by Leenie Brown
“You do not deny it then?” She stood within inches of him, glaring up at him.
“I could deny it, but it would be a lie.”
“How much?” She closed her eyes for a moment, pain etched her face. “How much did he pay you to take me?”
His heart hammered within his chest. When he had first married her, he had not cared if she found out about the arrangement, but now… He swallowed. “My commission, my debts, and an additional three thousand pounds.” She flinched at each revelation.
“You…” She stepped back from him a pace. “You ruined me with no intention of marrying me?”
He nodded.
“You would have left me with child and in disgraced?”
“You were not with child.” He reached out to her, but she moved away.
“But I could have been, and you knew it.” She shook her head. “You banish me to a guest room because you do not want our children to be whispered about as you were. Yet, you would have left me with a child who would have been treated far worse.” She took another step away from him. “You fear for my reputation now, but you did not then. Why, George? Why now but not then?”
“Because it matters now, and it should have mattered then.”
“Oh, yes!” she shouted. “It matters now because you know? of the children and because your business would suffer!”
Her fists were clenched at her sides, and his stomach roiled at the look of disgust on her face. Desperation clawed at his heart. He was failing. No, he had failed. That which mattered most to him was about to push him out of her life, and he had no idea how to stop her. He could hold her ─ force her to remain ─ but she would only be there in body. He saw her turning from him and grabbed her arm. “Lydia, please. It is not like that.”
She yanked her arm away. “You are not really going to try to tell me that you care for me, are you, George? For I can guarantee, I’ll not be falling for your pretty words again. I’ll not be played the fool any longer.” Tears flowed down her cheeks as she turned and ran from him. She could not bear to hear him say he loved her when she knew it was not true.
Wickham wanted to run after her, to make her understand how much he had changed and how much she now meant to him, but he could not. His feet were rooted to the ground, and he could not seem to draw a full breath. He stood watching her, his heart aching a bit more with each step she took.
“Papa?” A small hand grasped his.
His knees buckled and he sank to the ground.
“Papa?” Louisa grabbed his face and looked at him.
He saw the fear in her eyes and smiled at her. “I am well. I just need a rest.”
She scrunched up her face and looked at him carefully. “You are not well. Mama is not well. And I am going to get help.” Before he could stop her, she had spun on her heels and was running.
“Louisa, come back,” he called as he pulled himself to his feet and soon overtook her. He snatched her up, crushing her to him. “Where are you going?”
“To get Aunt Kitty. She can make Mama feel better, and if Mama feels better, then you will feel better.” She thumped him on the chest. “You should have told her you loved her.” She thumped him again. “You should have told her. Why did you not tell her?”
“She would not have believed me,” he said softly as he stroked her hair.
“You still should have told her.” Her little body trembled as she gulped air between sobs.
He allowed his own tears to fall as he stood swaying gently rubbing her back. “Louisa?” he said at last. “Do you really think Aunt Kitty could make Mama feel better?” He felt her head bob up and down against his shoulder. “Then we shall go see Aunt Kitty.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
From the sitting room window, Kitty saw Wickham carrying Louisa up the walk. She first took note of the fact that Louisa’s face was buried in the crook of her father’s neck and then the look on his face. “Anna,” she called. “I need Colonel Denny at once. It cannot be delayed. And tea. We will need tea.”
“And the baby, Mrs. Denny?” The maid stood near the door.
“To the nursery.” She gave her son a kiss and passed the sleeping boy to Anna. “As quickly as can be managed.”
“Yes, ma’am. As quick as can be.” She bobbed her head and ducked out of the room just as Wickham and Louisa were entering the house.
“Sit.” Kitty waved Wickham to a chair and then took a seat herself. “What has happened?”
Louisa’s head popped up and before her father could say a word, the story was tumbling out of her mouth, one thought on top of the other. “Mama was sad this morning in the garden. I asked her about why she left us, and she told me, and she cried because Papa is angry with her and stays away, and then I said I loved her, and she took me to the store to see Papa.”
The girl paused for a breath, and her aunt held up her hand to stay Wickham from speaking. “And then what Louisa?”
“And Papa had pretty ribbons at his store.” She pulled the package from her pocket and handed them to her aunt. “And there were ladies there that told bad stories and made Mama upset, and I told Papa to tell their papas, but he wanted to find Mama because she might be sad. But Mama was not sad, she was angry, and she yelled at Papa, and then she ran away. And then Papa was sad, and I wanted to come see you, and Papa chased me, and then we came here.” She looked up quickly at her father before adding one last thought. “Papa did not tell Mama he loved her, but he does.”
Kitty bit back a smile and nodded her head thoughtfully. “That is a lot to have happened in one day. I would hazard a guess that you might like to have some tea and a biscuit to help settle your nerves, and perhaps you would like to see Robert. Although, he is sleeping, so you would have to be quiet.”
Louisa smiled. “I would like that.” She slid off her father’s lap and took her aunt’s hand. She paused before she moved away from him.
“He will be well, darling. Uncle Denny will tend to him, and after we see Robert, we will tend to your Mama.” Kitty stopped her husband in the hall. “You go to the nursery, Louisa. I will make sure tea is brought up.” She waited until the young girl began to climb the stairs before she filled her husband in on the story she had been told. “Do try to be gentle, Denny. He is quite shaken, and it has been a trying day. Louisa and I will be off shortly to see what can be done with my sister.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek before following Louisa to the nursery.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Kitty handed her gloves and hat to Matthew and helped Louisa with hers. “Where might I find my sister?” she asked him after she shooed Louisa off to check on Thomas.
“In the master’s study, ma’am.”
“The study?” Kitty asked in surprise.
“She’s reading, ma’am.”
Kitty’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“She needs these, ma’am.” He picked up three handkerchiefs from the table in the entry way and handed them to Kitty. “I was just fetching them for her.”
“She asked for handkerchiefs?” Kitty turned the pieces of cloth over in her hand.
“No, ma’am, but her tears did.”
“How long has she been reading?” asked Kitty.
“About a half hour. She spent the quarter hour before that spilling bowls of flowers out windows and questioning me about the linen in the study.” He stood before her as if waiting for instructions.
Kitty smiled. “Mr. Wickham is with my husband. He is in no better state, I imagine. I have only heard Louisa’s tale of what happened.”
He nodded. “Then you have heard the details from a straightforward source.”
‘Indeed I have, Matthew.” She chuckled.
“I will make sure she is kept busy.” He said with a bow.
Kitty nodded and headed toward the study.
Lydia sat behind Wickham’s desk with a book in her lap and a well-used handkerchief held to her nose. “Oh, Kitty,” she cried as soon as her sister entered. “I was so certain I was right.”
Kitty gave her sister’s shoulder a squeeze and placed the handkerchiefs on the desk. “What did you hear when you were at the store?”
Lydia’s eyebrows pulled together in question. “How do you know I heard something?”
“Louisa told me when she and her father showed up at my house.” She pulled a chair around the desk to sit next to Lydia. “She said there were ladies telling bad stories. Apparently your husband heard them and went to find you since he was concerned you were upset.” She looked at her sister and smiled slightly as she sat down. “Which you apparently are.”
Lydia blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief she held before discarding it and picking up a fresh one. “It was Miss Howe and Miss Cooper; they were discussing why he would even bother coming after a wayward wife when he had been forced to marry her in the first place.” She drew an unsteady breath. “They said he had been paid to accept me.”
“Ah, and you put it together with his paying Darcy?”
Lydia nodded. “Darcy paid his debts, purchased his commission, and gave him an additional three thousand pounds in exchange for marrying me.”
“And you thought he married you because he loved you.”
Lydia nodded and buried her face in her handkerchief.
“He does love you.” Kitty rubbed her sister’s back. “There is a very distraught man at my house with my husband. What did you say to him?”
Lydia dried her eyes and gave her head a little toss as she tried to regain some composure. “That I do not matter to him, and that I would not be played for a fool any longer…that I would not believe him if he told me he cared for me.” She lifted the book. “But I was wrong, and I have ruined everything.” Her lips trembled. “I should have remembered my list. I should have held my tongue until I had counted. I should have imagined his face before I spoke.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, Kitty, the look on his face was…” She shook her head unable to voice the pain she had seen in his eyes.
“I can imagine. I saw him when he arrived at my house.” Kitty stroked Lydia’s hair as she had often done when they were children and Lydia was upset. Few people knew the tenderness that lay behind her sister’s boisterous exterior, but she knew.
“He wrote the most beautiful things, Kitty.” She ran a hand gently over the open pages of the book. “He has hated every moment of my punishment as much as I have.” She wiped her eyes and gave a little laugh. “Did you know all those nights I thought he was enjoying the comforts of our room while I slept in the guest bed, he was actually sleeping here,” she waved to the far end of the room, “on a cot?”
Kitty’s eyes grew wide. “A cot?”
Lydia nodded. “Matthew was putting the linens away when I came in here. He told me how he puts the cot out each evening and away again in the morning. Wickham did not want me to know.” She looked down at her hands that were fidgeting in her lap. “And, he has not stayed away from home in the evenings because he is angry with me.”
Kitty smiled. “I see.”
Lydia was quiet for a moment. Tears had begun to slide down her cheeks again, but her face wore a small smile. “He wrote of all the things I have accomplished.” She lifted her eyes to her sister. “He called me clever, and not in a way that Mama would, but like Papa would say of Lizzy.” Her smile grew. “He said he was proud of me, Kitty ─ me! No one has ever been proud of me.” She sighed and looked back at the book in her lap. “I wish I had known before I spoke so to him.” Her smile faded, and her tears turned from delight to sorrow. “Oh, Kitty, what have I done? He loved me. He truly loved me.”
“He still does,” said Kitty as she continued to rub her sister’s back in comfort. “There is one more thing you must add to your list of things to learn ─ forgiveness. You must learn to ask for and to give forgiveness.”
She stopped her soothing touches and, placing a finger under Lydia’s chin, lifted and turned her sister’s face. She needed to know Lydia was hearing what she had to say. “Our sisters have taught me one very important lesson. We, none of us, are perfect. We all have foibles and failures, but they are not what define us unless we allow them. I am sure you can imagine Lizzy has had to ask forgiveness for her words on more than one occasion, but Jane has assured me that she has also had to seek forgiveness. I know I have had to do so as well. It is not something I learned from our parents. ” She took Lydia’s hands and held them. “Our parents were not always who they should have been. They, too, have faults. I do not once remember them seeking forgiveness from the other, though I own we did not see all of their interactions. However, I cannot imagine a relationship such as theirs was built on this principle, and they and we have suffered for it.”
She took the book from Lydia’s lap and stood, drawing Lydia up with her. She wrapped her in a tight embrace. “You have done wrong. You must seek forgiveness, but you must also be willing to forgive Wickham. It is not right to expect forgiveness without a willingness to give it in return.” She held her sister at arm’s length. “Forgive Mama. Forgive Papa. Forgive Wickham, but also forgive yourself. Learn from your mistakes. Do not forget them so that you make them again, but do forgive them.” She tipped her head to the side and searched her sister’s face. “Please?”
Lydia nodded, and Kitty drew her back in for another hug. “Good. Then, I will check on Louisa and tell her that her Mama is feeling a little better.”
“Thank you,” Lydia said as Kitty moved toward the door.
Kitty turned as she opened the door. “It is what sisters do,” she said before pulling the door closed behind her.
Chapter 9
Wickham pushed himself up out of the chair in Denny’s sitting room. “You are right, of course,” he said. “I made a promise, and I shall keep it.”
Denny clasped him on the shoulder. “It might not mean much coming from me, but I am proud of you, Wickham. I know you, ten years ago, would have beat a hasty retreat.” He walked with Wickham to the door. “I will walk with you.”
Wickham nodded.
“I always tell the lads the surest way to fail is to give up. It is also the surest way to die in battle.” He motioned for Wickham to exit before him and donned his hat as they walked.
“It means a great deal.” Wickham glanced to the side at his friend. “That you are proud of me. Not many have been.”
“You’ve not given them much to be proud about until recently.”
Wickham smiled. It was just like Denny to be so straight forward. “Yes, well, it is still good to hear.”
“I’m glad of it, then.”
The two men walked for some distance in silence. “What if she will not listen to me?”
“She’ll listen ─ eventually. You feared the same when we travelled to Derbyshire, and she listened ─ eventually.” He halted for a moment. “Although she never seemed to listen when you spoke. It was always after that there seemed to be a change.” He returned to walking. “I say, I never saw a person so set against an agreement sign any paper so quickly as she did after you left the room. She read it and grabbed a pen. Shocked both Darcy and me.” They strode on a bit further before Denny added. “And then the day after her time working, there was such a shift in her.”
Wickham voiced his agreement.
“Any idea what might have wrought such a change?” asked Denny.
Wickham thought back to the beginning of his agreement with Lydia and to the day they had argued in Darcy’s breakfast room. He remembered how her eyes had grown wide as he took out his notebook to write down her behaviour. He stopped abruptly. “I should have told her.”
“Yes, we discussed this already. You should have told her about why you were paying Darcy, and you should have told her of the trouble you were having keeping the terms of the agreement.”
“No, not that…well, yes, that, but not just that…what Louisa said.” He turned to his friend. “When we were on our way to find Lydia, Louisa told me to tell Lydia I love her.”
Shock suffused Denny’s face and ton
e. “You’ve not told her you love her?”
Wickham shook his head. “Not in a while.”
“How long?”
“The day I sent her to work. I scrawled I love you on the bottom of that day’s entry.”
“A month?” Denny’s voice was loud and a bit harsh. “You’ve not told her in a month?” He shook his head. “Now that is a problem. You know if you say it now, she’ll not believe you. She will think you are just trying to please her.”
Wickham smiled.
“You look far too happy, Wickham ─ almost like you do when you know you are about to take the game.”
“I am, my friend. I am.” He began walking again but with a lighter step. “Come along; I have a promise to keep and a journal to give to my wife.”
“I am utterly confused, Wickham.”
Wickham chuckled. “And this is new?”
Denny growled. “I’ve not seen you like this in over a month and just moments ago you were beside yourself with grief. Now with little explanation you are happy?”
Wickham stopped and turned to face his friend. “Do you remember my pledge at the bottom of the agreement that Lydia signed? I told her I loved her. And then in the journal, I told her again. Each time, she responded favourably. And though I have not spoken the words to her in a month, I have written them each and every day in that journal.”
Understanding dawned in Denny’s eyes. “So you have just to get her to read the journal without consigning it to the fire in anger.” He smirked at Wickham’s fallen expression.
“I had not thought of that.” Wickham looked toward the house. “I will just have to figure something out. Perhaps I can give it to Louisa to give to her mother? Or read it aloud to her?” He bit his thumbnail as he thought.
Denny clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a shove towards the door. “Perhaps she’s forgiven you, and you’ll not need to worry.” From behind Wickham, he gave a small wink to his wife, who was standing at the window and wearing a smile.
Wickham snorted. “I can only hope I am so fortunate.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
“Papa!” Louisa wrapped her arms about him as he took off his hat. “Are you better? Did Uncle Denny help you?”
