He had never brought anyone else here-until now.
She stepped up onto the stone, looked around the clearing from that higher vantage point, and sat down. She took off her bonnet and set it beside her, and then hugged her knees and lifted her face to the sky.
A few weeks ago she had worn lemon and blue for the lake and the sunshine. Now she wore her pale green cotton for the woods, as if she had known they would come here. A sun goddess there, a wood nymph here.
And then she looked suddenly dismayed.
“I am sorry,” she said. “Am I encroaching upon what is yours?”
“You are what is mine, are you not?” he said, grinning at her. And he stepped up there too and sat with his wrists resting on his crossed legs for a few minutes before removing his hat and coat, spreading the latter behind him, and lying back on it, leaving enough room for her if she chose to lie beside him.
It was no good. She had not responded to that provocative claim of ownership, and he could think of nothing else with which to tease or mock her.
She glanced down at him, looked into his eyes, and then came down to join him, her head beside his on the coat. He felt himself relax. It was safe here. There had always been that illusion. It was an illusion, of course. He had always had to go back to the house eventually, where he had been required to explain where he had been, why he had chosen to worry his mother so much with his long absence, why his lessons were not done or his Bible verses learned, why his clothes were dirty, why…
Well.
His body was relaxed, but his thoughts had a busy agenda of their own. He could not still them. He could not think of a single thing to say that would make her laugh or that would draw a spirited retort.
He was not himself at all. He ought to have come alone.
“He loved Rachel, you know,” he said abruptly at last and felt like an idiot when he heard the words. He had spoken aloud.
“Mr. Gooding?” she asked after a pause. “Ought that not to be present tense? It seemed to me at our wedding breakfast that-”
“My father,” he said, interrupting her. “She was more than a year old when he died, and he loved her. He adored her, in fact. He used to carry her all over the house, to the frequent consternation of her nurse.”
She did not say anything.
“And he was excited about me,” he said. “He had been out shooting with some other fellows on the day he died and was carousing with them afterward, after the rain started, when word reached him that my mother was having pains. He was riding hell bent for leather back home when he jumped that hedge instead of taking ten seconds longer to go through the gate. Perhaps he did not even notice that it was open. And so he died-and the pains were false ones. I did not put in an appearance until a month later.”
Her hand was in his. Had he taken it? Or had she taken his? Either way, he was clasping it rather tightly.
He felt like a prize idiot. He turned his head and smiled mockingly at her, loosening his grip as he did so.
“It was just as well he popped off when he did,” he said. “His second child would have been a colossal disappointment to him. You must agree with that, Katherine.”
“Why do you speak of these things as if they are new discoveries?” she asked.
“Because they are,” he said. “I had a chat with some of the servants this morning when I went down to the kitchen in search of you, and they told me all sorts of things I had never heard before. We were not allowed to mention my father’s name, you know.”
“Why?” She frowned.
“He was a rake and a libertine and the devil’s spawn,” he said. “When righteousness came into the house in the guise of my mother’s second husband, his influence was to be forgotten once and for all. For the good of every one of us, family and servants. Come to think of it, maybe he would not have been disappointed. Maybe he would have hailed me as his true successor. Do you think?”
She ignored his flippancy.
“So you were told nothing of your own father?” Her huge, fathomless eyes grew larger.
“On the contrary,” he said. “I was told something of him almost every day of my boyhood. He was the man whose seed had made me bad, irredeemable, incorrigible, and any number of other nasty things. I was as like him as two peas in a pod-as two rotten peas, that is. I would never amount to anything in life because I had his blood running in my veins. And everyone knew where I was headed after I died-downward, to be reunited with him.”
“Did your mother not have something to say?” she asked.
“My mother was a sweet lady,” he said. “Naturally placid, I believe, and very easily dominated. She needed always to have someone to tell her what was what. The servants claim that she adored my father. But after his death and my birth she collapsed into lethargy and a gloom that lifted only when Wrayburn took over her life and married her. She loved him, I suppose. She was also terrified of him, or at least terrified of displeasing him. Even after his death she would not say or do anything of which she thought he would disapprove.”
“She did not love you?” she asked softly.
“Oh, she did,” he said. “She undoubtedly did. She shed tears over me more times than I can count and begged me to be good and godly, to do all that my step-papa told me so that I would be worthy of his love too.”
“And Rachel?” she asked.
“She was denied her youth,” he said, “because the world beyond our doors was a wicked place and a girl’s place was at her mother’s side.”
“Charlotte?”
“Ah, but she did not have the bad blood,” he said. “And Miss Daniels came when she was still very young. She was also fortunate enough to be a girl. He was not much interested in her.”
He felt more and more of an idiot. Why was he spewing out all this ancient history? He never spoke of his boyhood. He rarely even thought about it. He was certainly not looking for pity-perish the thought! He was just surprised that this morning’s revelations in the kitchen had upset him so much, set the wheels of his mind whirling.
His father had loved Rachel. He had loved his own unborn self. He had been capable of love. He had died for love.
His thoughts were spinning so fast he felt downright dizzy.
“I think my father loved my mother too,” he said. “He stopped womanizing after he married her.”
She had their clasped hands raised, he realized. He could feel the touch of her lips and the warmth of her breath against the back of his.
“Only minutes before word was brought to him that my mother’s pains had started,” he said, “he proposed a toast to me. Son or daughter-he did not care which I was provided I was born alive and healthy. He actually said that, though he must have wanted a son. An heir.”
She rubbed her cheek back and forth across his hand.
“The servants worshipped him,” he said, “though they were by no means blind to his faults. Recklessness, according to them, was probably the worst of those.”
“They worship you too,” she said. “Though they are still not blind.”
“I think,” he said, “we might have been a happy family if he had lived.”
He wished he could stop spouting drivel. When was he going to shut his mouth and keep it shut?
“But then,” he said, “if things had not happened as they did, there would not be Charlotte, would there? She has always been very precious to me.”
Devil take it, would someone please tell him to shut up?
“Strange that,” he said. “She is his daughter. How can she possibly be dear to me?”
“Because she is herself,” she said, “just as you are yourself.”
“Katherine,” he said, “stop me, please. There must be all sorts of skeletons in your cupboards too. Tell me about them.”