Underestimating Miss Cecilia
Page 30
“Months ago,” she confirmed. “Remember that sudden cool day back in July that took us all by surprise?”
No. “Well, thank you for looking after it for me.”
He settled on the sofa, affirmed his need for tea.
“You’ll have to forgive me for not handing it back earlier,” she called from the kitchen area. “But I was very glad I did not.”
He smiled, shaking his head. Dear Cherry. Sometimes she made little sense. Must be part of getting on in years …
“It came in very handy just two weeks ago.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your coat.” Her brows rose. “You did hear about how it saved Miss Cecilia?”
His heart jolted. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Miss Cecilia. She’d wandered here from the manor one day, in nothing but a thin gown. Poor pet, she was near frozen by the time she arrived. Then when she wanted to return I let her use your coat. I knew you would not mind, sir, remembering you were good friends and all. Then she had such a funny turn. I had to call for help to get her back to the manor.”
His pulse was racing, his chest was tight. “Why did I not know this? Is she now better? I can’t believe nobody told me.”
“I don’t think her ladyship was keen to advertise her daughter’s unexpected ways.”
He sank back against the cushions, eyes on the teacup in his hand. “Is she getting better, Cherry?”
She sighed. “I think so. I certainly pray so. Poor pet.”
The length of silence finally forced his gaze to hers.
“You know she spoke your name?”
“She did?”
“Yes, just before she collapsed. It was enough to make me think she was remembering again, but then they said at the manor she had not yet recovered, so I don’t know.”
He pressed his lips together. Willed away the emotion. Still it insisted on filling his chest, filling his eyes.
“Now, now, Master Edward. No need to look like that. She will get better.”
“I …” He swallowed. “I cannot stand—I feel so helpless … I wish she knew …”
“That you care for her?”
His eyes lifted to her face. “You know, too?”
“Of course I know. I’ve known since those days when you were here together. I’d see her looking at you with such stars in her eyes, and I’d see you doing all you could to help and protect her. You might not have realized it at the time, but you were well on your way to love.”
“I do love her. I would do anything for her. But Lady Aynsley would not hear of it. And then … then when she revealed what Cecy wrote …” He grimaced. “Cecy wrote that she cared not for me, cared only for Lord Abbotsbury, which Lady Aynsley seemed to delight in showing me. She would much prefer a marquess as Cecy’s suitor.”
“Far be it from me to ever criticize my former employers, but that lady can scarcely tell—no, that’s enough. I shan’t speak ill of those who cannot see.”
“Cannot see?”
“She is yet blinded, dear boy, to those things that are of God. She might like to think she holds the world in her hands, and can master her family’s destiny, but she has not yet learned to take God into consideration. He is the one you should be supplicating.”
“But I am. I do!”
“Are you really? Or have you given up? It seems this talk of a marquess might have scared you off.”
“But if he is the better man—”
“Stop it. Stop that right now! How dare you treat God’s grace so meanly!”
“Meanly? I don’t—”
“Oh, yes you do. Sometimes you seem determined to wallow in guilt and don’t even want to see a future, let alone believe God might have a good one for you! You seem to forget you are a new creation in God, that the old is gone. It’s gone, do you hear me?”
He nodded. He rather suspected she might be heard in the next village.
“So please stop thinking of yourself like that. You are not that man anymore. You are forgiven. You have purpose. Your mother has visited and told me of the excellent work you’ve been doing for those poor people in the north, and about a legal aid society you hoped to form.”
“It hasn’t changed anything.”
“Yet.”
Her words held determination, igniting embers of hope thought dead since Hawkesbury’s letter about the government’s opposition to such reform.
“You have a career, an estate, a family who loves you and who loves the lady you should make your bride. How blessed are you to have so much at your feet!”
“But if Cecy is injured—”
“Don’t you believe that God can heal her?”
“Well, yes. But Lady Aynsley—”
“Might not be a king, but her ‘heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever he will.’ Don’t you read your Bible anymore, young man?”
Apparently not as much as Cherry did.
“I want you to start believing God can do things far above all we ask or think. That’s another for you. Read the third chapter in the book of Ephesians.”
“I will.”
“Good. And we will pray, and trust God that He will make the way. Start believing again, Master Edward, not merely drifting. Understand?”
He saluted. “Amen.”
Decision firmed within. He would believe. He would believe God’s promise for his best.
And God’s best for Cecy.
CHAPTER THİRTY-ONE
NED STEPPED THROUGH the French window at Rovingham House, glad to escape the chill, and moved to the drawing room’s fireplace. Perhaps the warmth might help his thoughts flow more easily, so he could decide his next move. He grasped the stone mantelpiece and closed his eyes. “God, grant me wisdom. Show me what to do.”
A snort made him spin around. John. “What?”
“You’re a fool.”
Heat rose; he bit it back. Strove for patience.
“I want to disown you. I can’t believe you’re so weak.”
“Weak?”
“How long are you going to wait? It’s been three days since you returned. Don’t you think it’s time to see her?”
“Yes.”
“So what prevents you? Worried what she looks like, is that it?”
“No.”
“Then what? I cannot understand why you have done nothing, but I do know that your enjoyment of your misery is certainly not going to help any!”
“I am not enjoying my misery,” he said, biting off each word.
“Really? Because everybody else only sees you refusing to act in a way that might bring that poor girl some happiness, but, oh no, you have to be here feeling sorry for yourself!”
“I am not feeling sorry—”
But John didn’t pause to allow his defense. “Cecy is a treasure! How could you treat her in such a fashion?”
His brother’s sharp reprimand fissured past his regrets. Heat rose. Rose some more. “I realize I should have done things differently—”
“Here we go again.”
“Will you just stop?”
John snorted derisively, waved a dismissive hand.
Ned hurried on. The moment for raw honesty was here. “I know that you’ve long despised me, that you hate me—”
“I don’t—”
“Will you let me finish?” Ned demanded, fists clenching, eyes finally locked on John and willing him to argue.
“No.” But the voice held nothing of a fight. John’s face wore a look Ned had never seen, something like ragged pain filling his features. “You think I hate you?”
“Hate. Despise. Condemn. Call it what you will.”
John’s lips pressed together in a flat line.
“John, how many times do you want me to say I’m sorry? Anything I say will never be enough for you. I know I’ve done wrong, and stained the family name, but I know God has forgiven me. I’d like to think there would come a time when you could finally forgive me, too.
”
His brother moved to the window, overlooking the wintry park. After a long moment he said, “I have.”
“You—” The words sunk in. “Really?”
“I resented you,” John continued in a low voice, “yes. I’ll admit I despised you. I hated that you went off and had your fun, and then came back and all was forgiven. It didn’t seem right, or fair. But then, Cecilia spoke to me, made me see …” He turned. “You almost died.”
Ned lowered his gaze, hating the accusation in his brother’s face.
“You almost died.”
He glanced up. His brother’s voice held a note of anguish that stung his heart and the back of his eyes.
“I … I realized then, after Cecy spoke to me, that I’d looked at this wrongly, that I’d focused on what I thought I’d been missing, rather than on what I’d always had. Father spoke to me, Mother, too, and I knew I had to repent of my attitude of mind. I … I’m sorry, Ned, for how I’ve treated you.”
Fist pressed to his lips, Ned coughed and cleared his throat of what had taken residence there. “I forgive you,” he said hoarsely. “Please forgive me.”
“Didn’t you hear me before? I already have.”
They stared at each other, the air still pulsing with emotion. Then Ned lurched forward as John sidestepped the sofa and they grasped each other’s shoulders in the first brotherly embrace they’d shared in over a decade.
Ned thumped his brother’s shoulder. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
“I do, don’t I?” John’s lips twisted wryly, then he shook his head. “Now, back to Cecilia. When will you make her an offer?”
Ned was about to speak when the door opened, and in sailed their mother, her entrance followed swiftly by Father.
“What is the matter here? We could hear raised voices.” She glanced between the two of them.
“We were merely discussing poor Cecilia,” John said.
His mother’s face softened, she gave a sigh. “I wondered if that might be the case.” Her look of enquiry invited Ned to speak; he found he could not. The old doubts resurfaced, shrouding his earlier convictions. What if she’d forgotten him? What if she didn’t care?
“You intend to see her?” Father asked.
Ned cleared his throat. “Yes.”
“And make an offer?”
“I want to, yes.”
His mother sighed, happiness lifting her lips. “I’m so glad. I’ve always liked Cecilia.”
“But I still feel sure her family won’t have me. How can I compete with Abbotsbury?”
“But surely it is not Abbotsbury’s wish to marry a young lady whose heart is set on another?”
Somehow his mother’s words penetrated the fogged confusion of his heart. “You do not know, then.”
“Know what?”
In a low voice he told her what Cecy had written in her journal, but was surprised by her sniff. “I don’t know how you can believe such nonsense.”
“You think she still wants me?”
His brother snorted, but this time his eyes held no derision. “Did you never see the way her face lit up when you walked into the room?”
“But that was before.”
“You know she prayed for you when you were away?” his mother said.
She had?
“And that she wrote a letter to The Times about the tragedy in the north?”
“That was Cecy?”
His father nodded. “Aynsley still doesn’t know, but I recognized her phrasing from when we’d talked. She has long cared for you, son. I don’t think that can be easily forgotten.”
“But she’s forgotten everything else. What if she’s—?”
“Forgotten you, too?” His father smiled gently. “I doubt it.”
“And surely you can see that if she does still care for you then it is only honorable for you to go there and offer your hand,” John said.
“I am trying to trust God, but—”
Further words halted as his mother groaned, her eyes fixed to the ceiling. “John, I quite understand your earlier brangling. How we need God’s strength!”
His brother chuckled, prompting Ned’s, “It is not funny.”
“Oh, but you are.”
“I do not know if I can truly be amused by someone who refuses to act in a way that will bring great happiness to two families,” his father said.
“But the Aynsleys will not have me. Not when they could have Abbotsbury—”
“But surely that is her decision to make?” Father said softly. “Edward, you know there is only one way to find out.”
Cecy sat opposite her mother, the drawing room fire crackling nearby. Ever since that moment when she’d sobbed out her frustration, she’d sensed a new tenderness between them, something she could not recall—her lips curved—and something that appeared to startle her father, too.
“I have not seen your mother like this since—well, I can never remember her like this!” he’d said, words echoed by her sisters as they arrived to celebrate Christmas week, too.
Verity was back from school, her questions sometimes probing, sometimes exhausting, but no matter what she asked, Cecy could not quite remember. It seemed she might be forever destined to have her past truly left behind.
Caro, too, although somewhat distracted, was eager to help her remember, recalling incidents and places seen, to no avail.
“I simply cannot understand it,” she complained. “How can she look so normal and not remember?”
“The mind is a mysterious thing,” her husband said, smiling at Cecy gently.
“You are a scientist, yes?” Cecy asked. She was sure that’s what Verity had said.
Gideon inclined his head. “But I make no claims about understanding the intricacies of the human body or mind.”
“You have nothing to offer?” Caro looked, sounded, disappointed.
“I suspect your memory will return, but perhaps the effort to make it return only blocks it more.”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” Verity said. “It’s like when you’re trying to remember a mathematical equation during an examination, and you can’t, no matter how much you might strain, and then you wake up at three in the morning and suddenly recall.”
“Are you saying I should go to sleep?”
“No, but perhaps you should be somewhere you feel relaxed and at ease.”
“I would”—she found a smile—“if I could remember where that might be.”
Verity and Gideon laughed, and Caro smiled. “It will come to you.
We have been praying for you,” she added, almost shyly.
“Thank you,” Cecy said, eyes pricking with tears, as Verity glanced between them, a strange expression on her face.
“We will pray God gives you a solution, and quickly,” her older sister continued. “We know God still does miracles today.”
LATER THAT AFTERNOON Cecy was listening to the others chatter, pulling thread through her embroidery, when a deeper voice drifted through the door. She stilled, her neck tingling. “Who is that?”
“Oh, Cecy!” Verity whispered. “It’s Ned Amherst! He’s here to see you.”
Her embroidery fell from her fingers. He was here. This person she’d long loved, but now could not remember. She glanced at her gown, smoothed out the wrinkles. Why had she not thought to put on a better gown today?
“Mother is out there,” Verity continued, inching to the door. “She’s shaking her head. Oh, what if she won’t admit him? What should we do?”
“This.” Caro rose, marched to the door, flung it wide. “Ned! How wonderful of you to come to see us! Please, come this way. You remember Gideon, don’t you? Darling husband, you remember our dearest neighbor. Ned and I were always good friends. Oh, I can’t begin to tell you how lovely it is to see you. Yes, come in. We’re all in here.”
Another murmur of low voices from beyond the door.
Cecy’s breath suspended. This moment felt … well, momentous.
Verity moved to the door, was talking to someone, shaking hands. Caro’s voice continued. “Yes, Verity is back from Haverstock’s for the holidays, which is wonderful. Yes, come on in, the fire is warm. Mother, I really do think we need tea, don’t you?”
Cecy couldn’t look up. Her head felt foggy and vague. The dizzying sensation intensified.
“And, of course, you remember Cecy, don’t you, Ned?”
She had to look up. But her neck wouldn’t work.
“I could never forget.”
That voice again! Her chest grew tight.
“Hello, Cecy.”
She peeked up. He was smiling. His green-gold eyes cautious, tender, caring.
A rush of thoughts, of words, of images swarmed her brain, but all she could do was grasp the hand he stretched towards her, hold onto his strength to stand. There came vague murmurs in the background, the sense that others had stepped away.
Then she caught it, that arresting aroma: bergamot, sandalwood, musk. Emotions clashed within. Tenderness. Certainty. Hope.
Her legs wobbled, her pulse rushed loudly in her ears, as a myriad of snatched memories wove into clarity. She remembered. She knew. This man. This one.
“Oh, Ned!”
And she flung her arms around his neck, then felt his arms encircle her waist, his chest draw close to hers, his bristles scrape her brow as his lips pressed near her scar.
“Darling Cecy,” he murmured. “How I’ve missed you.”
And his tears mingled with hers as they cried.
CHAPTER THİRTY-TWO
THE DINNER INVITATION to the Rovinghams that night had needed to be postponed, the surge of memories and emotions overwhelming. Instead, Ned stayed for dinner with her family, and she finally learned about the day of her misadventure, and what had transpired in the hours and days following her accident.
Mama’s objections seemed to have been abandoned, whether it was from Cecy’s joy or the return of her memories or the obvious support of Caro, Gideon, and Verity who were all delighted to welcome Ned back into the fold. She glanced across the table at her father. He nodded, his smile widened, so she suspected the fact she held Ned’s hand was something he could pardon.