Marquesses at the Masquerade(85)

“You can’t what, my love?”

“I can’t burn the letters!” she cried. “You are right. Something is very wrong with me.”

“May I see them?” He knelt beside her and began to read.



My mother is in pain. She writhes. The medicines no longer help. I’m not ready to let her go. Is it selfish to still need your mama when you are grown?



He replaced that one with another.



My father taught me a game. I had to name all the birds that come to perch on our hedges. Now I know their names and calls. I see the beautiful coloring of bluebirds, the velvet red heads of the woodpeckers, and clever bead eyes of the crows. Once you stop and truly look, there is more and more to see.



Then he read:



The physician says my father has a few months to live. He bears the news with more dignity than I can muster. I’m so terrified of death, yet he says it’s as natural as the migration of birds and rebirth of flowers. I do not see cycles, only ends. Too many ends.



He studied the letters, all in her handwriting, in joy, grief, and wonder. Her life’s days laid out before him.

She sank beside him. “I’m so very sorry. Nothing I can say will make up for what I’ve done.”

“Hush.” He drew her into his arms and rubbed his cheek against her silken hair. To think he had tried to toss the letters in the grate, almost unwittingly destroying her written history. “May I have them? I want to read them and know all your stories, your life. I will cherish your letters.”

She drew back, her brow lowered in confusion. “But they were written to another man.”

“No,” he whispered. “These weren’t to Patrick. You have such a lovely heart, you needed to love someone. Someone who would listen to you when you had no one to talk to. A friend. I think… I think you made Patrick over into the man that you needed, and you loved that version, a dream version who gave you solace and strength.”

Her lips trembled. “I was so scared then.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

“Me too. You bind me to this world. I’ve been so miserable.” She rested her head on his chest. “I had loved Patrick so obsessively—you saw me then. I thought I couldn’t love you because I don’t feel that way. I was such a fool.”

“No, don’t say that.” He caressed her back with his hand. He was touching her again. All turbulence in his heart calmed with her in his arms again.

“I wish I had known. I don’t love you with that wild fever that I did Patrick… well, in the short time that I truly loved him. I know now that I love you differently. I love you quietly, deeply, in a place that reaches deeper than the heart. My father said you know more in the silence, and yet, once again, I missed it. I was looking for something loud, not perceiving the quiet love surrounding me.”

“I’m sorry I have been so cold. I thought about you all the hours. I missed you, and yet—”

She put her finger on his lips and then let it slip to his heart. “Shhh, I understand. You needed a wife who loved you as you deserve to be loved. And I do. I truly love you. I will love you forever. There will be no one else for me.”

He remembered her shouting similar sentiments to him years ago, frantic in her sorrow for another man. Now, the words of love fell from her lips, a stillness within them. They were as real and unbending as gravity and the cycle of tides.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Tell me your stories and thoughts. I shall never push you away again.”

She raised her lips to his. He drifted on their softness. A bitter journey had come to an end in a kiss, and a new, happier journey began. In that kind moment, he didn’t feel any fear for the future. Days of laughter, children, pictures, flowers, books, tea, and conversation stretched out before them.

When she finally pulled back from their kiss, her eyes were shining with that mischievous light he adored.

“I don’t think our marriage of friendship is going very well,” she observed.

“I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done about it. We will have to be a true love match.”

She laughed, the kind of relieved laugh that came after a trauma had passed. The radiance lit her face again. All the sadness had scattered away.





Chapter Thirteen





* * *



My Dearest Husband:

While I do love England, I wish my country would spare my beloved his parliamentary duties this season. Alas, one more week until you return from London, and three weeks, according to the midwife, until our child is born. I know you worry about me, but please don’t. The midwife assures me that our unborn and I are progressing very well, even though I feel as if I’m as large and lumbering as one of our milk cows.

Little Bella checks every few hours during the day to see if her new sibling has arrived. She is delighted when she places her hand on my stomach and feels the baby kick. “I think it’s trying to get out, Mama,” she said this morning. She has already named her sibling Philomena. When I suggested that she may have a little brother, she replied that Philomena would do for him as well. Yesterday, we drew coccinellids together on my bed, and I have included her darling picture for your pleasure. It’s a family portrait. The coccinellid on the left is you. “You know he’s Papa because he has more spots,” she told me. I shall let you interpret that as you may. She explained that I have another wiggly coccinellid inside me, and that is why my ladybird takes up the entire right side of the page. See how Bella has drawn herself between us, holding our little insect hands. “I love Mama and Papa more than anyone else in the world,” she assures me and warms my heart. I sometimes think my heart can’t hold any more love—that I have gorged on love and now I’m full—and yet, my heart swells anew with the idea of holding our new one.