Chapter Thirty-Seven
“I am sorry I’ve been neglecting you,” Gerrit said to Amelia. In the five days since the fracas with Staines, he had been too caught up in several new discoveries at the dig to pay his usual visits.
Too besotted with your wife, is more like.
Gerrit did not bother to deny the accusation. The business with Staines had been nasty, but it had drawn Kathryn closer to him. It had also rid her eyes of the shadows he’d seen far too often. She seemed almost jubilant now that she no longer had secrets to keep.
Unlike you.
He gritted his teeth against the thought.
Amelia gave him the calm smile that had always soothed him. “I think you’ve been missing visits for a good reason.”
“What do you mean?” he demanded warily. Had somebody talked? Surely not Court or—
A strange expression crossed Amelia’s face. “I like your wife, Gerrit.”
Gerrit frowned. “You don’t know her—only what I’ve told you.” But he had been thinking that perhaps he should introduce them, as unorthodox as it was. Now that Kathryn would be living at Briarly she could hardly go on in ignorance of who was living in the dower house.
Yet more secrets…
He would ponder the matter before acting. Right now, however, he could tell Amelia his news. “Kathryn is with child.”
“Congratulations, Gerrit. You must be very happy.”
He was happy, although several unpleasant issues continued to plague him, throwing an unpleasant pall over his happiness.
But that was another matter entirely.
“Yes, I am pleased,” he said when he saw she was waiting.
Amelia’s smile faded and something else replaced it; something that looked like… guilt?
“Is something amiss, Amelia?”
“I do know your wife, Gerrit.”
Gerrit frowned when her pale cheeks flushed. “Explain.”
Ten minutes later Gerrit was shaking his head at her duplicity. “She visited you this past Wednesday?”
Amelia pulled a face. “Yes.”
So, his wife had not yet told him all her secrets.
“I made her promise not to tell you,” Amelia said, clearly reading his thoughts. “Please do not blame her.”
Gerrit was too annoyed to speak.
Amelia cleared her throat. “There is something else, too.”
“What?” he barked.
Amelia went to her writing desk and took out two pieces of lavender paper that Gerrit recognized all too well.
“I received this from your mother.”
“She writes to you?” He shook his head in disbelief. “Does every female in my life secretly communicate with each other?”
Amelia chose to ignore his second question, which was not entirely rhetorical. “The dowager wrote only twice.” She handed the letters to him.
“I do not want them.”
“You need to read them. Especially the newer one.” She held his gaze.
He scowled and rudely snatched them away. “Faugh,” he coughed when the overwhelming floral scent assaulted his nostrils. “It even smells like her.”
“Gerrit!”
His head whipped up at the unprecedented sound of Amelia’s raised voice. “What?”
“She is your mother. She gave life to you. And you owe her respect. And love. And—and more than you—” To his utter horror, Amelia choked on a sob.
“Oh, just read them. I will come back.” She all but ran from the room and Gerrit stared, shocked.
In all the years he’d known Amelia she had never lost her composure. Not even at his father’s funeral.
Gerrit turned slowly to the letters. Is this what upset her so? He stared at them as if they were venomous.
Something told him their contents would sting in ways he could not imagine.
He looked from letter to letter and sighed.
And then he unfolded the older more faded missive and commenced to read.
***
Two hours later Gerrit tracked Kathryn down in one of the two succession houses. No surprisingly, it was the one that held mostly ornamental plants.
He paused in the entrance and regarded her for a moment, savoring the breathtaking beauty of his wife among thousands of blooms.
Gerrit wished he could simply approach her and kiss her rather than share the shocking news he had just learned. But there was no sense in putting off the inevitable. After all, hadn’t he been the one to say no secrets? Now he had one so mortifying that—
“Dulverton! Have you been there long?” she asked, nudging back an escaped red spiral with the back of one gloved hand and leaving a smudge on her cheek.
“What are you doing?” Only after he’d asked did he realize that he’d ignored her question—a habit he was determined to break, at least with her. He took out his watch. “I have been here less than a minute,” he said, replacing it in his pocket.
For some reason she was grinning. Gerrit raised his eyebrows; was something amusing?
But she merely smirked and gestured to the freshly churned dirt. “My sister Phoebe sent me some cuttings. I am no gardener, but I wanted to grow these myself, so I asked Mr. Norland and he gave me detailed instructions.”
“I am pleased he was helpful.” His ancient head gardener was as fiendishly obsessive about plants as Gerrit was about fossils.
“Did you need something?” she asked.
“I can wait until you are finished.”
“I’m actually finished. I was just standing here… thinking.”
“About?”
She laughed. “My, my, how times have changed.”
Gerrit scowled. “I have always asked questions when I am interested in something.”
“So, I have joined the company of fossils, have I?”
“There is worse company to be in.”
She smiled. “That is true. I was thinking I’d like to do a bit more gardening. I find it restful.”
“I’m sure Norland will be delighted.”
She cocked her head at him. “Are you well?” she asked, tugging off gardening gloves that were far too large for her. Gerrit made a mental note to have proper pair made for her. She had her work gloves, of course, but those needed to stay out at the dig and—
“Gerrit?”
He looked up from her hands. “I have to tell you something.”
“Is it—did something bad happen to one of my sisters or brothers?”
He blinked. “What? No, no, nothing like that. This is about me.” Unfortunately.
“Do you want to talk here?” she asked,
“I would rather go for a walk.”
“Of course. Let me fetch my hat and return these gloves to Mr. Norland.”
A short time later they were strolling through a part of the gardens he almost never visited.
He liked flowers, of course, but he did not go out of his way to observe them.
Especially when they were wild, these were.
His preference was for the precision one found in the parterre garden his father had created.
His father.
The utter shock of his mother’s letters crashed over him yet again like a brutal, chilling wave.
Good God. Soon he would have to share his shame with Kathryn.
“Gerrit? My slippers are not the best for this slick slope.”
Out of habit Gerrit had led her toward the long, gently sloping expanse of lawn that led to the hedge maze. He had no need for a maze today, not when it felt as if there was one in his head with him trapped inside it.
“Apologies,” he murmured, taking her arm and slowing his pace. When they reached the bench outside the maze entrance, he stopped. “Let us sit.”
Once they were both as comfortable as they would get on cool stone, he turned to her and took her hand, his need for physical contact with her almost overwhelming.
“You are worrying me, Gerrit,” she said, setting her other hand on both of theirs.
“I just left Amelia St. Clare’s house.”
Her lips parted and a guilty, wary look flickered across her face as she opened and closed her mouth, no words emerging.
“I know you have been visiting her.”
“Oh. I see. Are you angry?”
“No, I am not angry. It was my intention to introduce you both, but—”
“But it was awkward,” she finished for him.
He nodded.
“I like her a great deal,” she said after a moment.
“As do I.” He reached into his coat and withdrew the letters. “Amelia gave me these a few hours ago. I would like you to read them aloud and I will answer your questions when you’ve finished.”
Her forehead pleated with confusion, and she hesitatingly took the two letters.
“Read the one on top first.”
She unfolded the missive and darted a startled look at Gerrit. “It is from your mother.”
“Correct.”
“And—and it is from decades ago.”
Gerrit inclined his head. “Please read it.”
She turned back to the letter. “It pains me that I am reduced to writing to you, but Dulverton is as unyielding as a block of granite. I beg of you, Mrs. St. Clare, if you have any influence over him, use it to good purpose and convince my husband to send my son back to me.
I know Dulverton will have told you the truth about Gerrit. I also hope that given your own situation as the lover of a married man that you will not judge what I did harshly. And always remember that everything I’ve done has been at Dulverton’s behest.
My marriage was a lie from beginning to end and you are a large part of that lie.
You stood as wife to my husband in everything but name and position before I left my home and family and friends behind and came to this country.
My son visits you at your house with Dulverton’s permission.
And yet I am excoriated for living the only life my husband allowed me to have.
It is unjust, madam, that you should have both my husband and my child.
If you possess any shred of decency, send Gerrit back to me.
Lijsbeth Van Draak”
Kathryn slowly folded up the letter before turning to him. “She must have sent this right after you ran away.”
“Yes. Amelia told me today—when she gave me these letters—that she implored my father to send me to my mother on alternate school holidays. But he refused to insist that I visit her and left it for me—a child—to decide. I did not see her for almost a decade.” He turned and stared unseeingly at the high foliage walls of the maze. “Read the other letter.”
“Mrs. St. Clare,
I am doing what I told myself I would never do again. I am writing to beg you. This time, I want you to tell my son the truth before it is too late. Before his father dies and—”