by Mary Balogh
She loved Marcel.
But he did not love her. He had never said anything to lead her to believe that he did. Everyone was mistaken. Oh, they were all wrong.
At least she did not see much of him during the day. He was being interviewed by her well-meaning family members during the morning, and she believed he was with his children during the afternoon. She felt sick as the day wore on. Time was running out. The official announcement of their betrothal was to be made tonight, yet she had still said nothing of the truth to anyone but Marcel himself.
What would she say? And when?
Time was running out. She could not allow that announcement to be made. She was going to have to speak up at dinner. Just before the party.
She felt sick.
And when she thought of Estelle, who had been flushed and bright-eyed at breakfast, she felt even sicker.
Why, oh why, had she not simply spoken up when Marcel made that outrageous announcement to her family outside the cottage? It had seemed impossible at the time. But compared with now . . .
Well . . .
* * *
• • •
After luncheon, Marcel decided that it was time he initiated an interview of his own. He found Bertrand in the billiard room with Oliver Morrow, the Duke of Netherby, André, and William Cornish. They found Estelle in the housekeeper’s room, going over one of her endless lists for tonight’s party and doubtless delaying that lady from getting on with business. She threw the two men an almost openly grateful look when they took Estelle away.
They went to the ballroom, the three of them, to see how preparations were proceeding there. It was clean from top to bottom. The wooden floor gleamed from a new coating of polish, though parts of it were overlaid with sheets upon which the two grand crystal chandeliers rested. The crystal shone, and the silver was its rightful color again rather than the black it had been the last time Marcel had looked. Each candle holder had been fitted with a new candle.
“They will be raised later,” Estelle explained, “and flowers will be brought in and arranged. They are to be left as long as possible so that they will look fresh tonight.”
Tables in the adjoining anteroom had been spread with crisply starched white cloths, upon which refreshments and punch bowls and other beverages would be placed later.
“I expected that we would make do with the pianoforte,” Estelle said, looking toward the orchestra dais at the other end of the room, “but Bert told me about a trio that plays for the assemblies in the village and we have hired them.”
“There will be a violin and a cello and flute to add to the pianoforte,” Bertrand said. “At first I suggested this room rather than the drawing room merely because there will be so many of us. But then it occurred to us that there could be dancing.”
“And Aunt Jane thought it would be acceptable even though Bert and I are not yet quite eighteen,” Estelle said. “I have never danced at an assembly.”
“Then you will dance with me tonight,” Marcel said. “You have done well, both of you.” He clasped his hands at his back and abruptly changed the subject. “Tell me. Does your apparent approval of my marriage plans stem mainly from your desire to have me live permanently here at Redcliffe with you?” He wheeled about to look at them. They were standing side by side, very much alike apart from height and gender, and very, very youthful. “Or perhaps I ought to ask first if you do approve. And if you do want me living here?”
They reacted differently, though neither spoke immediately. Bertrand’s posture stiffened and something behind his face closed. Estelle flushed and her lips parted and her eyes grew luminous. Bertrand spoke first.
“Miss Kingsley is a gracious lady, sir,” he said. “I like her, and if you believe you will be happy with her, then I am happy for you. As for your living here, I will be going up to Oxford within the year, and the question of where you make your home is immaterial to me.”
“Bert,” Estelle said reproachfully, but Marcel held up a hand.
“It is all right,” he said. “I did ask. And you, Estelle?”
He saw her swallow and then frown. “Why did you leave?” she asked. “Why did you never come back except on brief visits?”
Ah. He had hoped to avoid this, at least for now. It was not to be, it seemed. “I left you in the care of your uncle and aunt,” he said. “They were prepared to remain with you and raise you, and I thought they would do a good job of it. I still think it. They have done a very good job. You are fine young people. Have you not been happy with them?”
“Why did you leave?” she asked again. “Aunt Jane has always said it was because you were grieving. She said it when we were five and when we were ten and when we were fifteen and every time in between that we asked. Does everyone grieve for so long when they lose someone? Did you not think that we would grieve too? For our mother? For you? We cannot remember missing you, of course, because we were not even a year old when it all happened. We do not even remember our mother. But I think we must have missed you both. We used to play a game when we were children. We set up the empty attic room at Elm Court as a lookout point with blankets and biscuits and an old telescope that did not really work. We took turns keeping watch. We watched for your return and told stories of all the adventures you were having and all the dangers you had to overcome before you could come back to us. Remember, Bert? You had been told the story of the Odyssey and how it took Odysseus many years to return to Ithaca and his wife and son. We used to hope and hope and hope it would not take you so long.”
“It did not take us that long to understand that you were not coming back at all,” Bertrand said, “except for brief visits, which always turned out to be even shorter than you promised. You always had an excuse for leaving—except when you did not. Sometimes you just left.”
“Why, Father?” Estelle asked.
Marcel was asking himself a different question. How had he managed to dodge his own life for seventeen years? He had always thought he was living every man’s dream—free to go where he wanted and do what he wanted, unencumbered by strong attachments or a troublesome conscience, uncaring of what anyone thought or said of him. Rich and powerful, the one inconvenient little package of love and conscience neatly balled up and taken care of by the Morrows.
Then he had met Viola.
And again fourteen years later.
If he could go back . . . right back. But that was the one impossibility in any life. One could not go back to relive it.
“I thought I was not worthy of you,” he said. “I was afraid of . . . hurting you.”
They were both looking pale. Bertrand stood very straight, a hard look about his posture and face, the sort of look Marcel had seen sometimes in his own looking glass. Estelle lifted her chin, her face troubled.
“Not worthy?” she said.
He turned and strode across the ballroom floor to sit on the edge of the orchestra dais. He set his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair. “What do you know of your mother’s death?” he asked.
“She fell,” Estelle said, coming to sit beside him. “Out of a window. It was an accident.”
Bertrand had remained where he was.
“I had been in the nursery with you through much of the night,” Marcel said. “You were both cutting teeth and were cross and feverish and unable to settle to sleep. I held you in turn and sometimes both of you together, one on each arm, one head on each shoulder. I adored you. You were the light of my life during that year.”
Good God, had he just spoken those words out loud? He could not look at them to see the effect his speech was having, not if he hoped to continue.
“Your mother adored you too,” he said. “She played with you endlessly whenever we were at home during the daytime. We both did. We loved your smiles and your giggles when we tickled you or pulled faces at you, and we loved your excitement whe
n you saw us, your little hands and feet waving in the air. But she was cross with me that night for staying up with you. That was why we paid a nurse, she told me. But I had sent your nurse to bed because she was on the verge of exhaustion and complained of a blinding headache. I had just got you both to sleep when your mother came into the room at dawn. She snatched you away from me, Estelle, to lay you down in your crib, but you woke up and started to wail again. She came for you, Bertrand, but you had woken up too. She was annoyed. She wanted me to summon the nurse and come to bed and reminded me that we had a picnic to attend later in the day and I would be too tired to attend.”
He drew a deep breath and let it out on a sigh.
“I was frustrated,” he said. “It had taken me several hours to get you both to sleep. I shoved her away with my free hand. Her foot . . . I think her foot must have caught in the hem of her dressing gown. I think that is what must have happened. She staggered backward and reached out a hand to steady herself on the wall behind her. Except that it was the window, and I had opened it wide earlier because you were both feverish. I tried— I— But she was gone. She fell. She died instantly. I was unable to grab her. I was unable to save her. She was my own wife, but I was unable to keep her safe. I caused her harm instead.”
“And so you went away,” Bertrand said after a short silence. He had come a little closer, Marcel could see. His voice was cold and hard. “And you stayed away. You left us.”
“Bert,” Estelle said, distress and reproach in her voice.
“No,” Marcel said. “It is a fair comment, Estelle. Yes. I went away immediately after the funeral. Your aunt Jane and uncle Charles and the cousins were there. So, I believe, were your grandmother and uncle André and aunt Annemarie. I left.” There were no excuses. “I left you. I was unable to keep my own wife safe, even though I loved her dearly, because I lost my temper with her and pushed her. How could I be sure I would keep you safe?”
“I hope you have been happy,” Bertrand said with stiff sarcasm.
Marcel raised his head to look at his son—tall and hard and unyielding and hurt to the core of his being. By an absentee father.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I know those words are easily said and entirely inadequate. But I am sorry. No, I have not been happy, Bertrand. I have not deserved to be. In punishing myself, in fleeing from myself, in convincing myself that I was doing what was best for you, I committed perhaps the greatest wrong of my life.”
He lowered his head into his hands.
“I loved your mother,” he said. “She was vibrant and pretty and full of fun and laughter. We quarreled frequently, but we always worked out our differences without really hurting each other. Almost always. We were over the moon with happiness when she discovered she was expecting the two of you. Two! Oh, the joy of your arrival, Bertrand, after we thought the labor safely over with the birth of Estelle. I already thought I could well burst with pride, and then . . . out you came, cross and squalling.” He swallowed once, and then again. “And then she died in an accident I caused, and I fled and left you to the care of people who would raise you to be better than I was.”
There was a lengthy silence. Estelle slid her hand through his arm and hid her face against his shoulder. He could hear her breathing raggedly. Bertrand had not moved.
“Papa,” Estelle said, her voice trembling with emotion. “It was an accident. I shove Bert all the time and he shoves me. We do not mean anything by it, even when it is done in real annoyance. We never mean to hurt each other, and we never do. It was an accident, Papa. You were not a violent man based on that one incident. You are not violent. I am sure you are not.”
He closed his eyes. Was she offering him forgiveness? For depriving her of her mother? Could anyone do that? She had called him Papa.
“And now you have fallen in love again,” Estelle said after another silence. “Your life will change again and you will come home to stay. And next year or the year after—I am in no real hurry—my stepmother will sponsor my come-out in London. In the meanwhile, Bert will come home from Oxford between terms, and we will be a family.”
And live happily ever after.
“I will indeed be coming home to live,” he said. He had decided that during a largely sleepless night. He did not know if it was going to be possible to turn his life around at the age of forty, but he did know something with absolute certainty. He could not go on as he was—or as he had been two months or so ago. It was strange that he could know that with such certainty, but he did. That life had come to an abrupt end. “And when I do go somewhere else—to London or Brighton or wherever—I will take you with me, Estelle. Until you marry and set up your own home, that is. You too, Bertrand.”
His son had still not moved. By neither word nor gesture nor facial expression had he indicated how he felt about all this. Not since his sarcasm of a few minutes ago, anyway. He was not so ready to forgive, it seemed. Justifiably so.
Estelle squeezed his arm. “Or to Bath,” she said. “Mrs. Kingsley lives there as well as Camille and Joel and the children. They will be my nieces and nephew. The baby, Jacob, is such a—”
“Estelle,” Marcel said, cutting her off. “I will not be marrying Miss Kingsley.” The final hammer blow.
Estelle leaned away from him to look into his face, though she did not relinquish her hold on his arm. Bertrand did not move a muscle.
“I forced the betrothal on her,” Marcel explained. “She had just informed me that she was going home, that she wished to return to her family, when Riverdale arrived at the cottage with his sister and Viola’s daughter and son-in-law. And you two were not far behind. I acted upon impulse and announced our betrothal—without any consultation with her. She protested as soon as we were alone together and again before we all left Devonshire, but I remained adamant. She has not changed her mind since then.”
“But—” Estelle began. He held up a staying hand.
“And to be quite frank,” he said, “I do not really wish to marry her either.” He was not at all sure he was being frank, but he was not sure he was not either. His mind and his emotions were a jumble of confusion.
“I thought you loved her,” Estelle cried. “I thought she loved you.”
He drew his arm free of hers in order to set it about her shoulders. “Love is not a simple thing, Estelle,” he said.
“Just as it was not in our case,” Bertrand said, his voice quiet and flat. “You adored us but you left us. You love Miss Kingsley but you will repudiate her. Or she will repudiate you. Which is it to be?”
That was the thorny question and the main cause of his sleeplessness last night. If a betrothal was to be broken, it must be done by the woman. Honor dictated that on the assumption that no true gentleman would break his word and in the process humiliate a lady and quite possibly make her appear as damaged goods in the eyes of the ton and other prospective suitors. But was it always fair? His family and hers were assembled here at his home to celebrate an event that was not after all going to happen, and he must force her to explain? Merely because it would be ungentlemanly for him to do it himself?
Estelle had just realized the implications of what he had told them. “Oh,” she cried, jumping to her feet. “I brought her whole family here as well as Aunt Annemarie and Uncle William, and I have invited everyone from miles around, but there is to be no betrothal after all. Oh. Whatever am I going to do?”
Bertrand stepped forward at last to wrap an arm about her shoulders and draw her against his side. “You did not know, Stell,” he said. “No one told you. You did not know.”
“But what am I going to do?” she wailed.
“Did you announce the celebration to our neighbors as a betrothal party?” Marcel asked.
“N-no,” she said. “Bert is to make the announcement at the sit-down supper later tonight. Everyone believes it is a birthday party. But—”
“T
hen a birthday party it will be,” he said. “My fortieth. As you planned it originally. With a grand guest list of neighbors and valued house guests from farther away. A lavish and precious and quite undeserved gift from my children.”
Or so they must make it appear to their guests.
It was Bertrand who answered him, his voice firm and dignified but with more than a tinge of bitterness. “Perhaps love does not have to be deserved, sir,” he said. “My sister has always loved you regardless.” He swallowed awkwardly, and his next words seemed grudging. “So have I.”
Marcel closed his eyes briefly and grasped his temples with a thumb and middle finger.
“I am sorry, Bertrand,” he said once again. “I am sorry, Estelle. So very sorry. I do not know what else to say. But let us put a good face on the rest of today. And let me try to do better with the future. Not to make amends. That is impossible. But to . . . Well, to do better.”
“There will still be a party, then?” Estelle asked. “But a birthday party instead of a betrothal party?”
“It had better be the best party ever,” Marcel told her. “A man turns forty only once, after all. But I am sure it will be. You have worked hard over it, Estelle. So have you, Bertrand.”
He gazed at his children, and they gazed back, one of them wistfully, the other troubled and still faintly hostile. None of the three of them were happy, but . . .