She laughed. “Oh, Adam, I don’t expect to live like a queen. Besides, I’m sure the viscount will return. He seemed to enjoy himself very much.”
Hilary entered with the tea.
“Will you read to me, Adam?” Diana asked, wincing with pain as she sat up to receive the tea Hilary was pouring. “I do so love the cadence of your deep voice. Perhaps it will help me relax, and I can get a good night’s sleep. I’ve had such trouble sleeping the past few days.”
“Certainly.” He rose to retrieve the book, and realized with some discomfort that he could no more break her heart now than he could push her out of bed while she slept. It was that damned, irritating compassion again.
Yet tomorrow, he knew that Diana would again be treating Madeline like dirt under her fingernails. For a moment, he considered telling Diana the truth—the cold, hard truth, with nothing to spare—then he forced himself to just read.
Chapter Twenty
After nine sleepless nights and ten days full of abuse and unappreciated drudgery, Madeline’s patience was reaching the end of its tether, and her compassion was almost completely dried up.
She stood over Diana’s bed now—having just been called a lazy frump because she had insisted the wash water was not as cold as ice—all the while fighting hard against the urge to pour the whole bloody wash basin over her sister’s infuriatingly pretty head!
“Diana, I have a dozen things to do before dinner, and I don’t have time to boil another pot of water for you now. Perhaps Hilary could do it.”
“Hilary is reading to me,” Diana replied haughtily.
“Perhaps Hilary could set the book aside for a few minutes.” And perhaps I should ship you off to a hospital somewhere and let a bunch of cranky nurses take care of you!
Diana glared frostily at Madeline. “Have you no pity? Do you have any idea what I would give to be able to boil that water for myself? To walk down those stairs and see the sun shining in the parlor windows? All I want is to feel clean and comfortable, for that is all I have, confined to this bed. But you…you have never thought of anyone but yourself. You were always so selfish, even as a child. You always wanted my hair ribbons and you took them, too, when I was away. I would come home from Auntie’s to find you wearing them!”
Madeline swallowed over the fury that was rising like a tidal wave in her throat. “I used your ribbons because Father wouldn’t buy me any of my own.”
Diana gave her a disbelieving frown. “That gave you no right to take what was mine.”
That’s not all I want to take, Madeline thought, squeezing the washcloth in her hand.
She decided she needed to leave the room and be by herself for a little while, for her patience was dangerously close to breaking.
“I’m sorry, Diana, I really do have to tend to dinner. Hilary is going to have to look after your bath. I’ll be up later with a tray.”
Diana simply huffed and waved a commanding hand to Hilary, who picked up the washcloth and proceeded to continue where Madeline had left off.
Madeline seized the opportunity to dash out of the room before Diana asked for anything else. She went down to the kitchen and met Adam just coming in the back door, wiping his boots on the mat.
He froze there and stared at her. “You look exhausted, Madeline. When have you slept?”
She wiped her hands over her apron and tried to shrug casually. “I’ve been sleeping when Diana sleeps.”
“From the sounds of it, she has you hopping all night long.” His tone was contemptuous and stern.
“She’s still very uncomfortable,” Madeline explained. “She wakes during the night.”
“And she wakes you, too. I hear you running up and down the stairs for things, and I hear her shouting, scolding you.” He moved all the way into the kitchen, removed his coat and hung it on the back of a chair. “This is getting out of hand. She treats you like a slave, Madeline. You don’t deserve to be spoken to in that manner. No one does.” He ran a hand over the top of his hair and paused before adding, “Do you think she remembers?”
Madeline’s heart lurched. “Remembers that you broke off the engagement?”
“Maybe she’s lashing out at you.”
Madeline considered it. “No, this is not Diana ‘lashing out.’ She would never be able to keep something like that to herself. She would come right out and say it, maybe throw a vase or two at my head.”
He gave her a subtle smile, but it held some annoyance. “So this is just Diana’s normal, everyday treatment of you?”
He raised an eyebrow. He seemed to be questioning her, pushing her to think about this.
Madeline didn’t like to admit that it was normal for Diana to be cruel, not just because it seemed traitorous to her sister but because it forced Madeline to face the fact that she allowed herself to be treated that way, and always had.
I allow it. Why?
“Not entirely,” she said in her own defense, skirting the issue that was now niggling at her brain. “The pain has made her personality a bit more…intense than normal.”
“And no doubt, the doctor’s pain medication has exacerbated it. You know what they say—In vino veritas.”
“There is truth in wine,” Madeline repeated.
Adam’s dark eyes softened. “The only reason I haven’t said anything to her, Madeline, is because I know you would not wish me to. But I have been grinding my teeth so much lately, I fear I may be wearing them down to their roots.”
Madeline stared at him in disbelief. She wasn’t sure if she was flattered by his concern and pleased that, through the walls, he had heard the not-so-charming side of Diana’s personality. Or if she was angry at him for making her question her own backbone.
He was right, though. This was getting out of hand.
Why had she always cowered to Diana?
“What would you have me do, then?” she asked, still not ready to admit that her obliging nature with Diana was anything more than an abnormally large sense of duty. “She’s been through hell, Adam. It’s natural that she should be bitter about—”
“She has a broken leg, Madeline. It will heal.”
“But she’ll have to walk with a cane, and she’ll have a scar on her forehead.”
“A cane and a scar? That won’t be the end of the world.”
“It will be to her. Her appearance matters to her.”
He considered her point. “And I thought I was compassionate to a fault. It seems I’ve met my match.” He moved toward her, close enough that she could smell his musky scent.
How long had it been since she’d been outside these walls with him? she wondered. How long had it been since she’d spent any time alone with him, talking easily, as they used to do? She promptly felt hungry and deprived of…of what? Of companionship? Of love?
Love.
“I don’t believe that compassion is ever a shortcoming, Adam.”
“It is when it lays you out like a doormat.”
“I’m not anyone’s doormat.”
“You are. Your guilt has made you into one, when you have done nothing wrong.”
“It’s not guilt that makes me care for her, it’s—” She stopped.
“It’s what, Madeline?” He took a step forward. His eyes searched hers.
Madeline felt the air sail out of her lungs, taking with it her resolve to be strong and keep her emotions in a tight harness. She felt the rigid muscles in her neck and shoulders go slack.
“Diana needs me now. Maybe, if I’m there for her and help her, maybe she’ll…maybe she’ll…”
Adam’s gaze narrowed. “Maybe she’ll love you?”
Madeline felt tears of realization filling her eyes. “Neither she nor Father ever said a kind word to me, or made me feel important to them. I suppose…” She paused for a breath. “I suppose I just want to matter to someone. Is that so wrong?”
He held both her hands. “You matter to me, Madeline. Why won’t you let me love you? Why can’t you let go of what
Diana will never be?”
“She’s my sister. My flesh and blood.” Madeline could feel herself melting into him. “I have to try and save us—as a family.”
Adam’s gaze narrowed in on her. “This is about your mother, isn’t it?”
She shook her head. “No, I—”
“Yes, that’s it. You think it’s your fault that Diana and your father were so miserable all your life. It’s not your fault that she died, Madeline. God has His reasons for taking those we love from us, and we must accept that. If Diana and your father deprived you of love because of it, they hurt themselves as much as they hurt you, for look at your family now. You are spread out and distant from each other in your hearts.”
“But I don’t want to be distant. I want us to love each other. I look at your family, Adam, and I long for what you have been able to create and nurture and sustain.”
He clenched his jaw in frustration. “Talk to her, then. I know you’ve been afraid of opening your heart, but you must, if you are ever going to fix what is broken in your life. Tell Diana how much she means to you, for love is as much about what you say and do and what you show, as it is about what you feel inside. Perhaps Diana needs to learn that as well.”
Madeline felt a spark of recollection flicker inside her. “Mary said those words to me once—about how important it is to show your love.”
“I’ve said those words to Jacob many times.”
So the lesson she had learned from Mary and Jacob had really come from Adam, for it was he who had passed that knowledge on to them.
She stood in the warmth of the kitchen, gazing up at the man who had come riding into her childhood on a big black horse looking like her very own prince charming, coming to rescue her from her locked prison in the tower. She hadn’t known how long it would take, or how he would do it. Scale the walls perhaps? Fight off a dragon? Who would have thought that he would simply hand her a key made of hope, to open her heart?
Her voice quivered with a flood of emotions. “Adam, I have pushed you away, tried to drive you away, yet you continue to be a friend to me.”
He smiled down at her, but she knew he was not entirely pleased about this. He was sending her to reconcile with her sister, knowing that a reconciliation might bring them closer together but leave him standing outside in the cold.
With nervous apprehension, Madeline returned to Diana’s room to find her quietly reclining on the pillows while Hilary read aloud to her. Madeline moved fully into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I would like to talk to you, Diana. In private.”
Diana nodded at Hilary, who closed the book and left the room.
Madeline sat on the bed. Diana held her head high, her chin slightly elevated, and Madeline knew that look all too well. She was still angry at Madeline for having walked out on her earlier, disobeying her orders and leaving Hilary to finish the sponge bath Madeline had started.
This was going to be exceedingly difficult.
She reached for Diana’s hand. “I…I want to talk to you about us.”
“About us? What us? Are you going to propose marriage to me, Madeline?”
Madeline tried to smile and make light of the joke that was meant to distance her. “Us, as sisters. I…I want to apologize for some things.”
Diana’s expression relaxed visibly, and Madeline was glad she had been able to wrestle with her pride long enough to break the ice. Perhaps, this way, Diana would open her ears and actually listen.
“Do you remember when I was six years old, you taught me how to walk with a book on my head?”
“Yes, what does that have to do with anything?”
Madeline tried again. “Do you remember putting me to bed at night? Climbing under the covers with me, lying beside me and reading, then stroking my forehead before saying good-night?”
“Goodness, Madeline, I don’t remember.”
“Well, I do. I also remember that when you packed up to leave for Auntie’s house to live in London, I did not say goodbye. While you waited in the front hall for the carriage to arrive, I complained to Father and accused him of loving you more than me, and I said you were spoiled. Tell me you remember that.”
Diana pursed her lips indignantly. “How could I forget? You ran off down the lane and then my carriage came. You, as always, were the one who was spoiled that day, Madeline, not me. Don’t think for a minute I was hurt.”
Madeline sighed deeply. “I said I was here to apologize. I’m sorry for that. I…I was angry that you were leaving, and I knew I was going to miss you. I had no mother to hold me and console me after you were gone, and I was afraid.” Lord, this was difficult.
Diana was not moved. “I had no mother, either. Do you think it was easy for me? You never even knew her. I had to watch them put the mother that I loved into the ground.”
Swallowing uneasily, Madeline continued. “I’m sorry for that, too. It was hard for all of us.”
For a long time they sat in silence. Madeline felt her courage faltering and feared that she would not be brave enough to say what she had come here to say. She squeezed her hands together on her lap, then looked at Diana and saw the pain in her own eyes, the memories of a distressing time in her life.
“I didn’t want to say goodbye to you that day, Diana, because I loved you. More than anyone in the world.”
There was a long silence. Diana’s brows drew together in a frown. “Why are you telling me this now?”
Madeline’s stomach began to churn. “Because I want you to know it, and because I want…I want us to be close again.”
The color rose in Diana’s cheeks. “You think I’m going to be an invalid, don’t you? You feel sorry for me, that’s why you’re saying all this.”
“No, Diana—”
“How can you expect us to be close when you will not do the smallest favor for me, like warming the water when I ask? We are nothing alike. You walk around like the living dead, keeping your thoughts to yourself, looking at me as if I am silly and frivolous for wanting to keep my hands soft or my dress clean while you bounce about in the barnyard, taking pleasure in feeding the hogs!”
Madeline felt she’d been slapped across the face. But there was more….
“You judge me,” Diana said, “with that look on your face. I never know what you are thinking because you never tell me. At least when you were a child you expressed yourself by disobeying Father and running off somewhere. You were such a difficult child.”
“I believe I did it for attention,” Madeline replied. “At least, that’s what the housekeepers used to say.”
“Well, thank heavens you gave up trying.”
I did give up, Madeline thought sadly. Just as she was going to give up now, for nothing was worth this torment. She rose from the bed.
“I should go downstairs and start dinner,” Madeline said. “I’ll summon Hilary for you.”
There would be no more apologies. No more attempts to reconcile with her sister. She fluffed up Diana’s pillows, quite secure in the knowledge that she had been right to keep her heart closed at least toward her sister. Her father had deceived her and shipped her off without a second thought, and Diana blamed her for their mother’s death, and clearly still despised her. Madeline had been burdened with that guilt for her entire life.
The key Adam had given her hadn’t worked, after he’d made it sound so simple.
Just then, the noise of a coach driving into the yard interrupted her thoughts. Madeline went to the window and pulled the lace curtain aside.
“Who is it?” Diana asked.
“Good heavens, it’s the lieutenant-governor, Lord Blackthorne. He’s returned.” With unsteady fingers, Madeline quickly untied her apron.
Diana shouted at her. “Wait! You can’t leave now. I look terrible!”
“You have a maid, Diana, and I have work to do.”
With that, she hurried downstairs to greet the viscount, thankful to have something to keep her mind occupied. For she was damned if s
he was going to think about her heart, or ever try to awaken it again.
Chapter Twenty-One
“You don’t say.” Lord Blackthorne lowered his quizzing glass and followed Adam and Madeline into the parlor. “My word, Coates, what an abominable turn of events.”
“Shall I get tea?” Madeline asked.
Adam gestured for the lieutenant-governor to take a seat. “No, Madeline. Please stay. I’m sure Lord Blackthorne would like to hear your story as well as mine.”
“Yes, yes,” the viscount replied, raising his quizzing glass again and shifting his attention toward Madeline. “I understand you were the one to find Lady Thurston. Heavens, you did well, Miss Oxley. It must have been a terrifying night for you.”
For the next half hour, Adam and Madeline described the events of the flood, as well as the current condition of the marsh and what the future held for Cumberland. Lord Blackthorne was both sympathetic and optimistic, and promised to do all he could at Government House, to attend to the matter.
“And what about Lady Thurston?” he asked. “How is she faring?”
Adam and Madeline glanced at each other. After an awkward pause, Adam answered. “Her spirits are rather low, I’m afraid.”
“Ah. That is to be expected. I presume she is still in some pain.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And what does the doctor have to say? Is he a dependable fellow?”
“Yes, he’s very capable,” Madeline said. “I have complete faith in him. He did his best for Diana the night of the accident, and he saved her leg.”
Lord Blackthorne gestured toward his own wooden leg. “I wish he had been on the battlefield in ’42.”
Madeline smiled in understanding.
The viscount waved a dismissive hand through the air. “But that was so long ago, now. I rarely think of it. Perspective,” he said, raising an authoritative finger. “Lady Thurston must look to the future and see her life as a whole, and know that this is just a small piece of it. These difficult weeks will pass, and she’ll be up and around before she knows it. Soon, everything will seem normal again. It’s just a matter of acceptance and determination, and perhaps a little reassurance from those who care about her.”
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