The Survivors' Club: Only Beloved Part 10

She moved her hands up his back to his shoulders and down to his waist. She slid them to the front and circled them over his chest, over his shoulders, down his arms to the elbows.

"You are very lovely," she said.

If he had been thinking in terms of romance, he might well have slid a little more in love with her at that moment. But he was thinking in terms of pleasure-hers more than his own. And in terms of holding her, protecting her, cheris.h.i.+ng her, easing her burdens, especially the ones that she would face head-on tomorrow. He hoped he had done the right thing in nudging her in the direction of calling on her mother. He drew her close with both arms about her, trapping her hands between them, and kissed her softly.

"Sleep now," he said. "Tomorrow night we will make love again."

"Yes," she said, settling her neck on his arm and her head on his shoulder. "Yes, please," she added sleepily a few moments later.

George smiled and kissed the top of her head.

The following afternoon Dora, George, Agnes, and Flavian were together in the duke's carriage on their way to call upon Sir Everard and Lady Havell in Kensington. George had stepped around to Arnott House late yesterday to ask Flavian where the house was to be found and had returned a short while later with the news that Agnes was insisting that if Dora was going to visit their mother, then so was she.

Last year Agnes had refused to go. She was happy with what she had learned, she had protested when she told Dora of Flavian's visit, but she had no wish to become acquainted with the mother who had abandoned her when she was little more than a baby.

The sisters, seated side by side facing the horses, were gazing out through opposite windows while their husbands carried on what seemed like a strained conversation, though Dora did not try to follow what was being said. Instead, when Agnes's hand found hers on the seat between them, she clasped it and felt herself slip back to those years when she had been more of a mother than a sister to her younger sibling.

She would not be doing this, she was convinced, if George had not pressed her into it. Though that was grossly unfair. He had not exerted any pressure whatsoever. He had not even suggested she come. He had merely smiled kindly at her as she talked herself into doing what she had thought she would never do. He had listened while she explained to herself as much as to him that if she did not do it now, she probably never would and she might always regret it and continue to both hate and mourn the mother who had left her without a word. He had done nothing to persuade her before she decided or to dissuade her when her decision was made.

Yet she had a suspicion that he had somehow led her to it.

She caught his eye across the seats-their knees touched whenever the carriage swayed-and he smiled. Oh, that smile! It was a powerful thing. It suggested strength and support and kindness and approval. It was also a bit like a s.h.i.+eld. How had he got her to talk about her family yesterday and about that most disturbing of events in their family history? She could not recall that he had asked any direct or intrusive questions. Yet talk she had. He had told her nothing of his own family, however, or of the terrible disaster that had put an end to it and left him alone and lonely. Would he ever tell her? She had the uneasy suspicion that he was not only unknown to her but also in many ways unknowable.

It was far too soon to draw that conclusion, though. They had been married for only two days. Soon, probably tomorrow, they would set out for Penderris. Once they were home he would surely open up his life to her as she had opened up hers.

She smiled back at him.

"Here," Flavian said at last as the carriage turned off the road. "It looks rather as though w-we are driving into unruly w-wilderness, but there is a pretty, well-kept garden about the house itself-at least, there was last year when I was here."

And indeed there still was. The house itself was a st.u.r.dy manor with an air of slight neglect though it was by no means derelict. Agnes's hand tightened convulsively about Dora's.

"Perhaps," she said hopefully, "they are not at home."

"I did not get the impression last year," Flavian said, leaning forward on his seat and possessing himself of her free hand, "that they are away from home often, Agnes."

"I doubt I will know her," she said. "I cannot really remember what she looked like-and I have not seen her for more than twenty years."

Dora merely gazed at George for courage. Neither of them spoke.

An elderly servant answered the door after George had rapped on it with the head of his cane. The man looked from one to the other of them before his eyes paused with recognition upon Flavian. He stood back from the door to admit them and took the calling card George handed him.

"The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Stanbrook and Viscount and Lady Ponsonby for Sir Everard and Lady Havell, if they are receiving," George said.

The man bobbed his head and made his way up the stairs to one side of the hall. He reappeared a minute or two later.

"My lord and my lady will receive you in the drawing room," he informed them, and turned to lead the way back up.

Dora would have loved to turn and flee, but she had not come this far merely to play coward. She took George's offered arm and followed in the servant's wake. Agnes came behind with Flavian.

Sir Everard did not wait for them to be announced. He met them at the drawing room door, which stood open. He was smiling in welcome.

He had not aged particularly well, Dora thought, though he was easily recognizable as the once-handsome, once-das.h.i.+ng young blade she remembered from several lengthy visits he had made to relatives in their neighborhood during her girlhood. He had been much sighed over by the women. Several of the younger ones had set their cap for him. But in the years since then he had acquired a bit of a paunch, his fair hair had thinned and faded, and his face had grown rounder and ruddier. He was probably, she thought in some shock, no more than a few years older than George.

Her eyes a.s.sessed Sir Everard Havell's person because she did not wish to turn her attention upon the other occupant of the room, who was standing just beyond him.

"Welcome all," he said, his tone effusive and a little overhearty. "We have a previous acquaintance with Viscount Ponsonby, do we not, Rosamond? You, then, sir, must be the Duke of Stanbrook. And the ladies . . ."

Dora did not hear what he had to say about them. She had turned her gaze upon the woman he had called Rosamond.

She had aged quite noticeably. Well, of course she had. She was twenty-two years older. She had put on weight, though she bore herself well and the extra pounds were proportionately distributed and became her well enough. Her hair, formerly as dark as Dora's own, was a uniform silver-gray. Her face was lined, her jawline less defined, as was inevitable, though she still retained traces of her former beauty. Her eyes were still dark and unfaded.

She seemed like a stranger. For a few moments it was well nigh impossible to reconcile the appearance of this elderly woman with the memory of a vibrant, laughing, youthful Mama, dancing with each of her daughters in turn, giving the impression that for her the sun rose and set upon them and upon her absent son. But the unfamiliarity lasted for only those few moments before Dora saw in Lady Havell the mother she remembered.

Sir Everard was making an attempt to take Dora's hand and bow over it, but she ignored him. Indeed, she was virtually unaware of him.

"Dora?" Her mother's lips scarcely moved, and there was very little sound behind the word, but oh, dear G.o.d, she spoke with the remembered voice. "And . . . Agnes?"

"The d.u.c.h.ess certainly inherited her mother's handsome looks," Sir Everard said, his voice still overhearty, "as I recall from the time she was a very young lady. Would you not agree, Stanbrook?"

Dora did not hear George's reply, if, indeed, he made one. She was experiencing the exact same problem she always had with the former Mrs. Brough. She did not know what to call this woman.

"Ma'am?" she said as she inclined her head. She was aware of Agnes making a slight, stiff curtsy beside her without saying a word.

"You came," their mother said, her hands clasping each other very tightly at her waist-and, oh, she was wearing a silver ring that had always been on the little finger of her right hand. "We read the announcement of your coming nuptials in the morning papers, Dora. The wedding was the day before yesterday? I did not expect you to come, but I have dressed for visitors each day since I read the notice just on the slim chance . . . Oh, you have both done exceedingly well for yourselves. I am more pleased than I can say. But where have my manners gone begging? I have not even greeted the Duke of Stanbrook and Viscount Ponsonby." She dipped into a curtsy and looked at each of them in turn.

"Sit down, sit down," Sir Everard directed them. "Our man will be back here with the tea tray in a few moments."

It was all horribly, horribly painful, Dora found as Sir Everard talked and no one else had a word to say. It was an even worse ordeal than she had feared it would be. When she spoke at last, Sir Everard seemed almost to slump in relief, but she did not see his reaction to what she said.

"I have been haunted by your desertion since the night it happened," she said, addressing her mother with words she had not planned to speak-she had not really planned anything beyond the visit itself. "I have had enough of being haunted. I came here so that I could see for myself that a long time has pa.s.sed and the woman I remember, the mother I remember, no longer exists. I have seen and now I am satisfied. You are Lady Havell, ma'am. You bear only a pa.s.sing resemblance to my mother."

She listened to herself, appalled at her rudeness, yet glad she had found the courage to speak the truth. It would have been absurd if they had sipped tea and talked plat.i.tudes and then taken their leave.

Her mother looked back at her, her face without expression. But her hands were clasped, white-knuckled, in her lap.

"I do know," Dora continued, "that my father was as much to blame as you were-more so, in fact, on that night. Even if there had been truth in what he said, it was unpardonable of him to accuse you so publicly. I can understand that his words were an intolerable humiliation to you and that the prospect of living on as his wife seemed insupportable. I can even understand the lure of a younger man and a new love when your marriage was so obviously an unhappy one. But what I cannot understand-or at least what I cannot forgive-is your complete abandonment of us as well as of Papa. What had we done to you? You were our mother, our Mama, and we needed you. Agnes was a child. She could not even understand. She knew only that her mother was gone, that perhaps you had left because she was not lovable enough."

Her voice was shaking, she realized. So was she. She was also breathless. She had sat down upon a love seat, George beside her. He covered one of her hands with his own, though he did not clasp it or say anything.

"I suppose," Agnes said, "you loved Sir Everard. I can understand that sometimes a new romance might seem more enticing than the marriage one already has. But more enticing than the love of one's children? Maybe I am being unjust to you, however, for perhaps, even probably, you would not have chosen Sir Everard over us if Papa had not pushed you into doing so. It was especially heinous of him to do so if indeed you were innocent, as you a.s.sured Flavian you were when he called here last year. Yet we speak to Papa and treat him with honor and respect. Perhaps it is wrong of us to have such a . . . double standard."

Their mother spoke at last.

"I did write to you, Dora," she said. "I sent you both gifts for your birthdays until the silence convinced me that your father must be withholding them from you. Besides, letters and gifts were no proper atonement for abandonment. I could not take you with me when I left. Your father would have pursued me and taken you back, and that would have been more distressing for you than my leaving you behind. Besides, at the time I had nowhere to go, nowhere to take you. Not that I even thought of it until later, I must confess. I ran away upon impulse, and when my heart began to ache for you with a terrible pain, I chose to stay away rather than return to you and your father too. But being forever separated from my children broke my heart in two. It has never quite mended."

"I do a.s.sure you, Dora, Agnes-" Sir Everard began.

Dora whipped her head about and looked incredulously at him. He faltered, and the color in his face deepened.

He started again. "I do a.s.sure you, Your Grace, my lady, that your mother had done nothing whatsoever to deserve the humiliation she suffered at your father's hand that night, any more than I had. A little flirtation . . . Well, everyone flirts, you know. It was entirely harmless. We had no more idea of eloping than . . . well, than of flying to the moon. But when your father said what he did, I was forced, as an honorable gentleman, to make one of two choices-either slap a glove in his face and call him out or take Rosamond away and wait patiently until I could offer her the protection of my name for the rest of her life."

"But as a chivalrous gentleman," Flavian said, his voice heavy with irony, "you were not honor-bound to consider Lady Debbins's ch-children." It was not a question.

The manservant chose that moment to bring in the tea tray, laden with drinks and dainties none of them wanted. Lady Havell made no move to pour or make any reference to the refreshments. By the time the servant left the room, the silence was loud and heavy.

"I beg your pardon for coming here uninvited to disturb your peace," Dora said, getting to her feet. "I did not intend to speak so harshly. I thought, I suppose, to extend some sort of olive branch. We all make choices in life and must then live with the consequences. And some choices are not easy to make. I have lived long enough to understand that as well as the fact that we can almost never go back if we regret a certain path we took. But thank you for your kindness in receiving us."

"I do not remember you," Agnes said, addressing their mother, "except for a few flas.h.i.+ng images that are never complete episodes. But I do know that you did something very right. Dora was a wonderful mother to me during my growing years. She was warm and loving and nurturing. She could have learned to be that way only from you, for Papa was always a remote, humorless figure who saw to our material needs but never gave us much of either his attention or his love. It must have been difficult being married to him."

William Keeping had been another such man, Dora thought, though admittedly he had not been either a drinker or an openly jealous man.

The others had risen too. George had still not spoken a word. He did now, however. He reached out a hand to her mother, who was just getting to her feet.

"I am pleased to have made your acquaintance, ma'am," he said. "I promise you that I will cherish your daughter for the rest of my days."

Dora watched her mother bite her lip as her eyes grew suspiciously bright.

"I never wanted anything but her happiness," she said, "though my behavior suggested otherwise, I suppose. Thank you, Your Grace. I would say that Dora is a fortunate lady, but I do believe you are an equally fortunate man."

He smiled at her.

"Ma'am," Dora said before pausing and lowering her head to look at her hands. She began again. "Mother, perhaps you would care to start writing to me again at Penderris Hall in Cornwall. I will receive those letters, and I will reply."

"I will do that, Dora," her mother said.

"I am going to have a child in the autumn," Agnes blurted.

"Oh." Her mother turned wistful eyes upon her. "I am so glad, Agnes." It was probable, though, that she had already noticed.

"I shall . . . let you know," Agnes said.

"Thank you."

And then they were back in the carriage, less than half an hour after they had left it. Or was it an eternity? Dora and Agnes no longer sat together. Agnes had her back to the horses, Flavian's arm about her shoulders, her face hidden in the hollow between his shoulder and neck. Dora sat beside George, not quite touching him.

"I am sorry I brought you, my love," Flavian said.

That made Agnes's head come up. "You did no such thing," she informed him. "I told George I was coming and you said you would accompany me."

"I have always had a b-bit of d-difficulty with my m-memory," he said meekly, deliberately exaggerating his stammer.

"I am not sorry I came," she said, resting her head on his shoulder again. "I will write to her after my confinement. Why should I write to Papa, after all, and not to her?"

"Quite so," he said.

Dora ached to lean against George, to feel the rea.s.surance of his warmth and strength. Perhaps he knew. He took her hand in his, laced their fingers, and raised it to his lips. He leaned slightly sideways until her head tipped very naturally against his shoulder.

"Bravo, Dora," he said softly.

She had to concentrate very hard upon not weeping.

How had she ever found comfort in her life, she wondered, before there was George's calm voice and kind eyes and firm shoulder and sheltering arms?

She might have been a little alarmed at the loss of her spirit of independence if she had spared it a thought.

Her heart ached for the mother she had lost twenty-two years ago and found again today and . . .

And what?

12.

Agnes and Flavian set off for their home in Suss.e.x, late as the hour was when they all arrived back on Grosvenor Square. Dora and George walked over to see them on their way.

"I am glad I went with you," Agnes said, "though I think I will be upset over it for a few days. She is a stranger, yet she is our mother. Oh, I do not know what to think. How are you feeling, Dora?"

"She is not a stranger to me," Dora told her, "and yet she is. If she writes to me, I will write back. Oh, it was so wicked of Papa, Agnes, to withhold her letters and gifts. Though perhaps he thought it was for the best. I am tired of blaming and resenting and hating."

They hugged each other, both with tears in their eyes.

"At least we have each other," Agnes said. "I love you more than I can ever say, Dora."

After they returned to Stanbrook House, Dora went upstairs to lie down in the d.u.c.h.ess's bedchamber. She could not fall asleep, though, weary as she was. She kept remembering her mother's saying that she had dressed for visitors every day after seeing the announcement of Dora's upcoming wedding, and the memory made her throat ache with unshed tears. But how could she feel sorry for her mother? Agnes had waited day after day, week after week when she was a child. She used to prop up one of her dolls in her window each night when she went to bed herself, to keep watch while she slept, and every night she told the doll all she would have to show Mama when she came home. But sometimes she would shut the doll up inside a cupboard and hide beneath her bedcovers and refuse even to give Dora a good night kiss.

Oh, how one's heart ached sometimes, even with memories of events long past and best forgotten.

How happy she had been last week when Papa had come to London and agreed to give her away at her wedding. How his words on her wedding morning had warmed her heart. Yet Papa had driven her mother away and had then kept back her letters and gifts to her daughters. How could he have withheld gifts for a five-year-old?

Oh, but she really was tired, tired, tired of apportioning blame.

She must have dozed. She awoke when something warm covered her hand, which was outside the bedcovers. It was George's hand. He was sitting on the side of the bed, looking down at her with concern. Her cheeks were wet, she realized when with his other hand he dried them gently with a large linen handkerchief. She smiled at him and turned her hand beneath his to clasp it.

"You are so very good at that," she said.

"At . . . ?" He raised his eyebrows.

"At giving comfort," she said. "But who comforts you, George?"

She could have sworn for a moment that it was deep pain she saw in his eyes, but then they smiled with a kindness that was almost like a s.h.i.+eld.