Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Adam carried his coat across the room and draped it over the back of the wing chair in front of the fireplace. He stood behind it, summoning the right words while Diana moved toward him, tilting her head the way she always did when she was unsure of something.
He gestured toward the other wing chair. “Please sit down.” He took a seat across from her.
There were times he wished he was not a compassionate man, that he could act according to necessity and not be affected by it.
He had been compassionate for his irrational wife when she collapsed in tears or flew into a rage, and he was compassionate now for Diana, knowing he was about to break her heart.
It had always been his weakness—another person’s suffering—and he knew it. He also knew that he had to work hard to stand strong and do what must be done, no matter how painful it was.
She perched on the edge of her chair, her back stiff and straight, her hands clasped together tightly on her lap, and he detected her wariness.
Perhaps she had sensed his lack of feeling since she’d arrived, compared to the days long ago when he had worshipped the ground she walked on, back in Yorkshire.
Since she’d stepped off the ship here in Cumberland, she’d confessed her happiness to him numerous times, and not once had he responded in kind.
“What is it, Adam?”
This was going to be difficult. “I am afraid we need to talk about the situation here….”
The situation here? Surely he could do better than that.
“What do you mean?” She reached across to take his hand in hers. “You look so serious. You’re scaring me.”
He squeezed her hand in return and paused a moment before speaking, then disciplined himself into a steely resolve.
“This is not easy to say, Diana, but surely you must recognize that we are not the same people we once were, that there has been a lifetime of experiences between us, and a great deal has changed.”
She smiled charmingly. “Well, of course things have changed, and I am glad. You are a landowner now, Adam. A wealthy one. You have accomplished tremendous things, when before, we were both young and knew nothing of the world.”
“It’s more than that, my dear. I may have wealth, but I am not an aristocrat and I will never be one. In my heart, I am still just a simple farmer. You, on the other hand, are every inch a proper lady and, in your heart, I believe you always were.”
She laughed uncomfortably. “I don’t understand, Adam.”
He shook his head. “I’m not saying this well at all. It…it has nothing to do with rank or class or wealth. It has more to do with—” he touched a fist to his chest “—with our hearts.”
“But my heart has always belonged to you. Even while I was married.” There was a pleading note to her voice all of a sudden. It tied his gut into a knot.
“Has it really? Or has it belonged to a youthful dream of me?”
She shook her head. “I still don’t understand what you are trying to say.”
Adam leaned back in his chair, searching for the grit to see this through.
“The fact of the matter is, we do not know each other, Diana, and I am not certain we ever did. Something gave you reason not to marry me years ago, and whatever that reason was, it still exists. We are different people. Your feelings for me have merely been a way of escaping whatever was missing in your own marriage, just as my feelings for you were an escape when times were difficult. We both wanted to return to the past when we were innocent and happy and knew nothing of the kind of pain or loneliness life can bring, but we cannot go back to that innocence. All we can do is learn from the past and move forward.”
Her jaw clenched visibly and her tone hardened. She spoke through gritted teeth. “What is your point, Adam?”
He suspected she already knew, but he had to say it anyway. “My point is—I do not think we should marry.”
Her chin rose as she gathered her dignity around her. “I beg your pardon?”
He forced himself to say it again, as if it weren’t hard enough the first time. “I believe it would be a mistake for us to marry.”
The pleading tone returned to her voice.
“But…maybe it’s…maybe we just need some time alone together to rekindle our love.
How can we enjoy each other in a house full of children?
Maybe we should think about sending the younger ones away to school.
Then we could go back to what it was like when we—”
Adam felt sick to his stomach. “I have no wish to send my children away.”
She confronted his resolute answer with a look of anger. “This makes no sense to me. Surely you are not put off because I have risen in life. If anything, you should be honored and grateful that I have come all this way to marry you. I am Lady Thurston! And what are you? You are merely Mr. Coates.”
Pausing to allow her time to let the shock settle in, Adam leaned forward again, resting his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together.
“You are a beautiful, charming woman, Diana, and I have had difficulty letting go of the dream of you. But that’s all it was—a dream.
In reality, we are not compatible. You are in love with the man you want me to be, not the man that I am.
I couldn’t possibly hire other people to do my work for me.
I like my work. I want to plow my own fields and stick my hands in the dirt at harvest time, and I doubt you would enjoy welcoming me home after I’ve just slaughtered a hog. ”
A delicate finger came up to rest under her nose. “Good gracious, Adam. There is no need to be cruel, saying such things to me.”
Adam wondered with a sigh which part she considered the most cruel: his wish to break their engagement, or the mention of the hog slaughter.
“You see, Diana, we are not right for each other. You would be much happier back in England, with a different sort of man.”
She continued to hold her head high. “You sounded like Madeline just now, talking about sticking your hands in the dirt. What is it about dirt…that people always like to torture me with it?”
Baffled by her comment—baffled by everything about her—he patted her hand. “I am sorry that you came all this way for nothing.”
“You are sorry? Sorry!” She snatched her hand from his grasp and stood.
“I spent six weeks on a stench-filled boat with a bunch of laborers! Now, you have the nerve to tell me that I am the one who is living in a fantasy! You were the one to send the proposal! You were the one who started all of this! And you have barely spoken two words to me since I arrived, yet you presume to think you know enough about me to conclude that we are not right for each other. Is it because I am older now? Am I not as beautiful as you remembered? Is it my hair? Have you noticed the gray?”
Adam stood. “No, Diana, you are as beautiful as ever.”
“Then what, may I ask, has changed since you wrote to my father to ask for my hand in marriage?” Her voice was harsh and demanding.
Not entirely sure how much he should say, or how truthful he should be, he replied simply, “I have changed.”
The features of her face hardened. Her voice faded to a hush. “How? And why?”
Adam moved to stand in the center of the room.
“It grieves me to say this, Diana, but I have changed because I have met someone who…someone who sees the world the way I do. I have learned to appreciate what is here before me in the present, to let go of the past and all the pain that went with it. I have met someone who is, I believe, the true mate of my soul.”
That last comment shook her physically. “There is someone else?”
“Yes.”
“Who? Who has cheated me out of my place in your heart, and stolen you away when I have waited so long?”
“I cannot tell you who, because I do not even know if she returns my feelings.”
Diana scoffed. “Are you afraid I will go to her and tell her what a faithless, fickle man you are? That you could propose to a woman one week, and forget her the next?”
“It wasn’t as simple as that,” he tried to explain. “I assure you, I was not cavalier about this.”
“Then what was it?” she asked. “How could you sweep me from your heart so expeditiously, after wanting me all your life? Madeline assured me it was so—that you still cared for me.”
The mention of Madeline in this conversation unnerved him, but for the moment he concealed it. “I do still care for you, Diana. I always will, but we are not meant to be husband and wife.”
“But the letters…you kept them.”
He struggled to maintain his composure. “I never meant for you to see those.”
“But they were here on your desk, for all the world to see!”
Adam tried to keep his anger in check. “They were locked in a box.”
Diana realized her gaffe, but brushed it off and pointed a finger at him. “The key was sitting out, right there.”
He gazed at it upon the desk. “A key on a desk is not an open invitation to go through a man’s personal belongings.”
“They were my letters!”
Oh God, why were they arguing about this?
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose to try and thwart the persistent pounding in his skull. “You may have them back if you wish.”
She glared at him, hotly. “Indeed. You are finished with them now, are you?”
He said nothing. He merely met her gaze, hoping she would see how truly sorry he was. And know, in her heart, that he was right.
He wanted to believe that someday, she would understand.
Diana marched angrily over to the desk and picked up the box of letters. “I believe I will take them, thank you. And you, Adam Coates, can burn in hades.”
With that, she walked out of his study. Adam followed her down the hall and into the kitchen, where she threw the entire box of letters onto the fire. Sparks snapped and crackled and flew into the air, and Diana slapped her hands together as if to brush off the grimy memories.
Alone in the kitchen, they stood face-to-face, staring at each other. Adam didn’t know what to say. If she wanted to slap him, he would let her, for she deserved some kind of satisfaction for what he had put her through.
If he could have changed the way things turned out and avoided this altogether, he certainly would have. If only he could have seen into the future. He would have sent for Madeline’s hand in marriage in the first place.
Life, however, was never as easy as that. He had to face the difficult truth that he had caused Diana great pain and inconvenience, and he had displaced her from her home.
“The least you can do is tell me who she is and where you met her,” Diana said.
Adam stiffened. He could not tell Diana that it was her sister he loved, when Madeline herself didn’t even know. “I would rather not.”
“I deserve to know the truth, Adam. I want to know. You owe me that.”
He would not waver. He shook his head at her.
Diana folded her arms across her chest. “Have you already proposed to her?”
“No.”
“Does she know about me?”
“Yes.”
For a long time, she stood there, glaring at him, and when he offered no further information, she pushed past him toward the stairs.
“I am leaving on the next ship. And I shall take Madeline with me.”
Before he had a chance to realize what he was doing, he was reaching for Diana’s arm as she passed. With a quick, tight grip, he stopped her.
“Madeline stays here.” Diana’s startled expression would not shake his resolve. “At least until I have a chance to talk to her myself.”
Diana yanked her arm from his grasp. Her chest rose and fell with deep, furious breaths. Then her face changed. Her voice was like an echo as she comprehended the truth. “It’s Madeline, isn’t it?”
Adam met her challenging glare, but said nothing, for what could he say when his world was crumbling all around him, and nothing was unfolding as he wished?
“You’ve fallen in love with my sister! How could you! How could she! She assured me that you still cared for me. She pretended to be my loyal sister, when she was betraying me all along!”
“No!” Adam argued. “She is innocent in all this.”
“Innocent? An innocent girl does not steal her older sister’s…” Diana’s outburst halted on her lips. She appeared to be putting all the pieces together on her own, without his help. “She doesn’t know….”
Adam swallowed uncomfortably. “No, and you cannot tell her. I must tell her myself.”
“I will tell her whatever I want!” Diana shouted. “And don’t think for one minute that I will sing your praises.”
She gathered her skirts in her fists and walked quickly to the stairs.
Adam went after her. “If you have a kind bone in your body, Diana, you will leave this to me. I love Madeline, and I intend to ask her to be my wife. Do not take this chance for happiness away from her.”
Diana continued to scurry up the stairs. “I won’t let her marry you. Not after what you’ve done to me.”
“It is not your decision to make. She is a grown woman.”
Diana stopped on the landing. “She is my obstinate little sister! She has always been jealous of me, and she probably seduced you just to get back at me for being prettier and smarter and for always getting what I want! No one has ever chosen her over me!”
Feeling weak and stunned by Diana’s brutal, egotistic honesty, Adam stood at the foot of the staircase looking up at her, squeezing the railing in his fist. It seemed almost impossible that he could have loved her once.
She whirled around with a swish of silks and petticoats, and floated the rest of the way up the stairs. A few seconds later, her bedroom door slammed shut.
Adam quickly summoned his thoughts into action. He had to find Madeline before Diana spoke to her. He had to tell Madeline that he loved her and explain his conversation with Diana.
He went out to the front porch, but she and Metcalf were not there.
Returning inside, he took two steps at a time up the stairs and went from room to room, searching, but the house was quiet and still, all except for Diana’s maid, Hilary, who was stitching a hem in the hall by the window.
“Have you seen Miss Oxley?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
Penelope had gone to Mary and Jacob’s house to help them prepare to move in, and the boys were out in the fields. Where was Madeline?
He listened at Diana’s door but heard nothing and knew that Madeline was not in there with her. If she had been, there would be screaming and tears.
He ran down the stairs and out the front door. A violent gale was still blowing, and the sky was churning with dark thunderclouds. He ran to the barn, checked the chicken coop and the vegetable garden, but couldn’t find Madeline anywhere.
John Metcalf had been with her last. Had she left with him? Gone riding across the marsh?
One more quick search of the yard and the house yielded no results, so he saddled his horse. No matter what it took, he would find Madeline. And God willing, he would fix all of this and finally make her his own.