Chapter 12 #2
“I forgot,” Diana added, “that you always liked getting your hands dirty in the gardens. I never understood that.”
Madeline felt guilty suddenly, for purposefully trying to exasperate her sister, who had just traveled across an ocean to be with Adam, whom she loved. No matter how angry or resentful Madeline felt, she could not forget that. Diana loved Adam, too. In her own way.
She reached for her sister’s hand and held it. “We were always different, Diana. We still are, but that does not mean we cannot try to be close now that you are here. We are family and we are a long way from home. We must stick together.”
Diana’s beautiful smile reached her eyes and made them sparkle like jewels. No wonder everyone fell in love with her.
“Yes, we must get to know each other all over again. After all, you are the only true family I have here. At least until I become Adam’s wife.”
That last comment struck Madeline like a slap, but she made a firm decision not to feel sorry for herself any longer.
Fate had played its hand today and had sent Diana early.
It was clear that Diana truly loved Adam, and he most certainly loved her, so it was time for Madeline to accept that and endeavor to be a dutiful sister.
* * *
Adam spent the early part of the afternoon seeing to everyone’s needs and ensuring that his guests and all their servants had places to sleep.
Mrs. Dalton had returned to offer assistance, and Mary was doing her part, too, while Penelope watched the baby.
By the time everyone was settled, it was time for dinner.
They dined on fresh beef with gravy, fiddleheads and Yorkshire pudding, with chocolate squares and gingerbread cake for dessert.
Adam sat at one end of the long table, while Lord Blackthorne sat at the other, his pleasant laughter filling the room with mirth.
The food was delicious, the children were polite and entertaining, conversation was engaging, yet Adam was reeling with discontent.
He watched Diana eat her dessert, gracefully, delicately, while she shone with witty remarks and curious questions for the lieutenant-governor about his property in England and his new position here in Nova Scotia.
Her beauty was unfathomable. She possessed shiny golden hair and blue eyes, a flawless complexion, and she wore a flattering gown of the latest fashion, trimmed in precious gold lace.
She was the perfect hostess, even though it was not yet her party to host. She was any ambitious man’s dream of a wife.
Yet, her physical magnificence left Adam feeling listless and unresponsive. It was Madeline’s simple beauty that attracted his attention now.
He sipped his wine and watched her. She listened politely to Diana’s stories, smiled demurely at Lord Blackthorne, but for the most part was quiet.
There was a sweet shyness about her, a shyness that he adored, for it was gentle, genuine, and kind.
He loved that she valued the things he valued: family, home, the land.
She didn’t care about expensive jewels or society gossip.
She was more interested in watching Penelope chase a squirrel, or helping Charlie with his numbers, or seeing the first tomato sprout on the vine.
Beneath all of that, she was strong and capable, and as Adam watched her now, dipping her gingerbread cake into the cream on her plate, he knew that Diana’s arrival had changed nothing. Whether Madeline was aware of it or not, she had stolen his heart.
Did Madeline even have the slightest idea how he felt about her? Did she suspect anything when she looked into his eyes?
Just then, Lord Blackthorne directed a question at Diana. “Tell me, Lady Thurston, what do you think of Cumberland now that you are here?”
She raised her wineglass. “I do believe I have never seen a more fascinating landscape, my lord. The sheer size of the marsh is astounding. Yet I have not seen any tenant farms, Adam. Where are you hiding them?”
The viscount laughed at her intended jest, but Adam wasn’t sure Diana understood that her joke had just revealed her ignorance of the colony. He tried to correct her as kindly as possible.
“Mostly I farm the land myself, and though I do rent some land to other families, the returns are incidental. I only wish to keep those farms productive until the children are ready to move onto them—if it is their wish. I do not wish to profit from them. The families I rent to are merely in transition until they can buy land of their own.”
Diana cleared her throat. “You farm this yourself? You must at least hire hands.”
“At harvest time, of course, but my sons and I can manage most of the work ourselves throughout the year.” He winked at Charlie, who smiled proudly in response.
By the blank look on Diana’s face, he sensed she was imagining him actually pushing a plow. She seemed to have a hard time swallowing.
Lord Blackthorne changed the subject, and Adam decided he would have to resolve this situation as soon as possible.
He could not go on misleading Diana, nor could he continue to keep his true feelings for Madeline to himself.
He would have to do the right thing, as swiftly and gently as he could, and do his best to spare any further heartache.
He had an uneasy feeling, however, that no matter how carefully he handled this situation, it was going to be bloody.
* * *
With Lord Blackthorne’s presence in the house, it was necessary for Diana and Madeline to share Madeline’s bedchamber—the one that should have been Diana’s to begin with. As Madeline slipped into the cool sheets beside her sister, she felt as if she were the guest.
“Is it true,” Diana whispered to Madeline in the darkness, “that after you arrived, Adam sent instructions for a proxy marriage? Lord Blackthorne told me so on the ship, but of course I never received the proposal so I don’t know for sure.”
Madeline hugged the coverlet to her chest. “I knew that he had proposed, but I did not know that he had gone so far as to pursue a proxy marriage.”
She was still reeling over that bit of news. Why hadn’t he told her?
“Adam must have been terribly anxious to have me. It still seems like a dream. Oh, how disappointed he must have been when it was you who arrived that day, and not me. Was he very angry? I’ll wager he wanted to brain Papa.”
“He was indeed disappointed,” Madeline replied, sensing that her sister wanted to hear all the juicy details, but she couldn’t bear to recount it, not without revealing how heartbroken she had been—and continued to be.
“Oh, Madeline, I can still hardly believe that I am actually here, in Adam’s house. You cannot imagine how, over the years, I have dreamed of seeing him again.”
Madeline rolled onto her side to face her sister. “Was it difficult for you, being married to Lord Thurston when you still loved Adam?”
Diana nodded, and Madeline was suddenly curious about more of her sister’s deeper feelings.
Madeline thought of Mary and Jacob and how they always expressed every feeling of love.
Consequently, Madeline decided that even though she was having a difficult time with the situation, she must strive to think of the future and nurture a closer relationship with Diana.
She was her own flesh and blood, after all, and if Adam was a pipe dream, wasn’t it time that Madeline reached out to forge a true bond with someone?
Diana blinked up at the ceiling. “Edward was my husband and I respected him very much, but it wasn’t easy being his wife.
I was young and naive when I married him and I had no idea how the world worked.
I thought I was marrying into a fairy tale—becoming Lady Thurston.
But to them, I would always be a tenant farmer’s daughter.
Edward only married me to badger his mother, and of course because I was young and beautiful.
He already had his heirs from his first proper aristocratic wife.
I was just a pretty reward for doing his duty all those years. ”
“But he seemed so in love with you.”
“It was lust, Madeline, not love. Part of the curse of being beautiful, I suppose.” She rolled over to face Madeline, and stroked her curly hair.
“You should consider yourself lucky. When a man falls in love with you, he will love you for what you are on the inside, not what you look like on the outside.”
Despite what Madeline felt was a backhanded compliment, she smiled consolingly at Diana in the dim, flickering candlelight.
“Adam truly loves you,” she said. “You can be certain of it. If it had been lust, he would not have carried a torch for you all these years—a torch that still burns as brightly as the day it first sparked into flame.”
Diana sighed. “Oh, that is music to my ears, and it is what kept me going when the reality of my marriage sank in. I had to believe that somewhere out there, Adam still loved me. Even when he married Jane, I clung to that hope. I always dreamed that one day…” She could not continue.
Madeline confided in her sister. “I read one of your letters to him. He kept them, Diana. All of them.”
“He did?” Diana’s voice beamed with surprise and happiness. “He never answered them. I feared he had crumpled and burned each one.”
“No, he still has them, and he treasures them.”
Diana rolled onto her back. “I am so happy, Madeline, to be reunited with him at last. It’s so romantic, isn’t it? As if this was always our destiny, to be together. I believe God has made it happen. Will you stand with me on my wedding day?”
Madeline swallowed over the painful lump that formed in her throat.
“Of course. I will be honored.” Then she yawned and rolled over onto her side to face the wall.
She tried to keep her voice from trembling as she closed her eyes and said wearily, “Good night, Diana. We will talk more in the morning.”
She fell asleep with tears staining her pillow.