“I did, indeed,” he gulped, his answers short; simple. Painfully short, in a way.
“I… don’t think you’ve ever really explained to me, what drove you to feel yourself incapable of marriage,” Anne tried to dance gracefully about the subject, pulling Midnight to trot closer to her lover.
“It’s… an issue of trust, of worthiness,” he answered in brief; he avoided looking into her eyes, which harmed her.
“Trust? Has someone harmed your trust so completely that you feel it difficult to love?” Anne probed, curiosity knotting tight in her stomach. His manner had grown painfully unsettling, his silence uncharacteristic.
“It is not a matter of trusting others, m’lady,” he explained with a lilt of misery in his words, “it is a matter of trusting myself. Real love requires… an earnestness and trust of one’s self as much as of another.” Anne’s expression retreated in quiet surprise at the revelation; she had never quite thought of relationships in such a manner. It certainly had not been something all the silly stories she had read as a child had at all mentioned.
“Ho…w,” she murmured with a clear of her throat, Midnight trotting now along loosely assembled stones, laying jagged along a beaten trail that had long ago fallen to pieces beneath the feet of dozens of horses. “I’m sorry, Lawrence, I suppose I simply do not… understand, but I wish to,” she assured him. She pulled Midnight’s reins, her beast drawn closer to Lawrence’s lazy and whinnying old animal, but still the lord remained unmoved; distant. She missed the conviction-filled stare of his deep and powerful gray eyes, and reached with a daring hand to lay her fingers upon his gripping knuckles. She felt him startle when she reached for him, instinctively retreating from her touch; at least, Anne hoped that it was instinct that drove his reaction, and not deleterious emotions towards the woman he had just laid with.
“It is best, perhaps, that you did not,” Lawrence retorted with an obstinate sound. Anne pressed, her heart hardened with a new resolve after the time they had spent together.
“I want to know you, Lawrence. You need not be shy about such details - no longer do you have to… hide, the truth from me,” she assured him, wondering if perhaps those old social strictures had gripped at his heart. “Not with me.”
“I do not know that I am a man made for the capability of love, m’lady, if only because of the spectacular manner in which I fail at it,” Lawrence blurted, his words harsh and stirring. He looked to her finally, and she saw not the piercing gaze of the man she had begun to fall for, but the deep and sullen gaze of a man in the depths of a conflict deep inside of his own soul. Anne tried to reason away the look. She felt her own conflict. It’s only natural, of course…? It hadn’t been an easy transition. But it had been quick, and the struggle of emotions still burned inside of her. So… it must have been the truth with him as well? She thought, hoping that it was only natural for him to retreat as he had.
But a part of her knew that to be a sham of her own selfish design. Something was wrong, and as euphoric as she felt in the glow of the approaching evening sun, after a meeting of mind and body and spirit with someone she had so adored, she felt a storm of emotion brewing at the edge of this bright day, as if the most sinister parts of all their worlds threatened to crash down upon them both. She took a deep breath, searching for pleasant questions she could ask, though she wanted so badly to strike at the heart of what troubled him.
“I think you’re… quite capable of love, m’lord,” she smiled. “Why do you think yourself otherwise?” they trotted delicately together through a mire of mud, dampened by the heavy fall of rain across swaying, grassy fields. The manor came into view, set high upon a hill, the sun’s glow bouncing from its shimmering marble-toned facade, like some sort of stairway to the realm of the divine. It seemed tragically ironic to Anne, to see something so bright, so inviting, while her heart had begun to feel not but fear and anxiety.
“I’ve lived a full twenty-eight years of my life without having known you, m’lady, and so I think it quite accurate to say that there is… much, of me, and of what I’ve been through, that you do not understand. Suffice to say,” Lawrence announced, “IO have no desire to fall into the same traps that the men of my life have so deftly stepped in to.” That, at least, gave Anne something to think on, and her curiosity rushed through her veins as she peppered him with another question.
“How do you mean?” she queried, before blushing; her voice lowered to a faint and delicate whisper. “Of-of course, I have no intention of… prying too boldly, m’lord. I only wish to understand… you,” she admitted.
“What drives this want of yours, m’lady? This want of understanding?” he pressed her boldly, a storminess dwelling deep in a thrumming baritone that would otherwise bring Anne so much warmth and hope.
“I…” she stammered, thinking of a proper manner of phrase for him. “I had… h-had simply thought that, well… we had become closer, close enough that I… my curiosity began to get the better of me,” she cleared her throat with a loud cough. “I had not meant to be presumptuous.” Few men - in matter of fact, no men - could have Anne questioning herself, or backing down from the fiery manner of rhetoric she had spent most of her life perfecting, and she herself did not even know why he brought out of her so meek a nature. Would any other man toss words of suspicion and grapple so crass with his pain before her, she would certainly see that he would up stuck in the mud with only stubborn Old Burnie to help. She realized that her heart had begun to cry, beg for Lawrence; something she had felt not for any man before. Something that made her feel… insecure, in her own way. She strode next to him, pulling her hand away from him and gripping Midnight’s reins as they together began the ascent along the steep hill; a road began beneath them, paved in stone and gravel, helping their steeds to find the way back to the stables.
“Curiosity can be most troubling,” he commented, an emptiness to his words. “It can lead us to find things about others, about ourselves, that we desire deeply to hate.”
“Do you fear that with me? That you will reveal some great, dark truth to me, that shall turn me away from you?” she whispered. “There is little you could reveal, short of some grand crime in your past, that would deter my feelings,” she laughed through her anxiety. “Lest you revealed yourself to be a highwayman or murderer among the moors or some such.” He took her humor with little reaction, his expression unmoved; almost cold. She had hoped to bask in the warmth of the sun with him, but instead his gaze felt like rain; the rain they had suffered through, icy rain; clinging rain, stuck to every body part, every swathe of skin. A rain one could never get away from. And perhaps he had known that rain his whole life, she feared.
“It’s… not some dark secret, m’lady,” he said, consternation thick. She replied with silence. She wanted to speak, but whatever troubled him rattled deep. “…It is well-known, to many of those in positions of influence, at least, what precisely I come from. What the Amhurst estate has seen. My sister’s…” the subject drew him closed up tight, and he shook his head, voice trailing away, until only the clop of their horses’ hooves remained. She wanted to open him up again; she would do anything, anything in all her power, to hear him speak freely again; to see him smile, to jest the way he had when they rode gallantly through forest; when he saved her from the rain.
“Your sister… she’s… it’s not your fault, m’lord.”
“It is, in more than one way,” he said in disdain. “I do not expect you to understand. I cannot trust myself. None in my family have ever truly been able to understand that trust, and one after another fell in to the gilded cages of distraction and drink and destruction,” he recounted, voice tortured. They drew closer to the stable, and Anne pulled her steed before him. Old Burnie whinnied; they had reached the top of the hill, that simple stone building only a few hundred paces away, and Anne would not end their time together so sour.
“M’lord, you’ve no need to worry with me. I’ll not judge you, I’ll not—”
>
“M’lady, it is not you who I worry about,” he insisted. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he had spoken with intentions of finality on the matter, dour expression long and his eyes burning with a negative conviction. She could argue; she could beg with insistence that he need not worry; that she trusted him, and that she knew him to be the finest man in all of England. But none of that would be heard; it would fall on ears unwilling to listen, and ready only to leave this place. Realizing this futility, she hoped that instead time alone would bring him to the conclusion she had come to - the heart cried and healed the most when left to its own devices, she had read, and so infantile and blind did she feel in matters of the heart that she hoped it to be true as she pulled Midnight’s reins away and trotted the horse into the stable. Old Burnie whinnied behind her, and she closed her eyes. She could feel the burn of tears, but she would not give in. Hope had taken root like a lashing weed in her chest and it certainly would not die away now.
“Thank you, Bertold,” Anne said with a gentle nod when she entered the stone building; the young blonde man wheeled rickety stairs to Midnight’s side, and Anne took gingerly steps down, to dismount.
“You got caught in the rain, m’lady?” Bertold asked, noticing the moisture still soaking Anne’s dress, and clinging to her skin. “Are you quite alright?”
“Yes,” she offered her Spartan reply. “I simply need to retire to the manor, perhaps bathe, in something warm.” She looked back; at the other end of the stable, Lawrence hopped from Old Burnie’s back, straightening his coat and the lopsided collar at his throat.
“How about the duke? How did the two of you pass through the storm so well?” Bertold pried. “I cannot imagine riding in such rain.”
“Bertold, it’s not a manner for stable hands to concern themselves with,” Anne said. She felt her cheeks blushing; she certainly couldn’t fight away the pleasant memories of the moment spent in passion with the duke, and young, innocent Bertold shared her embarrassment as he glanced away.
“Of course, m’lady,” he insisted.
“I would… appreciate it, if you kept this to yourself,” she whispered.
“Of course, m’lady, I’d think nothing of your affairs with the lord, as it’s not my place,” he answered with a smile.
“It’s… not, an affair,” she said, swallowing hard. She then noticed that the duke had already made his way from the stable; her heart pounded and she rushed out the door, catching him as he rounded a corner on the path through the garden, dew glistening on blooming flowers along the walkway back to the Roxborough manor.
“M’lord,” she called after him. He moved slowly but with purpose and she caught up with him in a few hopping strides. “M’lord,” she repeated. “Please…”
“What is it?” he asked. She bit her lip as they stood face-to-face once more; a place she had wanted to be for so long, even if she did not know it. She couldn’t overcome whatever wave of emotion began to fill her; tears welled at her eyes, but not of misery; no, tears of joy; fervor, and confusion. Though she fought it subconsciously her muscles moved, fueled with a vim all their own, and she pressed herself to his chest, wrapping her arms in a desperate embrace. She buried her eyes into his damp shirt, closing them to stave off the passionate flow of tears.
And she felt something she hadn’t expected. They came slow, awkward at first - but he answered with an embrace, arms at her shoulders; a gentle stroke down her soaked hair. Her breathing evened and she sighed out when she felt him return that touch, something she had never felt; a gentle, if gingerly touch of affection, returned to her.
“M’lord…” she repeated. “I don’t… I don’t know, what I feel, but…”
“Please,” he begged her, looking away. She glanced up at him with her eyes alight; he offered her a kiss on her forehead, though she longed so deeply to feel the fire shared on their lips again. “Just… remember it. Hold on to it, and you shall see yourself through the day, m’lady.”
Remember it. With that she felt his arms loosen; a businesslike demeanor filled him. But just once, his fingers lingered; their hands met, tied together, and they shared that passing, intimate moment.
And then he strode towards the manor doors. Her heart screamed. She begged to know just what he meant. The cold clung to her, renewed; she followed him, seeking the warmth of a bath. Any warmth she could find.
Chapter Twelve
He stood statuesque in the foyer of the Roxborough estate, the dim and dying daylight creeping in a gentle wave through the open door behind him. He heard her slippers step softly across the carpet; Roxborough butler murmured something pleasant to the woman, something he could not make out. He heard her reply; something about a bath, about warmth to clean off the muck of the day. He could not - or perhaps had no wish to - tell precisely what she said. The ringing in his ears and the pain in his heart had done more than enough to sever him from the doldrums of the rain, or the bath, or the estate.
The Lord Strauss closed his eyes. He saw himself - a boy again, of only twelve or thirteen years. He and his sister, standing atop the staircase at the Amhurst estate - a grand and twisting pathway, its steps hewn of marble, its frame build of the glossiest polished oak. The sun rained through the ceiling-high window at the stairwell landing, but in my memory it felt faded; dim, damaged. Candles burned away their last from the long night before. I had spent all night awake, in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Listening. Wondering. Dreaming of being away from there.
“Hush now, Lawrence,” my sister whispered into my ear as he hid beneath the shining rail, sun reflecting in the grain of the wood. he heard the shouts; muffled, full of pain and anger and two lifetimes full of regret. He closed his eyes, crying; his sister tried again to still the feeling, but it welled up until he couldn’t contain it any longer, the tears gushing along his cheeks.
“I cannot handle this anymore!” Lawrence’s memory recalled the pained and shrill call of his mother, her voice needled at its edges by cracking anxiety as she rushed into the foyer, her black and lacy dress swinging and swaying wildly beneath the vigor of her emboldened motions. She stormed towards the estate’s grand door. “I will not endure another night of you, spending your life in the stupor of drink, or the grasp of another woman.”
Another woman. That had always stuck with Lawrence. He had now known this side of his father in his youngest days - or perhaps in the ignorance of youth he wished simply to ignore them. But on that day, when he stood atop the staircase, peering through the slats on the banister, the illusion of a father of manner and means, a gentleman in service to the family estate, crumbled brilliantly beneath an unending, emotional tide of throbbing, raw revelation. His father stormed into his view, wearing a disheveled black suit with a silken shirt, the acrid burn of cheap brandy meeting Lawrence’s nostrils with its wretched lure. The young boy winced, watching the man he had had some sort of love in his heart for become something he didn’t recognize.
“I’ve taken your hand in marriage, and you’ll do what’s best for that,” his father had said. Marriage. The word would forever bear with it a sickening medicine for Lawrence; from that day, he would see it as torment. The torment he saw in his mother’s eyes, stained with tears; burning red upon her cheeks, glazed with a heartbroken rage.
“You’re not the man I chose to marry,” his mother shouted back, throwing her hand upon the brass handle to the manor’s doors. With trepidation, he watched his father stride to mother’s side, struggling with her as she fought to pull the door open. Lawrence shook atop the stairs; he felt his sister’s comforting touch upon his head, but it did little to still the river of hurt roiling in the boy’s chest. He watched his mother wrestle back at father’s iron grip on her wrist; a smattering of sounds he couldn’t understand spat roughly between the two most important people in the boy’s life as he watched something no child should have to see. His cheeks burning with the flame of liquor and the cinders of rage, his eyes glazed, Lawrence felt his body shake wh
en he saw his father raise his hand and, in a wide and arcing swing, slap hard across his mother’s face; hard enough to send her reeling to her knees. A little yelp rose from the woman’s throat; one of surprise, of anguish. He would hear that sound in his nightmares for the rest of his life. His sister quickly lifted her palm across his eyes to shield him from the indignity of seeing his mother in such a place, but as well-intentioned as his sibling had been, she could not stop him from hearing the roars of his father. He had forgotten the precise words, and remembered only that his father sounded like something possessed; a beast bearing within it a wicked soul, one Lawrence had never recognized or known. For all of his short life his father had been something different; an actor, perhaps.
That day Lawrence saw the reality of love - of marriage. Of the life he feared himself doomed to, splayed out in the hot outline of a tingling palm-print on his mother’s face. He saw in her tears the pain of every woman in all the world, as they suffered beneath the burden of expectation and of marriage. The young boy swore he would never look upon that face again. As time passed he came to the realization that he bore the same blood as his father - the same name, the same title. And when he grew to inherit over his sister, in spite of his desires, he realized that fate weaves itself strict and ironclad before even the most well-intentioned mind could hope to break it. And no matter what happened, should be hazard marriage - he would wind up just like his father. Awash in the glow of brandy and hate, he would see that face again.
Lawrence’s eyes flashed open again. No more was he a boy cowering atop a stairwell; he heard the door of the grand foyer slam shut, and behind him stood a woman he had claimed physically; a woman for whom his heart had pounded in silent, wishing desire since the moment they had first laughed together. A woman he desired, but a woman he desired never to see suffer that same fate - wearing that same face.
Desiring The Duke (Regency Romance: Strong Women Find True Love Book 4) Page 9
