A Study In Seduction(106)

“What was it like?” he asked. “Acting like she was your sister when…”

Her shoulders lifted. “I became accustomed to it. I had to. When my grandmother determined that’s what we’d do, I was relieved. She and my father could have given the infant away, or sent us both away, and there would have been nothing I could do. So even though we had to lie, I was grateful I could keep Jane. And not just keep her—I was with her all the time. I never thought of her as Dr. Cole’s child, only as mine.”

She sipped her tea, looking out the window as if she were gazing at her past. “And during moments when I wished… when I longed… for her to know I was her mother, I had only to remember that she could so easily have been taken from me. But I think… I know I’ve always held something back from her. I’ve had to. With that kind of deception, I could never be everything I wanted to be to Jane. I could never truly be myself.”

She blinked hard, her mouth compressing as she set her cup aside. “Even before Jane, I don’t know if that had been possible. I was a strange child, Alexander. I found so much comfort in numbers, their purity, their comprehensibility.

“And though I will be forever grateful to my grandmother for insisting that my talent be nurtured, I also wish I’d learned to understand people as well as I did equations. Things might have turned out very differently if I had, though I still wouldn’t have given Jane up for anything. But it wasn’t until I met you…”

A tremble rippled through her voice. She paused, a mixture of sorrow and regret coloring her expression. “When I gave in to Dr. Cole, I did so because I wanted to feel something. I hadn’t realized that ever since my mother took ill, I’d been buried beneath layers of calculations and theorems. I don’t know what I expected, if I thought we’d fall in love or have a brief affair. I didn’t know if he’d leave his wife. All I knew was that I felt… awake. For the first time ever.”

Alexander’s jaw tightened to the point of pain. He hated, despised, the idea that Lydia—his Lydia—would ever have imagined she could find happiness with another man.

“But then,” Lydia continued, “I realized how horribly wrong it all was. I was awake, but within a nightmare of betrayal and deceit. Both Dr. Cole’s and mine. And even after Jane was born—especially after she was born because I was so afraid of making a mistake—I retreated back into what I thought was the safety of numbers.”

She fell silent for a moment. “And for so many years, that was fine. I had Jane. I had my work. But then I met you.”

She lifted her head, and those blue eyes fixed on him with such directness that he knew he was looking right into her bare soul.

“I didn’t even realize until then that I’d retreated into a prison of my own making,” Lydia said. “I hadn’t considered what would happen to me, to Jane, once she came of age. Once she left home, got married, began her own life. I’d continue my work, of course, but then I realized it wasn’t… it wasn’t enough.”

As Alexander continued to look at her, something cracked inside him, a feeling of simultaneous damage and growth, like a fresh shoot breaking through a hard, dry seed.

“What do you want, Lydia?” he asked, remembering the night so many weeks ago when he’d asked that very question in a desperate attempt to understand her.

For a long moment, they looked at each other, as if she, too, was recalling that night, that kiss, that moment when everything had changed forever.

“I want my family to be happy,” she said. “I want people to still admire my father’s work, to respect all he did. I want my grandmother to feel as if all she’s done has finally led to something good. I want Jane to live the life she wants, to—”

“No. What do you want for you?”

She didn’t respond. He set his cup down and approached her. Nervousness twined through him.

“I know what I want,” he said. “I still want you, Lydia.”

She continued staring out the window. “Please, don’t.”

“I want to marry you. I don’t give a damn what people say, what the Society outcome is, what—”

“You don’t, do you?” She turned to him, frustration sparking in her eyes. “What about your father? Don’t you think marriage to me will make him even more of a recluse? And Lady Talia? She’s had a difficult enough time as it is, hasn’t she? What will happen when people learn her brother married a woman who has an illegitimate child?”