Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Dumbfounded and bewildered, Adam struggled to maintain his composure.
Lord Blackthorne appeared before him, looking all around at the vast green landscape. “Mr. Coates! What a magnificent countryside you have here.”
Adam forced himself to greet the viscount and make some audible response.
Lord Blackthorne gestured behind him. “As you can see, I brought another lovely flower to add to it, and what an exceedingly great pleasure it is to do so.”
Adam remembered a conversation he’d had with the viscount one evening at Government House when they were enjoying a glass of brandy together.
“Are you married, Mr. Coates?”
Adam had swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. “No, my lord. I am widowed, but I have recently proposed to a woman I knew in Yorkshire years ago—Lady Thurston. She, too, is widowed. Her younger sister is here now, and we are awaiting her ladyship’s arrival.”
“What is the woman’s sister doing here?” the viscount asked.
So Adam had been forced to explain the mix-up….
Lord Blackthorne slapped Adam on the back, shocking him into the present. “What are the odds, Coates! I have come on the same schooner as Lady Thurston! What an extraordinary coincidence, what?”
Diana moved to stand beside Lord Blackthorne, who seemed to enjoy the opportunity to bring two long-lost lovers back together again.
“Adam Coates, may I present your betrothed, Lady Thurston.”
Adam’s heart throbbed in his ears as he forced himself to meet her beautiful, sparkling gaze. Diana…
She looked as young and slim and perfect as the first day he met her, sixteen years ago. Almost nothing had changed, save a line or two around her eyes. Her smile was the same, her full lips were the same, her tiny, dainty nose…it was all the same.
Diana—his Diana—here in the flesh. The shock of it…. It was incomprehensible.
She smiled and tilted her head in that old, familiar way.
Adam was shaken by how well he knew her mannerisms, as if they were permanently etched on his heart, mind, and soul.
“Adam,” she said, “how wonderful it is to see you again. It seems like an eternity.” Her voice was the same, too—rich and velvety, like a song.
He felt everyone’s eyes upon them, as if they all knew the situation and were waiting to see what might happen next.
Of course, no one knew the real situation, that he had a letter to break off their engagement searing a hole in his pocket. He turned to look at Madeline, somewhere behind him, and felt a deep ache in his chest.
Madeline stood tall and unruffled, her hands clasped together in front of her. As he turned, Diana turned, too, then Madeline moved forward to greet her sister.
The whole scene was excruciating, like something out of a Shakespearean play. They hugged each other, and it was all Adam could do to keep himself from demanding an explanation. What was Diana doing here? She couldn’t possibly have received his proposal and arrived so quickly. It wasn’t feasible.
Madeline smiled warmly at her sister. “What are you doing here so soon? We didn’t expect you.”
“It was your letter, Madeline. Thank goodness, you sent it!”
“My letter?” Madeline replied, sounding confused. “It was Adam who wrote to you after I arrived, but you couldn’t have received that yet, and have traveled all this way.”
“No, no! Your letter! Do you not remember? You wrote to tell me that you were leaving Yorkshire to marry Adam, that Papa had arranged it.”
Madeline’s brow furrowed as she contemplated her sister’s explanation. Adam watched the scene with a sick feeling in his stomach.
“Naturally I went to see Papa about it,” Diana said, “for I knew something was wrong. I knew he must have done something absolutely beastly, for Adam would never have wanted to marry you. He would have wanted me.”
A hush fell over the crowd. Madeline held on to her hat against the driving wind as her skirts whipped mercilessly around her legs.
Adam felt Madeline’s humiliation as if it were his own. He stepped forward. “It was a misunderstanding. That is all.”
He turned to look at Madeline’s profile in the sun, to try and see what she was thinking. Her eyes were downcast.
Oh, God, he wanted to hold her. He wanted to lead her away from here and take her into his arms and tell her that he wanted her, not Diana, and that Diana’s unexpected appearance—though a shock to be sure—only served to confirm that fact to him.
He decided firmly that he would do everything in his power to make it right. Somehow.
Lord Blackthorne interrupted the awkward silence with his deep, booming voice.
“Well, it has all worked itself out now. Lady Thurston and I had a fine opportunity to get acquainted on the ship, and I dare say, you can imagine my surprise when she explained who she was and why she was on her way to Fort Cumberland. Small world, is it not? For it was I who had the pleasure to assure her that her sister had not married Mr. Coates, and that if Lady Thurston had remained in London, she would have received a more recent proposal herself. Naturally, she was overjoyed to hear it.”
Diana elaborated, directing her words at Adam.
“Yes, well…I was a bit concerned that you might have already married Madeline, out of guilt I supposed, or a sense of responsibility or pity for her, after what occurred. As I’m sure you must know, that would have been devastating for me.
” She glanced around, her cheeks flushing.
Adam didn’t know what to say. She was gazing at him, waiting for him to say something….
Madeline shook her head. “Please. I would never have allowed such a marriage to take place, Diana.”
It was her pride talking. Adam knew it, and it only made him respect her more.
Diana hugged Madeline again. “Oh, you are the dearest sister in the world. There are none more loyal than you. Thank you, Madeline. My heart thanks you. You cannot imagine how little I slept during the crossing, worrying that I would be too late.” She faced Adam again and her gaze was intense.
“For I have dreamed of this day all my life.”
Lord Blackthorne interrupted again. “Well, we shall have a grand time over the next few days! I have much to learn about the Tantramar, and I will greatly enjoy watching two lovers reunited, getting to know each other again. I could not have planned my visit for a better time.”
To Adam, however, the timing of everything could not have been worse.
* * *
During the trip home, Lord Blackthorne rode up front in the buggy with Adam, so that he might see some of the marsh and ask questions, which left Madeline to ride separately in Diana’s hired coach, along with her maid, Hilary.
Madeline realized that part of the entourage she and Adam had seen at the fort was as much for Diana and her maid and two grooms, as it was for the lieutenant-governor and his retinue.
She supposed her sister was still an English lady—a wealthy one at that—and had certain expectations about how she should live her life.
Madeline wondered with some concern how Diana would adjust to the simple country life in Cumberland, where tilling and harvesting were more important to most people than keeping up with the latest Paris fashions.
The convoy of carriages descended into the woods along the narrow cart road, and the sound of sharp branches scraping against the roof of the coach unnerved Diana. “Heavens, I had no idea the land was so uncultivated here.”
“It’s not uncultivated,” Madeline explained, “maybe just a little thick here in the bush, but Adam’s farm is fully cleared, with fields of grain already planted, and hay almost ready to be harvested down on the marsh.”
Diana smiled. “Papa told me that Adam had made something of himself, that he’s grown quite wealthy. He said Adam owns more land here than anyone in the area. Is that true?”
“He has indeed come a long way since the days we knew him in Yorkshire.”
Her sister smiled and leaned back. “I always knew he would rise to something wonderful. And oh, he has grown even more handsome, don’t you think, Madeline?
I thought I was going to fall off the boat when I saw him standing there, dressed so finely in that embroidered waistcoat, his eyes so strikingly intense.
The sight of him brought it all back—all the memories from my youth when I was so desperately in love with him. ”
And when you jilted him to marry a baronet.
Madeline’s thoughts were full of acid and she knew it.
She chided herself, of course, but at the same time, she accepted that she couldn’t help feeling resentful.
Here was Diana, coming to take Adam for herself and make him hers.
All she had to do was flutter her long eyelashes, beckon with her pretty finger, and it would be done.
“You have been quiet, Madeline. Were you that surprised to see me? I always suffer when you are quiet. Why must you do that to me, when I have come all this way and I want very much to talk.”
Why is everything always about you?
“I’m sorry, Diana. I don’t mean to be quiet, it’s just that I have been working hard the past few days, preparing for Lord Blackthorne’s arrival. Of course I am thrilled to see you.”
“Ah.” She gazed studiously at Madeline. “May I ask, what is your role at Adam’s house? You are not…keeping house, or anything like that, are you?”
With that tone, she might as well have said, “You are not eating dead worms, are you?”
Madeline arranged her skirts on the shiny blue leather seat. “As a matter of fact, I am. I am also governess to the children, and I am tending to the vegetable garden with my very own hands.”
Diana glanced briefly out the window at the passing spruce branches, still scraping against the sides of the coach, then she threw Madeline that look—that you-just-like-to-shock-me-because-you-are-hateful look.
Perhaps there was a bit of truth to it today. Madeline wanted to shock Diana. To let her know that Adam was not an aristocrat like her late husband, and he did not expect his future sister-in-law to be one, either.