Chapter 11
Someone was pulling painfully at Anne’s arm. No matter how much she attempted to retreat into her own bed, eyes still firmly shut, they did not seem to go away.
“Anne?”
Anne frowned, eyes unopened. The last thing she wanted to do was wake up.
Her headache, brought on by too many tears the evening before, still lingered across her temples.
Why would she want to face the world? Why was someone trying to force her into consciousness when all she wanted to do was stay here?
“Anne!”
It was her father. His voice sounded concerned, but Anne brushed him away, pulling her arm under her bed linens. She did not want to speak with him. She did not want to speak with anyone.
“I have to leave. See if you can wake her.”
Heavy footsteps sounded, followed by the opening and shutting of a door. Anne sighed. Perhaps now she would be left in peace.
“Anne?”
Her eyes snapped open. “Meredith?”
Something inside her, call it nature, a primal instinct, forced her to fully awake as her child said her name. Meredith was standing beside the bed, a concerned look across her face.
“What is wrong?” Anne forced herself to sit up, her head aching and heavy. “Are you hurt, are you injured?”
Meredith shook her head. She was wearing her favourite gown and her hair had been pinned up. The childishness of her features had completely gone with the adult coiffure.
“Nothing is wrong, Anne,” Meredith whispered. She seemed to know that Anne’s head hurt, keeping her voice low. “It is almost luncheon, and you did not rise for breakfast. Are you feeling unwell?”
Anne’s gaze shifted from her daughter to the clock over the mantlepiece. It was indeed almost one o’clock in the afternoon. Sunlight streamed around the drawn curtains, weak winter sun with no heat in it.
“Luncheon?”
Meredith nodded. Anne attempted to collect her thoughts, but they were so painful and so scattered that it seemed impossible to keep track of them all.
Had she made a mistake by going to Maxim’s bed chamber last night? But she could never have proceeded with the marriage – the sham marriage, she thought bitterly – without knowing the truth about those medals.
If only she had never read that newspaper. Had she made a huge mistake, thrown away the only chance she may have for happiness?
But had she not already started to suspect that there was something more going on that he was not telling her? How could she trust a gentleman who had not told her the truth…or at least the whole truth, about his past?
She would never have had a prickle of doubt, never confronted him, and never told him the truth about Meredith.
She looked at her daughter. She had not been truthful with Maxim, that was true, but how could she? Who would understand?
And of course, she had been proven right in the end. Maxim had not understood, and now there would be no wedding.
“Anne?”
Anne forced herself to focus. Meredith needed her, an anxious frown across her face.
“Please do not concern yourself,” she said quietly, taking Meredith’s hand and squeezing it. “I am quite well but I…I did not sleep well last night. I chose to stay in bed which was rather lazy of me, I admit. Nothing is wrong. I may just spend the day in bed, to recover.”
She had intended her words to calm that puckered frown, but if anything, they had the opposite effect.
“But you are supposed to be getting married this afternoon,” Meredith said in a rush. “Where is Maxim? No one has seen him, and you are sick.”
No matter how hard she tried, Anne could not prevent her heart from sinking. He had warned her, right in that conversation when they had organised this sham of an engagement. Had he not said that he would disappear?
“Miss Marsh can inform me on Christmas Eve whether she wishes to go ahead with the marriage. If not, I will disappear to France the next morning – I am due to see some friends there in any event – and Miss Marsh will be a jilted, sorrowful figure. One to claim society’s pity, not scandal.”
It was hardly a surprise, but Anne could not have predicted the heaviness of her disappointment. It consumed her, like a fire, taking all joy and hope from her soul.
She swallowed. The last thing she needed was for Meredith to see just how upset she was – but she was not a child anymore, not really. She deserved the truth.
Some of it.
“I am sorry to say that the wedding will not be happening this afternoon,” she said gently. “I…I discussed it with Maxim last night, and we decided that it was not the best thing for us.”
Meredith’s frown disappeared, but it was replaced by sorrow. “It is because of me, isn’t it?”
Anne’s heart froze as she tried to say calmly, “Of course not, Merry. Why would you think that?”
Her cheeks pinked as she said, “Well, because…because I am your daughter, and he did not approve, did he?”
If the entire bed had fallen over a cliff, Anne would not have felt any more astonished, fearful, and shocked. Her stomach dropped away as she looked at a child who would spend the rest of her life fighting against the prejudice of others.
How was it possible? They had been so careful, so secret. Neither she nor her father had ever shared the secret with anyone. They had even travelled to France to have the baby, when her mother had been alive. Only a month later had they lost her, tragedy amongst new life.
No one had known. So how had Meredith discovered the truth?
“Wh-what?” were the only words she could manage to speak aloud, as wild thoughts whirled around her mind.
Was Meredith even old enough to understand the consequences of this for her – for both of them?
“What are you talking about?” Anne managed to say with a little more decorum.
Meredith smiled, and in that moment, she became the very image of Anne herself, at that age. Anne felt she was looking at a portrait taken of her at the age of thirteen.
“I heard someone speaking of it a few years ago,” her daughter was saying hesitantly, her cheeks pinking. “It did not take too much thinking to understand it fully. Please do not worry. I like having you as both sister and mother.”
Anne smiled weakly. And here she had been attempting to protect Meredith from what she already knew.
“I understand that it must remain a secret,” she was saying, “that I had to remain a secret. But…did Maxim find out? Is that why he has left us?”
Anne swallowed. If Meredith’s true parentage were ever public knowledge, she would experience far worse than Maxim’s confused anger.
But she was too old to be lied to.
Anne sighed. She certainly would not have chosen these circumstances to try and explain this all to Meredith, and if she were not careful, the tears she had not cried for the last thirteen years would all fall at the same time.
“Maxim does not wish to marry me anymore, and that does not mean he did not enjoy your company greater. It is not because of who you are, it is because of…something I said to him.”
Meredith bit her lip, and only in that moment did Anne realise that her daughter looked just like her when conflicted.
“I…I am not ashamed of who I am,” she said simply.
Anne reached forward and pulled her daughter close. “Good. Because you should not be. You are wonderful.”
Meredith’s voice came a little muffled, and jagged with emotion. “I love you, Mummy.”
How was it possible for Anne’s heart to break all over again? This precious child, this unique cargo she had carried through life and now had to watch venture further and further from her safe and loving arms…how would they ever be the same again?
How long they were in each other’s arms, she did not know. In a way, it was their first ever hug as mother and daughter, both of them fully aware of the truth, and Anne had to brush away a tear. Her daughter, and she was not a child anymore.
When Anne finally released her, Meredith’s eyes were a little pink. “I am glad you were able to explain it to Maxim. I would…I would hate for him to have the wrong idea, and for the two of you to fall out because of me.”
Anne bit her lip and tried to smile. It had all happened so fast, that conversation yesterday afternoon. Had she explained everything properly? Had she really listened to him when he had attempted to explain things?
“I know I cannot call you Mummy in society,” the younger girl said wistfully. “I shall have to remember to call you ‘Anne’.”
Anne smiled. “I will answer to either, you know that. I will always answer when you call.”
How could she ever have thought Meredith too young for St. James’ Court?
Why, she was practically a young lady, and yet the child she remembered – giggling through the fields behind their home, learning how to play with the cat without getting scratched, the tantrums at the piano – that child was still there, too. In the eyes, perhaps.
“I am going to go open another present,” said Meredith, her voice cutting through Anne’s thoughts, “and I’ll let you wake up slowly. Join us if you feel able.”
She stepped away but paused by the door, looking back at her mother. “If Maxim did not hear the full story, perhaps he misunderstood. Perhaps you should talk to him.”
And with that, she was gone.
Anne fell back into the comfort of her pillows and felt her soul unsettled. Her heart still hurt, and if that was not love, she did not know what was. But was it too late to speak with Maxim? What would she say? She would not apologise for who Meredith was, or what she herself had done in the past.
Was it possible to make peace with a Czar at Christmas?
Maxim sank heavily into the chair, rubbing his sore eyes. His arrival into the room was met with laughter.
“My goodness,” Prince éduard said, sitting lightly opposite him at the breakfast table. “I would say you were a sight for sore eyes, but I think it is you who has the sore eyes, not me!”
Maxim attempted to smile, but did not manage it.