Chapter Seven #2
There was a great deal more she could say.
She could point out that she had only come here for the first time when she’d been nine years old.
She could share that her father had never quite been treated the same, not until she’d been about fifteen.
She could reveal that her father’s birth had stained the relationships with the broader family, that her and her siblings’ lack of titles made them instantly different from the others.
But she didn’t. After all, this walk was intended to aid her in a greater understanding of her betrothed. Not to rake up family dissent.
“Did you grow up in a place like this?” Jessica asked instead, allowing her fingertips to trail through the wide, herbaceous border, petals of different shapes and textures tickling at the whorls of her fingerprints.
“Like Stanphrey Lacey? Oh, no, I cannot imagine there are many places like Stanphrey Lacey in the whole of England,” Reginald said with a brightness that was perhaps too false.
It was flattery, she was sure…and yet there was something more. A greater depth to his words that she could not quite untangle as their path swept to the left, losing the house behind a tall beech hedge.
“Tell me about your home,” Jessica said, a little startled at just how bold she was being.
It was not a question she had ever asked anyone else. She had never spoken for long enough to someone outside the family to even consider asking it.
“My home?” Reginald spoke lightly, as though he were asked this question every day of the week. “Well, I have taken lodgings in London just off—”
“No, I meant—well, where did you grow up?”
Jessica had not thought it a particularly personal question. After all, she would happily relate the fact that she had been raised in Pernrith House, London, and had spent a great deal of time there attempting to grow chrysanthemums to not much success.
For some reason, Reginald would not quite meet her eyes as they followed the gravel path into the Winter Garden, now mostly sparse in the heat of the summer. “Oh, not in London.”
Jessica waited what she considered was a polite stretch of time, then cleared her throat. “And… And your family. Do you have brothers, sisters?”
“Yes.” Reginald’s voice was not exactly curt, but it did not invite further conversation.
Which was precisely the point of this walk, Jessica could not help but think ruefully as their steps continued, crunching on the gravel as the only audible accompaniment to the burgeoning sounds of nature.
A blackbird sang, heralding the growing heat, and the slightly nectar-drunk hum of a cascade of bumblebees filled the silence.
It wasn’t what she’d wanted to fill the silence, but all attempts to encourage Reginald to speak had ended poorly.
Jessica bit her lip, trying not to allow the feelings of worthlessness overtake her. She was a wallflower, yes, but it was not entirely down to her alone to maintain a conversation. The least he could do was ask questions if he would not answer them.
“I apologize.” Now his voice was stiff, awkward, uncomfortable. “I do not find speaking of my family that easy.”
She glanced at him and saw, as though in a looking glass, the tension around the mouth, the fear and discomfort in the eyes. It was startling, seeing her own awkwardness painted on the face of another.
“I have no wish to pry. I just—”
“It is a reasonable question and I have no reasonable answers,” exhaled Reginald with a wry tenderness that disappeared as soon as it had come.
“It is just… I did not grow up in a place like this. For my early childhood, I lived in… Well, I would not call it poverty, but only because my mother had too great a respect for herself to speak of her situation in such a manner.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “I… I see.”
She absolutely did not see. How could a baroness be living in such difficult circumstances?
Perhaps… Perhaps Reginald’s father had lost his fortune. Yes, that would explain it: the hesitancy to speak of his family home, the poverty or not quite that he spoke of. Maybe the Llyne estate homes had been sold?
Which raised another, far more pressing question—and not one that Jessica could quite work out how to ask.
Where on earth where they going to live, then? Did Reginald have an income, since inheriting the barony?
It was not exactly acceptable to pry into another person’s finances—Jessica had been raised to know that. Yet at the same time, she was to wed the man. Surely, her father had ascertained the facts of the matter and had been satisfied. After all, he would not let her marry a pauper.
“Things are different now,” Reginald said in a voice that was far too bright and cheerful to be actually bright and cheerful. “The barony is in good shape, and my sister, I am sure, will be delighted to meet you.”
Ah. Another sister.
Not that Jessica had anything against a sister-in-law, she reminded herself hastily. It was more… Well. She already had three sisters. An extra brother, now, that would be—
“I am afraid my brother will be unable to attend our wedding.”
The sentence was spoken so rapidly as the pair of them encircled the Winter Garden and moved to another sweeping lawn, that Jessica barely caught it. It was only as her mind slowly caught up that she understood the sense of it.
“Oh,” she said blankly, unsure exactly whether she would gain any answers to her questions if she made them. “He… He is on the Continent, then? A Grand Tour, something like that?”
If she had not been looking for it, Jessica would not have spotted the hitched breath, the flash of pain that cast a momentary shadow across Reginald’s handsome features.
When he spoke, it was vague, with sorrow in the corners of his tone. “Something like that.”
Do not ask again about his brother, Jessica made a mental note. Clearly, something had occurred between them, something painful—something he was unwilling to speak of.
And though she had absolutely no right to pry, though it was hardly her own business, Jessica could not help but think that in a way it was her business. He was to be her brother-in-law, after all. He was a part of the Blakley family. She would need to know, would she not?
But perhaps…
Perhaps, and the thought was an unpleasant one, perhaps most marriages in good Society were not like the ones her family enjoyed.
Openness, honesty, deep, romantic love… Jessica knew how rare these things were in a match, and yet she was surrounded by parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who had all found these characteristics in their own partnerships.
Perhaps she was not to be so fortunate. Perhaps she and Reginald would be pleasant to each other, cordial, even…but there would always be a gap between them. Perhaps she would never truly know him. Perhaps Reginald did not want a wife who knew everything about him.
Perhaps he would not want to know everything about her.
And a wash of loneliness, of deep disconnection, of knowing that she was truly alone and no one in the world would wish to know her fully, careered over Jessica.
The sensation was so unpleasant, so jarring, that she halted in her tracks.
“Jessica?”
Reginald had halted in turn, his brow crinkled with concern.
But not true concern, Jessica tried not to think. How could he truly worry about her if he did not truly know her? If he did not allow her in?
“Are you quite well?” Reginald asked softly.
No, she wanted to say. No, I’m a wallflower and I’m getting married to a man I don’t know—who won’t let me know him.
The words would have done her no good, even if she’d had the bravery to speak them.
Somehow, the ambiance of her unspoken thoughts appeared to have been communicated through her expression, for Reginald sighed and dropped his gaze for a moment before returning it, bashful, to her face.
“You expect better of me, I know,” he said quietly. “But you will have to trust me, Jessica. There are secrets in every family, and some…some are not for me to tell. You would not wish to embarrass my brother by forcing me to speak of his shame, would you?”
Cheeks burning, Jessica shook her head. To think, she had almost asked him again.
“Thank you.” Reginald’s smile was eager now, natural, and the crinkles in his brow had smoothed. “You are fortunate. There is not a single scandal in your family. You do not have to fear the truth.”
It was true; it was difficult to imagine the idea of keeping secrets in a family. Jessica had never known such a thing; her family had always been kindhearted, respectable, and absolutely aboveboard.
True, some of the whispers she had overheard about her cousins’ courtships were that they had been a little sudden, but…none had been as fast as hers.
“I want you to trust me,” Jessica whispered, hating that she couldn’t put any additional strength into her voice but knowing she had to speak to ignore the rushing thoughts in her mind.
“But that doesn’t mean you have to tell me everything.
Secrets are…are allowed between a husband and wife, after all. ”
“Not mine,” Reginald said with a ferocity she had not expected. “My secrets, scant as they are, will never be held back from you, Jessica. I—”
“Jessica—Jessica Chance, where are you?”
Jessica’s heart skipped a beat. There was a tension in her mother’s voice, a tension she had not heard in years. Why, it sounded just like when Michael had almost threatened to leave home—to emigrate, Lord knew why.
“Mama?” She did not know when she began running, but she did know that Reginald had grabbed her hand and started to run with her, almost pulling her along as his longer strides took him ahead of her. “Mama, what is it?”
“Jessica—there you are, I’ve been looking all over,” said her mother as she paced up and down the terrace, wisps of hair flying around her face. “He’s here!”
If only her lungs were not crying out in agony, if only her legs were not pained at the sudden exertion, Jessica was almost certain that she would be able to concentrate. Here? Who was here?
“Your cousin Thomas, his baby is here!” cried the Viscountess Pernrith, clasping her hands together as she beamed. “It was a difficult birth and he was not expected for a good few weeks, but—”
“Mother and baby well?” asked Reginald swiftly.
Jessica barely had time to glance at him curiously—that a man should ask that—before her mother had thrown herself into the startled man’s arms.
“Mama!”
“Oh, isn’t it wonderful? A new baby in the family, a late summer child,” cried Jessica’s mother, pushing herself back from Reginald’s shoulders and grinning.
Reginald’s jaw was slack. “They’re in the Lodge.
Darling Victoria wanted some privacy and hardly wished to be moved after such an effort, but we can all go tomorrow and visit them. ”
The only topic of conversation around the dinner table that evening was the arrival of little baby Thomas.
Uncle William gave a speech that had Uncle George weeping.
There was much hilarity over attempting to select middle names for the newborn—every cousin wished for their own name, naturally—and Jessica sat amongst it all in silence, smiling wanly at those around her, trying to absorb not only the arrival of a new Chance, but the conversation she and Reginald had shared that afternoon.
And when the Pernrith branch of the family was permitted a visit the following day—after the Cothrom and the Aylesbury and the Lindow branches, naturally—and Reginald peered into the basket that held the squirming new life, Jessica’s stomach jolted.
There was an expression of delight in Reginald’s eyes, pure and unseen before, and that was when she could no longer hide the truth from herself.
If this marriage went as planned—if, in short, she married him and became Baroness Llyne—then he would be the father of her children.
When she brought a child into the world, if God was that good to her, then it would be Reginald standing by her shoulder, proudly welcoming in her family to meet the babe.
It was a thought which would require much consideration and—
Reginald looked up and caught her expression, his cheeks pinking as he murmured, “Every child is such a gift.”
Jessica’s stomach dropped out of her body. This can’t be real. It can’t be!
Wallflowers like her did not find future husbands like him. So what was the secret? What terrible disadvantage to Reginald was there…and when would she discover it?