Chapter 23 #2
“I assume you’re also aware that he died unexpectedly about a decade later.”
Her eyelids twitched at his frankness, and she paused a moment before giving a grave nod.
That the estranged and rebellious Rockliffe spare had dropped dead was hardly surprising news to anyone familiar with ton gossip, after all.
It was the intimate details of the situation—the ones he’d never uttered aloud in his life—that would prove the more difficult revelation.
“He drank. Excessively.” Ben didn’t shrink from the truth, as much as it poked a blade in his chest. “Not at first, when I was very young. However, as the years went on, he would get frustrated with his poetry sometimes. He’d have periods where he was so zealous, his words flowing from his quill without relenting, but then, inspiration would leave him, and he’d plunge into despair.
Listlessness. Alcohol became his means of coping.
Near the end, he often paired it with opium. ”
Violet’s face looked as grim as he felt, and he wondered if she’d known that part, too. The gossip rags had speculated, no doubt, and rumors had circled and swelled. However, none of the gossipmongers had lived in his home. None of them had been there to hear what he’d heard and see what he’d seen.
“I used to overhear my mother pleading with him at night,” Ben said tightly—as emotionlessly as he could manage. “She’d insist he stop before he brought about his own ruin. But he didn’t stop. I think he arrived at a point where he just couldn’t. And one day, I found him.”
He paused for air, cold beads of sweat forming at his nape.
He was heading down a dark path filled with memories that begged to remain concealed.
Yet he wouldn’t stop now. Wouldn’t do anything but clutch Violet’s hand and force himself to continue.
“It was a sunny afternoon, and Alex and I thought that perhaps we’d convince him to go to Hyde Park with us before dinner, the way he’d always done …
before, when we were very young. He was sitting at his desk in the study the same way he always did, except … ”
He halted again, the scent of gin assaulting his nostrils even after all these years.
Images hitting him as sharply as the day they’d been branded into his memory.
“Except the curtains were drawn to make it dim, and he was slumped over in his chair, and when I got close to him, I knew … I knew he was gone.”
Overturned bottle.
Limp hand.
He could see it all. Could see his ten-year-old self frozen with shock, then terror, then gut-wrenching sorrow. Unaware of how drastically his life would soon change.
“I’m so sorry.” Violet’s fingers came up to cup his jaw, gifting him with a tender caress. “No child should ever have to witness such a thing.”
He tried to hold onto the sight of her face in front of him, to let it lead him away from the bleak cluster of memories. However, his mind remained half in the past, half in the future. Grieving for what he’d lost. Agonizing over what he still could lose.
“Alexander is so similar to him,” he said, his voice quieting to a murmur—closer than he’d like to breaking.
“The spitting image, but it’s more than that.
He gets so caught up in writing his stories, it’s as if they run through his veins.
Like our father, he’s vivacious, quick-witted, and talented.
But also like our father, he’s had moments of growing low-spirited.
Apathetic. And I can picture him following that same path where his writing consumes him, where misery overtakes his spirit, where he feels he has nowhere to turn but a bottle, and I don’t”—he choked on the thick lump that rose in his throat—“I don’t want to lose him that way. ”
“Oh, Benedict.” Violet’s eyes glimmered with unshed tears as she brought her hand to his temple and tenderly stroked his hair.
For a moment, there was only silence between them, the soothing motions of her fingers taking the edge off the pain that poured through his bloodstream.
But then, she squeezed her tears away, her face taking on a look of steadfast resolution.
“I understand your fear, and I ache for your loss. But while I may not know your brother, I do know that his similarities to your father haven’t predestined him to share the same fate.
An inclination to write, in and of itself, isn’t a curse. ”
Her words flowed through him, hitting him in places that had long been untouchable.
He supposed he already recognized the truth in what she said.
After all, his stepfather, Jeremy, was a longtime novelist whose work provided him with happiness and fulfillment, secondary only to that which he gleaned from his family.
However, Ben couldn’t shake the vision of Alex’s vibrant eyes.
His father’s lifeless ones. Couldn’t shake the feeling they were one and the same.
“May I ask …” She hesitated, her mouth forming a serious line. “Has Alexander already displayed signs of excessive alcohol consumption?”
He considered it a moment. “No more than the other boys at Cambridge.” And then, another realization began to unfurl. One he’d never reflected on before. “If anything, I believe he drinks less when he’s at home in London. When he’s busy at the printshop and focused on his writing.”
Her lips gave the faintest twitch, and she moved her hands to his shoulders, clasping tight.
“It seems to me the best way to ensure his long-term happiness is to let him choose the path that calls to him without interfering. Yes, he may stumble sometimes, just as we all do. He may have dark moments. But you’ll be there to pick him up and help him see the light again.
I believe your entire family will, too, from what I’ve witnessed. That type of love is a powerful thing.”
Ben’s heart thumped at a strange tempo, the pulse of it echoing in his ears and mingling with his thoughts.
He’d spent so much time trying to control.
To protect. But what if Violet was right?
What if he needed to step back and let Alex find his own way forward—even if the way involved him dabbling at the printshop and writing erotic pamphlets in the middle of the night?
An adoring wife and children hadn’t been enough to save their father from his demons.
However, that didn’t mean the care and support of his family would never be enough for Alex.
That type of love is a powerful thing. The statement hit Ben square between the ribs, filled with a significance he couldn’t fully comprehend. It felt like the answer to a question he hadn’t asked, that he didn’t even know.
A question that may be worth pondering in further detail once he regained all his faculties.
“I want to do right by my brother.” He let out a long sigh and flopped onto his back, the crush of the other weight he carried sinking into his chest. “And as much as I’ve denounced following in his footsteps … I want to do right by my father as well. To honor the memory of the man he once was.”
Violet raised herself on one elbow, gazing down at him with those open, earnest eyes. “I’m certain you do. You have so many qualities that any father would be proud of.”
“No.” His answer came immediately, accompanied by a prickle down his spine. “I cannot do him proud. Not when I’m in Wiltshire playing the lord.”
Her brow knit in concern, and as much as he was exhausted—as much as he’d bared enough of his wounds for one day—he needed to share this with her, too. To make certain she understood every piece of him.
“Did you know that Aldercombe has always been given to the Rockliffe spare?” he asked, a hint of bitterness creeping into his tone.
He thought of it often with a humorless smirk: how, under different circumstances, Aldercombe could have been his home from the start.
How Violet might have been a childhood friend.
“Had my father wanted the estate, he needed only to say the word. However, he renounced it, and the house sat empty for years. All until my uncle approached me, after my expulsion from Cambridge, about selling it.”
The crease at the bridge of her nose deepened. He’d spoken of selling Aldercombe—her new home, too—once before, and it was no wonder the idea caused her worry. However, he’d come too far to shy away from the truth in its entirety.
“I could have rejected Aldercombe like my father did,” he continued, gloom wrapping itself around him like a cloak.
“I could have told Uncle Rockliffe to get rid of it and not given the matter another thought. Instead, I chose the second option he presented: that I travel there myself to assess the new land agent and see if I thought the estate worth keeping in the family. I chose to go to Wiltshire. I chose to care for the property as if it were my own.”
“And do you view that as a bad thing?” She gaped at him, and it was difficult to tell whether the edge to her voice signaled perplexity or frustration.
“No,” he answered swiftly, because the idea of never having gone to Wiltshire—of never having met her—had become unfathomable. However, his certainty couldn’t erase the pang of guilt that stabbed him between the ribs.
He was going to have to entrust her with the family secret that had been cast upon him three years after his father’s death. A matter the ton speculated about but that had never been confirmed.
He clenched and unclenched his jaw, then let the truth spring free.
“I chose to do it because, unlike Alexander, my fate cannot be altered. On account of an injury, my uncle cannot sire more children. Unless I meet an early demise, the marquessate will fall into my hands one day. And so, I decided to do my duty and start preparing for the role, despite how it denigrates my father’s wishes to stay far away from the peerage. ”
Traces of awe flickered on Violet’s countenance, although they were quickly vanquished by the slight narrowing of her eyes.
“You should hardly chastise yourself for fulfilling an obligation. Regardless of his thoughts on the peerage, your father would be pleased to know you possess such a strong sense of honor, would he not?”
“But it’s more than an obligation.” Remorse stretched and swelled within his chest, squeezing tight to each muscle and nerve.
“I’ve come to realize that I want it,” he said, the admission falling like a boulder he’d pushed from a mountaintop, gaining momentum and unable to be stopped.
“I want to manage lands. I want us to have a home that lasts a lifetime. Someday, I want to speak in Parliament and have my voice help shape the country. I want every goddamn bit of it.”
Suddenly, he was no longer on the mountain’s summit but flailing at the bottom in the boulder’s path, powerless to keep it from crushing him. He was a betrayer. A son who took what his father discarded as vile and clung to it instead.
However, in the face of his guilt, Violet remained unfaltering.
“Accept it, then. Embrace your position as heir, and remember that belonging to the peerage isn’t inherently bad.
” She sat up straighter, not so much as blinking while she gazed down at him.
“I can appreciate your father’s disillusionment with his family.
I’ve witnessed my father behave in ways that make me wish to be estranged from him and everything he stands for.
Yet that doesn’t need to be our legacy. With your sense of honor, rightness, and dedication, I know you could do so much good with the role.
I think we both could … together. Not because of—or despite—our titles, but simply because of the values with which we conduct ourselves. ”
He tried to push himself upright, but in the next instant, Violet was back on the pillow beside him, her hand a soft weight against his sternum.
He turned his head to face her, a spark sputtering to life within him. A spark that wanted to take what she said as truth, to flare and ignite until he believed nothing else.
But he didn’t know. Didn’t know if it was safe to undo a lifetime of principles, didn’t know if his judgment remained impaired by alcohol, didn’t know, didn’t know, didn’t know …
He was weary again. So weary. Yet Violet was beside him, her small puffs of breath warm on his skin.
Her palm on his chest kept the world from breaking apart.
“Think about it, Benedict,” she murmured, nestling herself close to his side. “Sit with it a while. You needn’t determine your entire future today.”
He closed his eyes, his body feeling like it had been run over by a chaise and four.
However, beneath the ache, there was also a whisper of relief.
His burdens were no longer his alone to bear.
She’d shared them with him. Tried to assuage them.
She’d been there from the moment he opened his eyes, even though his brow perspired and his shirt smelled.
Which begged a question. “Why are you in London?” he asked, fighting through his exhaustion to look at her once more.
Her eyelids, which had become even heavier than his own, momentarily lifted. “I came to find you, of course.”
Of course. She said it as if it were a foregone conclusion. Like everything he’d done could be forgiven. Like they were a true husband and wife.
He put an arm around her waist, holding her close. Stay, the gesture said, a wordless entreaty. But even before he did it, he already knew: she wasn’t going anywhere.
No, they needn’t determine the entire future today. However, his mind drifted, envisioning tiny slivers of it. All containing golden curls. Hilltops shaded by beech trees. Rosebud lips that smiled at him.
He may not know many, many things. Yet he knew the sensation in his chest to be hope.