“Sebastian.” Clara gripped his lapels, her violet eyes filled with a mixture of emotions that he could not begin to discern. “I want you to remember that you have always meant more to me than you will ever know.”
Sebastian frowned at the strange finality of her words. “For God’s sake, Clara, what are you doing? If you are thinking of approaching Fairfax alone—”
“Bastian.” A knock sounded at the closed door, followed by Darius’s voice. “Best be moving along.”
“Go,” Clara whispered.
With a muttered curse, Sebastian eased away from his wife. Troubled and not knowing how to unravel the source of his apprehension, he pushed his right hand into his pocket and went to the door.
She no longer looked like Catherine Hall, Countess of Rushton, the woman who wore her beauty like delicate armor, whose eyes were cool glass. His shoulders tense, Sebastian stopped in the doorway of the dining room at the Albion Hotel as his mother approached.
Her dress was elegant but simple, and she wore no jewelry. Her dark hair was pulled into a neat chignon, a few tendrils lacing her long neck. As she neared, he saw the silver threads streaking her hair and the thin lines radiating from the corners of her eyes. A tan had darkened her porcelain skin, and freckles dotted her nose.
Freckles.
His
mother
?
She stopped in front of him, lifting a hand as if she wanted to touch him and then letting it fall back to her side.
“Sebastian,” she whispered.
He cleared his throat, his nerves taut with unease over Clara’s behavior and now this meeting with a woman he hardly recognized. “Hello…Catherine.”
Beside him, Darius clamped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Then he turned and left, leaving Sebastian alone with their mother.
Mustering a bit of chivalry, Sebastian went to pull a chair from one of the empty tables. “Have you had dinner yet?”
“Not yet, no.” She spoke English, though with a bit of hesitation and a more pronounced accent than Sebastian ever remembered hearing. “Thank you for agreeing to see me.”
“I didn’t want to.” Sebastian hadn’t intended the bitter tone, but it was there, coloring his words like the dark smear of a pencil. A thousand questions bubbled and popped in his mind.
As they sat, Sebastian noticed her hands tremble as she brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. She sat back and studied him, her dark gaze—so like his brothers’—both wary and hopeful. “Why did you change your mind?” she wanted to know.
“Clara.”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “I like her.”
“Why did you come back?” Sebastian asked, not wanting to discuss his wife with a woman who had severed her own marriage through infidelity.
“I came back to see you,” Catherine said.
“And I’m to be grateful for that?” Anger pierced Sebastian, and he leaned across the table to fix her with a glare. “For the love of God, you caused a scandal and ran away, leaving your family to clean up the mess. You forced the earl to divorce you. You left your daughter with all of society thinking she was no better than her dissolute mother. Did you not once think about what a wreckage you created?”
“Of course I thought about it.” Although regret weighted her words, Sebastian detected no trace of shame. His anger hardened at the notion that she would not be ashamed of what she had done.
“I thought about nothing else after it all came to light,” she said. “But what else could I have done but leave? If I’d returned to London, it would have made everything worse. I knew that if I fled, everyone would cast blame upon me and claim my children had fallen into misfortune because I was their mother. I
hoped
you would be spared any condemnation.”
“We weren’t,” Sebastian said bluntly. “But we might have withstood it if we’d known what happened.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” She looked down at her hands. Once soft and white, her hands were now browned and wrinkled. “I wish I could tell you it was a mistake. That I didn’t want it to happen. That I never
meant
for it to happen. But when it did, I felt like…I don’t know. Like something had broken inside me. Broken open.”
Like when I met Clara.
Sebastian pushed the thought aside, not wanting to draw any more similarities between him and his mother.
“Catherine.” Sebastian tried to keep his voice level. “What
did
happen?”
“I fell in love.”
Bloody hell.
“I’d taken a trip back to St. Petersburg,” Catherine said. “Do you remember? My sister had an invitation to a Court ceremony for regimental troops. She didn’t want to attend, so I went in her stead. I met him there. Alexei. He was a captain in the army, younger than me by six years. He didn’t care. He was handsome, bright, courteous. He made me feel like the only woman in the room.”
“So you abandoned your family for him.”
She almost winced. “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t…vulgar.”
“A married woman…a
countess,
for God’s sake, having an affair is the height of vulgarity, Catherine.”
“To you, perhaps. To society. Not to us. Do you have any idea what it was like being married to Rushton? We never loved each other, not really. I know he is not a cruel man, but he was so…rigid. So strict. He had no life inside him, no fire. Every day I felt as if I had to hold myself together so tightly or I’d otherwise break like glass. I didn’t even realize I felt like that until I met Alexei. In that moment, I knew I had to make a choice. I had to either plunge into a world of brilliant, dangerous colors that could shatter us all or return to a life in which I felt dead.”
“You didn’t think of us?”
“Of course I thought of you. But, Sebastian, you were all living your own lives. I rarely saw any of you, did you even realize that?”
“No, but how much did we ever see of you?”
“That didn’t mean I didn’t love you,” Catherine said. “I always loved hearing you play the piano, even when you were a child. Do you remember?”
He cleared his throat. “You used to play as well.”
Only when he had watched Catherine play the piano, her hands skimming with such grace over the keys, had she been real to him. Alive.
“I played more for myself than an audience,” Catherine said. “I so admired you when you began performing and earned such accolades. I wish I’d had such courage.” She traced a scratch on the table with her finger.
“You all grew up so quickly,” she continued. “And Alexander became busy with his company, Darius with his studies, you with your music. Even Talia spent all her time with friends and charities, and of course Rushton was never there. I drifted around his vast house like a ghost. Until I realized that it would be my tomb if I didn’t escape.”
Sebastian dragged his hand over his hair, hating the gleam of understanding that sparked to life within him. He knew well what it was like to feel as if you no longer had anything. And that if you didn’t
do
something about it, you would cease to exist. It was that urge, like a hammer striking a piano string, reverberating and echoing into his blood.
He looked up. She was watching him, concern and wariness etched into the face that both belonged at once to his mother and a stranger. He wondered if she would have made such a confession to Alexander or Nicholas. Or even to Talia.
“Do you still play the piano?” he asked.
She smiled. “I did. Especially for Alexei. He loved to hear me play.”
She didn’t have to say that Rushton never seemed to notice. She gestured for one of the servers to bring them more tea, and then she told Sebastian about the man who was apparently the love of her life, a solider who’d moved up in the army ranks through determination, strength of will, and proficiency in battle. She told Sebastian how she’d waited for him, withstood the disapproval of her family, and longed for Rushton’s divorce petition to free her.
She must have loved Alexei Leskov to distraction, Sebastian thought, to have followed the man into battle because she could not bear to be parted from him again. And him too, waiting, then returning to her, asking for her hand in marriage, while knowing he would never be welcomed into her family, that she wore the mantle of disgrace, that she would never bear his children.
They both had known they would be alone together. Just two. And for them, that had been enough.
“I’m sorry,” Sebastian finally said. He was still not able to comprehend how she could have cut her life in two with such irrevocability, but a faint understanding wove through him at her confession of overwhelming love.
“I loved Alexei deeply.” Sorrow flashed in Catherine’s dark eyes. “I was blessed to have known and loved him for as long as I did. I was blessed to have known him at all. You’d have liked him. He had a love of life that was not unlike yours.”
Sebastian’s hand clenched. Too late, he realized that the subtle movement drew his mother’s attention. She lifted a hand as if to cover his, then settled it on the tablecloth.
“And you?” she asked. “I knew the moment I heard about your departure from Weimar that something was wrong. Will you not tell me what happened?”
Realizing there was no reason not to, especially after her confession, Sebastian explained. He pushed his hand into his pocket and told her the entire truth of his disability and resignation. Tears spilled down her cheeks by the time he’d finished the unpleasant tale.
“I knew you wouldn’t have forsaken your patrons without a reason,” she said. “Did any of them know?”
Sebastian shook his head. Some part of him recognized that he had kept his secret just as she had kept hers, both to protect others and to protect himself. Oddly, the thought was fitting. He realized now that he and Catherine shared certain instincts—foremost the need to be free from the trappings of expectations. It had taken her thirty years of a stifling marriage to discover that.
He, at least, had always lived as he pleased, and his marriage to Clara had reminded him of the importance of such a desire.
Sebastian pushed to his feet. A strange but welcome sense of calm settled over the turmoil of his emotions. Catherine came around the table and took his hand in hers. He didn’t know if he would see her again, but at least now he finally had answers to the questions that had plagued them all.
“Will you try to see Talia?” he asked.
The light in Catherine’s eyes dimmed. “I don’t know. Darius refuses to facilitate a meeting with Talia. I fear she must despise me.”
Sebastian couldn’t reassure her otherwise. They would all impede Catherine’s access to Talia for no other reason than to protect their sister from further hurt.
“Where will you go now?” he asked.
“I’m staying with my sister in Kuskovo. Please know you can always contact me there.”
Sebastian nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, he bent and brushed his lips across her cheek. Then he turned and left, pulling his hand from his pocket and unclenching his fingers as he stepped back outside.
R
ain streamed down the arching windows. Charcoal clouds foamed overhead, spilling heavy drops that pooled on the streets into wide, greasy puddles. Inside the studio of Blake’s Museum of Automata, the piles of satin and silk appeared muddy in the gray light, the ribbons and streamers dulled, the paint thick and congealed.
Clara pushed a needle through a square of silk and glanced at the clock. Two thirty. Her stomach tightened. The hour between now and the moment when she had to execute her plan seemed almost impenetrable.
She pushed the cloth aside and paced to the window.
Please stop raining.
If the rain didn’t cease, Andrew and his tutor wouldn’t go to the park…and Clara had no secondary plan in place.
She glanced at the clock again. She couldn’t wait another day in the event Fairfax left London sooner or Sebastian discovered the truth. She also had to act before Sebastian returned from the Albion, rain or not.
Although she wanted to know the results of his meeting with his mother, Clara feared that if she saw him again she would capitulate and confess everything. She could only hope that even if a full reconciliation was beyond their reach, Sebastian and his mother could reach an understanding of sorts.
Unlike her and Fairfax.
Pain seized her chest. She stared out the window, allowing images of her mother and brother to form in her mind. How different this all would have been had such tragedy not struck.
The sound of the doorbell rang faintly in her good ear. Her nerves taut with tension, she turned and headed into the foyer, where the housekeeper was greeting a visitor.
Clara stopped at the sight of the Earl of Rushton. His large, broad-shouldered frame seemed to fill the entrance. He shook raindrops from his hat and greatcoat as he removed them and handed them to Mrs. Marshall.
“Welcome to Blake’s Museum of Automata, my lord.” With a rustle of her skirts, Mrs. Fox approached the earl and swept a hand out to encompass the rooms. “Please have a look around on your own, and should you enjoy a tour, I’ll inform Mr. Blake of your presence. The fee is one shilling.”
“Mrs. Fox!” Clara hurried forward. “His lordship is most certainly not required to pay the admission fee.”
“Visitors are visitors, Mrs. Win…Hall, and I daresay that his lordship…”
“Mrs. Fox, please.” Embarrassment rose to heat Clara’s cheeks. “Lord Rushton, welcome to my uncle’s museum. I’m sorry we’re not better prepared for your visit. Mrs. Marshall, please bring in a tea tray while I seat his lordship in the drawing room.”
Rushton, who appeared baffled rather than affronted by their indecorous greeting, gave Mrs. Fox a swift nod before accompanying Clara to the adjoining room.
“I apologize again, my lord, but we weren’t expecting you.” Clara closed the door and ran her damp palms over her skirt. “Sebastian is away at the moment.”
“I didn’t come to see him, in any case,” Rushton replied. He strolled around the room, examining the automata and mechanical toys lining the shelves and tables. He turned the key on a musical mouse and watched as the creature lifted a flute to its mouth and piped a merry tune.
Rushton’s deep chuckle eased the tension from Clara’s shoulders. She nodded as Mrs. Marshall entered with tea and poured for both of them.
“As Mrs. Fox explained, my uncle will be glad to provide you with a tour,” Clara said after the housekeeper had left.
“I would enjoy that,” Rushton agreed. “I was most impressed by the demonstration at Lady Rossmore’s charity ball. I’ve another son who would find your uncle’s inventions quite fascinating.”
“Darius?” Clara spoke without thinking, then winced inwardly at her use of his Christian name.
Rushton lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Has Sebastian told you about him? A very fine mind, that boy has always had. Last I heard from St. Petersburg, he and my daughter-in-law were supporting the invention of machines that calculate arithmetic.”
Clara nodded. Did Rushton still not know Darius was back in London?
“I…I look forward to meeting them all one day,” she said, unable to prevent the tremor in her voice.
She glanced at the clock. Half an hour. The rain seemed to pound harder, hitting the windows like thousands of pebbles.
A deep sense of foreboding filled her. Andrew would not be at the park. And Clara had no other idea how to reach him.
“My lord, please excuse me while I fetch my uncle.” She couldn’t stand here conversing with Rushton while her plan shattered around her. “He’ll be most pleased to know you’re here.”
Rushton peered at her. “A moment, Mrs. Hall. I had thought to invite your father for dinner before he returns to Surrey.”
Clara’s heart plummeted. “Er, my lord, I—”
“However,” Rushton continued, “Bastian has told me of your estrangement. Though he explained it is a personal issue that will not affect my family, I should like your assurance on the matter.”
God in heaven.
Two weeks ago, she could have granted him such assurance. But now? If Fairfax were to approach Rushton…
Fear gripped her nape. She took a breath and tried to think past the looming sense of hopelessness.
“May I inquire as to what Sebastian told you?” she asked.
“Nothing beyond that,” Rushton replied. “That is the reason I am here.”
The sound of the rain filled Clara’s head. She looked to where water cascaded in sheets over the windows, the clouds a blanket of gray overhead. Thin, pallid light filtered into the room.
“The estrangement involves my son, Andrew, my lord,” she confessed, her gaze still on the windows. “I…my deceased husband, Mr. Winter, granted my father custody of Andrew upon his death.”
“Is this the reason you have not seen the boy recently? I recall you asking Lord Margrave about him.”
Clara nodded, her breath burning her throat. She paced to the hearth and back, crushing the folds of her skirt in her fists.
“I love my son, my lord,” she said, desperation coloring the words. “Not being able to visit him has broken my heart. I would…I would ask that you please believe me when I tell you I love him more than anything.”
“I do not doubt it, Mrs. Hall,” Rushton replied. “Yet I fail to understand the reasons for your distance from him.”
“My father keeps Andrew from me, my lord.”
The earl studied her for a moment, his brow creased into furrows of displeasure. “How is it, then, that Bastian can assure me this separation will not affect my family?”
He can’t.
The admission clawed at Clara’s throat.
She searched frantically for another solution, an escape, but her thoughts ran through a maze and hit one barrier after another.
Until, like a window opening, a possibility appeared.
She turned to stare at the earl. Her heart began to beat faster. The storm had thwarted her first plan, but Lord Rushton would surely have an idea of what she might attempt next. He was the only person she knew who was more powerful than her father.
If she confessed all, would he help her?
“Lord Rushton.” She lifted her chin, fighting to keep her voice steady as she plunged into the unknown. “I…I am aware of the scandal your family has suffered. I did believe that the earldom would not be touched by my difficulties. But now I must caution you that my father might approach you in an attempt to circulate false rumors.”
Rushton frowned. “Involving you?”
“Yes. It’s the reason he forced me to leave Manley Park, though few people knew about it outside of me and my father.”
The earl waited, implacable, the very air around him motionless. Clara cast her gaze to the shelf behind him and struggled to gather her courage.
“What is the reason, Mrs. Hall?” Rushton asked.
“I…my father believed I was responsible for my husband’s death.” Still unable to look at him, she spilled out the whole story—how she’d knelt beside Richard lying on the ground, blood still pooling beneath his head, and how her father had found her there. She told him about Wakefield House, about her proposal to Sebastian, and her hope that Fairfax would surrender custody of Andrew.
“Sebastian…he knew marriage was the last chance I had to regain custody of my son.” A knot congealed in Clara’s throat. “Unfortunately my father has rejected our proposition and, further, threatened to spread lies should I fail to leave Andrew alone.”
“And you did not anticipate such a reaction,” Rushton said.
“No, my lord.”
“Then, Mrs. Hall,” Rushton said, his voice leveling out like a hard piece of wood, “I suggest you do as your father requests and leave your son alone.”
Clara’s heart squeezed into a tight, hard ball at the note of finality to his words, as if he were verifying that she had no option but to capitulate.
And yet she would never do that. She could never be fully happy with Sebastian, never allow herself to love him as she truly wanted to, all the while knowing Andrew remained under Fairfax’s control.
She gripped the back of a chair and fought not to think of Sebastian, of his determination that they would not approach his father. “My lord, the reason I married your son was to try to regain custody of Andrew. You must understand that I cannot surrender that aim.”
He peered at her again from beneath his black eyebrows, his features set like those of a king studying a vassal. “If that is the reason you married him,” Rushton said, “why did Sebastian marry you?”
“He…he told me you’d expressed a wish that he marry soon.”
“He could have married any number of women soon. Why did he choose you?”
The earl might as well have added,
a woman of ordinary means who lives with her uncle in a ramshackle museum and has very little standing left to her?
A sudden pang speared Clara, as she struggled against a powerful longing to reply with her secret wish.
Sebastian married me because he wanted to. Because he loves me.
She could not lie to Rushton. Not only because she desperately needed his help, but because he was her father-in-law, and now she could very well pose a threat to the reputation the earl and his family had recently restored.
Clara pressed a hand to her heart and told Rushton about the cipher machine. “Sebastian sought the machine plans for…for Darius, my lord.”
Rushton’s sharp gaze flickered. “Why?”
Clara tried to calm her thoughts. Her very soul felt cleft in two by her desperation to have Andrew back and the intensity of her feelings for her husband.
But never could she allow those feelings to usurp her goal of rescuing Andrew. Everything she had done up until this very moment had been with the intention of reclaiming her son. And if she were to ask Lord Rushton for help, she had to prove herself loyal to him and willing to avoid further scandal.
“Because, my lord,” she said, feeling as if she were standing on the edge of a sharp precipice with no idea what lay at the bottom of it, “Darius wanted to facilitate a meeting between Sebastian and the former Countess of Rushton.”
Shock flashed swift and hard across the earl’s face. “What?”
“Darius knew Sebastian would reject the possibility of a meeting, so he sought to establish the truth of his resignation from Weimar by asking for his help finding the cipher machine plans.”
“And what is the truth of his resignation, Mrs. Hall?”
His question confirmed what Clara had suspected—that Sebastian had not told his family about the difficulty with his hand. Tears stung her eyes.
“He’s suffered a disability in his right hand.” Clara rubbed her thumb against her palm. “He can’t use it anymore. Can no longer play the piano. The former countess suspected something was amiss, which was the reason she wanted to see him.”
“And what was Sebastian’s response?”
“He went to visit her at the Albion Hotel.”
She flinched when Rushton slammed his hand on a table. His face reddened with a flush of ire, his eyes hardening into glass. “When did she return to London?”
“I don’t know, my lord.” She stepped forward and lifted a shaking hand. “I’m telling you because I beg for your help with my son. I must convince my father to return custody of Andrew to me. Lord Fairfax is—”
“Lord Fairfax is the boy’s legal guardian!” Rushton snapped, his spine straightening like a ramrod. “How dare you expect me to interfere in another man’s raising of a child? If your father has banned you from seeing your son, Mrs. Hall, I suspect he has a very good reason for doing so. And if you think I will risk the potential of gossip by intruding in your father’s affairs, then you are sorely mistaken.”
“My lord, please…”
“Mrs. Hall, if I had known this prior to your marriage to Sebastian, I would never have allowed the union to take place,” Rushton said coldly. “I will tolerate no—”
He stopped suddenly, looking toward the foyer. Clara turned. The drawing room door opened. Her heart closed in on itself as Sebastian and Darius stepped in.
Sebastian’s dark gaze skidded from her to his father. Wariness flashed across his features. Even Darius faltered for an instant.
“Sebastian.” The earl’s voice vibrated with barely suppressed anger. “And Darius. I would like a word with you alone. Now.”
“Wait.” Clara hurried toward Sebastian, reaching out a hand to touch his arm. He jerked away from her, his eyes clouding. “Please…”
“Mrs. Hall!” Rushton’s order thundered through the room. “I ask that you leave us alone.”
“My lord, you must let me explain.”
“You have explained more than enough.” He pointed a finger toward the door. “Please go.”
Desperate, Clara cast a glance toward Darius but found no understanding in his grave expression. An ache welled in her throat. Unable to look at Sebastian again for fear of his censure, she hurried from the room.
Male voices flared in contention as she closed the door behind her. She hugged her arms around herself and tried to contain her bone-shaking trembles. Mrs. Fox looked at her, her expression set with disapproval, but she made no remark about the sudden cacophony.
“W-where is Uncle Granville?” Clara stammered.
“He’s gone to oversee the exhibition in St. James’s Street,” Mrs. Fox replied. She hesitated, pursing her lips. “Would you…I’ve a bit of brandy in the dining room, if you’d like. You look rather pale.”