Twenty-Six
Jeremy was surprised that the earl didn’t ask for Samuel’s letter the moment they set off, but apparently Bonnaud’s presence kept him in check. Meanwhile, Bonnaud spent the ride congratulating Jeremy on his impending marriage, while Jeremy spent it trying not to think about what his mother and sister might be saying to Yvette.
One thing he could count on. Though he wasn’t so sure about Amanda, Mother would never tell Yvette the details of Hannah’s death. She’d always resisted discussing Father’s actions. Someday he’d have to tell Yvette everything himself, but not yet. He still couldn’t bear the idea of her knowing how his selfishness had cost Hannah her life.
As soon as they arrived, Bonnaud introduced Blakeborough to Miss Moreton. From the moment she brought her son forward, everything changed. Even Jeremy could see that the lad resembled the earl to an astonishing degree. Indeed, Blakeborough was visibly shaken, then let out a long-suffering sigh, as if already realizing he was doomed to take on another dependent.
But what really settled the matter was when Jeremy gave Miss Moreton the letter. She opened it warily. After reading it, however, she looked a bit dazed as she sat turning the pages over in her hand.
“I should like to see what my brother wrote,” Blakeborough said, more a command than a request.
A sudden anxious look crossed her face. “My lord, I want you to know that I had no idea of what he was planning, and no involvement whatsoever in—”
“The letter, Miss Moreton.”
Swallowing hard, she handed it to Blakeborough, who read it aloud so Jeremy and Bonnaud could hear it, too:
Dearest Peg,
If you’re reading this, then my sister succeeded in posting it. I’m sure you’ve heard of my trial and sentence of transportation. It was only after I was in Newgate that I learned you had left the stage. One of my boxing associates saw you at Mrs. Beard’s some months ago. He made inquiries and learned of our son.
So Samuel hadn’t lied about not knowing of his son until he was already in gaol. That was rather surprising.
I know we parted on bad terms, but I don’t like to think of any child of mine being raised in such a place. I’m enclosing documents that should help you get money in another way to keep you and little Elias in a better situation. They prove we were married at the time of his birth.
Blakeborough raised his head to gape at Miss Moreton. “You were married?”
She looked grim. “Keep reading, my lord.”
The forger who made up the papers said they should hold up well enough to convince my brother, and I’m sure your acting abilities are up to the task of playing the long-suffering wife. Forgive me for resorting to such a subterfuge, but Edwin is hard-hearted and unlikely to give you any aid unless he thinks the child is legitimate.
Blakeborough’s voice faltered at that. After a few moments, he set down the letter. “Everything else is personal.” He leafed through the other sheets. “And these must be the supposed documents of a runaway marriage in Scotland.”
“Good God,” Bonnaud muttered. “Your brother is quite a piece of work.”
“Yes, that’s Samuel for you,” Blakeborough said tonelessly.
“But Elias is his?” Jeremy asked Miss Moreton. “Or you believe him to be?”
“I know him to be,” she said stoutly. “I was a faithful mistress to Samuel when we were together.”
“So you admit you weren’t married to my brother,” the earl said.
Paling a little, she shook her head. “I wrote to him concerning his son a couple of times, but got no answer. I heard later that he’d been cut off by your father, so I suspect he didn’t get the letters. I didn’t know how or where else to find him, and I didn’t want to incur your father’s wrath by presenting myself there. I wasn’t sure he would help anyway. Then once I heard Samuel was in gaol . . .” She shrugged. “There seemed no point in pursuing anything.”
Jeremy felt compelled to champion the child, if only for Yvette’s sake. “Blakeborough, your brother couldn’t have known Yvette would try delivering the letter in person rather than posting it. So whatever he wrote about the child is probably true. Unless you think he’s playing some double game.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Bonnaud said.
“Nor would I.” Blakeborough glanced over to where a grubby Elias sat on the floor, stacking up a set of worn wooden blocks. “But I have eyes. And, despite what my brother thinks, a heart. I believe he was being honest about his paternity.”
He looked at Miss Moreton and steadied his shoulders. “So, madam, I understand you wish to marry soon.”
And that was that. From there, nothing was left but to negotiate the handing over of the boy. They were done and out the door in a matter of moments, with Blakeborough promising to send a servant to fetch the lad the next morning. He said he needed time to prepare for placing the boy.
On the way home, they were a rather somber threesome. Or rather, the earl was somber; Jeremy and Bonnaud were merely reluctant to intrude upon his silent reflection.
But as they neared the Keane town house, Blakeborough roused himself. “I need to go on to Meredith’s and settle with her if she will take Elias.”
“Do you think she will?” Jeremy asked.
“I believe so. She was grateful when we agreed to provide for her and her babe, and this will be no financial imposition. It will also give her son an older brother. If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like Yvette to go with me. She’s better with Meredith than I am. But we’ll be back in time for dinner.”
“That’s fine.” Jeremy gazed at the man, wondering how he’d endured his brother’s shenanigans for so long. “It was good of you to take the child. Yvette will be relieved.”
“Which is why I’m doing it. The only reason I’m doing it.”
Jeremy didn’t believe that one whit. He’d seen Blakeborough’s haunted expression when the man had seen Elias. It made him wonder about the earl’s relationship to his own father. Given what Yvette had said, she probably hadn’t been the only one to feel neglected.
When they stopped, Jeremy told the earl he’d go in and fetch Yvette. Then he and Bonnaud climbed the steps together.
“I can’t believe you’re getting married,” Bonnaud said. “Does this mean no more trips to the stews?”
“I don’t know what it means.” That was the God’s honest truth. “But I suspect that in future my choice of subjects may . . . er . . . shift a bit.”
Bonnaud laughed. “No doubt.”
As they entered, it struck Jeremy that the place was unusually quiet. The chatter of four women planning a wedding ought to have raised the rafters, but he heard nothing. Just as he wondered if they’d gone to do some shopping, Yvette appeared in the hall.
He walked toward her. “You’ll be pleased to know that everything went well. Your brother is waiting outside. He wants you to go with him to Meredith’s to arrange for—” He halted as he noticed her swollen eyes and red nose. Alarms clamored in his head. “What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering, she flashed Bonnaud a stiff smile. “Your wife said to tell you she’s in the nursery and could use your advice on furniture.”
That sounded like a trumped-up tale if Jeremy had ever heard one, but Bonnaud merely headed up the stairs.
Only then did Jeremy ask, “Where are Mother and Amanda? Are they all right?”
When he tried to take her arm, she shied away. “They’re fine,” she said, not meeting his gaze. “But you and I need to talk.”
The words curdled his stomach. He managed a nod, then followed her into the drawing room. When she shut the door, dread spread through him like a noxious weed.
“What’s this about?” he demanded.
She faced him, a hollow look in her eyes. “Why did you never tell me that I resemble your late wife?”
That threw him off guard. “Because you don’t.” If that was her only concern, he could clear this up right now. “Why? Did my mother tell you that you did?”
“According to your sister, Hannah was a tall, green-eyed, dark-haired—”
“Oh, for God’s sake, you’re listening to Amanda? My sister has no visual sense; haven’t you noticed her poor taste in clothing? She’s bad with faces and colors. She only notices such things in broad terms.”
Yvette fixed him with an unrelenting stare that made him desperate to convince her.
“Hannah was tall, yes,” he went on, “and dark-haired and green-eyed. But she was also thin and frail, a delicate woman whose features bore no resemblance to yours. You’re nothing alike, either in temperament or in appearance. If you give me a moment, I’ll go find the miniature of her that’s somewhere in my belongings and show you.”
That made her pale. “You keep a miniature of her?”
“She was only my wife briefly, I’ll grant you, but still my wife. Would you have wanted me to forget her entirely after what she suffered?”
“You mean what she suffered in childbirth. When your father told the physician attending her that he should save the babe at all costs. Even if it meant the loss of your wife.”
His heart dropped into his stomach. Oh, God, no. No, no, no. “Amanda told you,” he choked out.
“Yes.” She continued in a halting voice. “She said the physician informed your parents that the babe’s head was too large and he could only be removed if your wife were cut open, or if the child was . . . destroyed. Your father gave the order to save the boy. But they’d delayed too long, and the child was stillborn. Your wife died a few hours later.”
Hearing the events described in Yvette’s heart-wrenching tones was bad enough, and she hadn’t even touched upon the worst part—that Jeremy hadn’t been there to stop it.
“Amanda had no right to tell you,” he said hoarsely.
“You should have told me.” Concern filled Yvette’s face. “She’s worried about you. And now I’m worried about you. About us.”
He could hardly breathe. His worst fears had been realized, and it hurt even more than he’d expected. “It has nothing to do with us.”
“It has everything to do with us, if you can’t get past the death of your wife and son!”
He fought to sound reasonable, normal. “That’s absurd. It’s been twelve years. Of course I’ve gotten past it.”
“Really? I don’t think you realize how little you have.” Her cheeks ashen, she stalked over to a sofa and pulled something from behind it, then set it in front of him.
Art Sacrificed to Commerce.
“What in thunder? You broke into my luggage? Took out my unfinished work, which I expressly forbade you to view before it was done?”
“I impressed upon Damber the importance of the situation, and he pried open the box.”
“The ‘importance of the situation,’ ” he said, mocking her serious tone. “I can’t see what my painting has to do with anything.”
“For one thing, the woman doesn’t resemble me in the least.”
“I know! I keep working to get her face right, but I can’t. I think it’s the shadows or . . . Damn it, I don’t know. But I don’t understand why my incompetence as an artist has anything to do with us.”
“It’s not—” She huffed out a breath. “Look at it! For once, Jeremy, really look at your painting. The woman doesn’t resemble me because your subject isn’t Art sacrificed to Commerce. It’s Hannah being sacrificed on the altar of your father’s obsession with his mills.”
He froze, gaping at the picture. “That’s not . . . It was never meant to . . .”
Horror swept through him. She was right.
He’d made Commerce older, as would be appropriate. But in so doing, he’d actually painted an image of his father as he’d looked years ago.
Jeremy’s chest tightened, his ribs feeling as if they were closing in on him, crushing him, making it hard to breathe. The painting he’d been driven to do was not what he’d thought at all.
And now that he could see it, everything fit. Commerce was his father, a man so consumed by his legacy that he’d sentenced his daughter-in-law to death rather than lose the possible future of that legacy. Even the work’s background had elements of the bank where Father had done business. And though Jeremy had painted a wound in Art’s chest, the knife dripping with blood was actually poised over Art’s belly.
“Oh, God . . . oh, God . . . oh, God . . .”
Yvette stepped nearer, tears trickling down her cheeks. “You said you didn’t know why you were compelled to use me as your model. But I know why. Because I look enough like your wife to play the role you needed.”
“No,” he whispered. “That’s not true!” He didn’t want it to be true. There was something deeper between him and Yvette, something real and sweet and pure, something beyond Hannah’s death.
“It is true. You know it in your heart. You’re trying to purge your grief, and you’re using me to do it. Because you can’t get past the horrific choice your father made.”
“Not just his horrific choice.”
She blinked. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“It was mine, too.” Bile rose in his throat. No point in not telling her all of it now. “I chose not to be there when I should have been. If I had been—”
“Then you would have had to make the horrific choice.”
“Yes! And I would have chosen my wife. Not a babe who might end up dying anyway. She deserved better than that.” He clenched his fists at his sides. “Especially after she was forced into marriage to a man who couldn’t love her.”
Sympathy softened her features. “She wasn’t forced,” she said gently. “She knew the possible consequences when she shared your bed.”
“She didn’t know we would end up enslaved in a life we didn’t choose. She didn’t know I’d be wed to the mills as much as to her.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Maybe not, but her death . . .” Unable to bear Yvette’s pity, he faced the fireplace. “I failed her, don’t you see? I failed her by not being there.”
She came over to place her hand on his arm. “Jeremy—”
“No!” He shook off her hand. “You don’t understand. Father never wanted her to be my wife. Yet even knowing that, even realizing that her time was near, I still left her to his care. I trusted him. Because the work of the mills had to go on. So instead of staying with her, I let him convince me to go to a damned meeting in Philadelphia where everything was about money and how to make it!”
About commerce. He cringed. Oh, God, the painting fit that, too. How had he not seen it before?
“So I suppose you’re right,” he continued in a low voice. “Art Sacrificed to Commerce probably is about her and him.”
“Or perhaps her and you,” she said in an aching voice. “It’s you as the model, isn’t it? Your mother said you looked like your father, but it goes beyond that. You blame him . . . and you blame yourself. So both of you wield the knife.”
“Enough,” he said in a ragged whisper. He felt bludgeoned by the truth, bludgeoned by the past.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy. I didn’t say all that to make you feel worse. I just wanted to explain why you and I shouldn’t—”
“Damn it, Yvette, you might be right about the painting’s true purpose, but you’re wrong about you and me.” He fixed her with his gaze. “I didn’t use you to purge my grief. You’ve been the first real light in my life in years. The moment I saw you, I knew I wanted you. The painting was just an excuse to have you.”
Her eyes warmed, and she seized his hand. “Then prove it.”
That stopped him cold. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“Mend the rift with your family. Return to Montague and settle your affairs. Stop running.” When he tried to jerk his hand from hers, she clung tight to it, refusing to release it. “Because the only reason I can see for your not going home is your inability to get past the deaths of your wife and son. Unless you can do that, you’re not ready to begin again with a new wife.”
His throat worked convulsively. “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”
“I do. Facing the past is hard. But your father is dead now, and your mother and sister need you. They suffered along with you back then, though you probably couldn’t see it. Let them help you grieve now and put it behind you at last. So you can go on.”
Struggling for breath, he slipped his hand from hers. “Is this a new requirement for our marriage?” he said curtly. “Even though you’ve already accepted my offer, you’re imposing some new condition—”
“I didn’t know all the facts then. And yes, now that I do, this is what I require.” A flash of pain darkened her gaze before she steadied her shoulders. “Because the truth is, Jeremy, I’ve fallen in love with you.”
The words stunned him, then crept through him like ivy seeking out cracks in the bricks he’d used to wall up his heart. She loved him. Even after everything she’d learned about his past, she loved him?
Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought I could marry you despite your not feeling the same, but I find that I cannot. If we’re to have a life together, you can’t always be running—from love, from the past . . . from me. My father ran from all the hard parts of marriage.” Her voice cracked. “I can’t watch my husband do it, too. I just . . . can’t.”
“I’m not sure if I can do what you ask,” he choked out.
“Then I don’t see any way for us to wed,” she said mournfully. “Because marriage only works if the husband and wife can both look forward.”
A knock came at the door. Neither of them responded, but the door opened anyway to reveal his mother. “Oh. Forgive me. A servant came in to say that Lord Blakeborough is still waiting in his carriage for his sister.”
Yvette gave her a forced smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Keane. Please tell the servant I’ll be there in a moment.”
His mother glanced from her to him and frowned, but she left.
“I have to go,” Yvette murmured.
“Don’t.” He caught her hand. “I don’t want you to go. Please don’t go.”
Her expression conflicted, she kissed him on the cheek. “Take care of yourself. You know where to find me if you should change your mind.”
Then she walked out.
He stood there numb. Disbelieving. After all they’d meant to each other, all they’d shared, she’d broken their engagement. Or rather, she’d put a condition upon it that he could not meet.
Or could he? Was Yvette right? Was he running away from everything and everyone? If they married, would he eventually run away from her, too?
Art Sacrificed to Commerce caught his eye, and he felt that horrible lurch again as he stared at the work. After all these years, what had pressed him to paint it?
Father’s death, obviously. Jeremy had started thinking about the painting shortly after the funeral. Working on it the past few weeks had obsessed him. Yet although he was generally a quick painter, this one hadn’t come quickly.
He hadn’t been able to get Yvette right, no matter how much he reworked her image. Was it because he’d wanted to make her into Hannah and hadn’t yet succeeded?
No, he didn’t think so.
“My, my, that is . . . very . . .”
He whirled to find his mother staring at the painting with widened eyes. She managed a weak smile. “I guess that answers the question that Lady Yvette kept avoiding—how you ended up engaged. Did her brother actually allow—”
“No.” Although Mother would never hurt Yvette’s reputation, he ought to try to explain away the resemblance to Yvette, or otherwise hide the truth from her.
He just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.
She cocked her head. “Is that your father?”
“No.” Jeremy speared a hand through his hair. “Yes. Well, both of us, really.”
His mother stood in silence, taking in the image. “It’s not finished, I take it.”
“Not yet.” And he seemed to have lost all desire to complete it. What would be the point, now that he knew why it had consumed him so?
“What do you call it?”
“Art Sacrificed to Commerce.” He held his breath, waiting for her to make the inevitable connection.
“Ah. So it’s about your father not letting you go to art school when you wanted.”
A maniacal urge to laugh rose up in him. Mother had never been very deep. “That’s not what Yvette says. She says it’s about Hannah, about my guilt over her death. Amanda told her some nonsense about how she looks like my late wife.”
“Well, that’s absurd. Your fiancée looks nothing like your late wife.” She snorted. “Amanda never was very observant when it came to people. I hope she didn’t upset Lady Yvette too much.”
A lump stuck in his throat. “As a matter of fact, my fiancée doesn’t want to be my fiancée anymore. She’s convinced that I haven’t let go of the past. She says that marriage isn’t for those who are still living past tragedies.”
“Ah.”
When she said nothing more, he slanted a glance at her. For the first time, he realized how old his mother was getting. She was still in her late fifties, but gray had finally begun to overtake the auburn in her hair, and time had etched lines in her face where there had been none before. Had all this happened in just eight months?
Your mother and sister need you. They suffered along with you back then, though you probably couldn’t see it. Let them help you grieve now and put it behind you at last. So you can go on.
“Why didn’t you stop him?” The question he’d always wanted to ask burst out, and he realized that if there had been any rift between Mother and him, it was this. That she hadn’t prevented Hannah’s death.
When Mother paled, he said, “Forgive me. I know you don’t like to speak of it, but surely you didn’t think Father’s choice was right—to save the babe over my wife.”
She began to tremble. “Must we talk about this?”
“I think we must. If I’m to lose the woman I love over it, then let me at least—”
He halted as he heard himself. The woman he loved.
God, he was such a fool. He loved Yvette.
Of course he loved her. How could he not? She was his lodestone, drawing him in. Anchoring him to the world, to a reality outside his past. He’d been so convinced he couldn’t or shouldn’t or wouldn’t fall in love that he’d refused to see the truth slapping him in the face.
He loved her. And if he wanted to get her back, if he wanted to make a life with her, he would have to change things.
His mother looked as if she might faint. Hastily he went to her side and urged her to sit on the settee opposite the sofa.
He sat next to her and took her hand, noting the blue veins that grew more prominent with each passing year. “I don’t mean to upset you, Mother, and I don’t ask this to accuse you of anything or blame you for anything. I just need to understand why you let him do it. Why you didn’t stop it.”
She gripped his hand in hers. “Because I agreed with his choice.”
He gaped at her. Surely she hadn’t said what he thought.
“You weren’t there, Jeremy. She was in agony. Even at nine months along, she was such a frail thing, and pale as death besides. The doctor said she probably wouldn’t survive the birth anyway, even if we destroyed the child. He said that if he opened her up, we might still save the babe.” She thrust out her chin. “Your father gave the order, but I agreed with it. Perhaps I was wrong, but—”
“Why did you never tell me this?” he asked in a hollow voice.
“So you could cut me out of your life, too?” She swiped a tear angrily away. “You were both so stubborn, you and your father. He wanted to force you to his will, and you fought that with every ounce of your being. And after Hannah died, he blamed the doctor, you blamed him, and I knew better than to take a side.” Her words grew choked. “I didn’t want to lose my only son. But I suppose I lost you anyway.”
“No,” he said earnestly. “Never. I love you, Mother. I just . . . couldn’t bear to go back to Montague, to face the truth. That I should have been there. I should have made the choice.”
“If you had, it wouldn’t have ended any differently, my dear boy. I never was able to make you accept it, but sometimes people just die, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it.”
She pulled his head down and kissed the top, as she’d done so many times when he was a boy, and he clutched her to him, fighting the tears stinging his eyes.
“I know your father was a hard man,” she whispered into his hair. “He never understood you, and he didn’t know a blasted thing about how to talk to people without getting their backs up. But he didn’t want Hannah dead, I swear. He just saw a chance to save his grandchild, and he took it.”
Jeremy’s control crumbled. Gripping his mother tight, he gave way to his grief—for the wife no one had been able to save, for the baby that had never had a chance, for the years he had lost with the hard man who’d been his father.
Mother held him and murmured soothing nonsense, as if he were her little boy again. And he didn’t care. There was something freeing about losing himself in the comfort of his mother’s arms.
After a while he pulled away to find Mother crying, but she was smiling through her tears. She cupped his cheek tenderly. “Oh, my poor lad. You must leave it behind.”
“Yes.”
It was time to forget and forgive. He saw that now. Yvette was right: going on in the way he’d been was impossible. He wasn’t even sure he was capable of it anymore. These past few weeks had changed him. She had changed him.
Mother sniffled, and he drew out a handkerchief for her. With a tremulous smile, she took it. “What will you do about your Yvette?”
His Yvette. He liked the sound of that. “Whatever I must to get her back. Because I can’t bear to be without her.”
Then prove it.
He brushed a kiss to his mother’s cheek, then rose to stare critically at his painting. Maybe it was time to head in a new direction. And how better to start than with this?