“I miss your mother,” he went on. “I miss her until I am ready to crawl on my knees to beg her forgiveness, but she won’t… she will not acknowledge my letters. She will not see me; she will not hear me; she will not speak to me. To her, I am as dead as you are, perhaps even more so. I fear her sentence in this regard to be irrevocable.”
The wrought iron gate creaked, a distinctive, rusty protest that was no part of Quinworth’s imagination. A curious shiver skipped down his spine and settled low in his belly.
“Hale, why are you sitting here all alone on the grass?”
Angels might have such a pretty, gentle voice. He closed his eyes and felt a hand pass softly over the back of his head. The scent of roses came to him.
“Hale, please say something.”
His marchioness, his beautiful, passionate lady sounded sad and frightened. When he opened his eyes, she folded down from her majestic height to sit right there beside him on the grass.
“Dee Dee.” He did not dare touch her, though with his eyes he devoured her. She would always be lovely, but two years had made her dignity and self-possession a luminous complement to her beauty. “You came.”
Her gaze was solemn as she took a visual inventory of him. “Tiberius told me to have done with things, one way or another. He said he gave you the same speech.”
Quinworth could not stop looking at her for fear if he blinked she’d disappear. “Spathfoy had many choice sentiments to impart to me, in which the words happiness, compassion, forgiveness, and honesty figured prominently. The boy—the man—was not wrong.”
She rustled around to organize her skirts, sending another little whiff of roses into the air. “He lectured me about love and everybody erring occasionally, often with the best of intentions. The Lords will have a fine orator in him one day.”
And then silence, which had so often presaged verbal gunfire between them. “Dee Dee, have you come to ask for terms?”
He forced himself to put the question calmly, and she stopped fussing her skirts to stare at him. She’d more than hinted over the years that a formal separation would be appreciated.
“Yes, Hale.” Her voice was not so gentle now. “Yes, I have come to treat with you regarding our future. Why did you keep that child a secret?”
This was… good. This was a chance to explain, a chance to preserve the hope that whatever the legal posture of their marriage became, they might be civil with each other, cordial even.
Provided he was honest now.
“When Gordie died, you went to pieces, Dee Dee. You grew quiet—you, who roar and laugh and bellow your way through life. I could not bear it.”
“I went to pieces? Did I limit my sustenance to hard liquor and my company to the hounds and hunters? Spathfoy says your drinking has moderated, but your horses still see more of you than your own daughters do. You became a stranger to me, Hale.” She looked away, giving him a fine view of her profile. “You no longer came to my bed, and when I came to yours, you were a stranger still.”
He heard in her voice not accusation—which might have permitted him a few words in his defense—but hurt.
“Dee Dee, sometimes a man can’t—”
“For God’s sake, Hale, we’re not children. Sometimes I couldn’t either. I hope you recall that much of our marriage.”
“It’s different for a lady, my dear.” And he stopped himself from pursuing this digression further, even in his own defense. “To answer your question, I did not learn of the child until the present earl took over the management of the estate, which was almost a year after…”
She swung her gaze back to him, concern in her eyes—and chagrin. “After our son died. I had to practice saying it, had to learn how to make the words audible while thinking of something else, of anything else.”
Before Quinworth’s eyes, she hunched in on herself. “I call him ‘our son.’ I do not speak his name in the same sentence as I mention his death.”
To see her so afflicted was… unbearable, and yet in a curious way, a relief too. He used one finger to tip her chin up, then dropped his hand and spoke very slowly. “I did not learn of the child’s existence until almost a year after… Gordie… died.”
While he watched, her gorgeous green eyes filled. She blinked furiously then dashed her knuckles against her cheeks. “Go on.”
“Dora was battling cholera, and you were a wraith, my dear. I feared to lose you and her both, more than I’d lost you already. Balfour sent only a short letter, saying the child thrived, and condoling me on the loss of my son. I burned the letter, and forgive me, Wife, I almost hoped the child would die. Why should some scheming Scottish girl get to keep a part of Gordie, when I was left with nothing but guilt, regret, and a family unable to put itself to rights?”
She did not fly into a rage; she did not start on one of her scathing lectures in the low, relentless tones of a woman intent on delivering thirty-nine verbal lashes.
Quinworth’s wife spoke softly. “You were a good father, Hale. You knew when to set limits and when to wink. You have only to look at Spathfoy to see how Gordie would have turned out, given time.”
“Dee Dee, how can you say this? I arranged for Gordie to have his colors, knowing full well military life was not going to bring out his best traits. The drinking and wenching and travel…”
She cocked her head as his words trailed off. “Why did you do it, Hale? I’ve often wondered.”
And now he could not look her in the eye. “I’ve wondered myself, and often wished I hadn’t, but I’ve had years to consider it, and all I can come up with is: I did not know what else to do for him. In his brother’s shadow, he was bored and becoming…”
“Troubled.” She finished the thought for him, and to his consternation, reached out to lace her fingers through his. “Gordie might have stood for a pocket borough in a few years, but not right out of university. I thought a few years of service might give him the maturity Tye seemed born with.”
“You thought?”
“I encouraged him to ask you to arrange his commission. I never foresaw him getting into trouble in Scotland and taking a transfer to Canada in disgrace.”
“And I did not want you to know.” He studied their joined hands. “He compromised the girl, Dee Dee. I learned this when the child was a little older, and I could not see how to tell you of our granddaughter without also admitting Gordie had behaved dishonorably toward the mother.”
“So you told me nothing at all.”
She wasn’t wrong. He could let matters stand and be grateful they’d been able to clear the air this much.
But he’d missed his wife, missed his best friend, the mother of his children, the woman who’d seen him drunk, ranting, and insensate with what he now realized was loss and guilt. “I cannot undo the harm I’ve done, Dee Dee, but I have never stopped loving you. That is all I’ve wanted to tell you for more years than I can count. I am sorry for the decisions I’ve made, sorry I could not be the husband you needed and deserved. The fault for what has become of our marriage lies with me, and I sincerely regret—” His voice caught. Her grip on his hand had become painful, but he managed a few more words. “I regret the situation we find ourselves in and would do anything to make reparation to you for it.”
He raised her hand and pressed his lips to her knuckles.
He’d been honest. At last he’d been honest with his wife, and while there was no joy in it, there was peace. For long moments, Quinworth sat with his marchioness, side by side in the grass. A robin landed on Gordie’s headstone, then flitted away as if nothing within view could be of interest.
“I was so angry.” Her ladyship spoke quietly, worlds of sadness in her words, but she did not retrieve her hand from his. “I was angry with Gordie for dying, angry with myself for living. Angry with you for not being able to understand what I did not understand myself. You always used to talk to me, Hale. I love that about you. I loved just to hear your voice.”