Julianne MacLean (18 page)

“Oh yes,” Catherine said sleepily. “Harold was here earlier, but he went to the teahouse on the lake.”

The teahouse. As soon as the words passed Catherine’s lips, Damien looked at Adele again. The teahouse was their place together—hers and Damien’s—and Harold had gone there.

“Perhaps I’ll take a walk down to see him,” she said.

“Yes, you should,” her mother replied, as if she sensed urgency in the situation.

“He would like that, Adele,” Eustacia said. “He is quite worried about his grandmother. He’ll be pleased to see your lovely face.”

Adele nodded, and walked out.

After Beatrice and Eustacia left the room, Damien sat down beside the bed. “Harold is not in the teahouse, Grandmama. You know he never goes there. Why did you tell Adele that?”

Her white hair splayed out all around her, Catherine slowly, weakly turned her head on the pillow. “Because I thought you needed to be alone with her. You should go down there.”

“You heard our conversation?”

“Of course,” she said, her voice shaky and lacking any vigor. “And I saw your red-hot lack of discretion, too, holding her in your arms like the scoundrel you are. Perhaps that’s why I’m feeling better all of a sudden.” She tried to sit up. “I think I might be able to take some soup.”

Amused as he so often was with his grandmother—and more than a little relieved to see a fighting spirit back in her bones—Damien gently pushed her back down. “Don’t try to get up, Grandmama. You’re ill.”

He tucked the covers around her.

“It was a surprise,” she said, her speech slightly slurred, “when she said she didn’t want to marry Harold. I nearly swallowed my tongue.”

“So did I.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Damien rested his elbows on his knees and lowered his head. “I don’t know. Harold will be devastated.”

“Devastated is not the word. He will be disappointed, without doubt, but that doesn’t mean you have to suffer with him.”

“But it is almost certainly my fault that Adele is changing her mind. I kissed her. I talked to her about things that were entirely too personal. I corrupted her.”

His grandmother took a moment to gather her strength before she answered, managing somehow to smile. “You corrupted her with your charm, you devil. Awakened her to pleasure and joy. You could hardly help it, Damien.”

“I will never forgive myself.”

She turned her head on the pillow again. “Now that is something I cannot bear to hear. You have tortured yourself long enough over other events that were not your doing, and I will not go to my grave believing that you intend to continue torturing yourself about something new.”

She began to cough suddenly, and Damien helped her sit up for a moment.

“But there is something,” she said, when he laid her back down, “that I must tell you, Damien. I am deeply ashamed of myself, and I cannot go to my grave if—”

“You’re not going to your grave, Grandmama.”

“Yes, I am. If not today, it will be another day, because that is life. Everything that lives, dies eventually.”

Damien kissed her frail hand. “Have you not told me enough today?”

She shook her head. “No, not nearly enough. There’s something you need to know about your mother.”

Damien felt all his muscles tense in his body. “What is it?”

She coughed again, then managed to say, “Your mother didn’t marry your father for his title to satisfy her own ambitions. She had been most cruelly forced into it by her father.”

Damien narrowed his gaze at his grandmother. “But after she died, everyone said—”

“I know what everyone said, and that is what I am most ashamed of. I could have dispelled those rumors if I had wished to, but I remained silent.”

“Why?”

A tear drained from the outside of her eye, down onto the pillow. “Because I was so angry with her for what she’d done with that other man. I was so heartbroken over the death of my only son that I needed to blame someone.”

“‘That other man,’ you say. There was only one?”

“Only one, and I believe she loved him deeply. He knew your father, you see, and he understood what she suffered. They commiserated together at first, and then—” She stopped and rested for a moment. “She tried to love your father. For many years she tried. But it was not a good match. He didn’t really love her, Damien.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“Partly to ease my own conscience. I should have told you before and I should have been more understanding with your mother. I should have felt compassion. All she ever wanted was love. Instead, I nursed my anger for too many years.”

Damien held his grandmother’s hand. “But she committed adultery.”

“Yes, but she suffered for it, and then she died for it. I don’t want you to suffer, Damien. Learn from your parents’ mistakes, and marry for love. That is where you will find the honor that has eluded you all your life. You need and seek intimacy, Damien, but you’ve been settling for temporary intimacy with the wrong kinds of women, because you have always feared heartbreak from a more permanent relationship such as a marriage. But not all marriages end in heartbreak. Not if there is love.”

Damien shook himself inwardly. He had been through a great deal today.

“Adele is doing the right thing,” Catherine said. “A loveless marriage brings disaster for
everyone. She should not marry Harold if she doesn’t love him.”

He nodded.

“Do
you
love her, Damien?”

“I might,” he whispered.

“Liar. There is no ‘might’ about it. I saw you holding her just now. And aside from being an object of your desire, Adele is intelligent and kind. She has honor and she loves what
you
love—the outdoors and everything equestrian. Any fool could see you are meant for each other. I’m surprised Harold didn’t see it and bring her home for you instead of himself. But that is Harold, isn’t it? Never really seeing what is outside a beaker. He’s got his head in a glass box, that boy. If you want to help him, pull him out and spit in his face. Wake him up. We’ve all been protecting him long enough, because he is so much like your father and we’ve all been scared to death he will turn out the same. And you…You’ve been trying to make amends for what happened to your father.
That
is why you’ve hovered over Harold all your life, and you know it is. But he is a grown man, and his happiness is not your responsibility. To protect him now, and to let Adele slip away, would only force the past to repeat itself. Marry for
love
, Damien. No matter what the cost.”

Damien listened to his grandmother with surprise and confusion. She was telling him to betray Harold.

But Damien was not even sure Adele could ever love him back, even if he did do what his
grandmother was suggesting. Especially if he did. Adele was unshakably honorable, and she would have reservations about dashing into the arms of her fiancé’s cousin, so soon after she’d jilted him.

On top of that, Damien knew she did not respect him. She knew about his search for a rich wife, and about Frances and the other women before her, and she did not believe he could ever be a faithful husband. She’d even said they didn’t trust or respect each other, and they reminded each other of their weaknesses. He wasn’t sure she could ever let go of those impressions, even if he did everything he could to convince her otherwise.

Yet his grandmother was right. Anyone with eyes could see they were made for each other. They shared the same interests, and Adele was at least attracted to him in the physical sense. She had proven it in bed with him that night and in the teahouse, and again today when she’d admitted she was tired of fighting her passions.

He wondered if he should go down to the lake and talk to her. Perhaps he could try to feel her out, and determine what was possible after she ended her engagement to Harold. Damien smiled at his grandmother and kissed her hand, then he rose from his chair, and left to fetch his horse.

A
dele reached the little round teahouse on the lake and stepped gingerly past the overgrown grasses that lined the path to the door. There was no horse tethered anywhere nearby. Harold must have walked.

Yes, of course he had walked, she thought. He didn’t like to ride.

She approached the door and knocked. No one answered, so she circled around to a window, cupped her hands to the cool glass, and peered inside. The teahouse was empty.

She turned and listened for the sounds of another human being. All she heard were the soothing noises of the woods—oak leaves whispering in the soft breeze, English sparrows chirping, and the gentle cooing of wood pi
geons. Harold must have come and gone.

Adele closed her eyes and breathed in the fresh scent of the lake. The forest beckoned to her in its usual way, so she decided to take advantage of the solitude. She wandered along the mossy bank of the lake and found a fallen tree to sit upon.

She had been there about ten minutes when she heard a horse nicker, heard the soft tapping of hooves over the grass, and knew someone was approaching. Before she even turned, however, she sensed who it was.

She rose to her feet. Horse and rider appeared from around a bend in the path. It was as she had expected. It was Damien.

She swallowed nervously. What a sight he was—darkly handsome and striking on his black horse. She imagined him as a medieval knight in an enchanted forest.

“I couldn’t find Harold,” she explained ridiculously.

He walked his horse closer, came to a stop, and dismounted. He stood a few feet away, his expression serious. “I didn’t think you would.”

Bewildered, she sat down again.

Damien led his horse to a tree and tethered him. “I doubt Harold was here at all today. He hasn’t thought of this place in years.”

“But your grandmother said—”

“My grandmother is a notorious busybody,” he informed her, walking toward her with a smile, bending under a low-hanging branch. Twigs snapped under his footfalls. “And I’m sure it gave her great pleasure to manipulate the
goings-on in the household this morning. I think it even made her feel better. She asked for soup.”

“That’s wonderful news.”

Damien joined Adele on the fallen log. He plucked a long piece of green grass and wrapped it around his finger.

“But are you telling me that she saw us?” Adele asked with a sinking feeling in her belly. “I had thought she was asleep.”

“She was feigning sleep, because of something I said to her last night that incited her to misbehave.”

Adele peered at him, waiting for an explanation.

He gazed into her eyes. “I told her I was ashamed of myself, because I had unhealthy desires for my cousin’s fiancée.” He tossed the rolled-up blade of grass into the water.

Adele felt strangely numb with apprehension, a simmering fear that events would unfold too quickly, in a way she could not control. “You told her that? What did she say?”

“She said, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ Then she fell asleep.”

They sat in easy silence for a moment.

“Did Catherine hear me say that I wasn’t going to marry Harold?” Adele asked.

“Yes.”

She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, I didn’t want anyone to know about that yet, not when she is so ill. The last thing I wanted was to come here and upset everyone.”

“Grandmother wasn’t upset,” he said. “She has become forgiving in her old age, I’ve just discovered, and she can certainly keep a secret.”

They sat, saying nothing for a while, and when he spoke, he spoke matter-of-factly. “What will you do, Adele, after you tell Harold the truth?”

“I’ll go home to America,” she replied without hesitation. “I want to start over again, and take time to think about what
I
want from life, not what my parents want for me, or anyone else. I want to be free.”

His voice was calm and serene like the lake. “You would not consider staying here and starting your new life in England?”

“No,” she said quickly, because she was afraid to have hope for things she was not sure of, for the happy ending she had dreamed of so many times. “It’s not my home.”

“But you were willing to make it your home with Harold.”

“That was the old me,” she said. “The new me knows that I could never marry a man I don’t love, nor do I want to live like this.” She gestured in the direction of the house.

“In a palace with strict rules and clipped gardens, you mean.”

“Yes. I have always felt that I had to be perfect—clipped and manicured—and perhaps that’s why I am uncomfortable in a setting like this. I want to go back to the way it was when I was a child, before we had money and became concerned with manners and appearances. As strange as it sounds, I long for natural chaos.”

“But what if the home you could live in was a much smaller country manor? A house covered in ivy that no one has been able to control for years. A house with an overgrown garden and a collection of dusty books that is hideously disorganized? What if that house had an impressive stable with horses, and fields and meadows with fences to jump when you go riding? And what if the servants were simple country people, who had always been encouraged to laugh with their master?”

Adele’s stomach began to whirl with consternation. “What are you asking, Damien?”

“In my own roundabout way,” he explained, “I suppose I’m asking about possibilities, and I want to know if the reason you changed your mind about marrying Harold is because of me.”

She turned her face away from him and stared across the still water. “I will confess. My decision has everything to do with you. I would never have known what I was missing if I hadn’t met you. You introduced me to my passions, and you taught me that I have a soul of my own, and that I can use my heart and mind to change the path of my life.”

“I’m glad. I would hate to think of you like a bird in a cage—a bird who never knew what it felt like to spread her wings and fly.”

Adele lifted her head to look up at the clouds overhead. “I’m still not quite sure I do know what it feels like, but I’m going to find out.”

He kept his gaze on her profile. “I have come
to admire you very much, Adele, for your spirit and your goodness.”

Her heart began to pound heavily in her chest. She could not look at him. “My
goodness
? I thought you believed I was not as good as everyone thought.”

“You are as good as anyone can possibly be, because no one is perfect. Perfection is not real, and you, Adele, are real.” They were quiet for a moment while they watched a duck land on the still water with a gliding
swish
.

“Adele, would you consider marrying
me
?” he asked.

Nothing could have prepared Adele for the shock of actually hearing the question she had longed so desperately to hear, or for her body’s shuddering response. But even while joy and happiness shot gloriously into her heart, she continued to struggle to hold on to her good sense. Though she had decided to be more free, she would never completely let go of “sensible Adele.” She would not make any rash decisions.

“I promise I would never put you in a cage,” he added.

Adele managed somehow to locate her voice. “Damien, I admit that we have certain things in common, and you know I am attracted to you, but that doesn’t mean we should marry. Think of how we have argued.”

“But what if I’ve decided that you are the only one for me? Is there no chance I could win you?”

Adele stared out at the lake. She had to consider that question very carefully. “A few days
ago, Lily was the one you wanted. Not long before that, you were making love to Frances Fairbanks.”

“I was with Frances before I met you, not after. That’s over now. And I was only considering Lily because I believed you were going to marry Harold.”

She sighed. “I know you are in need of money, Damien. You told me so yourself, so you must understand my reservations and my need for caution. How could I be sure you weren’t simply seizing an opportunity that has presented itself because your cousin is no longer in the picture?”

“That is not the case, Adele.”

“But how can I be sure? You’ve had nothing but casual mistresses in your life, and the whole world seems to think you will return to that life as soon as you find a wealthy bride. You have never been inclined to settle down until now, when you are forced to because of your financial problems. I admit we have much in common, but marriage is more than a sharing of similar interests. It is a sharing of
values
, and that is where we differ.”

An intensity filled his voice. “Perhaps we don’t differ as much as you think. All my life I have grieved over my parents’ failure as a married couple, and I have vowed I would never let that happen to me. I want a real marriage to a woman with honor—a woman I can love and trust.”

She could not believe this was happening. Whether his motives were pure or tainted, he was fighting for her—fighting for her!—like the
conquering hero that she’d always imagined him to be.

Adele squeezed her hands together on her lap, searching for control. Though she loved that fairy tale quality about him, she could not let herself be blinded by it. She could not close her eyes to the qualities she did
not
like—the qualities that had importance in the real world.

“But you don’t trust me,” she said. “You have questioned my integrity on numerous occasions, and if I were to run off with you, I would be doing the very thing you believe all women do—betray their husbands. Or fiancé, in this case.”

His eyes brimmed with gentle understanding. “I feel differently about that now. I believe I am beginning to forgive my mother for what she did. Just now, when I was riding down here, I was remembering certain things about her—the way she smiled and the way she used to gently kiss the top of my head when I was small—and I didn’t feel the ache in my gut that I have always felt whenever I’ve thought of her. I only felt her tenderness, and for the first time, it felt good, Adele. I felt hopeful. I know now that what my mother did was more complicated than it appeared on the surface, as is everything in life, I suppose.”

Adele gazed down at the mossy ground. “I’m glad to hear that, Damien. Truly I am. But what about Harold? I thought you were forever loyal to him. He does not even know that I wish to end our engagement, but here you are, ready to swoop down like a vulture and steal me away
before it is even done.” Her voice had gained fervor on the last few words.

“I am not indifferent about that,” he said. “I will have a difficult time explaining myself to him.”

“I should think so. I can’t imagine my own dilemma if I wanted a man my sister loved and planned to marry.” She stopped what she was saying and gazed out at the lake. Her voice grew calmer. “But to be fair, I don’t think Harold truly loves me.”

“He believes he does, because he has not experienced much of life. He spends all his time in a room with glass walls, looking out, but never venturing out. He makes choices based on duty and intellect, rather than emotion. Intellectually, you were a good choice.”

“Because I’m wealthy,” Adele said harshly.

Damien touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Not just that, Adele. You are charming and lovely and decent. He recognized those qualities in you, as I have, and he admired them. So he will be disappointed, even if it is not a passionate love he expresses.”

Adele shifted uncomfortably on the rough log. “But I know your propensity for guilt. Would you be able to live with yourself if you hurt Harold, when the strongest dynamic of your relationship has been your need to protect him?”

He spoke with conviction. “Today my grandmother suggested that I have spent my life trying to protect Harold because he is so much like my father, and I’ve been trying to make up for
what happened. She insisted that I recognize that Harold is a grown man, and that it is not my responsibility to ensure he is always happy. She even suggested it might do him good to suffer a little, because we have all treated him like something breakable, fearing he would turn out like my father. She was guilty of it herself, she said, and I’m sure you’ve noticed Eustacia always doting, telling him he can do no wrong.”

Adele pulled her eyebrows together and stood up. “So you wish to be cruel to him, do you? In order to help him escape his sheltered life? What a convenient time to change your perspective, when there is an heiress to be had.”

She walked away from him and stopped at a huge oak tree, resting her hand on the rough bark. She heard Damien rise and follow to where she stood, but she kept her back to him.

“No,” he said firmly. “I will not allow you to say that, or even think it. I am in love with you, Adele, and your wealth has nothing to do with it. I would marry you with or without your settlement.”

Adele stiffened. Her heart had not stopped pounding this entire time. She struggled for a clear comprehension of her thoughts and feelings. A part of her reveled in hearing him say he was in love with her.
In love with her!
And he would marry her without her settlement?

Though she had her back to him, she could
feel
him behind her. How she longed to turn around and touch him, but another part of her
could not ignore all the reasons that she should be careful.

When she did not respond, he did not retreat. He strengthened his persuasion. “Whether I am making excuses for my lack of loyalty to Harold or not,” he said, “I don’t know, and I don’t care. In the end it doesn’t matter. The fact is, I want you, Adele, and my desire for you has eclipsed my loyalty to my cousin. If I must choose, I will be disloyal to him, and I will choose you. There, I’ve said it.”

I will choose you
.

Adele was breathing hard now. His words had hit a mark. Her defenses began to collapse and surrender. At long last, she turned.

Damien—tall and dark and massive before her—gazed down with the look of a warrior who was exhausted after battle, but was still every inch the conqueror.

She did not know what to do. She adored him, she knew she did. She had felt connected to him from the first day they met, and she had been denying it all this time because she did not feel he could be faithful to one woman for the rest of his life.