But instead of climbing out behind her, Dev reached forward and took hold of the door. “We’ll see you back later tonight. Tomorrow morning, if you wish.”
Did they think?
Had Thomas told them she…?
Before she could utter a word of protest, Dev had closed the door and the carriage sprang forward.
“Thomas Findlay!” She huffed. How could she be so happy to see him and yet so utterly aghast at his actions. And Dev! Suggesting she would wish to stay the night alone with Thomas again!
As though he knew!
“Now Duchess,” Thomas patted her hand reassuringly. “Such the hussy. If you’ll take a moment to follow me, you’ll soon discover I’m not so unsavory as to suggest to your nephew that I’d keep you all to myself overnight. Again.” He added the last bit with a twinkle lurking behind those gray-blue eyes of his.
He gestured toward the cottage, and she could indeed hear voices from within. They were not alone? What the devil was going on, then?
And then she allowed him to lead her along the cobbled path to the door. Watching her carefully, he reached forward and opened it.
A shadowed figure stepped forward, one with a familiar tilt to his head. He removed his hat and the moonlight struck his face.
“Harold?” The name barely escaped past her lips. It could not be. Surely, her mind was playing tricks upon her.
“Mother.” It had been so long since she’d heard that voice. He spoke the name she’d never expected to be called again. She felt frozen in time, as though this moment could not be real. But when she realized he was holding back, uncertain of her reception, she rushed forward and wrapped her arms around his waist.
Her son. She’d not embraced him in years. But he was here. Standing before her. She couldn’t help the tears that suddenly cascaded like a waterfall.
So many tears.
At first, he held himself stiffly, but of course, they’d never been a family for outward gestures of affection.
But that was the past.
After a moment, he relaxed and dropped his arms around her, hugging her into him even more tightly.
“Oh, Harold, I’ve missed you so.” She mumbled the words into his shirt front. Her son. Her child. A trembling set in that she could not stop.
Her son embraced her even more tightly.
“I’m so sorry, Mama.” He’d not called her that since he’d been a child. He shook in her arms as well. “I’m so sorry you had to go through everything alone. I never meant to hurt you.” He apologized over and over again, but she simply shook her head.
“I’m just so very happy to see you. You cannot know…”
After what could have been several minutes or several hours, Loretta eventually loosened her arms so that she could step back and look up at him. She did not release him completely though, keeping her hands on his as she regarded him.
He seemed more muscular, harder, older and less uncertain of himself. It had only been eighteen months since he plunged off the cliff into the ocean, but it felt as though it had been a lifetime.
He turned his head and chuckled. “They have decided to give us some time alone.”
The door was closed, and she and Harold were the only two people in the room. Thomas would have left, but…“They?”
“Stewart came with me.”
Ah, his Valet. His friend. His…
Love.
She had so many questions, so many things she needed to say to him. But suddenly she felt awkward, after such an unseemly display of emotion. Her face was likely red and her eyes puffy. She withdrew the already damp handkerchief from her reticule and began dabbing at her eyes.
“We’ve been waiting for you.” He turned away towards the stove. “I’ve tea and sweetmeats and bread. Sophia and Dev figured we’d want to spend some time together. We’ll travel south again in the early morning hours. I cannot be seen, of course, especially in these whereabouts.”
He moved about gracefully, placing cups and cutlery on a nearby table. Harold had always shown refinement and dignity in social situations. When she finally had the wherewithal to glance around at her surroundings, she smiled. “You’ve decorated.” Sprigs of evergreen and holly were pinned along the walls. Ah, and yes, the room smelled of cloves and oranges. “You’ve always loved the festivities at Christmastide.”
He laughed a little self-consciously. “I didn’t have time to buy you a present.”
“Oh, but Harold, you are the present. I cannot imagine a greater gift.” He pulled out a wooden chair for her, and she sat down at the setting he’d laid out.
Where did one begin?
“I wanted to come, as soon as I’d heard about the accident. I cannot imagine a world without Prescott and Lucas.” He poured her tea and mixed it exactly as she liked. No sugar and just a dab of cream.
Loretta sobered at the memory. At the time, she’d believed Harold already dead as well. For days, weeks, it seemed, it had hurt to simply breathe. But Sophia had been there to support her, as had Dev.
“Dev is Prescott now.” She spoke softly. “He and Sophia… They told me everything. A body had been discovered. They could have perpetuated the lie, but Dev said I needed to know.” Her words made it sound as though she were yet angry with him for lying. Oh, and but she had been! But this was not the time for such ridiculous recriminations! She needed to apologize to him, for making him feel the need to go to such drastic measures. She glanced up and met his serious brown gaze. “I’m so sorry, my darling. For making you feel as though you could not be accepted. For making you feel like any less of a man. I love you. You are my child. There is nothing you could ever do that would cause that love to die.”
He squeezed his eyes closed, and his throat worked a time or two, as though he found it difficult to swallow. “It was not your fault, Mama. I knew that you loved me, but I also knew you were terribly frightened for me. The rumors had become more and more vicious, I knew. Stewart and I both had heard of them. Marrying Sophia was not a horrible idea. And it might have worked, but I could not trap Sophia for a lifetime. And I could not go on pretending forever.”
“I do not fault you for it. My unhappiness was only because I knew how difficult it would make your life. And I had dreams of my own. But those were only my dreams. Your dreams, your happiness were what truly mattered.”
“I know you always loved me.” His voice caught and then he took a sip of tea. “Even father, in his own way.”
Loretta smiled ironically at his words. They were the same thing she’d told herself time and time again. But Prescott’s love hadn’t been anything to build one’s life around. She’d learned something different recently. And now, they’d both apologized, she and Harold. And having tea with him almost felt like old times.
“Sophia and Dev know you are here, then? Did Dev plan this?” It would be just like her nephew to do something so wonderfully considerate. And on Christmas, no less.
But Harold was shaking his head. “Findlay, Lady Kensington’s father. Tracked me down and demanded I come make an accounting to my mother.” Harold continued talking, telling her how Thomas Findlay had located him at the special lodging house near the docks. How he’d recognized him from a portrait he’d seen, and then remembered, but Loretta only half listened to the details.
Thomas Findlay had done this? For her?
After she’d sent him away. After she’d told him he was beneath her.
He’d brought to her the only Christmas gift that could have possibly given her any joy whatsoever. And in doing so, he’d opened up her heart to love again.
How had he known?
Oh, Thomas.
Dear, dear Thomas.
She and Harold took tea, talked of his new life, of how he and Stewart and some of their friends who suffered the same affliction would eventually travel to an island they’d learned of. But they were waiting for spring to come. And some of them had other arrangements to tend to first.
But eventually they would le
ave. Although they remained rather hidden and protected in their disguises and community, they were not safe.
He would eventually leave.
But for now, he was here. She even asked him how he and Stewart were getting along.
Harold blushed, causing Loretta to reach out and grasp his hand. “It is fine. I am happy you discovered somebody so very special, somebody who makes you happy.” And then a short knock sounded at the door.
“Come in!”
The blustering wind carried a few snowflakes inside as the door swung open to allow Thomas and a familiar looking young man with him to enter.
“Stewart.” Loretta stood and embraced the young man who made her son feel alive. Something she was just beginning to understand. The last time she’d been in the young man’s company had been the day of Harold’s memorial. He’d looked tormented then. Of course, he would have been worried. “I cannot thank you both enough for coming here tonight.”
And then she looked over at Thomas. She thanked him with her eyes. She could not speak to him in front of others. Her emotions seemed too fresh, too raw to do so. And he might turn her away after all.
But she would take a chance. She would risk her pride.
The four of them shared more of the food and tea until at last everything that could be said that night had been said.
Stewart rose with a look in Harold’s direction. “I think we had best take our leave.” Thinking of the two of them together, as romantic partners, had seemed so very odd and wrong to Loretta, but tonight, hearing the tenderness and caring in his voice for her son, it seemed perfectly natural.
Harold rose as did Thomas and then Loretta. “Your grace.” Stewart bowed over her hand, and then Harold stepped forward.
“Don’t worry for me, Mother. I’ll write to Findlay, here, so that he can pass my correspondence along.” And then he embraced her. “I want you to be happy, Mama.” He choked slightly on his whispered sentiment. “For me.”
Loretta swallowed hard. “I will. I promise. And then she clasped his hand one last time. She did not want to release him. It might be years, or perhaps another lifetime before she saw him again. “I love you.” She said the words aloud before even thinking to catch them. “Be safe. Be happy. Both of you.”
She knew more tears would come, but she would hold them back until after they’d left. She did not want his last sight of her to be an unhappy one.
She and Thomas followed them out the door and watched them climb onto the two mounts that waited nearby.
She smiled with as much courage as she could muster. “Happy Christmas!”
“Happy Christmas!” They both wished her back, almost as though in one voice, and then in the blink of an eye, they rode away down the narrow lane. She stood watching, not even aware that she was without her wrap, until they disappeared.
“Come inside, Duchess.” Thomas touched her arm tentatively. “You’ll catch your death out here.”
“Oh, Thomas,” she cried out, and then threw herself at him. He swept her into his arms and carried her back inside. Into the warmth cast by the fire, where only moments ago she’d sat with her son.
She wept.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
When all her tears had been spent, she realized Thomas was cradling her in his lap, both of them sitting in one of the wooden chairs.
“I have cried so much tonight, I may just as well dry up like an old prune.” She spoke into his collar with a sniffle.
His hand stroked her hair.
“It was not a mistake, was it, to bring him here?” His chest rumbled beneath her as he spoke. That dear, rumbling, coarse voice of his.
She shook her head side to side. “It was the best gift anyone has ever thought to give me. Oh, no, Thomas, it was not a mistake.” And then she leaned back so that she could look into his eyes. “I still can hardly believe it.” This man set her in awe.
He lifted one hand and brushed some hair away from her face. “I wasn’t sure.” The uncertainty in his voice nearly undid her.
“I am so happy and so absolutely heartbroken at the same time. But most of all I am at peace.” She covered his hand with hers. “But why would you go to so much trouble for me, Thomas?” she had to know.
“I wanted to see you at peace. I needed to see you at peace. I understand the weight of words left unspoken, of what they can do to your heart.”
Oh, Thomas. “Your wife?”
He nodded. “I never got to tell her thank you. I never was able to thank her for giving me such a wonderful daughter as Cecily has been. I never was able to thank her for the pain she went through, nor the difficulties she endured before the birth.”
In his eyes, lurked both understanding and pain. But, also a wisdom. The wisdom to know that life continued as surely as the sun rose again each morning.
“She knows.” She must be so very proud of the daughter he’d raised.
Loretta had never known such a man could exist. A man who toiled, with intelligence, but a man who could also love. A man who could wield power and strength along with humility. Oh, she’d had so very much to learn.
“And now Harold knows. He knows you love him as he is.”
She nodded. “And I… I am so sorry I sent you away, Thomas. I was so foolish and such a coward. I do not care what anyone thinks. I want to be happy. I want to… but you are going to leave the country, are you not? Cecily says that you always leave. That you must attend to your interests overseas…” Oh, she would make a fool of herself over this man.
And then his lips found hers, but only briefly. “I have discovered I have greater interests here in England. You have guessed, have you not, duchess of mine? That I love you?”
Something between a sob and a laugh somehow escaped past her lips. “Oh, Thomas. I love you too!” Such relief. “You forgive me then?”
He nuzzled the sensitive skin behind her ear. “Nothing to forgive, Duchess. You’ve been through so much. But I have something to ask you. He was sliding her off him, forcing her to stand on legs which had suddenly become wobbly and unstable.
When he dropped onto one knee, she felt all of seventeen again. Taking her hand in his, he gazed up at her with those blue-gray eyes of his, which ought to look cold, instead looking warm and loving. “I have no title to offer you. I have no long history of nobility running through my veins. But my blood burns for you, Duchess. If you’ll deign to become my wife, I’ll spend what remains of my life doing everything in my power to bring you only happiness.”
“You wish to marry me?” Oh, Thomas! She had only but a moment to imagine what her life might be like waking each morning beside him! As his wife. It would be so very different than her first marriage had been.
It would be so very, very wonderful!
“Yes!” She said the word on a gasp. “Oh yes, Thomas!”
And then she was in his arms being twirled around and around. She would take a chance on living, once again.
Clasping her hands at both sides of his head, she could hardly believe the wonder of this new love. New hope.
Ah, Christmas indeed.
Thomas could hardly believe his luck.
She’d said yes. This proud, beautiful, deeply sensitive woman had said she’d marry him. He blinked back the stinging he suddenly felt behind his eyes.
He touched his lips to hers, once, twice. Perhaps exhaustion had finally caught up with him. He’d not slept in over two days. Perhaps he was imagining her arms twining about his neck, soft curves pressed against him.
“You are certain? You are not simply caught up in the emotion of the evening?” He would not want this woman to feel beholden to him. And yet she’d told him…“You love me?”
“Oh, Thomas,” she whispered against his lips, her mouth tasting sweet and warm. “I was so angry with myself after you had left. When I thought of the words I said to you… I didn’t mean to hurt you. Sometimes I am the coldest, most horrible woman. Simply ask my maid—”
“Hush.” He quieted her
with a long, deep, searching kiss. And then, “Never speak that way about my woman.” At his words, he felt a shiver run through her.
She broke the kiss and tucked her face beneath his chin. “What do Devlin and Sophia know? I imagine they are expecting me to return.”
“Dev knows only that you were unhappy, and that you’d confided in me. They expected you would not be of the disposition to be around large groups of people for dinner, even if many of them were family. I told them I’d either leave you to rest here or return you to your chambers later tonight.”
She leaned back then and gazed up at him. “I don’t want to go back to my chambers alone.”
Ah. Sheer delight shot through him. “Your wish is my command, Duchess.” He growled into her neck.
“And tomorrow, at the Christmas feast, you will announce our engagement?”
He’d not been confident that she’d wish to make their promise to one another public quite yet. “You do not wish to wait?”
“Only if you do.”
But he did not. “I will make a very formal, very public announcement tomorrow at dinner.”
He didn’t deserve any of this.
“Thank you. Thomas. Thank you for everything.”
But he would not accept her thanks. He lifted her and carried her to the bed. They were not pups, setting off on a life together. They had both lived, and loved, and lost. They would appreciate each moment they had together, and they would embrace all the love and joy life had to give them.
“Happy Christmas, Duchess.” He set her upon the bed gently and began to remove his jacket.
She undid a few pins from her hair, allowing it to cascade down her shoulders and across one breast. “Happy Christmas, Thomas.”
– The End –
NOTE: Although Silent Night was written in 1818 and first published in 1820, it had not been translated into English until 1863. Forgive me, dear readers, for taking liberty with this song. I had it in mind when I began the story and failed to realize that it was not, in fact, sung until long past the Regency Era.
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