“Tell me,” he said again, going against his earlier decision to let her decide for herself. But if she did not tell him now, he had the chilling feeling that she might never tell and then she might be forever lost to him. And perhaps to herself too. Ah, good God, what did he know about dealing with damaged people—horribly, horribly damaged.

She was silent for a long time before she started speaking in the same toneless voice. “There are some people who are totally self-absorbed,” she said, “for whom no one else really exists except as an audience to watch and listen and praise and admire and adore. I believe it must be some kind of sickness. My mother was like that. She was astonishingly beautiful. Perhaps all children feel that way about their mothers. But I think even by objective standards she was lovely beyond compare. She demanded adoration. She gathered about herself people who would adore her—men mostly, though not exclusively. She gathered beautiful people. She never seemed to fear competition, but she did seem to feel that anyone less than beautiful reflected poorly on herself.”

Ah. One could see where this was going.

“She doted on her children and displayed them for other people’s admiration as an extension of herself,” she said. “First Blanche and Justin, who were blond and lovely as she was, and then Ruby, who was dark like our father but just as lovely. And then I was born with a great red … blob covering one side of my face and head like a giant ripe strawberry. She had me taken away as soon as she set eyes on me. She could not bear to look at me. She saw me as a judgment upon herself for quarreling bitterly with Papa when she discovered she was bearing me. All I was to her was a cruel punishment.”

Alexander opened his mouth to say that surely she must have meant something to her mother, but his words remained unsaid. Somehow he did not doubt that the woman was as narcissistic as Wren had said.

“She and Papa were often away from home,” Wren said. “She liked being in town attending parties and balls. When they were at home, she liked to have guests, sometimes enough of them for a house party that would last for several weeks. I had to be kept out of sight when she was home. When there were guests, I had to be locked inside my room, lest I wander out and be seen.”

“There was no schoolroom?” he asked. “No nursery where no adults came? No outings?”

“My sisters and elder brother adored her,” she said. “They took their cue from her. Ruby would turn her back whenever I came into a room. Justin would make loud retching noises. Blanche would be cross and tell me to go back to my room, where they could forget I existed to spoil life for poor Mama and all of them. The governess just shrugged and pretended I did not exist. I sometimes went out of doors when there was no one at home except us children, but Justin or Blanche would lock me in if any of their friends had come to play.”

“Your father?” he asked.

“I rarely saw him,” she said. “None of us did. He had no interest in children, I believe. Perhaps he did not know how I was … segregated.”

“No one took your part?” he asked.

“Only Colin,” she said. “He was born four years after me, blond and beautiful and sweet-natured. He would sometimes come into my room, even when it was locked—he learned how to turn the key from the other side—bringing toys and books with him. He would always ask me how my face was and insist upon kissing it better. And he would spread his toys around me and pretend to read his books to me until he really could do it. I could not read myself. Once, we played outside together and ran and climbed trees and … laughed. Oh, how good that felt. I used to listen to the others playing and laughing outside …”

There was a lengthy silence, during which Alexander held her close and kissed the top of her head. He was chilled at her words, but would not show his horror. “What happened when you were ten years old?” he asked.

“A few things happened together,” she said. “Aunt Megan came to stay. She was my mother’s sister, but she had never come before. They were as different as day and night. I do not know why she came then. She never said. But she found out about me and came to see me in my room. I remember her holding me and kissing me and wondering why everyone had been making such a fuss about a great strawberry swelling on one side of my head and face. By then the swelling had gone down and the red had mostly turned to purple. Then a day or two later there were people visiting who had children, and no one had locked my door. I did not intend to show myself or try to join in their game, but I did go outside to watch. They were playing some boisterous game on the bank of the lake, and I climbed a tree as close as I could get without being seen. But somehow I lost my balance and fell out. I did not hurt myself, but I frightened the children so much that one of them fell in the lake and the others ran up to the house, screaming hysterically. My sisters ran after them and my elder brother too after warning me that I had done it now. I pulled the child out of the lake—it was shallow and there was no real danger of his drowning—and went back to my room.”

Alexander closed his eyes.

“Aunt Megan came for me after it was dark and told me she was taking me away where I would be safe and loved for the rest of my life,” she said. “I do not remember feeling much either way. I believe I was exhausted from crying. No one had ever loved me—except Colin—and I liked my aunt and went with her without a murmur. But she was not stealing me away without anyone knowing. As we passed the drawing room, my mother came out onto the landing and told Aunt Megan that she was a fool, that she would regret taking me, that it would be far better to let me be sent to the insane asylum as she had planned to do the next day.”

Alexander sucked in his breath.

“I did not even know what that was,” Wren said. “I asked when we were on the way to London, but my aunt told me she did not know either.” She took a long, shuddering breath. “I have neither seen nor heard of my mother or any of them from that day to this—to a few hours ago at the theater. Almost twenty years. And she looks now exactly as she looked then.”

Her breathing was a bit ragged. He held her close.

“She saw me,” she said. “She knew me.”

“You belong to me now, Wren,” he said. “I have ownership of you. Not to tyrannize over you, but to keep you safe so that you can be free of these fears and horrors. I look after what is my own. It is more than a promise.”

It sounded ostentatious to his own ears. He was not even quite sure what he meant. How could he both own her and set her free? But he did know that he was speaking straight from the heart and that he would not, by God—not ever, not even in the smallest of ways—betray her trust in him.

“I care,” he told her.

Nineteen

Wren awoke slowly from a deep sleep and was aware of warmth and comfort and daylight and the sounds of wheels and horses and a single human shout from beyond the window, and of the fact that she was nestled in her husband’s arms, her head on his shoulder. And then it all came flooding back—yesterday, the first full day of her marriage.

“What time is it?” she asked, drawing back her head, not checking first to see if he was awake.

He was. He was gazing back at her, his hair tousled, his nightshirt open at the neck. She was still wearing her nightgown. A man in his nightshirt, she thought, could look every bit as enticing as the same man naked. This man could, anyway, and he was the only one in whom she was interested.