“Wren,” Alexander said, his voice pleasant, “go outside, my love, and await me in the carriage.”

But she stayed and gazed in amazement. He did not appear to have exerted a great deal of energy or power, and his voice was not breathless. He looked from one to the other of the young men he held in place.

“I do not like the sound of my wife’s name on your lips,” he said, his voice soft but curiously menacing. “I do not remember giving either of you permission to address her directly. I do not recall her ladyship giving such permission. Such permission is withheld. My wife’s name will not pass your lips ever again anywhere I might hear of it. You will utter no warnings or threats against her ever again. You will offer no public opinion about her. If you ever encounter her again, you will lower your eyes and button your lips. If you are given orders to the contrary, you will obey those orders at your peril. And you will pass on this message to your cohorts so that I may avoid the tedium of having to repeat them. Do you understand?”

Feet and hands dangled. Eyes popped. Neither young man seemed able to mount any defense against a one-handed hold. Nor did they seem quite able to draw breath.

“It was not a rhetorical question,” Alexander said when there was no answer. “It requires an answer.”

“Yes,” the first gentleman squeaked.

“Understood,” the second wheezed simultaneously.

Alexander opened his fingers and let them drop. They both crumpled to the floor, then rose awkwardly and fled in ungainly haste back up the stairs. Alexander brushed his hands together as though they were somehow soiled. He turned to glance at the footman, who was still holding the door open and gawking. His eyes alit upon Wren.

“Ah,” he said, “the ever-obedient wife. Come. We are done here, I believe.”

She took his arm without saying a word.

Twenty-two

Before Alexander climbed into the carriage after his wife, he told his coachman to keep driving until he was notified otherwise.

She sat with rigidly correct posture on her side of the carriage seat, her face slightly turned away to gaze out of the window. She had taken him by surprise during that visit. He had expected that she would ask questions of her mother to try to understand the why of her childhood and the way she had been treated. He had expected her to plead for some sort of reconciliation, for some sign that her mother had maternal feelings after all and some feelings of remorse. He had expected emotion, tears, drama—some outpouring of passion and pain.

Instead she had been magnificent. And he understood why she had gone against his advice and that of her brother. I came because I needed to come, because I needed to look upon you once more as an adult who has learned self-worth. I needed to confront the darkness of a childhood no child should ever have to endure … I wanted to look you in the eye and tell you that you have missed so much joy you might have had in your life…. I do not hate you … I feel sorrow instead, for perhaps you cannot help your character any more than I can help the birthmark on my face.

But he could not ignore the fact that that woman with her eerily youthful appearance and little girl voice was Wren’s mother.

He took her gloveless hand in his. It was cold and lifeless at first. But it curled into his almost immediately, and the carriage jerked slightly as it moved off.

“Thank you,” she said. “How did you manage to do that? There were two of them.”

“They were a grave disappointment,” he said. “I was itching for a fight, but all they could do was dangle.”

“It is … hurtful to be told that one was hideous to look upon,” she said, “even when one is assured that there has been a slight improvement and even when one despises the person who speaks such words.”

“But she is your mother,” he said.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes for a few moments and leaned slightly toward him until their shoulders touched. “There is an image that leaps to mind with the word mother—your mother, your aunt Lilian, Cousin Louise, Anna. But there is no compulsion on a woman to fit that image just because she has borne a child, is there? My mother is … Is there something wrong with her, Alexander? Can she really not help who she is, or how she is? Or can she? No. Don’t answer that.” She slid her hand beneath his arm and moved closer. “It does not matter. I went there so that I would be free of her at last. I am not naive enough to believe it will be as simple as that, of course, but calling on her was an important step and I have taken it. I am not going to puzzle over her. She is as she is. And Blanche is as she is.” With that, she sighed deeply. “Alexander, what a burden I have proved to be to you.”

“I have not felt even a moment’s regret,” he said quite truthfully.

“Thank you,” she said again after a brief silence. “Thank you for telling her my happiness is important to you.”

“It is,” he said.

“And thank you for saying you love me,” she said.

“I do.”

“I know.” She wriggled her hand in his until their fingers were laced. “Thank you.”

But she did not know. She did not know that something had happened to him when he had spoken those words. Any red-blooded male would have said the same thing under the circumstances, of course. But the thing was, the words had not come from his head as his other words had. They had come from somewhere else, some unconscious part of himself, and had struck him with their truth just as though he had been struck over the head with a large mallet. He loved her. Not just loved, but loved. Whatever the devil that meant.

She thought, of course, that he spoke of affection, and she was quite right. But it was not just affection. He was not particularly good with words except the practical ones with which he dealt with everyday life. He could deliver a coherent, even forceful speech in the House of Lords without having to have a secretary write it for him. But he did not have the words to explain even to himself what he had just discovered about his feelings for his wife. Love encompassed it but was woefully inadequate.

The words had come straight from his heart, he supposed, but the heart was not strong on language. Only on feelings. He was a man, for the love of God. He was not accustomed to analyzing his feelings. And if he kept trying he was going to give himself a headache.

“Thank you,” she said again into the silence that had fallen between them. “My heart is full, and all I can think of to say is those two words. They can be virtually meaningless or they can be powerful. I mean them powerfully.”

Just as he meant I love you powerfully.

“We will go home,” he said. “Tomorrow.”

She turned her face toward him and smiled. “To peace,” she said, “and quiet and the challenge of all the work we need to do there.”

“Yes,” he said. “To our new life together. We will make a home of Brambledean, Wren, and a prosperous estate, and eventually there will be a beautifully landscaped park that will employ many people and a fully staffed house worthy of its grandeur. But more than anything it will be a home. Ours. And our children’s if we are so fortunate.”

“It sounds like bliss,” she said. “It sounds like heaven. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” he said. He leaned forward to tap upon the panel as a signal to his coachman to take them back to South Audley Street. He did not know where they had been going since they left Curzon Street. He had not been paying attention.