has taken a turn for the worse.’ Unwelcome guilt whispered through him that he’d suspected her illness a ruse.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She gently touched her fingers to his cheek. ‘I’ll go and leave you to be with your family.’
‘Would you stay? I want you to be a part of whatever happens in my life from now on. I hope you want that, too.’
She tilted her head, her gaze sympathetic. ‘Lawrence, it’s lovely you want me here, but if your mother is ill I’m not sure your sisters will want me—’
‘They will.’ He grasped her hand, aware of how selfish and domineering he behaved but unable to bear the thought of hearing whatever it was Harriet had to tell him without Esther beside him. He looked into her eyes. ‘Please. Will you come inside with me?’
She studied his face, her gaze unreadable until she closed her eyes and nodded.
Shame twisted inside him that he thought more of his own feelings than Esther’s. Whatever ailed his mother, it wasn’t Esther’s responsibility. He shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t make you come inside if you don’t want to. I apologise. Why don’t I ask Charles to drive you—’
She pressed her finger to his lips, her gaze soft. ‘I’m here now and if you want me with you, I want to be here, too.’
Relief lowered his shoulders. When and how had it come to be that he wanted Esther beside him in good times and bad? Would there be other moments, countless moments, in his life when he wouldn’t have the courage to face the inevitable without her? The possibility was terrifying, yet thinking of her away from him even more so.
Touching his hand to her back, he guided her into the house.
As they walked upstairs, his sisters’ murmurs drifted from the open drawing room door, mixing with the childish shouts of Rose, Nathanial and his nephews as they played in the nursery upstairs.
Lawrence glanced at Esther and she nodded her encouragement. He inhaled a long breath and entered the drawing room.
Cornelia and Harriet abruptly halted their conversation and looked at him.
Obligation, culpability and resistance burned inside Lawrence as their expectancy bore down on him. Harriet looked older than he remembered. The sparkle that was once so prevalent in her eyes had vanished, leaving behind a hard, lacklustre shade of blue rather than sapphire. Her complexion was ashen, her jaw and cheekbones far too pronounced. Yet, the stiff lift of her chin showed her stout comportment. A trait no doubt enforced under their mother’s tutelage.
She slowly rose to her feet, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. She held out her arms. ‘Lawrence. You look so well.’
He stepped forward and pulled her into a tight embrace, pressing a firm kiss to her hair as though he might diminish the sharp angles of her body and soften her hard gaze. ‘It’s wonderful to see you.’
She pressed her head to his chest before sighing and holding him at arm’s length. ‘You seem to get broader and taller every time I see you.’ She glanced behind him and dropped her hands from his to hastily swipe her fingers beneath her eyes. ‘And you must be Esther. Cornelia has been singing your praises. It’s nice to make your acquaintance.’
Esther nodded and gave a small smile. ‘Thank you. It’s lovely to meet you, too.’
Lawrence carefully studied his youngest sister and braced, waiting to see how the following moments would unfold.
Harriet’s gaze slid slowly over Esther’s face and hair, her smile tight. ‘My sister tells me you work at Pennington’s?’
‘I do.’
‘And you enjoy your work?’
‘Very much.’
Harriet stared at Esther for another long moment before she abruptly turned to Lawrence. ‘We need to talk privately. Maybe Esther could find Helen for some tea?’
He walked to the wing-backed chair in front of the fire, annoyance simmering inside him. ‘Esther stays, Harriet. Anything you have to say, you can say in front of her.’
Her politeness vanished as she glared, her jaw tight. ‘But this is about Mother. She would not approve—’
‘Approve or not, you are in my home and Esther is very welcome here. Whatever the circumstances.’ He glanced at Esther, who stared back, her colour high and her gaze reflecting her unease. ‘Esther, please. Won’t you sit?’
She slowly walked to an armchair opposite him, as Harriet, although clearly unhappy, resumed her seat on the settee beside Cornelia.
Lawrence leaned back. ‘So, what is this all about, Harriet? I’m delighted to have you and Cornelia in the same room with me for the first time in what feels like forever, but you would not come here unannounced unless something serious had happened. Helen said it’s Mother. Is that right?’
Harriet’s blue eyes were dark with annoyance, her posture stiff. She’d been groomed by their mother to be forever ladylike. Or at least, what the great Ophelia Culford considered ladylike. Controlled, yet subservient to her spouse and elders. Polite, yet unbending and intolerant of company she considered of a lesser class than her own. In other words, a contradiction that changed and altered at will.
Harriet flicked her gaze to Esther, her lips pinched. Her disapproval of discussing family business in front of Esther was palpable.
Lawrence pushed out his legs and crossed them at the ankle. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Well? You’re wasting time staring at my guest when clearly something important brought you all this way.’
She snapped her attention to him, her gaze venomous. ‘Fine. Mama is ill, Lawrence. Gravely so.’
Still reluctant to trust Harriet’s visit wasn’t a trick orchestrated by their mother, Lawrence leaned back, his posture purposefully relaxed. ‘So Cornelia has told me.’
‘Yet neither of you appear to be in hurry to come home to see her. Do you have any intention at all to adhere to her wishes?’
‘Our relationship with Mother in no way replicates yours with her. You know that.’
‘And that means even in her gravest hour, you’ll not leave Bath to give her some moments of contentment? To try to absolve your differences towards an amicable reunion?’
‘Reunion?’ He huffed a laugh. ‘You’ve had a wasted journey if you thought there might be some sort of reconciliation between myself and that woman.’ He shook his head, annoyance burning hot inside him that his mother could be using Harriet as a pawn in another of her spiteful games. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You know how things were between Mother and I when Father was alive. You know how they’ve been ever since. If she wishes to see me, there will be a reason far beyond reconciliation.’
‘She’s dying, Lawrence.’ Harriet’s voice cracked, and she pressed her hand to her chest. ‘How can you be so unfeeling?’
Weakening as Harriet’s gaze lost some of its fire and became increasingly pleading, Lawrence turned to Cornelia in the hope she might reinforce his point of view.
His eldest sister held his gaze before standing and walking to the fireplace. She stared into the grate and then abruptly turned, crossing her arms tightly. ‘Does she ask for me, too? Or just Lawrence?’
Lawrence stilled. Cornelia had an admirable talent of identifying the core of a situation exceedingly well. She always needed the truth. Once she had that, she would debate the components and then make a decision, thus confirming if the person or persons involved deserved her loyalty. If they did, they’d have her allegiance until the bitter end.
How she’d told him about David and her knowledge of the duration of his extramarital affair had shown all too clearly that Cornelia hadn’t only been aware of his infidelity but lived with it for as long as she could. It was David who wanted away from the family home, not Cor
nelia. The man was a fool to not understand what a precious entity he’d had in his wife’s integrity.
Harriet glanced again at Esther, whose discomfort only showed in the straightness of her spine and the sombreness of her expression. Finally, Harriet faced Cornelia and pointedly tilted her chin. ‘She just asked for Lawrence.’
Cornelia flinched, her cheeks reddening. ‘I see. Do you know why?’
‘No.’ Harriet flicked her gaze to a spot above the fireplace. ‘She just asked that I come to Bath and bring him home. I can only reassure you that as your relations with Mama aren’t as awful as hers are with Lawrence, she just wants to make peace with him before she passes.’
Lawrence uncrossed his ankles and stood, everything suddenly abundantly clear. ‘That’s complete rubbish. She wants something from me before she dies. What is it, Harriet? Is the house in disrepair? Are you having to get by on half a dozen servants rather than a dozen? What does she want? Because I guarantee her summoning me is not about seeing her son a final time or making peace. She wants something from me. So, what is it?’
Thirty-Seven
Esther’s heart quickened at the severity in Lawrence’s tone. His palpable anger tinged the air around them like a thundercloud. Coldness seeped along her spine. For all the hurt she’d suffered by her father’s incomprehension over her passion for women’s rights, Esther still loved him. Witnessing Lawrence’s taciturn, unmoving expression and the piercing ice in his words told her that he might believe he felt no love for his mother, but he most definitely felt something for her.
Full detachment meant the heart had closed, but the depth of his anger towards his mother showed she continued to dwell deep inside him. Even if she’d been buried to the lowest levels of his affection.
When she saw him behave this way, Esther realised just how much healing he still had to do to move past the cruelty he’d been subjected to. He needed to seek within himself and find the strength to forgive his mother and turn his love and trust to his sisters and children.
She desperately wanted to help him. Desperately wanted to be there for him, but how could she when she felt so woefully inept in that moment? Could she convince him that seeing his mother a final time might be good for him? That when he saw her, it might not become the confrontation he anticipated?
Clearing her throat, Esther braced for his reaction. ‘Lawrence?’
He snapped his gaze to hers, his beautiful blue eyes alight with fury and his jaw a hard line. She glanced at his sisters and they stared back at her expectantly, tension etched on their faces.
Turning to Lawrence, Esther prayed he listened to his head rather than his heart. He might mistake her care for interference, but all she longed to do was calm his rage. ‘Your mother is dying. If you don’t visit her now, you risk regretting that decision for the rest of your life. If my father summoned me to his deathbed, I would be there in an instant, regardless of what has happened between us. Don’t let her grasp on you continue forever. If you don’t at least try to find some peace—’
‘Peace?’ He huffed a laugh. ‘My mother wouldn’t know peace if she were alone in a meadow with nothing more for company than tweeting birds and blooming flowers. The woman is poison, Esther. She not only allowed my father to treat me the way he did, but she actively encouraged it. Look at her daughters. Harriet becomes thinner every time I see her and Cornelia is dreading going home to the one place she should always have as a haven. This is who my mother is. She’s our enemy, not our damn mother.’
Esther flinched and turned to Cornelia and Harriet. Their gazes had dropped to their laps, their expressions hidden but for the identical flush at their cheeks.
Everything pulled at Esther to flee this horrible situation and she would, once she’d made some way towards soothing a little of Lawrence’s shock and pain. She met his penetrating gaze. ‘My estrangement from my father and my dislike for Viola doesn’t mean I love him any less, Lawrence. He is old and wanted a wife beside him who had no need or desire to rally, lead demonstrations and so forth. He is not necessarily weak in not standing up to Viola. As he nears his twilight years, he clearly wants something different from what he once had with my mother.’
He carefully watched her. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because…’ She glanced at his sisters. ‘Because it could be your mother wants something different now, too. Your sisters have come to draw strength from you. That tells me more about you than anything could about your childhood. You’re a good man, Lawrence. A strong man who still cares for his sisters despite how you were raised. Harriet has done nothing more than your mother’s bidding. Why would you send her back to your family home, her mission failed, knowing your mother as you do?’
His gaze held a dangerous fire and Esther’s face heated. She’d overstepped an invisible boundary. Barged in where she was neither wanted, nor needed. She briefly closed her eyes before opening them again and standing.
‘I apologise. I shouldn’t…’ She raised her hands in surrender. ‘This has nothing to do with me. I’ll leave.’
She picked up her purse and stepped towards the door, but, as soon as she brushed past Lawrence, he gently gripped her elbow. ‘Wait.’ He drew his gaze over her face. ‘You have to understand what my mother is like. How she can say words that slice a person’s soul. How just a single look from her can make a person wish to be anywhere else but in her presence.’
In his saddened eyes, Esther saw the true depth of how his childhood still affected his thoughts and actions. A prisoner held behind bars by severe and cruel parenting which only convinced her that now, more than ever, he needed to go home and face his mother a final time. How else would he heal and move on if he did not tackle one half of the parental duo that had caused him such misery?
She cupped her hand to his jaw. ‘You must go. Not for your sisters or on your mother’s command, but for you.’
The silence lingered, intensifying as Esther’s pulse pounded in her ears, her heart aching for Lawrence and every ounce of the pain he suffered.
A light, feminine cough broke the stillness and she and Lawrence turned, her hand falling from his cheek.
Cornelia crossed her arms. ‘We should go home, Lawrence. This may be the last time either of us sees Mama alive.’ Her gaze was soft with pleading. ‘Did you not say you’d accompany me, anyway? Papa might have given the estate to Mama over you until she died, and you’ve made it clear to her you don’t want to inherit it, but she is bound to want you to. Why don’t you at least come back and hear what she has to say?’
His jaw tightened. ‘I don’t want Culford, Cornelia.’
‘I know and, God willing, she’ll see that myself and Harriet are just as capable of inheriting it as you. If that’s the case, this could be the last time you have to set foot on Culford land. I promise, neither myself nor Harriet will ask you to come there again.’ She glanced at Harriet, who continued to study her lap. ‘If you wish to visit sometime in the future, then we will welcome you, but it will not be demanded of you.’
‘Visit you? Surely, you’re not forgoing your plans to stay in Bath because of Mother? This is what she does, Cornelia. She manipulates and bends us to her will.’
‘I have no idea what my future holds, but going home now is the right thing to do. Deep down, I think you know that, too.’
Esther stood stock-still as realisation of Lawrence’s legacy dawned. He was heir to a vast estate. Surely, with his mother dead, he would not turn his back on such an inheritance? Surely, he’d choose to stay at the house and run the estate as he saw fit? He might come back and forth to Bath for his business, but with his parents gone, he might easily decide to return to his rightful home in Oxfordshire.
Whatever her doubts about her strengths to support him, Lawrence had responsibilities beyond her and their growing feelings for one another. She could not be the person that made him turn his back on the people and tenants who needed him.
She wouldn’t.
There w
as every possibility this could be the beginning of the end of their relationship, but she was willing to surrender all that grew between them. The thought of losing him, having only just found him, twisted at her heart and sadness pressed down on her. But if it meant Lawrence finally laid the demons that hovered over him to rest and resumed his duty at the helm of his family’s estate, walking away was the right thing for her to do.
He walked to the window and stared towards the green outside. Esther glanced at Cornelia and she tilted her head towards Lawrence’s back as though asking Esther to talk further with him.
She shook her head. Whatever happened next was Lawrence’s decision. She might love him but… She stilled. She loved him. Her heart burned like an ember in her chest and icy-cold perspiration broke on her forehead as certainty of her feelings for him and of how she would suffer if she lost him bore down on her, but he had to be where he was most needed.
‘Lawrence?’ Harriet stood and approached him at the window, her face pale and the hand she touched to his back ever so slightly trembling. ‘I can’t do this alone. Mama…’ She dipped her head, a tear rolling over her cheek. ‘She is little changed. I need you.’
With potential loss squeezing her heart, Esther held her breath.
At last, Lawrence slowly turned and studied Harriet with a renewed affection in his gaze. He opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace. He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss to her hair. ‘I’ll come. Of course, I’ll come. How can I not be there for you at a time like this after my desertion all those years ago? I will see Mother. I feel too duty-bound in my love for you and Cornelia to do otherwise.’
Cornelia’s exhalation whispered beside Esther as she released her own breath.
It was done.
Lawrence would go home, and she prayed with all her heart he would find his healing.
Tears burned her eyes. But, oh, how she’d miss him.
Thirty-Eight
A Rebel at Pennington’s Page 26
