by Liz Carlyle
They strolled through the room as they talked, Antonia picking up the corners of the Holland cloths to see what lay beneath. “You poor thing,” she said when he was done. “You had come to live in a strange place. A place nothing at all like the city you were accustomed to. When my husband and I removed to the country, Beatrice was terrified of—”
Gareth turned to look at her. Antonia’s face had gone white. Her eyes were round. He caught her gently by the hand and drew her towards him. “Beatrice was terrified of what?” He sensed that he must keep her talking. “Tell me, Antonia. Who was Beatrice? What was it that frightened her?”
Antonia swallowed hard and tore her gaze from his. “Beatrice—she was my daughter,” she blurted. “She was frightened of the hedgerows. I—I am not supposed to talk about her.”
Gareth did not let go of her hand. “Who told you that?” he gently demanded. “Who said you mustn’t speak of her?”
“No one wants to hear it,” she said, tripping over the words. “Papa says that another person’s grief is very tiring.”
“You just listened to a quarter hour of mine,” he pointed out. “Do you feel tired?”
“Pray do not make fun of me.” She was speaking very rapidly now, and her eyes held that look again—like a colt that had been spooked. “I am trying…trying to do my best.”
He led her back to the window seat and gently urged her down. “So Beatrice was afraid of the hedgerows?” he prodded. “Because they were so tall?”
Again, she swallowed hard. “Yes, tall,” she agreed. “They…they shut out the sun sometimes. And trees which hang over the road? They terrified her. And now I think of her—of where she is—and I think how frightened she must be.” Her voice caught on a sob, and her trembling fingertips went to her mouth. “I know she must want me. And…and I am afraid—oh, Gabriel!—I am so afraid she is in the dark.”
Gareth put an arm about her waist. Dear Lord, so much was coming clear to him. He knew what it was to be afraid. To be a child, lost and without hope. But Antonia’s child was quite obviously beyond this mortal coil. “Beatrice is not in the dark,” he whispered. “She is in the light, Antonia. She is in heaven, and she is happy.”
“Is she in heaven?” Antonia choked. “Do we know that? Do Jews have a heaven? If they do, how can you know it is really there? How? What if…what if everything they taught us was wrong? Just lies to—to placate us? To make us hush?”
“Antonia, I think most of us believe in the afterlife,” he said, taking one of her hands in his. “I have studied more than one religion, and it is a fairly universal construct.”
“Is it?” Her voice was teary.
“Yes, and I believe quite firmly that the wicked burn in hell,” he said, “and that all children go to heaven. I am quite sure your Beatrice is at peace. But my knowing it is not the same as your knowing it. There is nothing wrong with fear or doubt, nor anything wrong in talking about it.”
Her free hand was really shaking now. “Oh, I just don’t know!” she cried. “Sometimes I am just so tired of crying.”
Gareth cupped his hand around her cheek and gently turned her face to his. “A wise rabbi I once knew told me, Antonia, that our tears forge our strength,” he said quietly. “In my grandparents’ faith, mourning is a sacred process which cannot be hurried. We remember our dead at holidays. And on the anniversary of their passing, we honor and commemorate their life.”
“How strange that sounds to me.” Her limpid blue eyes widened. “I thought everyone believed I ought never to think of it.”
“A good Jew would tell you that you need to think of it.” He massaged her hand as he spoke, forcing her fist to relax. “And to talk about it, too. You should set aside times to do these things, and honor them like the momentous commitments they are. If your father suggested otherwise, then he was wrong.”
“It was a long time ago,” she said, her voice flat now. “I should get on with my life. People lose children all the time.”
“Children are not disposable, Antonia,” he said angrily. Good God, it was no wonder the poor woman was half mad with grief—they had forced her to bottle it up. “No one should simply throw a child away. I, more than anyone, know that much. And if God takes a child, you should grieve. You must grieve. If anyone has tried to make you believe otherwise, then they should burn in hell.”
“That…that is what I sometimes thought,” she confessed. “But everyone thinks that it is just is a part of life. And that I should forget about Beatrice—and Eric.”
“Eric was your husband?” He already knew that, of course. Kemble had told him—but apparently he had not known about the daughter.
“Yes, my—my first husband.” Her voice was a whisper.
“And I am sure you loved him very much,” said Gareth softly.
“Too much,” she interjected harshly. “I loved him too much. Until the end—and by then I did not love him at all.”
Gareth did not know what to say. He squeezed her hand again. “Why don’t you tell me about Beatrice?” he suggested.
She looked at him through grief-stricken eyes and said nothing.
“How old was she?” he encouraged her. “What did she look like? Was she adventurous? Shy?”
Antonia’s face broke into a watery smile. “Adventurous,” she whispered, tugging a handkerchief from inside her riding coat. “And she looked like me. We were so very much alike. Everyone said so. But…I am not me anymore. I am not adventurous. I barely recognize myself. Beatrice was a wonderful child. She…she was three years old.”
“I am so sorry, Antonia,” he said. “I cannot imagine the depth of your loss, but I am deeply sorry.”
Gareth meant every word, too. He could not comprehend the horror of what she had been through. He had been twelve when fate had torn him from his grandmother. He had been thrown away like so much refuse, mourned by no one save for her. And Rachel Gottfried—a vigorous, sensible woman—had lived but two years after that. If that sort of grief could strip the will to live from a woman of her strength and faith, then it could bring anyone to their knees.
Antonia had not even been allowed to grieve. Unless he had counted wrongly, Antonia’s father had arranged a second marriage for her right on the heels of her first—a marriage which had apparently ended in all manner of tragedy. Gareth almost hoped she did not know what a faithless bastard her first husband had been—but she did. He had already seen it in her eyes.
“Papa thought it best I go on with my life,” she said quietly. “He said that the sooner I married again, the sooner I could have another child. He said that I would find it easier to forget what happened to Beatrice, and that Warneham was offering me what no one else would. But I failed, you see. I did not give him a child.”
Gareth had no idea how to answer that. Gently, he lifted a stray strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear. “Antonia, when a woman has suffered a crisis, sometimes—well, I cannot be accounted an expert—but does it not make it hard to conceive?”
She looked at the floor, and shook her head. “It was not like that,” she whispered. “It was…I was…just not desirable enough.”
“Not desirable enough?” Was the woman blind?
“It was my bleary eyes and red nose, Papa said,” she quietly confessed. “He said men do not find unhappy women attractive. Eric told me that, too. And so I tried to do what I ought for Warneham. I tried. But all I could think of…was Beatrice. Then he died—and everyone thought I had wished him dead—or worse. But I did not. I did not.”
“Antonia.” Gareth set his fingertips to his forehead for an instant, carefully choosing his words. “Was it just that Warneham…that he was not…romantic with you?”
She lifted her narrow shoulders lamely and wadded her handkerchief into a tight ball. “He tried to be,” she whispered. “But we could never—I could not—fully please him.”
He gave her hand another short, hard squeeze. “Antonia, why do you think his—his inability to perform had anythin
g to do with you? Why didn’t he discuss it with Dr. Osborne? Wasn’t he obsessed with his health?”
“Yes, frightfully, but if he complained to the doctor, I know nothing of it,” she said, sniffing. “I do think, though, that Dr. Osborne suspected.”
“Did he? Why?”
“Sometimes he would ask questions—delicately, of course,” she said. “I supposed he was just worried for me. He knew Warneham married me for only one reason. But I felt like such a failure.”
“Antonia, you were not a failure,” Gareth said. “Warneham was not exactly a young man.”
“Eric was a young man.” She twisted the handkerchief around her fingers so tightly that he thought the blood might stop. “He said a husband wants a wife who smiles and is happy. And that if she cannot make him feel worshiped—if she is shrewish and complaining—then he does not want to bed her.”
“Ah,” said Gareth, reaching across to unwrap the handkerchief. “Was that his excuse?”
She turned her head and looked at him strangely. “What do you mean?”
Gareth did not look at her but instead spread her handkerchief over his knee and began to meticulously refold it. “Your husband was a liar, Antonia,” he finally said. “Call me a pig if you will, but I would still want to bed you, even if you were crying, screaming, and trying to stab me all at the same time. And trust me, it really would not matter if your nose was red.”
“I…I do not understand,” she said.
Gareth shrugged. “Why do you think I came up here today, Antonia?” he asked. “I should rather have a tooth drawn than return to Knollwood. This is where my whole life went to hell. But if I keep you within arm’s reach…if I don’t get you out of Selsdon—” He shook his head, cleared his throat, then awkwardly continued. “You will find someone again, Antonia,” he said. “You will fall in love with someone who will be right for you, and someone your family will approve of. Someone whose blood is blue—and this time, I pray, someone whose heart is as true as yours.”
She started to speak, but he turned and set his fingertips to her lips. “Listen to me, Antonia,” he said. “You are desirable, you are beautiful, and you are just twenty-six years old. You have many years to find the right man and have children again. But you have every right to mourn the daughter you have already lost. You will mourn her, I am sure, for the whole of your life—not every minute, no. But every day—at least for a minute, and oftentimes far more. Until you find a man who accepts that, don’t marry anyone.”
“I don’t even want that life anymore,” she said, her voice steadier. “I decided that when Warneham died I was going to live an independent life. I know I am not the person I used to be. But I want a home of my own, and a say over my body. I want no man telling me that I must do this thing or that thing, or feel a certain way. And when I wish to cry, I shall do it. If I cannot have those things…if I cannot have them…I think I will die. I know I will—for I very nearly have.”
Her determination was surprising. Antonia had clearly given her independence a great deal of thought. Gareth said no more for a time but merely returned her handkerchief, then set his hand atop hers.
“We should go,” he said quietly. “Let’s get you back to Selsdon. I shall send Watson up to London to hire us a construction crew next week—a big one.”
“Yes, I should go back.” They rose from the window seat and went out into the passageway. “It is Monday, is it not? We shall have a great many dinner guests.”
Damn. He had forgotten that tonight was the night Sir Percy and his coterie came to dine. It was a pleasant enough tradition, but tonight he would be in no mood for it, he feared.
Outside his grandmother’s room, Antonia stopped and turned around. “Is my nose red?” she asked. “Do I look a fright?”
Gareth managed to smile. “Your nose is pleasantly pink,” he replied. “But you could never look a fright, Antonia.”
She held his gaze steadily. “Do you really find me desirable?”
He felt his smile fade. “Many women are desirable, Antonia,” he said. “But you are more than that.”
She was still looking at him, her eyes wide and luminous. “I wish…I wish, Gabriel, that you would show me again.”
He narrowed his gaze. “How, Antonia?”
Finally, she glanced away. “You said we had a passion. A madness. That something hot and fierce ran between us. I wish to feel that again, if only for a moment. Kiss me. Kiss me as you did that day in the sitting room.”
He took a step back. “It would not be wise, my dear,” he said quietly. “What I want when I look at you is—well, never mind that. Your emotions are raw just now. I would be taking advantage.”
She set her head to one side, and studied him. “Don’t do that,” she whispered. “Please just do not…patronize me. Don’t pretend that I am some fragile, witless thing. I am strong—far stronger than I look, Gabriel. Do not underestimate me.”
He stepped toward her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Antonia, it is not that.”
“I think it is.” She leaned into him. “You have said that you find me attractive. I…I am asking you to show me.”
“I am not the man for you, Antonia,” he said quietly. “You know that.”
“I know that, yes.”
“Then don’t push…this. I am not a gentleman, Antonia. I won’t say no. And when I am done, you will know precisely how you make me feel. Because I won’t stop at a kiss.”
But she stepped toward him anyway and set one hand on his chest. “Just show me,” she whispered, her mouth barely brushing the edge of his jaw line. “I remember how you made me feel that night. I—I don’t know why I lied. I remember it—most of it—and it makes me a little bit ashamed. But I cannot stop thinking of it.”
“Antonia, you were alone and frightened,” he said. “I gave you what you needed. That’s what I’m good at. But beyond it, I have nothing more to give.”
“I am asking for no more,” she said. “Do you know what it is like, Gabriel, to experience something like that—something so raw and so pure—when everything else you feel is just jumbled, jagged emotion? To be so focused on one’s self and one’s desire that all else is fleetingly shut out? For me, it is a reprieve. It is like a redemption of—not my soul, but my self.”
He encircled her with his arm and drew her full against him. He forgot that he hardly knew her; that mere days ago he had thought her haughty and cold—perhaps even a murderess. “Oh, Antonia,” he said, burying his face in her hair. “This is going to be a terrible mistake.”
Her other hand skated up the back of his coat as she set her cheek to his lapel. “I can hear your heart beat,” she said. “It is so strong. So certain. No—this is not a mistake. It just is…what it is. Two people, Gabriel. Two people alone. It is our secret. Our sin. No one else need ever know what we do here.”
She had convinced him. Antonia sensed it. And he did desire her. With this man, perhaps her feminine instincts did not fail her. Gabriel bent his head and kissed her forehead. “Just this once, then,” he said, his voice heated. “Just once more, Antonia. And then…it must be over.”
“Yes,” she whispered, for in that moment, she would have sold her soul just to feel Gabriel’s touch again. “Gabriel, I swear it.”
Antonia felt his mouth settle over hers, firm and demanding. She felt one fleeting instant of doubt, and then was lost, swimming in the sensation of a kiss which weakened her knees and seized her breath.
Gabriel’s hands moved over her, urgent and insistent. One warm, heavy palm settled at the small of her back, then restlessly shifted to tug her shirt free. He caressed the skin he had bared, searing her with his touch even as he kept kissing her. She had no specific recollection of how they made their way into the sunlit bedroom, but when Gabriel backed her up against the mattress, she felt the wooden edge of the bed touch her legs.
Dimly, she was aware of tugging at his coat and his cravat. Gabriel unbuttoned her coat and pushed it from her sh
oulders. She heard it slither into the floor. His breath was already roughening. Her fingers found the buttons of his waistcoat and unfastened them as his mouth moved down her jaw, then lower still. Delicately, he trailed the tip of his tongue down her throat and over her pulse point, making her shiver.
“Oh!” she cried softly.
She wanted this. She wanted him. She needed to lose herself in an emotion which was neither grief nor regret but a celebration of life. And Gabriel was so overwhelmingly alive. Impatient now, she pushed his waistcoat away, drew free his shirttails, then ran her fingers beneath the band of his riding breeches. She felt the weight of his manhood press firmly against her belly, and she let her fingers delve lower. But when she brushed the velvety tip of his erection, Gabriel froze.
“Wait,” he said, setting her a little away from him. “This…this isn’t how it should be for you, Antonia.”
“How should it be?” she asked.
He turned her about and sat down on the bed, his shirt billowing softly about his waist. “Come here,” he said, pulling her between his legs. “Let me undress you slowly, Antonia. I don’t want to just toss up your skirts. Let me feast my eyes on your pure English beauty.”
Antonia felt suddenly shy. It was all very well to go at one another like mad things. But to slow down. To think. Oh, that was harder. “I can’t wait,” she pleaded as his hands went to the buttons of her shirt.
“You must,” he said firmly. “I won’t take you again like some—well, like before. We’ll go slow, Antonia. This time we do it my way.”
She closed her eyes and nodded as his warm, deft fingers began to work their way down her bodice.
“Wait!” she said again, opening her eyes. “You must take your shirt off. Please?”
He looked up at her with a boyish grin. “You may take it all off—all perhaps save these boots, which I am not at all sure will come off without a fight.”
