No matter what, True told her, she would always have a home with her cousins. She had meant it then and she still felt that way, no matter what divided them. Bella held the place in True’s heart of another sister, just like Faithful.
“Sweetheart, what is the matter?”
“What am I going to do? I have fallen in love with Lord Drake, but he does not love me, does he? Oh, what shall I do if he does not love me? I’ll go mad with sorrow!”
Shocked but unwilling to let Bella see that she was, True enfolded her in her arms. She swallowed a lump in her throat and said, “Hush, love, hush. Everything will be all right.”
After her sobbing confession and a tormented torrent of tears, Bella slept. True had shed some tears herself, but now was calm as she stroked her cousin’s silky hair and stared into the dark. The candle had long ago burnt out, but sleep would not come to True for a very long time, she feared.
They were both in love with Lord Drake. Yes, she had finally admitted to herself her feelings. She loved the man, though she had intended to stay heart-whole. But Bella loved him too, with the powerful love of one surprised by the emotion.
But what, or whom, was best for Drake? Should he marry at all? It was up to him, of course, but on the whole True had started to think he would very soon come to the conclusion that marriage was his next step. Just the way he had phrased his announcement in the library showed that he was thinking of the future now, not the past. His mind had turned, and he could now look ahead. That was good and right, as it should be. He would make a superb husband and was capable, True thought, of great love.
His inherent sweetness had been displayed every day to True, in the little gestures of affection and preference toward herself, gestures that she saw now could be construed as, well, brotherly. He had kissed her, yes, and at least one of those kisses had been passionate. But that was the night at the inn; he was a little drunk and it was the first couple of days of their acquaintance. The kisses of the previous day, as sweet and lingering as they were, could have been intended as affectionate, friendly, she supposed. All of the other constructs she placed on them could be her own treacherous, feminine whimsy, seeing love where it was wanted so very much. She was inexperienced in such matters, and reluctant to jump to conclusions.
But one thing she did know: Drake was a decisive man when he wanted something. Look at how quickly he had acted on his idea for a school! If he had fallen in love with her, or meant more by those caresses than simple gestures of affection, he would have offered for her.
And she was meant for other things, was she not? She was meant to marry Mr. Bottleby and do God’s work in the north. That was what her would-be fiancé believed. He felt that he had been called by God, and that she had been indicated as his suitable helpmeet. Granted, the fever in his eyes had made True uneasy as he said that, but it was just the fervor of a God-fearing man, a good man.
What to do?
Bella stirred and mumbled. “Drake, oh, Drake, how I love you,” she murmured.
True sighed. A shaft of jealousy and pain lanced her heart. If only there was some sign of what was right, of what she should do. “God, please send me a sign,” she whispered. “Tell me what to do and I will do it, gladly and with my whole heart. I love him, but I will give him up forever if it is Your will.”
Drowsily, Bella shifted. “Did you say something, True?”
“No, dear. Go back to sleep.”
• • •
“Miss Becket, there is a letter for you.” Lady Leathorne, sorting the mail as the ladies sat at the breakfast table lingering over coffee, handed a letter sealed with ivory wax over to True.
“It is from home,” True said with a smile. “I have written my father several letters since I have been here, but he is a poor correspondent. I did not expect a letter in return at all.”
“Feel free to read it, Miss Becket,” the countess said. “We do not stand on ceremony here.”
“Ah, it is not in my father’s hand, but in my sister Faith’s writing.” She perused the contents. “Oh, no! Father has been asking for me! Faith does not say it, but he must be ill!”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, my dear. Is it dangerous?” Lady Leathorne laid down the letter she was reading.
At the same moment, Bella said, “Poor Uncle!” He was not her uncle, but her affection for the old man had given him that courtesy title. “Is he all right, True?”
True laid her hand over Arabella’s. “I don’t know; Faith doesn’t say, but he hasn’t been perfectly well for some time and he has been asking Faith when I am coming home. I can always make him feel better. My sister does not know exactly what helps his gout. Sometimes his feet are so bad he cannot walk. Poor Papa!”
“Perhaps you should go home for a time,” Lady Swinley said. She wore a frown of concern. “If Becket is ailing, he will need you. You may use our carriage if you like, True.”
It was an unexpectedly generous offer, one that had even Arabella looking at her mother in surprise, but True was grateful. And if she was wanting a message from God as to where her rightful place was, there could not be a stronger one than this. Not that she thought that God had exacerbated her father’s poor health as some kind of sign, but it surely was an indication of where True belonged. “Thank you, cousin. That is so very kind of you!”
She turned to her hostess. “Lady Leathorne, your gracious hospitality has been the most generous that I have ever known. I have been overwhelmed by your and Lord Leathorne’s treatment of me, and Lord Drake’s kindness, but my father needs me and I think I shall take my cousin up on her kind offer of a carriage home. I will leave tomorrow.”
Chapter Twelve
True wandered the meadow that afternoon, thinking of all she had experienced since coming to Lea Park. She had never truly been in love before, she realized. Her love for Harry had been the love of youth, and if they had married, she would have been a good wife to him, but she didn’t know if the kind of love she felt for Drake would ever have been theirs.
And that was a dangerous way to think, she knew. Especially after Bella’s sobbing confession the night before, of her own love for Lord Drake. Between the two of them, it was clear who would make the better countess. She had feared all along that if Lord Drake had deigned to ask her to marry him, her own misplaced passion for him would have persuaded her that she should say yes. She could not have borne it if over the years her own inability to rule a household like Lea Park had turned Drake’s infinite kindness sour, or if he had become bored by her prosaic nature. Arabella was more talented, more beautiful, and better trained for the role of countess. It was not false modesty, just realism.
So she was in the unenviable position of having to hope that his feelings for her truly were of the brotherly sort. And she knew that she would have to forget that hers had ever been anything more than sisterly if she wanted to live happily and without regret.
The river lay before her, sparkling in the autumn sunlight. The lush grass was yellowing and the leaves were dropping off the trees; in the distance she could see how a breeze tossed the treetops, a harbinger of the colder weather to come, of winter. Life moved on, changed, progressed, and she must, too. She threw off her bonnet and sat at the base of the big oak tree, the scene of precious memories for her. It was going to be difficult to forget about her love for Lord Drake, but she must, especially if he and Bella came to an agreement. He would be her cousin, then, and married.
“I thought I would find you here.”
The shadow cast over her was a big one. She looked up and smiled, her heart gladdened by the sight of the viscount, tall and handsome, his stance easier than it was when first they met. “This seemed a good place to say good-bye to Lea Park.”
Drake sat down beside her. “Yes, I have heard you are leaving. I hope your father is not too ill?”
“I hope not,” True said with a worried frown. “Faith, my sister, did not say exactly what his complaint is, just that he wants me to come home. I’m
hoping it is only his gout, as it usually is. But the doctor was in some apprehension that he would be unable to walk before long, and I pray that is not the case.”
Drake took her ungloved hand and kissed it, retaining it as they sat. “I will keep you in my thoughts. Will you let us know how your father is, and how you go on?”
True blushed. She looked down at their joined hands, his long fingers curled protectively around her smaller ones. “I will write to Bella.”
“Bella . . . ah, yes, Arabella. Is that what you call her?”
She nodded. “Since she was a child. I was fourteen the first time she came to stay with us, this frail, sickly child of eight years. It was my mission in life to fatten her up. I never really succeeded in that, but she did become a radiant young woman.”
“She is lovely,” Drake said, squinting down at the river. He shaded his eyes with his free hand. “Look down there; a fish just jumped. I should have brought my pole and I could have taught you to fish.”
“Bella knows how to fish,” True said, pushed on by some martyred little demon in her soul to try to advance the match between her cousin and the man she loved. She must be mad. “You would not know it to look at her, she’s so elegant and beautiful, but she is up to every rig, you know. She can even play cricket. Bested the boys in our village at batting. They would not play with her after that.”
“Ah, cricket! Hampshire is famous for our cricketers, you know. Yes, I saw her at battledore and shuttlecock; beat Conroy, and he is considered a fair hand at games. She is a sportswoman, to be sure.”
Silence fell between them. True was uncomfortably aware of his hand engulfing her own, the heat from his palm, the way his thumb moved, caressing her fingers. They would have to curb this physical closeness they always fell into if he were to marry Bella. It would not be appropriate; it was inappropriate now! She tried to slide her hand out of his grip, but his hand tightened.
“Will you come back?” he asked, still staring down at the river.
“Come back?”
“Come back to Lea Park. Or are you so glad to get away from this brooding, glum old soldier that you will forget about me entirely?” He chuckled, but the laugh broke and died. “Will you promise to return once your father is better?”
True thought about what he was asking. He said nothing about his feelings, nothing about love, he just liked having her around. Exasperating man! What did he want from her? What did he expect her to do, hang over his shoulder and help him woo her lovely cousin? Tears started in her eyes, but she determinedly blinked them away. “I think—”
“You will, I know you will.” He pulled her close and cuddled her to him.
• • •
Contentment stole through Drake. Since his and True’s afternoon at the new school, he had slept two whole nights with no nightmares, no wakefulness. There had been no furious faces in his dreams, no bloody corpses. It was strange to feel almost whole, and it was taking some getting used to. He glanced down with affection at True, tucked securely under his arm. When she came back, he thought that he might have a question to ask her. Let the vicar find another woman; this one was his. She had become as necessary to him as sunshine and fresh air, and now it appeared that she had healed his heart. For the first time he looked forward to the future.
Her cheeks were rosy with the sunshine’s glow, and he could not resist. He stole a kiss. And then another. He turned her to face him and pulled her even closer, gazing down into her breathless face and searching eyes, as blue as the sky reflected in the river. He could not be mistaken; he was in love with her, and he was full of the hope that she returned his feelings. But it was certainly not appropriate to divulge his newly understood emotions, nor to ask her to marry him while she was fearful of her father’s health. It would have to wait until next they met.
But he could taste those luscious lips once more. He pressed a kiss to them, lost in a delirious delight that coursed through his body, savoring her sweetness and allowing himself to experience fully the dizzying feel of her body pressed to his, soft breasts pushing against his waistcoat. He wanted her so badly—he allowed himself to admit it now—wanted her in every way a man could want a woman. But he must not dwell on what marriage would mean. He released her, thinking that for his own sanity he must leave her alone until she returned to him. Standing abruptly, he said, “I must be going back up to the house. This afternoon Conroy and I are riding over to Thorne House to see how the renovations go on. I am . . .” He swallowed and thrust his fingers through his hair, determined to calm his racing pulse. “I am suddenly anxious that the house should be habitable very soon. Vaya con Dios, as the Spaniards say, Truelove, until we meet again. I pray your father is all right.”
He turned and stalked away, up over the rise and toward the house.
• • •
At first during the long journey home, True, with only a quiet little maid for company, was lost in contemplation of Lord Drake and their last moments together. Dazed by the experience and his abrupt departure from her, she had sat a long time staring at the river with unseeing eyes. What had it meant? He had kissed her in a way that was not brotherly; there could be no mistaking that. Was he unsure himself? Was he torn between her and Bella? He had stayed away from her the whole day before and devoted himself to her cousin, and then the next day kissed her like that!
It was lucky that fate had decreed she was to leave Lea Park and Lord Drake, because she did not think she would have the strength to leave the field open to her compet . . . no, not her competition, her cousin, whom she loved very much.
By the time she had gone back up to the house an hour or so later he was gone. As he had said, he had ridden with Lord Conroy over to Thorne House to stay the night. They were going shooting the next day in his own woods near Thorne House, and would not be back until late that next night, or even the day after that. She had dreamt of that last kiss all night long, it seemed, and could not help wondering what it meant. She needed time to think.
But the last half of the long journey saw her worries for her father increase to the point that she feared the very fact that Faith had not told her what was wrong was an indication that things were very bad indeed. What would she find when she came home to the vicarage? There had been influenza among some of the poor families; had he taken ill after visiting some of them?
They dropped the little maid off at her family’s home in a nearby village—Lady Leathorne had pointed out that this was a way of giving True a chaperone, while letting little Betty go for a long-promised visit to her ailing mother—and continued on, arriving in the early hours of twilight. True directed Lady Swinley’s driver to the nearest inn, where the stable would house the carriage before it returned to Lea Park in the morning, and then she dashed to the door, leaving her baggage by the roadside for their manservant Jem to pick up.
The light was on in the parlor. True let herself in and raced into the room, looking wildly around for her sister. “Faith? Faith?” she called out. “What is wrong? Where is father?”
“I am right here, my dear.”
True turned to find her father in the doorway, pulling off his glasses. “Papa,” she cried, and flung herself into his arms. “Papa, I was so afraid for you, and I pictured all kinds of terrible things, and when Faith did not say what was wrong with you, I imagined the worst.”
Her father enclosed her in his arms and rubbed her back. “My dear little girl, I am not sick. What did Faith say in the letter? I did not want to alarm you. Come, let us sit down and you can tell me all.”
They sat together in the homely small parlor off the main vestibule, and True glanced around. Home. This was home. The grand saloons and parlors of Lea Park did not have the warmth of this small shabby room, with furniture frayed at the edges, a pool of yellow lamplight spilling across tables littered with books and papers and material, and Patch, her father’s elderly springer spaniel, sleeping on the hearth near the fire. Cook came in just then with the tea tray, and True
presided over the flowered porcelain teapot.
“Faith is at her friend Alison’s this evening,” Mr. Becket said. “I think there is something in the air between her and Alison Wentworth’s brother, but no one ever tells me anything.”
“But, Father, what is wrong that you asked Faith to call me home?” True curled up in her usual chair, a cast-off from Squire Jacob’s manor house and chewed in one corner by his old hound. “I thought to find you ill.”
“Well,” he said, looking just a little guilty, “my gout has been acting up, and there were two days when I could not walk, but Widow Saunders has been very attentive. In fact I was thinking, True, that if you should marry young Bottleby, and things work out between Faith and her young man, I have considered asking Mrs. Saunders to throw her lot in with me.”
“Throw her lot . . . Father! You think to marry?” It took a major adjustment in the way she viewed her father and the Widow Saunders, but she could see now how the woman’s solicitousness could have another meaning than just the natural kindness of a good and motherly woman. Were they in love? For some reason the thought was heartwarming, that one could fall in love even in old age.
“Only thought about it, my dear.” He slid his glasses back up his nose, then tilted his head and gazed over them at her in a familiar and much-loved gesture. “She has become an important part of my day of late.”
“Is that why you wanted me home? To tell me this?”
“Nnno.”
Miss Truelove Beckons (Classic Regency Romances Book 12) Page 13
