The Horsemaster's Daughter (89 page)

A
bigail wanted to go straight to Jamie, but when she returned to Dumbarton Street he was out, and had left no word of when he would return. It was just as well, she decided. She had a matter of honor to attend to.

The journey to Annapolis and the meeting with Boyd occupied all of the following day, and upon her return, she felt drained and peculiar, as though she had just been to a funeral. He’d accepted her decision with military decorum and a faint hint of relief. Apparently, in the matter of marriage, he had felt the pressure of duty as well.

And she hadn’t even faced the most difficult part of the ordeal. That would occur when Father returned home. She made her way to Helena’s room, needing her sister’s understanding and moral support.

But Helena’s room was empty save for the phantom scent of her favorite perfume hanging in the air. Restless from being confined to a hired coach all day, Abigail paced the room, pretending she could glide like an ice skater. In truth, she’d become less preoccupied with her infirmity of late, but maybe she was only fooling herself, and she was as clumsy as ever. The very thought caused her foot to catch on the edge of the rug, and she tripped, breaking her teeth-jarring fall with both hands splayed out in front of her. She managed to tip the skirted dressing table on its side, sending bottles and atomizers flying across the floor.

Hoping Dolly wouldn’t come to investigate the noise, she sat back on her heels, muttering in frustration. Would she never learn?

An old cigar box had been hidden under the skirt of the table, and Abigail had managed to knock that over, too. She began stuffing the papers back into the box, but in a moment her movements slowed and her forehead creased with a frown.

The pages were covered with row upon row of an almost childlike scrawl, Helena’s name, over and over again:

Miss Helena Cabot

Mrs. Michael Rowan

Mrs. Rowan…

Despite her own troubles, Abigail felt a rush of sympathy for her sister. Helena pretended her inability to read and write didn’t matter in the least to her. Abigail used to offer to help, but Helena always shook her head, proclaiming that the cause was lost. “I am a grown woman. If I haven’t learned by now, I never shall.”

But this discovery proved that Helena, too, wished for things beyond her grasp.

Abigail was using the hearth broom to sweep up the bits of broken glass when Helena walked in the room, carrying a large wooden carton.

“Abigail? Dolly and I thought we heard—oh.” She stood in the doorway, surveying the skirted table lying on its side, the broken bottle…the box of papers. A fevered shade of crimson rose to her cheeks. She said nothing, but set the carton on the bed, crossed the room and set the small table upright again.

“Helena, I’m so sorry,” Abigail said. “I came looking for you and overturned the table. It was an accident.”

“Of course it was.” She spoke softly as she positioned the table against the wall beneath the hanging mirror.

Abigail took a deep breath. “Helena, dearest, I wish you’d let me help—”

“We’ve spoken of this before, Abigail. Nothing’s changed. I still have no head for learning, and I never will.”

“I’ve changed,” Abigail said. “It wasn’t easy, I’ll admit that, but I finally stopped letting my foot and my shyness keep me from living my life. The only difference was that I couldn’t hide my problem under the dressing table.” She shoved the crate beneath the table skirt. “I could help you. And what about Professor Rowan?”

“Michael is a brilliant man. He could never tolerate a dunce like me.”

“Give him a chance. He might surprise you.”

“I gave him a chance. He’s pretending the reason he threw me over is that he lacks the money or status for a Cabot. But the real reason is that he knows, in time, he’ll get bored with me.”

Hearing a scrabbling sound in the crate on the bed, Abigail peered inside. A busy pink nose twitched at her. “He gave you Socrates?”

“It’s the only thing he ever gave me.” An ironic smile thinned Helena’s lips. “Well, practically the only thing. You see, he accepted a post at a women’s college in the North, and he’ll be leaving soon. I imagine he’ll be quite content, teaching at an institution with a thousand wealthy young women who’ll treat him like a god.”

Abigail blinked in surprise. “He’s leaving?”

“He is.”

“But I thought the two of you—Helena, you love him. You can’t let him go.”

“I already have.” Her mouth flattened into a firm line. “My mind is made up. I’m going to marry Mr. Barnes.”

“Senator Troy Barnes?”

“The very one.”

“You hardly know the man.”

“That’s about to change, isn’t it?” In a flutter of movement, Helena’s slender hand strayed to her midsection, and then she busied herself making a place for Socrates on the windowsill.

A faint whistle sounded in the street outside. Two floors below, the front door swished open. Abigail hurried to the window, drew aside the lace curtain and felt a knot form in her stomach. “Father’s home,” she said.

She made certain every hair was in place, every fold of her gown straight and all traces of nervousness ruthlessly buried. Then she took a deep breath and knocked smartly at the door to her father’s study.

“Yes, what is it?”

Stepping inside, she found her father at his massive fruitwood desk, reading the
Post.
He set it aside and smiled at her, and for a moment Abigail simply stood there and savored that smile, knowing it would vanish into fury when she made her confession.

“May I speak to you a moment, Father?”

“Of course. I’m sure you’ve been busy with your plans. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that the Butlers prefer a short engagement.”

“That’s what I need to speak to you about,” she said, keeping her voice steady.

“Is there a problem with the date? Mrs. Butler wished it to be the day before Christmas especially, so I do hope—”

“Father.” Her sharp interruption startled them both. “There is no easy way to tell you this. After much soul-searching, after much discomfort and regret, I’ve broken off the engagement with Lieutenant Butler.”

A ruddy flush crept into his cheeks, and a rime of frost hardened his eyes. “What?”

“I can’t marry him. I traveled to Annapolis today, and told him myself.” She paused, remembering the stiff shock in Boyd’s face, and the fact that beneath his surprise and dismay, she’d detected that flicker of relief. “Lieutenant Butler is a young man with many people who love him. He professed to be disappointed, but actually, I sensed he was a little relieved.”

He pressed the palms of his hands on the green leather desk blotter. “Nonsense, girl, you can’t cancel this wedding. You’ve got a case of the bride’s jitters. Common enough, I’m told.”

“It’s not the jitters. Believe me, I know the difference. What I mistook for love was simply a powerful form of wishful thinking, Father.” She looked him straight in the eye, expecting lightning to strike, but to her surprise it didn’t. “And a big part of my wishing had nothing to do with the lieutenant or even getting married. It had to do with pleasing you.”

“Pleasing me?” He lifted his eyebrows, and at that moment she had a glimpse of the man he was when a rare uncertainty overtook him.

“You seem surprised that I would concern myself with that.”

“I never demanded that you please me. I never pressured you and your sister to marry well. Don’t you think I heard the gossip, the speculation that something was the matter with you, or with my ability to provide a dowry? Yet I never forced you to choose a husband.
Damn it,
Abigail, I waited until you came to me, announcing your plans.”

She had never heard him curse before. The cold apprehension in her gut knotted even tighter. Yet she refused to back down. Lack of honesty had caused her no end of trouble, and now she was through with deception. “Perhaps you never explicitly demanded that I marry, but I felt the pressure of your expectations nonetheless.”

“Did you?”

Taking a deep breath, she said, “I agreed to the marriage with one aim in mind—to make you proud of me. And do you know what I find most distressing? It worked. The moment I behaved in a fashion that met your approval, you showered me with love and pride.”

“Of course I was proud of you. He’s a Butler. He could have any bride in the country, and he chose you.” He turned to the oil portrait on the wall of the study. Beatrice Cabot gazed serenely from the canvas, forever young, forever beautiful. “It seems you made a lot of assumptions without asking me.” When he looked back at Abigail, his face was filled with a peculiar anguish. “If I applauded the match, it was because I believed you would finally be happy, Abigail. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.”

The chill inside her started to burn with anger and frustration. How many years, how much anguish had she wasted, trying to please him?
That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you.
Could she truly be hearing those words from him?

This was the first time she could remember defying her father. Bracing herself for his rage, she kept expecting the world to come to an end, but amazingly it didn’t. “If ending this betrothal means I must forfeit your love, then so be it. I’ve done without it before.”

He froze, and his face turned white. He looked as though she’d shot him. “My God. Is that what you think?” Something in his manner held her silent with apprehension. “Abigail, you could not be more wrong about me. From the instant you drew breath as the tiniest infant, you’ve owned every bit of my heart, you and your sister both.”

She felt her jaw drop. He was like a different man, sitting there, no longer remote and godlike, but confused and…real.

“I was pleased with your marriage plan because I thought, at last, you’d finally found a man who could give you what I’ve failed to provide all your life—true happiness.”

“Oh, no, Father—” She stopped to make sense of her thoughts, but the whole world had turned upside down. Everything she’d believed about her father was changing, becoming unfamiliar…but true in a way she hadn’t recognized until now. “I never knew. I felt inadequate, my achievements as well as my troubles overlooked—”

“If I dismissed you, perhaps it’s because you never seemed to need me.” He flexed his hands nervously on the desk. Her father seemed less at ease with her than he was with the United States Senate. “Can’t you understand that, Abigail? You were always smarter, better, wiser than the rest of the world. When you were a child, I couldn’t even read you a bedtime story. By the age of four, you were reading them to yourself and to your sister. You never needed help with your studies, for your learning surpassed mine years ago.”

Abigail didn’t dare move. She forgot to breathe. She wondered if all this time she had been missing something or inadvertently fending off his love and concern. She heard herself say,
Don’t worry, I can do it myself, Father
over and over again, never thinking about what her words told him—that she didn’t need him, perhaps didn’t even want him.

Regrets welled up inside her. What a terrible waste of years and tears. Why couldn’t she have let him see her need? Why couldn’t he have let her know his heart?

“You had your stars and your dreams,” her father continued. “You already possessed things I couldn’t touch or imagine or begin to give you. I felt inadequate, and so, I suppose, I gave you nothing.”

“Father, no. That’s not true.”

“Then I didn’t give you enough. Not because I didn’t love you but because I had no idea what it was you wanted or needed. With Helena, it was always clear. She needed guidance, wisdom, advice, control. You already possessed those things in abundance.” His voice shook. “Hard as it is to admit, you never needed me. I had nothing to add to your gifts.”

“But I thought—” She swallowed and started again. “I’ve always been the most imperfect of daughters. From the moment of my birth, I’ve been that way.”

“Dear God, you mean your foot?” He stood and paced in agitation, his face florid. “You can’t possibly believe that.” Turning his back on her, he faced the portrait again. The artist had captured her mother’s deep, mysterious eyes, her almost-smiling mouth. “When you were born, your mother declared that you were the child she’d dreamed of having. In her last moments, she held you in her arms and wept for joy. And I—” He turned and faced her at last. “I wept, too, Abigail. You were her last gift to me. How could I possibly regard you with anything but affection?”

It took several tries before she found her voice. “If that’s true, why did you always disapprove of my clumsiness?”

Confusion creased his brow. “Disapprove? My girl, each time I saw you stumble or fall, I suffered the torments of the damned. I had no idea you took that as disapproval. Don’t you know I’d give anything to spare you from the pain you’ve suffered all these years?”

She swayed, almost unable to speak, but she forced herself to say one last thing, the truest thing in her heart. “Father, I only ever wanted one thing from you.”

“I realize that, finally.” He sat down slowly and stared across the desk at her. “Is it too late to offer it to you now?”