by Mary Balogh
And she was Wren’s mother.
Eighteen
Somehow Wren had held herself together through the second half of the performance at the theater, the farewells to the duke and duchess and Jessica, and the carriage ride home. But as she hurried upstairs and into her bedchamber without bothering to take a candle with her or to light any when she got there, she found herself plummeting backward twenty years and more. By the time she reached the corner of the room, hidden beyond the bed, and curled herself up on the floor into as tight a ball as she could manage, those twenty years no longer existed. She was back in her own little childhood room inside her own little childhood self, and the whole world of beauty and dazzle and glamour and laughter and friends and warmth and family and love was beyond her heavily netted window and beyond her door, which as often as not was locked from the other side.
The swiftness of her descent into the past would not have been so total, perhaps, if it had not been for that surreal image in the box across from theirs. For twenty years had passed since Aunt Megan had taken her from Roxingly Park forever. Yet her mother had not changed in all that time. She looked youthful and dainty and almost ethereally lovely. The other woman, the one who had looked so like her but had sat farther off to her side of the box, looking about with proud hauteur, had changed, if, indeed, she was Blanche. Her eldest sister had been sixteen when Wren last saw her and the favorite because she was blond and beautiful like her mother though without her allure. She had been someone to display but never allowed to overshadow.
She had been seen. Wren knew she had been. Perhaps they had looked at first merely out of curiosity, just like everyone else, because she had just married the Earl of Riverdale, but no one knew anything else about her except her ownership of the Heyden glassworks. They could not possibly have recognized her, especially just from her right profile. And they probably would not have recognized her name from the morning papers. Although the adoption certificate showed that Wren’s father had given his permission, it was unlikely he had said anything to her mother, who would not have wanted to know.
They had seen her, full face, during the interval when she had looked over to their box to find herself being scrutinized through her mother’s lorgnette. And they had understood. There had been something in their faces. But how could she have seen that from such a distance and through the lenses of a lorgnette? She could not, of course. But she had known. Perhaps it was the language of their bodies she had read more than their facial expressions. She had known that they knew. And she herself had known even before the hammer blow of hearing the name. Lady Hodges.
She was lost deep in memory when she became aware of Alexander’s presence in her room. Or perhaps memory was the wrong word, since she was not remembering any particular incidents from her childhood. What she was really lost in was identification. She was that child again, alone and friendless—almost friendless. But even that one thin, frail memory of love did not force its way into the child’s identity that held her curled into her corner, arms wrapped about herself for protection and to make her smaller and less visible. If only she could be fully invisible . . .
She heard a name that sounded familiar, just as the voice that spoke it did, though she could not immediately place either.
“Wren?”
They came from far, far in the future, that name and that voice. Mentally she sank deeper into herself. But the future would not let her be.
“Wren? What is it? What has happened?”
What had happened? She tightened her hold on herself.
“Will you let me help you up from there? Will you talk to me?”
And she knew suddenly who Wren was and whom the voice belonged to. But it had all been an illusion, that future. This was who she was, this child she could not let go of despite the pain of hopeless misery. She could be no one else. It had been a foolish dream.
“Go away,” she said, and repeated the words more clearly when he did not hear the first time. But he did not go. Instead, he squeezed in beside her, between the bed and the wall, and talked to her. She did not hear all his words or feel his arms come about her—she was still locked inside her old self—but she did hear his pain. And perhaps that was her salvation, that was what began to pull her back. For she had learned—her future self, the one called Wren, had learned just recently—that pain was not confined to her alone, that other people suffered, that suffering could either isolate the sufferer or lead her out of the prison of her aloneness into a shared suffering and a shared courage, and an empathy that reached to the ends of the world. Viola. Abigail and Harry. Jessica. And now Alexander. She had pulled him into her darkness, and she heard the pain in his voice.
“Wren,” he said. “Wren, my love, speak to me.”
And she told him—twice, because he did not hear the first time. She told him. She is my mother. And went spiraling downward and inward again.
But he would not let her go. Or, if she must go, then he would not let her go alone. He got to his feet, talking to her, and picked her up and carried her—away from her room and into his own and set her on the bed and did a few things to make her more comfortable before lying down beside her and gathering her to him.
My love, he had called her.
Darling.
He had also spoken her mother’s name and she had heard herself moan.
He did not speak now. He was Alexander and this was not his room. It was theirs. He was her husband. He had made love to her here last night—three separate times. With pleasure. It had not been just a dutiful consummation to him. She would have known. She had pleased him. He had gone to the House of Lords this morning, drawn by duty, but he had left early to come home and take her to Kew Gardens. And he had talked with her and touched her without any sign of revulsion. He had been relaxed and happy. He had laughed at the wonder with which she had beheld the pagoda. But it had been affectionate laughter. He had told her she looked like a child to whom the world was a new and wondrous place, and she had told him that he was exactly right. They had both laughed then, and for a while they had walked hand in hand instead of with her hand tucked through the crook of his elbow. He had not fully understood, though, that she was a twenty-nine-year-old experiencing the wonders of childhood for the first time.
He had not understood then. Perhaps he did now.
Oh, Alexander, Alexander, what have I done to you?
The room was in darkness. There were no candles burning, as there had been last night. He was fully clothed except that he was wearing no shoes. She could feel the soft folds of his neckcloth against her cheek and the buttons of his pantaloons against her waist. His lovely evening clothes were going to be creased beyond redemption. So was her new evening gown. He was warm and relaxed, but he was not sleeping. She knew that as she gradually came to herself, Wren again—Wren Westcott, Countess of Riverdale—and no longer Rowena Handrich, youngest daughter and second youngest child of Baron and Lady Hodges. The daughter most people probably did not know existed, except perhaps through rumor as the skeleton in the closet of the perfect life that was Lady Hodges’s.
“Alexander,” she said softly, breathing in the warmth and the now-familiar scent of his cologne and of him.
“Yes,” he said.
She kept her eyes closed, allowed the future to flow all the way back into her and become the present, felt the soft comfort of the bed around her, the protective muscled strength of the man against whom she was held from her head right down to her feet, heard the sound of a lone horse clopping past on the street outside and the distant chiming of a clock from somewhere inside, and dared to feel almost safe again. Though she did not know in what way exactly she had felt unsafe. It had not been a physical fear of being hurt or snatched away or killed. It had been a far deeper, more primal fear of losing herself or what she had become in the twenty years of distance she had put between herself and that child she had been. Though she had
not left the child behind. She could not. And perhaps she would not if she could, for that child had deserved better of life. That child had been innocent.
“I will tell you,” she said. “But it is a dark tale, and I am afraid of pulling you into my darkness. You do not deserve that. I ought not to have—”
“Wren,” he said against the top of her head, his voice soft and deep. “I proposed marriage to you, if you will remember. After you had offered it to me, you withdrew your offer. I asked you a week or so ago because I wanted to marry you. And I knew the ten missing years of your life were dark ones. I knew too that eventually I would know about them. I married you anyway.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “Do you care?” she asked him. “You said a little while ago that you do.”
“I care,” he said.
“I wish you did not,” she told him. “You would be able to listen dispassionately and not get drawn in.”
“I hope that is not true,” he said. “I hope I will always feel compassion for suffering even if I have no personal involvement with the persons concerned. But I have an involvement with you. You are my wife. And I care.”
Ah. He had meant it, then. He had meant it. She savored the thought. He cared.
“Make love to me first,” she said. “Please make love to me.”
And he did. Without stopping to unclothe them except in essential places. Without any of the tenderness she would have expected if she had paused long enough to expect anything. Without moving back the bedcovers. Without taking his time—or hers.
They were on one side of the bed and then the other, rolled up in their own clothes and sheets and blankets, pushing impatiently at them, kissing with ferocity enough to devour each other, moving urgent hands over each other, frustrated by clothing, twining and untwining legs. He was on top of her, and then she was on top of him. He set his hands behind her knees, drew them up on either side of him until they hugged his hips, bunched up her skirt between them, held her by the hips and lifted her, and brought her down onto himself until she had his whole hard, long length inside. He said something. She said something. But words were meaningless, so she didn’t remember them.
And they rode each other. There was no other word for what happened over the next few minutes. They rode hard onto and into the hot wetness they had created, seeking pleasure, comfort, goodness knew what, reaching and reaching for something that had no word at all. And no thought either. Just reaching. Eyes tightly shut. Muscles clenching tightly and relaxing to the rhythm of their ride. Please, oh please. His hands hard on her buttocks, hers on his shoulders, her fingers curled over them, his neckcloth brushing her chin. Please. Oh please.
And almost unbearable pleasure-pain as muscles clenched and would not unclench, as movement ceased and eyes pressed more tightly together. The ride was solo now as he drove deep into her, withdrew, and drove inward again—and held. And muscles unclenched and pain shattered and was suddenly, incredibly, not pain at all but so far its opposite that pleasure would not encompass it. Someone was sighing out loud with her voice. And then that lovely gush of liquid heat at her core that she remembered from last night.
She was hot. Her hands were slick with sweat. Her bodice and sleeves were clinging to her bosom and arms. His neckcloth and cravat were damp. They were both panting for breath. Wren collapsed down onto him, and he straightened her legs to lie on either side of his and wrapped his arms about her. Strangely, despite the heat and damp and discomfort of tangled fabrics, despite everything, she dozed. But not for long, she guessed when she came back to herself. He was not sleeping. His fingers were combing lightly through her hair. She sighed, but it came out sounding a bit like a moan. He cupped the side of her face with one hand, lifted it with the heel of his hand, and kissed her.
“We need to tidy up,” he said. “Come. I’ll ring for my valet and you must ring for your maid. I’ll have tea brought up afterward for you. We will sit and talk.”
All she wanted to do was close her eyes again and sleep. But he was right. They were too uncomfortable to settle for a night’s sleep. And if she did not talk tonight, she might never talk again. She might become a veiled, reclusive mute. And that was not even a joke. It would be so easy.
He untangled them from the sheets and blankets, and they got off the bed, brushed ineffectually at their clothes in the near darkness, and moved through to her dressing room. He lit a branch of candles for her before going into his dressing room and closing the door between them. It was not quite midnight, she saw when she glanced at the clock. She had thought it much later. She pulled on the bell rope to summon Maude. She wished then she had asked Alexander to unbutton her at the back so that she could at least have removed her dress. Whatever would Maude think? And about her hair?
But she did not much care what Maude thought.
• • •
The bed had been made up and then turned down neatly for the night on both sides, Alexander saw when he stepped back into the bedchamber from his dressing room, and the candles had been lit. There was a tray of tea and a decanter of brandy on the table by the hearth with a plate of fruit cake—a part of the wedding cake that had not been iced, he guessed. The servants’ hall was probably buzzing with talk about the lusty progress of his marriage. He was wearing a nightshirt with a light silk dressing gown.
Good God, that woman. She looked grotesque from close up, as Jessica had said. From a distance and in the relatively dim light of the theater, she had looked younger than Wren. Yet she was Wren’s mother. There was something a bit eerie about it. He poured himself a glass of brandy and downed it. It had made his stomach turn over, seeing Wren huddled into a ball in the corner. And her voice when she had spoken, telling him to go away, telling him that that woman was her mother, had been thin and high pitched, like that of a child. He had been afraid he would not be able to bring her back.
Had he brought her back? In one way, what had happened on that bed half an hour or so ago had been the best sex of his life. It had been uninhibited passion on both their parts. But he must not make the mistake of thinking they had been making love. There had been a desperation in her that had sought a sexual outlet since it had been available. And he had given her what she wanted. It had been wild sex devoid of love. No, not that. He had given her what she wanted because he cared. And he cared not just because she was a suffering human being and his wife, but because she was Wren. He had promised liking and respect and the hope of affection, and he had every intention of carrying through on that promise. But there was more. He did not know the how or the where or the when of it, and he was not going to analyze it to death. He was a man, for the love of God. But whatever it was, it was more than just those three solemn aspects of caring he had pledged her when he asked her to marry him.
She came in quietly through his dressing room. She looked neat and pretty in a long, short-sleeved nightgown, her hair brushed smooth and tied loosely at the nape of her neck. Her face was pale, the purple marks on the left side looking darker than usual in contrast. Her eyes were tired and not quite meeting his. He was on the verge of suggesting that they go to bed to sleep, but he held his peace. Let her decide.
“Let me pour you some tea?” he said.
“Thank you.” She came to sit in one of the wing chairs that flanked the fireplace and were hardly ever used since he liked to do his reading downstairs in the drawing room or library and was not a solitary nighttime drinker.
He set her cup and saucer beside her and a plate with a piece of cake. She ignored both and looked at him as he seated himself opposite, though her eyes did not rise above his chin.
“I am sorry, Alexander,” she said, her voice without expression. “I am horribly, horribly damaged. And I do not mean just my face. It goes far deeper. Too deep to be touched or healed. I am sorry.”
He felt chilled to the heart. Some suffering was beyond help. He knew that. But he would not believe it. No
t of Wren. Not of the woman who was becoming more precious to him with every passing day. “Tell me,” he said.
She shrugged her shoulders and kept them up. She hugged her arms with her hands, running them up and down the bare flesh as though she were cold, though it was a warm night. He got to his feet, moved the table with her cup and plate a bit away from her chair, grabbed the plaid blanket that was folded over the foot of the bed, half lifted her from the chair to slide in beneath her, and held her. It was not as easy to snuggle her as it would have been with a less tall woman, but he managed it, nestling her head on his shoulder and wrapping the blanket about her before resting his cheek against the top of her head.
“Tell me,” he said again, going against his earlier decision to let her decide for herself. But if she did not tell him now, he had the chilling feeling that she might never tell and then she might be forever lost to him. And perhaps to herself too. Ah, good God, what did he know about dealing with damaged people—horribly, horribly damaged.
She was silent for a long time before she started speaking in the same toneless voice. “There are some people who are totally self-absorbed,” she said, “for whom no one else really exists except as an audience to watch and listen and praise and admire and adore. I believe it must be some kind of sickness. My mother was like that. She was astonishingly beautiful. Perhaps all children feel that way about their mothers. But I think even by objective standards she was lovely beyond compare. She demanded adoration. She gathered about herself people who would adore her—men mostly, though not exclusively. She gathered beautiful people. She never seemed to fear competition, but she did seem to feel that anyone less than beautiful reflected poorly on herself.”
