by Mary Balogh
He gripped the edge of the desk with one hand as if he needed it to prop himself up.
“She used to shield me from his wrath,” she said. “So much so that until recent years I have not really admitted to myself that she was the innocent party, the victim of his violence. He was almost always loving and indulgent with me and I would not face what I did not want to see. I came to despise her almost as much as I loved her. Why did she always have to provoke him and bring on those dark days when everyone had to tiptoe about the house? Why did she hide away for days at a time until the bruises faded when she might have avoided them in the first place? I was even angry with her when it became clear that she was consumptive and Papa used to shut himself up and weep and drink more. Everyone pitied him for his grief in the loss of a wife he had loved so tenderly in public.”
Even at the age of eighteen, he thought suddenly, she had been an expert in the wearing of masks. One would never have known that the sunny-natured girl had grown up in such a home.
“By the time I was eighteen and my mother had been dead for two years,” she said, “I understood the situation better. Not that he was ever violent with me, but I could see the instability of his character, his total inability to control his addictions. I did not stop loving him—he was my father. But I was determined when I went to London to make my come-out and to look for a husband that I would not make my mother’s mistake. I swore to myself that I would not be beguiled by a charming man whose life and character had no substance. I was determined to choose with my head and to marry a man of steady character. But I fell in love with you.”
But? She had fallen in love against her will? He felt suddenly cold.
“You were so like him in many ways,” she said. “You had all his best qualities. I persuaded myself that you were unlike him in all the ways that mattered. But I was vulnerable, you see, to anyone who told me otherwise—especially when he was a man of sense and good character.”
Gilbert!
She laughed softly without humor. “Oh, the ironies of life, Gerard. They would be funny if they were not so very tragic. It was head over heart, you see. That is always the wise way, is it not? And so I walked with wide open eyes into a marriage that was even worse than my mother’s—at least there were moments of light for Mama.”
“Christina,” he said.
She laughed softly again and drew her head back from the pane. “My father charmed everyone as usual in London,” she said. “I can even remember someone saying in my hearing that he seemed more like my brother than my father and that he was as likely to make a dazzling marriage as I if he wished. But he lived his usual private life. He lost a fortune one night—or what was a fortune to him, at least. I knew nothing about it until the—-the Vauxhall night after I had returned home though it had happened a week before that. He was ruined—we were ruined.”
And so they had tricked Gilbert into marrying her? Gilbert with all his wealth? But Gilbert had had his revenge. He had poisoned her mind, cut her off from her father, and then terrorized and beaten her.
“Gilbert had redeemed the debts,” she was saying—he almost missed hearing it. “To this day I have no idea how he discovered them. He told Papa—during that evening while you and I were at Vauxhall—that he had done so out of concern and respect for me. He did not ask for repayment.”
“Except in the form of your hand in marriage.” He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth. Yes, this sounded like Gilbert in action—like a wily serpent.
“He did not make it a condition.” She paused and drew a slow and audible breath. “And Papa did not try to insist either. He merely pointed out to me what a humiliation it would be to have to accept charity from a man who had no connection to us. He wept. When Gilbert came the following morning to make his offer to me, he insisted that I must not be swayed by Papa’s indebtedness to him. I was free to accept or reject his suit. But he did talk about you—with great restraint and sympathy as your cousin. He pointed out with seeming reluctance how unstable you were—how you had spent your boyhood years turning his father against him and his brother through lies and trickery, how you had then broken his father’s heart by leaving Thornwood and sowing your wild oats, how you had grandiose hopes of making your fortune in one toss of the dice when you might have settled to a respectable gentleman’s life with your modest competence or else have allowed him to buy you a pair of colors—and how you would doubtless lose what little you had before the summer was over. He pointed out how you loved to make merry with your friends—often at brothels. He did not say that word, but he made his meaning clear. He told me how you often had to be carried home drunk. He made me see the similarities between you and my father that I had been trying not to see.”
“No,” he said. “No, Christina. How could you have thought that? How could you have believed him?” But he knew how, of course. Gilbert had always been capable of projecting an image of quiet dependability—and he had been working on the weaknesses and fears of a very vulnerable girl.
“He seemed to be everything Papa was not,” she said. “Sober, steady as a rock, trustworthy. And everything he said seemed believable. I told myself I had been blinded by love. And then after I had asked for a few hours in which to consider my answer and Gilbert had left, I found Papa in tears again. He seemed so genuinely remorseful for everything. Yet he pleaded with me not to sacrifice myself. I—” She could not seem to continue.
“You were eighteen years old,” he said, “and easily manipulated by selfish and unscrupulous men. You had no one to whom to turn for solid, sensible advice. And I, God help me, was one-and-twenty and tasting the pleasures life had to offer. I was, moreover, restless and unsettled in life. But I was never reckless or depraved or vicious, Christina. Why did Gilbert twist the truth? Why did he go to such lengths to win you? Did he love you so much?”
She turned to look at him at last. “I believe,” she said, her voice trembling almost beyond her control, “he hated you, Gerard. He never talked about you after our marriage and forbade me to do so, but I have pieced together enough knowledge over the years to understand that you were his father’s favorite and that he hated you for it. He took me from you—it was as simple as that. He did not love me. I do not believe he even liked me. Sometimes I thought I actually repelled him. Whenever he punished me, I believe in his mind he was punishing you.”
They gazed at each other across the space that divided them. It was a space vaster than a mere few yards. It was a space of years and the experiences that had matured them over those years in different ways. Had they married ten years before, their minds and hearts and aspirations might have twined together; they might have grown together as couples in particularly good marriages sometimes did. But they had been robbed of those years. And now perhaps there was no way of closing the distance between them.
He could only shift the focus of the conversation somehow. It had become too unbearably painful.
“And after all this, Christina,” he said, “you are willing to go back to your father? To live? Your children with you?”
“Not to become his victim,” she said. “Not of his violence, not of his tears. Not even of his pleas for money, though my first instinct on reading his letter was to ask for an advance on my allowance so that I could send what he says he needs to avert ruin. But to see him again. To somehow free myself of the past completely. And perhaps to nurse him if he is as ill as I suspect he is. To love him. He is my father. He is my children’s grandfather.”
If he had a father, the earl thought, or a mother, he would perhaps be willing to forgive almost anything for the mere sake of the bond. Yes, he would give anything in the world to be able to see his father again.
“You will go to him, then,” he said. “And you will do what is best, Christina—best for him, for yourself, for your daughters. I know you will do what is best. I will not try to interfere from any male conviction that you cannot manage without a man’s help. But if there is anything I can do, I am at your
service.”
“Thank you.” She visibly straightened her spine and raised her chin. “Thank you, my lord. But I will not impose upon you further. You have a home and a business in Canada that I know you are eager to return to. I will be happy when you are gone, knowing that I did not ruin your life, knowing you are back where you belong. And I will be happy with my freedom. You have given me that gift and I am going to use it. You cannot understand, perhaps, how it feels to be a woman of eight-and-twenty, knowing suddenly that for the first time in your life you are free to shape your own destiny. A man could never understand. But I am grateful to you because you have made it possible for me to be independent, and you have helped release me from the feelings of guilt and fear that have kept me bound even since Gilbert’s death. Thank you.” She smiled at him.
Ah.
There was nothing left to say. He had helped her find freedom and now he was the last person in the world to try to persuade her to give it up again.
“Gerard,” she said, walking closer until she stood a few feet from him, “I married for a number of reasons. One was that it seemed the sensible, the wise thing to do. I was proud of myself for giving you up. I thought I was proving my own good sense and maturity. I heard nothing of you until after Gilbert’s death, but I hoped that your dreams had failed you. I hoped that all my fears had been well founded. I hoped I had not given you up in vain. I—I was wrong. Forgive me. Please forgive me.” Her dark eyes gazed directly into his.
“And I hoped,” he said, “that you were unhappy, that you regretted your decision. I have been suitably punished. I have to live with the knowledge that all the time I was wishing for your unhappiness he was beating you instead of me and making your life a hell. Forgive me.”
“I am glad you succeeded so magnificently,” she said. “I am glad you have been happy.” She held out her right hand to him.
He took it in his, held it in a firm clasp for a moment, and then raised it to his lips. If he tried to say anything more, he thought, smiling at her, he would surely disgrace himself by weeping, heaping an emotional burden on her as her father was clearly adept at doing. He released her hand.
“Shall we go and enjoy the rest of Christmas?” he suggested.
“Yes.” Her smile was suddenly brightly amused, reminding him of the girl he had once known and loved. “I understand there has been some friction between the kitchen servants and the extra hands hired for the occasion. Cook’s feathers have been ruffled, never a comfortable omen for all around her. I had better go belowstairs to find out if anyone has come to fisticuffs with anyone else yet.”
“Kitchen disputes,” he said firmly while grinning at her, “are entirely your domain, my lady.”
“Perhaps,” she agreed, sweeping past him on her way to the door. “But the leader of the orchestra, my lord, was behaving on his arrival earlier suspiciously as if he thought he outranked Billings—-and Billings was anything but pleased. I left the ballroom in a hurry, before anyone could conceive the notion of appealing to me as adjudicator.”
“Sometimes,” he said, following her, “I wish I had never allowed myself to be lured even one mile east of Montreal.” She laughed.
Chapter 17
CHRISTINA was dressed early for the ball. Mainly it was because she had promised that Rachel should see her in her ball gown, yet she knew that a simple appearance in the nursery would not suffice. Tess would want to prattle to her and would want the usual bedtime story, and Rachel would need to be made much of though she would not make any demands for attention.
Partly it was because she was too excited to wait. There was to be a Christmas ball at Thornwood—it was a dizzying wonderful prospect. She felt rather as she had on that long-ago evening of her come-out ball in London when she had been eighteen and full of eager hope.
It was difficult to realize that she could be the same woman who had reacted with such shocked disapproval less than two weeks before to the suggestion of a ball. It was difficult to realize that she was the same woman who had lived for nine years under Gilbert’s strict, oppressive regime, so terrorized and so demoralized that it had taken her a year and a half to break free.
She was free! She tried to think only of that and of the coming ball as she hurried down from the nursery to the ballroom, afraid that after all she might be late. It was important to her to be there before any of the guests arrived so that she might be standing in the receiving line. It was important, not because she would be abused verbally and chastised physically if she were a minute late, but because she chose to aim for perfection in her duties as hostess.
And because—oh, and because she could not wait to stand beside him in the line. She could not bear the thought of missing a single minute this evening in which she might be either looking at him or at least feeling his presence.
She almost collided with Margaret in the doorway of the ballroom. She smiled brightly. “Oh, Meg,” she said, reaching for her sister-in-law’s hands and squeezing them, “how very pretty you look.”
Margaret had wanted a brightly colored ballgown, but Miss Penny had tactfully persuaded her to wear white. She had not yet made her come-out and the ball was to be attended by several members of the ton. White would be the proper color to wear. And the best color for her too, Christina thought. She looked young and pretty and eager and innocent.
“Oh.” Margaret sighed. “And you too, Christina. Not pretty, but beautiful. ”
They both laughed.
Christina’s gown was pale gold and as simple and elegant in design as all her other new clothes. But this one was cut a little lower at the bosom and had short sleeves and a small train. And it shimmered in the candlelight as she had guessed it would. Sophie had threaded pearls through her dark hair. She felt as far removed from the days of black dresses and caps as it was possible to be.
“I feel that I have been neglecting you,” she said. “We have scarce talked alone since the guests arrived. Have you had a happy Christmas, Meg? Have you enjoyed yourself? Are you enjoying yourself?”
But the answer was self-evident. There was a glow about the girl’s face that had not been there before. She had come alive to her own youth in the past week.
“I could not possibly have imagined anything more wonderful if I had tried,” Margaret said. “I can hardly wait to go to town in the spring. But then I do not want to wish away the next few days either—tonight especially.”
Christina squeezed her hands more tightly. “You should have been enjoying this sort of life long before now,” she said. “I blame myself, Meg. I—”
“No!” Margaret said firmly, and she leaned forward and kissed her sister-in-law on the cheek. “No, Christina. It was you who made my growing years bearable—you in my girlhood, Gerard in my childhood. You gave me everything you were able to give—you gave me love. It has been enough. It is the only thing that really matters, you know.”
There was no chance to say anything more. Lady Hannah was approaching the ballroom in company with Lord and Lady Milchip and Lord and Lady Langan, and the earl, who had been talking to the leader of the orchestra at the other side of the ballroom, was striding across the empty floor toward them.
Christina could not—would not—draw her eyes away from him. He was wearing a chocolate brown satin evening coat over cream-colored knee breeches. His brown waistcoat was heavily embroidered with gold thread. His linen and stockings sparkled white. There was a quantity of white lace at his throat and wrists. Tonight he looked nothing short of magnificent, she thought. She realized even as she gazed that he was looking at her just as intently. She smiled.
“Beautiful!” he said, reaching out a hand for hers and carrying it to his lips. He turned to look at Margaret. “Both of you.”
She loved him, Christina thought quite consciously. She always had and always would. She was in love. But she would not think for the moment—for tonight at least—of the implications of that fact when he was to return to Canada within a few months and they would n
ever see each other again. Tonight she would not believe in tragedies or impossibilities. Just two weeks ago all this—all this—would have seemed impossible.
“If you will excuse me,” he said, “I must go up and carry Miss Gaynor down. But I will be back in time to stand in the receiving line.”
“I do believe,” Margaret said to Christina after he had left, keeping her voice low, “that the sprained ankle is not sprained at all. It was a clever ruse to have Gerard carrying her everywhere and being her slave. I wonder if at the time she realized, though, that she would be unable to dance tonight.”
“Meg,” Christina said sharply, “you are being unkind.”
But they looked at each other and both laughed. Lizzie probably really had twisted her foot and hurt it, Christina thought. But she had had the same suspicion about the sprain. There had been no swelling or bruising about the ankle when she had helped ease Lizzie’s boot off her foot after their return from the lake.
“We will not be laughing,” Margaret said, “if we suddenly find that she is to be our cousin-in-law. Frankly, Christina, I do not like her for all her smiling sweetness. Neither does Gerard. But she is determined to have him if he can be had.”
More of the house guests had come down. Christina turned her attention to the ballroom itself, giving it one final visual check to see that all was in order. The room was decked with pine boughs and holly and lavishly draped with red ribbons and bows and hung with gold bells. The last act of a warm and wonderful Christmas was about to begin.
