Someone to Care (Westcott #4)(88)

It could not . . . last. It never does. I was in the process of growing tired of you. What he said was surely true. Why, then, did it feel like the most barefaced of lies?

“You have made amends by setting them to rights,” she said.

“Thank you,” he said, “for attending the party. You must have wished yourself a thousand miles away.”

“I did it for Estelle’s sake,” she said, looking up into his eyes. “And for Bertrand’s, since he is exceedingly fond of his twin. And because it was the genteel thing to do.”

“Thank you anyway,” he said. “And I will endure being reminded by all my neighbors that I am forty years old.”

There was nothing more to say. There had been nothing even before he came here. They gazed at each other, her palm still against his chest. He raised a hand to hook a fallen lock of hair behind her ear and left his hand there, cupping one side of her face. She did not jerk away.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it is a curse to know that one is beneath the same roof as one’s children and grandchildren and parents and aunts and cousins and siblings.”

“And sometimes,” she said, “it is a great blessing.”

She was quite right. Without that knowledge he would probably try to entice her into bed, and that would be enormously wrong. It would be quite in keeping, of course, with the way he had lived and conducted himself for many long years. But now? The earth had shifted on its axis when Adeline died. Recently and for reasons he had still not fully fathomed, it had shifted again.

“You are not a romantic, Viola,” he said.

“It is not romance you have in mind,” she told him.

“No.” He rubbed the pad of his thumb along her lips. “But, regardless, you are safe. My children are beneath this roof. So are yours. And your grandchildren, one of whom I met in an upstairs corridor this morning. An extraordinary child. She introduced herself as Winifred Cunningham, introduced me to herself as the Marquess of Dorchester, shook my hand with the dignity of a dowager, and informed me that she was praying for her grandmama’s happiness and my own.”

“Winifred is given to the occasional flight of piety,” she said. “She is a very dear child.”

“She asked if she might use my library,” he said. “When I informed her that to my knowledge and regret there were no children’s books there, she told me that was quite all right. She had recently read A Pilgrim’s Progress and now felt ready to tackle anything in the literary realm. She might have been my grandchild too if I had married you.”

He wished he had not said that. Good God, why had he? And why did he feel a sudden yearning for . . . for what? It had been a mistake to come here. But of course it had. He had never thought otherwise. That was the whole trouble actually. He had not thought.

“I had better be going,” he said.

“Yes.”

So of course he did not move. He sighed instead. “Viola,” he said. “I wish to God this had not happened.” He did not specify what he meant by this. He did not know himself. His fingers slid through her hair to the back of her head and his other hand went about her waist while her own arms came about him. And he kissed her. Or she kissed him.

They kissed.

For long, timeless moments. Deeply, their mouths open, their arms like tight bands about each other. As though they were trying to be each other or some third entity that was neither and both and something uniquely one. When he drew back, she looked as he felt, as though she were rising to the surface of some element from fathoms deep.

“It is a sad contrariness of the human race,” he said, “that desire often remains even after love is gone. And yes, it is an enormous blessing that innumerable relatives are beneath this roof with us.”

. . . after love is gone. Had he ever spoken more asinine words? And would he believe it if he said it often enough?

He took her hand and raised it to his lips, making her a deep bow as he did so. “Good night, Viola,” he said. “You have only a few hours to endure until it is goodbye.”

He turned and left the room, holding the door closed behind him as though some force were trying to open it and tempt him beyond his endurance.

You have only a few hours to endure until it is goodbye. Good God, those hours could not pass quickly enough for him.

It was, he supposed, poetic justice that he had fallen in love with a woman who would have none of him. He was sure he thoroughly deserved every moment of misery he was about to endure. However, he would push past it. He had a great deal to do, much with which to distract himself.

To start, he had two children . . .

He would go, then, and start getting on with it. So of course he turned about, opened her door again, stepped inside, and closed it behind him.



* * *



? ? ?

Viola was holding the pink bag of cheap jewelry against her mouth, her eyes tightly closed, fighting a bleakness so powerful it felt actually like a physical pain. And then she opened her eyes abruptly and turned her head. She felt a welling of fury. Oh no, he could not do this to her. Surely . . .

“We were hideously, horribly, dangerously young,” he said. “We were in love and swinging from stars half the time and squabbling the other half like a couple of—” He sawed the air with one hand. “Like a couple of . . . what? Help me out here.”