Remember Love (Ravenswood #1)(63)

Stephanie was sitting on a large armchair over by the window in the nursery, reading a book to Joy, who was snuggled in beside her and on the brink of sleep. She brightened as soon as she saw Ben, however, and wriggled down to come toddling toward him, prattling something incomprehensible, her arms raised high. He swept her up above his head, and she pressed her palms to his cheeks, her fingers spread wide, puckered her lips, and kissed him on the lips. Then she nestled in under his chin, gathered a fistful of his neckcloth in one hand, and put her thumb into her mouth.

“It seems,” Stephanie said mournfully, “that no one is interested in the ending of this very exciting story except me.” She laughed and closed the book.

“Thank you for looking after her, Steph,” Ben said. “You are a gem. I had better take this little girl and tuck her into her bed.” Not anywhere on the nursery floor, though. He had had a child’s cot set up for her in his own room, right beside his bed.

Devlin felt an unexpected twinge of envy and found himself wondering whether there would have been other children in the nursery here now if . . . But such thoughts were pointless. And then there would have been no Joy, would there?

“I brought you some food from the feast,” he told his sister, striding across the room and setting the plate down on top of the book on the table beside her. He removed the linen napkin that covered it and went to perch on the window seat nearby.

“There was food left?” she said, looking at the food with a frown. “Thank you, Devlin. But you ought to know that there are more ways of showing kindness to other people than pushing food at them. Grandmama Greenfield does it all the time when we go to visit her. I believe she feels offended if I do not take the biggest macaroon or the creamiest puff pastry as she points them out to me when she offers the plate.”

“You will not offend me if you do not eat,” he told her. “I thought you might be hungry.”

She was still sensitive about her weight, he thought. And about the possibility that other people thrust rich foods at her on the assumption that she was a glutton. Almost unwillingly he felt the old ache of love for her and the impotent longing to be able to release her from her insecurities. He had not expected this pull back to the family he had deliberately cut from his thoughts and emotions years ago. First Owen, then Pippa, now Steph.

“And I did not mean to bite your head off,” she said with a sigh. “Thank you for thinking of me. How was the tea?”

“I think our mother had the right idea,” he said. “Let them all come at once and gawk their fill. Let me face them all in one ghastly hour.”

“Dev,” she said. “Mama is very badly hurt.”

Is, not was.

“By me?” He rested his forearms across his thighs and dangled his hands between his knees.

“I do not know exactly what happened,” she said. “No one ever told us—Owen and me, that is. You did not when you said goodbye to us. Pippa would not after you left, though I cried and had tantrums and swore I would never speak to her again. No one else would even admit anything was wrong. We were told that you and Ben had left because you were young men and needed some time away on your own. As if we were going to believe that of either one of you! Of course it was not hard to guess what had happened, even though I was only nine. Papa fancied that woman, Mrs. Shaw, did he not? I saw it that day, and a few times I wanted to go and kick her in the shins and tell her to leave my papa alone. But I would have been banished to the nursery for a week on bread and water if I had done anything so rag-mannered. You presumably did kick her or do something just as outrageous and very public, and you got banished for years.”

“Perhaps it would be best—” Devlin began.

“Though why you were the one who was sent away, I do not know,” she said. “You were not the one misbehaving with Mrs. Shaw. Perhaps it was because Papa could not very well be banished. But oh, Dev. You took all the light with you—you and Ben both. All of it. Everything changed. No more balls or parties or . . . or anything at Ravenswood, and some people seemed to avoid us for a while. I can remember Pippa pretending not to be upset when soon after you left she learned of a birthday party for one of her so-called friends to which she had not been invited. It was downright cruel. I swore I would never, ever forgive you for not going to Mama when I begged you to and working something out with her and setting everything right again. Though I suppose it would have been too late for that anyway. But if only you had gone to talk it all out with her when I begged you to. I know you were hurting too, though, and we do not always think straight when we are in pain. Oh, Dev, Mama was so sad after you were gone. So very, very sad. I sometimes try to remember the way she used to be, but it is hard.”

Devlin had been gazing at the floor between his feet, but he looked up at her now. Their mother was not the only one who had been badly hurt, he thought. “Steph,” he said. “I did go to her room. She would not talk to me. Or see me. So I left.” He paused. “But . . . the world kept turning, and here we are. Tell me about you. Tell me about the missing years. Tell me what I can do for you now.”

She gazed at him for a long time before answering. Her eyes welled with tears, but she blinked them away. “I wanted you to come home,” she said. “I wanted you to write. But you never came and you never wrote. I wanted to hate you. But I never could. I was lonely, Dev. I was lonely for you and for Ben and Nick. I was even lonely for Mama and Papa as they had always been, though they were here. But nothing ever stays the same, does it? I just wish I could have grown up before I had to learn that. Then Papa died. It was so, so horrible. And still you did not come.”