Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(57)

“Your mother-in-law will be happy with me,” he told Cunningham with a glance at Riverdale. “I will see to it.”

They looked far from convinced. He ought to have left it at that.

“I fell in love with her fourteen years ago,” he added, embellishing the story he had told earlier at the cottage, “and she with me, though she was far too dutiful a wife to admit any such thing at the time. She sent me away before our attraction could ever be put into words or deed, and I went. She was a married lady—or so we both thought. Sometimes, however, if it is real, love does not die. It only lies dormant.”

“From what I know of your reputation, Dorchester,” Riverdale said, “your definition of love is not mine.”

“Ah,” Marcel said, “I have another word for my dictionary, then. I plan to write one, you know, though Viola is skeptical, since until now I have had only one word to go in it—the verb to jollificate. Now I can add love with all its myriad meanings and shades of meaning. Just the one word should be good for several pages, do you not think?” He was becoming angry. He deliberately drew a few slow breaths.

“I would settle for your assurance that you will treat her honorably,” Cunningham said.

The anger almost broke through his control—until he realized what was happening here. He was in the presence of very real love. Here were two men, neither of whom had any blood relationship to Viola but both of whom cared. Because she was a member of their family, and family mattered to them. Family stood together and defended its own.

For a few moments he felt unutterably bleak. What had he squandered in the name of guilt and self-loathing and staying out of the way of what he was not worthy to claim as his own?

“You have my assurance,” he said curtly. “I suppose you speak of fidelity. You have my assurance.”

“Perhaps,” Riverdale said, “you should add the word fidelity to your dictionary too, Dorchester. It has far more meanings than the obvious one.”

Marcel got to his feet. “I must rescue my son from the taproom,” he said, “and the chance that he is sampling the ale too freely.”

They made no move to follow him.

He could cheerfully break a few chairs and a few tables and smash a few windows, Marcel thought. But as it turned out he could not even relieve his feelings by scolding Bertrand or berating André. His son was drinking water.

“Bert never touches alcohol,” André said, clapping the boy on the shoulder, “or intends ever to do so. I think it is time, Marc, that you rescued him from the clutches of his uncle and aunt.”

Marcel looked at his son, whose nostrils were slightly flared, though he said nothing. Marcel agreed with his brother—or did he? And he wished André had not picked up Estelle’s pet name for her twin.

“Bertrand is seventeen years old,” he said. “Almost eighteen. Old enough, I believe, to make his own decisions.”

His son flashed him an indecipherable look before picking up his glass. He must have looked just like Bertrand when he was seventeen, Marcel thought. And yes, old enough to make his own decisions, good or bad. His anger had been converted to melancholy.

But he still wished he could smash a few chairs.



* * *



? ? ?

The evening at the cottage was long and unutterably tedious, though somehow civility was maintained. Perhaps, Viola thought when it was over, that was because they were all ladies and had been brought up to deal with even the most awkward of social situations.

Though there could not be many more awkward than this one.

Mrs. Morrow was icily civil. But Viola could not blame her for the hostility that obviously seethed just below the surface of her good manners. She had been forced into the company of a woman she must consider beneath contempt. And despite the fact that she showed no real emotion, it seemed to Viola that the woman cared for her young niece, whom she had brought up almost from the girl’s birth. Lady Estelle Lamarr’s modest, docile manners in the presence of her elders were testament to her aunt’s training.

Viola’s training and long experience as a society hostess stood her in good stead too. She was able to rise to the ghastly situation of being hostess at a cottage that belonged to her lover. She was able to organize dinner and refreshments and converse with practiced and apparent ease.

Elizabeth, as usual, was a gem of warm amiability and sensible conversation. She was able to find common ground on a number of topics dear to Mrs. Morrow’s heart, and she was able to draw Lady Estelle into some conversation. It was Elizabeth who pointed out to her that she and Abigail would be sisters after the wedding of their parents. Estelle, who had been stealing glances at Abigail all evening with obvious interest and admiration, looked suddenly pleased.

“Oh yes,” she said, addressing Abigail. “And you will be coming to live with us, of course. We will perhaps be special friends. I have cousins at Redcliffe, but none of them have ever felt like a sister or brother, apart from Bert, of course. I have often thought I would have liked having a sister if only my mother had not died.”

Abby was kind, though she was obviously very unhappy. “It is lovely having a sister,” she said. “I have always been close to Camille, my elder sister. But she is married now—to Joel, whom you met earlier—and I do not see as much of her as I would like. And I have a half sister, whom I met for the first time only a couple of years ago. She is Anna, the Duchess of Netherby.”