Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(72)

“He said that you fell in love with each other years ago,” he said. “Was that true?”

She hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “But I was married then—or thought I was—and we both respected that marriage bond. Both of us. There was nothing between us then, except those feelings, which we resisted by avoiding each other.”

“Thank you,” he said after a short silence. “Would you like to walk around to the dower house?”

Abigail and Estelle were wandering about the outside of it.

Should she tell him, Viola wondered, that she was not going to marry his father? Or would that be unfair to Marcel before they had worked out how it was to be done?

“Yes,” she said, but before they could resume their walk they both turned at the sound of footsteps crunching on the leaves behind them. It was Marcel.

She had avoided him last evening after they had returned to the house. She had not seen him this morning. He had already been shut up with his steward when she came downstairs to breakfast with Abigail, dreading seeing him again.

He looked as he had in Devonshire, dressed warmly in his many-caped greatcoat and top boots, his tall hat pulled firmly onto his head. And her insides turned over even as she despised herself for the pleasurable awareness the mere sight of him aroused in her. No, it was not pleasurable. Not when it was something that involved only her body while her mind and her very being told her otherwise. If she was in love with him, then being in love was mindless and not at all something to be desired and reveled in.

His eyes held hers before moving to his son. And in that look, unguarded for the first moment, she read something that pulled at her heart and shook her resolve yet again, though she could not put a name to it. Pride? Love? Longing? Did he see something of himself in the boy? Something better than himself?

“Thank you, Bertrand,” he said, “for entertaining our guest.”

His son was stiff and formal again as he inclined his head. “It has been my pleasure, sir,” he said.

Marcel looked across the lake to where his daughter was pointing upward toward the chimney or roof of the dower house, or perhaps an upper window while Abigail looked upward too.

“Would you like to see the dower house?” he asked Viola.

“Bertrand was about to escort me there,” she said.

“Good.” He offered her his arm. “And I have brought the key. It is a pleasant house. Sometimes I think perhaps I should move there if my aunt does not wish to. With my children. And you.” His eyes came to rest on her as she slid her hand through his arm. “What do you think, Bertrand?”

“I think being the Marquess of Dorchester imposes obligations that necessitate your living at the main house, sir,” his son said as they set off along the path about the lake.

“Rather than the dower house or anywhere else,” his father said. “One cannot escape duty, then? Or ought not?”

“I can only speak for myself, sir,” his son said. “Living at the dower house—or anywhere—with you and your wife would be a dream come true for Estelle.”

Viola felt a slight twitch in Marcel’s arm.

“You do not believe in dreams?” he asked his son.

Bertrand did not answer for a few moments. “I believe in dreams, sir,” he said. “I also believe in the reality of the fact that very few come true.”

Marcel’s eyes moved to Viola. “And what do you think, my love?” he asked.

“Dreams cannot come true if the dreamer does not have the resolve to make them reality,” she said.

“The resolve,” Marcel said. “Is it enough?”

No one ventured a reply, and the question hovered like a tangible thing over their heads.





Seventeen





Viola had gone upstairs with the young people to see the bedchambers. Marcel could hear them talking up there—all four of them. He had missed that time when his son’s voice had changed from a boy’s to a young man’s. And he had missed the change in his daughter from demure, rather colorless girl to eager, forceful young lady, though he suspected that change had been far more recent. Indeed, perhaps he had not missed it at all. Perhaps it had begun with her disappointment that he had not come home when he had said he would come, and the resulting anger had propelled her into adulthood.

He had remained downstairs in the drawing room—if the room in which he stood could be dignified with so grand a name. It was a large sitting room but cozy too—or would be if a fire were burning in the hearth. As it was, he was glad he had kept his greatcoat on when he removed his hat and gloves after stepping inside. He stood gazing through the large window upon woodland and the lake and the boathouse and more woodland beyond. Something about it all reminded him of the cottage, where he had been so happy.

Happy?

That was a strange word to use. He had enjoyed himself there. Enormously. He could have stayed for another week at least without being bored or restless—if she had not grown both, and if their families had not descended upon them when they had.

He had also been happy there, damn it all. He pushed his hands into his pockets for warmth and listened to the voices, though he could not hear the actual words, coming from above, and he felt like . . . crying?

What the devil?

What the devil had he done with his life?