Tangled (9 page)

"Yes," she said, "thank you. You are most kind."

He looked at her broodingly for a few silent moments and at the child. "I want Rebecca to marry me," he said and watched her eyes widen. "She wants to know why I did not marry you."

Flora blushed. "I said at the time it was madness," she said. "I said it would come back to haunt you. I should have insisted on the truth being told, I suppose, but at the time I was in no state to make sensible decisions. I allowed you to talk me into something I should never have agreed to."

"At the time," he said, "it seemed the only thing to do. The wedding was all arranged and the guests had all been invited. There would have been a dreadful scandal. And you said yourself that you realized Julian would never marry you."

Flora bent over her child suddenly and whispered in his ear. "You may go and take a biscuit from the jar if you wish, sweetheart," she said. "Sit at the table nicely to eat it."

"Two?" he asked, holding up two fingers.

She smiled. "Two, then," she said. "Just this once. No crumbs, mind." She waited for him to dart from the

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room. "Why do you not tell her the truth now?" she asked.

"She loved him," he said. "She will always love him."

"And yet you want to marry her?" She flushed at the forwardness of her question.

"Yes," he said.

She frowned. "I don't know why," she said, "when you deserve so much more. But it is impertinent of me to say so. You would let her marry you, then, thinking this of you? You would do that rather than sully her memory of him."

"Yes," he said.

She looked down at her hands. "You always did love her, didn't you?" she said. "You were always ten times the man he was. And so often the scapegoat, by your own choice. I was one of the few people ever to realize that, I think. Rebecca never did, did she? But then that last time you did it for her. It was not for him, was it, or for what the scandal would have done to him. It was because she would have been hurt and you loved her." She sighed.

"Flora," he said, "she may come here asking questions. If she decides to give any consideration to my proposal at all, she may come. And she needs a husband. She needs a home of her own and a purpose to her days. She could find them with me."

"I will answer her questions with care," she said.

He leaned forward in his chair. “But you will not tell her the truth?"

"I promised," she said. "Before your father gave me this cottage, before we knew he would be so kind. When you and Julian came to make arrangements for my support, I promised that I would never tell anyone who Richard's father is.
Was.
I was a fool, perhaps, but I promised and I will not break that promise now if it is your wish that I keep it. I owe you more than I can ever repay."

He searched her eyes before nodding, satisfied, and getting to his feet. "I will not keep you longer," he said, "or the biscuit jar will be empty."

He led the way into the hall. But he paused with his

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hand on the door latch and turned back to her, hesitating for only a moment.

"He died well, Flora," he said quietly. "And instantly. He could not have felt pain."

"I know," she said. "Rebecca mentioned it earlier." There was a sudden rush of tears in her eyes and she bit her upper lip. "Thank you," she whispered as he opened the door and let himself out.

******************************************************************

Rebecca found Flora and Richard, not at the cottage, but beside a rather neglected lily pond a short distance away. It had not been much frequented since the far larger lake had been constructed east of the house. But Flora would not take her son there, where they might encounter the earl or countess at any time.

"Are there any frogs today?" Rebecca called as she approached.

"Only fish," Flora said with a smile while Richard poked intently at the water with a stick and called to Rebecca to come and see.

They strolled onward a few minutes later, along the wooded path that would take them back eventually to the cottage. Richard ran on ahead.

"I came back this afternoon for a reason," Rebecca said abruptly.

Flora looked at her inquiringly.

"What happened with David?" Rebecca blurted. "Did he ever ask you to marry him? Was there ever any question of marriage?"

Flora drew a deep breath. "We discussed it," she said, "and decided mutually against it. He was very honorable and kind."

"Honorable?" Rebecca said with scorn. "Kind? To bring such trouble on you, Flora, and then
discuss
taking the consequences? It was only right that he do so. Did he make it so obvious to you that he did not want to?''

"I did not want to marry him," Flora said. "It would have been quite the wrong thing—for both of us. Neither of us loved the other.

He would have been doing it out of nobility and I would have been doing it merely out of fright and desperation."

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"But he had fathered your child," Rebecca said. "Did he not owe you marriage?"

Flora did not answer for a while. "Sometimes," she said, "people get carried away by passion. I know you would find that hard to understand, Rebecca. You have such strong moral principles and standards of behavior and I must honor you for that. But it does happen nevertheless. Trying to put right that wrong with another wrong does not solve anything. It would have been wrong of me to marry Lord Tavistock.''

"But if you did not love him," Rebecca said, "how could you have

..." She flushed. "Pardon me, it is really none of my business. Do forgive me."

"Passion and love do not always go hand in hand," Flora said. "Not always. Have you blamed Lord Tavistock for not marrying me?

Don't. He would have done so, I believe, but I made it clear that it was not what I wanted. He did no wrong."

"He is responsible for Richard," Rebecca said, tight-lipped.

"Do you think I would be without him?" Flora asked. "Can you look at him and say he should not exist, Rebecca? That he is somehow wrong? What I did was wrong. I knew it then and I know it now. But I cannot be as sorry as perhaps I should. I have Richard, you see. And so I am not really sorry. And I don't want anyone else feeling responsible, though I must confess that I am grateful for the support both Lord Tavistock and the Earl of Harrington give me."

Rebecca was silent. Yes, looked at that way, it was hard to see matters in purely black-and-white terms. She could not understand the talk about passion. Love she knew, but passion was something beyond her experience. It suggested something irrational, something beyond one's control. Something she had no wish to experience.

But she would not judge. She had never condemned Flora for something she herself could not understand. And how could she say that what Flora and David had done was wrong when there was Richard? Sometimes it was not so easy to decide what was right and what was wrong. Sometimes life was not easy.

"I'll not come inside," she said as they approached

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the cottage. "I just needed to ask those questions, Flora. He wants me to marry him."

"Lord Tavistock?" Flora asked.

"I could not do so, of course," Rebecca said. "I do not even like or respect him. And I cannot consider a second marriage yet. It is too soon."

"It is almost two years," Flora said.

"It sounds like a long time," Rebecca said with a sigh. "It does not seem long, Flora. I still feel married. I am having to tell myself quite firmly that I am a widow and have been for almost two years. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Flora said quietly.

"What I need to ask," Rebecca said, "though it is foolish to do so when I have no intention of marrying him now or ever. What I need to ask, Flora, is whether you would mind. Whether you would be hurt."

"If you married Lord Tavistock?" Flora asked. "No. Oh, no, Rebecca, you must not think I would. That is all long in the past.

Over. You must not hold back on my account. He would make you a wonderful husband. I know it. He is a wonderful man."

Rebecca laughed without amusement. "And yet you do not love him?" she said. "Or want all these wonderful things for yourself?"

Flora flushed and then bent down to take the bunch of dandelions and daisies that Richard had picked for her. "Thank you, sweetheart,"

she said. "How lovely they are." She straightened up. "No," she said.

"No, I don't, Rebecca. And I mean it. But I do not hate or even dislike him. I can see clearly that he is a good man."

Rebecca sighed again. "But I am not in search of a husband," she said. "Certainly not David."

She took her leave and walked back toward the house, her head down.

You would have a home of your own,
he had said.
Not only that. You
would have a definite purpose in life. You would be very much needed.

Whereas she was hurrying toward a home that was not really hers, a home in which she had no clearly defined function. A place where she had to find her own amusements with which to fill the long and empty days.

But not David. She could never marry David.

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* * *

Sunshine returned the following day and the earl announced at breakfast that all other activities must give way to an afternoon walk to the lake.

"You can play Lady Bountiful tomorrow again, my dear," he said, patting the countess's hand, "and Rebecca too. Today you must please the men of this family and walk with us."

The countess suggested a ride instead, but the earl insisted that a walk would be quite strenuous enough exercise. She pulled a face at him and smiled.

"Oh, very well, then, William," she said. "A walk it will be at whatever sedate pace you care to set."

"You have to humor my advanced age," he said, and she laughed at him outright.

No one had ever teased or laughed at his father in David's memory.

And yet, stern as his expression was, he did not look angry or even.displeased. David shifted his glance to Rebecca. She was wearing gray again, a lighter shade than she had worn the day before. He wondered if she had gone back to Flora Ellis's yesterday, if she was still angry with him, if she was still adamant in her determination to refuse him.

He wondered if since the morning before she had been tempted by his offer. If she ever could be tempted. She was eating her breakfast with lowered eyes, though she had talked with some animation with Louisa for a while about an elderly cottager who liked to be visited.

They had half planned to call on him that afternoon. Their visit would have to be postponed now.

He walked with her when the four of them set out for the lake after luncheon. She took his arm without protest, and they had soon outdistanced his father and Louisa, who were walking rather slowly despite Louisa's protests.

"The sunshine is back," David said.

"Yes," Rebecca said. "Yesterday it looked as if we were in for a spell of rain."

They lapsed into silence.

"Did you speak with Flora Ellis?" he asked at last.

"Yes," she said. It appeared at first that she did not

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want to talk about it, but she continued after a while. "You spoke the truth. I have misjudged you all this time. I am sorry.''

"How much am I forgiven?" he asked. "Will you marry me?"

"No," she said hastily. "No, David. I think I made myself clear on that. I should never have said what I did. And I did not mean it quite as I said it. I have never wished you dead. I have only wished Julian alive."

"I understood," he said. "I am not asking to take his place, Rebecca."

She looked up at him. "What then?"

"I know you will always love him," he said. "I would never expect or ask you to give that up."

"And yet you wish to be my husband," she said.

"Yes."

"If I married you I would have to give him up," she said. "I would owe everything to you—loyalty, obedience, affection. That is what marriage is, David. There can be no half measures."

"And you could not in all conscience give me those three?" he asked. "Even though love would be withheld? Affection is a desirable ingredient of any relationship. I believe a marriage can exist quite well on mutual affection. Can you not feel that for me?"

"I don't know," she said. "I honestly don't know, David. But if I could not offer my heart, I could not offer my whole loyalty. I would feel that I had cheated you, that I had been unfaithful to you. I could never offer you my heart. It is dead and buried in the Crimea."

They had reached the lake. They stood on the bank for a while, looking across to the trees at the other side. But he turned with her to stroll around it. He was not ready yet to be joined by his father and Louisa.

"If I were prepared to take you without your heart?" he asked.

"It would not work, David," she said. "Believe me, it would not.

Julian and I loved each other dearly, and yet even so there were certain things. . . . There were . . . It had to be worked on.

Constantly. It was not easy. Not for either of us. It was only our love and our—our commitment to that love that held us together until the

¦n
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end. Even though we were apart for the last seven months of our marriage."

"If you can never again love," he said, "if your heart is really dead with him, Rebecca, must you remain widowed for the rest of your life? Will you never again be able to consider marriage?''

She stared up at him, her eyes not quite seeing him. He knew he had put a new and rather frightening idea in her mind.

"I don't know," she said at last. "I don't know, David."

"Or is it just me?" he asked. "Is it just that you cannot marry me because I came home and he did not?''