Chapter 21 #3
Blanche paused as three servants placed her trunks in the center of her bedroom.
Long ago, she had moved out of her childish room into a huge and opulent suite in the east wing of Harrington Hall.
Her father’s suite was in the west wing and just across the courtyard.
She surveyed the pale pink-and-white upholstered walls, the numerous works of art hanging there, the bed, with its white-and-gold hangings and covers, the matching furniture, and she smiled, terribly relieved.
It was so good to be home. She had only been gone for three days, but it had felt like an eternity—it had felt like prison.
“Blanche!”
At the sound of her father’s surprised tone, she slowly turned to see him staring at her from the adjacent salon. She knew him so well—better than anyone—and she could see that he was as dismayed as he was surprised to see her. “Hello, Father.”
“What is this?” he asked. He nodded curtly at the servants, indicating a dismissal, which they all understood. They fled.
She paused before him. “I explained to Tyrell that you have been feeling poorly and that I really must come home,” she said somewhat anxiously.
“I am fine! I don’t know where you got this notion in your head that I am not well. I have never felt better!” Harrington said sharply. “Blanche, what is this? Did you not enjoy your stay at Harmon House?”
He was so vehement that she was dismayed. “Father? I know you have not been feeling all that well. And surely you have missed me? This is a huge house. No one could wish to live here alone.”
His gaze was searching. “Of course I have missed you! But you have made up this nonsense about my health, Blanche, and we both know why.” He softened. “You are my life, Blanche, but you belong with Tyrell, your fiancé. Has something happened? Surely he has been a perfect gentleman.”
Blanche closed her eyes. She was certain her father was feeling a bit poorly just as she was certain he needed her to take care of him.
A wave of comprehension swept over her then.
She could not do this. Her place was in her father’s home, at his side, attending him, as it had always been.
She had tried to do as he wished, but she did not want to marry Tyrell or anyone.
“Blanche?”
She managed to smile at him. “He is very kind, just as you said he would be. He is good and noble, and he will make a perfect husband, really.”
Harrington stared closely at her. “Then why are you here?”
“I miss you,” she said truthfully. Nothing had changed. Her father remained the single anchor of her life.
Why couldn’t she be like other women, Blanche wondered as she so often did. Other women would be thrilled to have Tyrell de Warenne for a husband, to share his heated kisses. She touched her breast and felt her heart beating, slow and steady, so she knew it was still there.
“And after the past four months, you still have no affection for Tyrell?”
She faced him. “Father, I feel nothing for him. My heart remains as defective as ever. I am so sorry! You know I would be pleased to fall in love. I have tried! But perhaps we must face the ugly truth. I am never going to fall in love with anyone—I am incapable of that kind of passion.”
“We don’t know that,” he finally said. The memory that filled him was intense, terrible and far too familiar; usually he kept it deeply buried, but there were times when even he was not powerful enough to shove it away.
His precious daughter, surrounded by a raging, angry crowd.
Every window on the street was being hastily boarded up, every front door bolted, barred and locked.
The Harrington coach was in the midst of the mob, the horses cut loose, the carriage about to be overturned; both his daughter and his wife had been seized and dragged from it moments ago, and then separated.
Blanche continued to scream for her mother in terror.
He could just glimpse her white-blond hair.
He had chosen to ride astride that day as they went from their London home to the country.
He should have known better than to move his family on an election day, as it was an excuse for the mob to attack just about anyone and everything in its path, but especially the wealthy.
Now he and his mount had been forced far from the carriage by the dozens of bloodthirsty farmers, most of whom carried pikes and torches.
Fire had begun to rage in some of the shops.
The windows that weren’t boarded were being broken.
“Blanche!” he screamed, trying to spur his frightened horse through the fray. “Margaret!”
Blanche’s bloodcurdling screams filled the air, and then, somehow, through the crowd, he saw her struggling with a man who held her.
Near her, another man held up Margaret’s bloody, battered body.
The crowd roared its approval and his wife disappeared from sight.
Hours later he found her; she had been beaten and stabbed to death.
Mama!
Harrington inhaled, his eyes filling with tears.
He intended to fight as hard as he ever had for his daughter’s chance at a future.
He desperately wanted her to have a life like other women, but a part of him felt certain that she never would.
A part of him somehow knew that her heart had been so terribly scarred it could only beat, but not feel.
“Father?” Blanche whispered, clasping his shoulder from behind.
He turned. “There is still time. Your wedding isn’t until May. By then, you may very well fall in love with Tyrell.”
Blanche was certain that would never happen. “I so want to please you,” she said, “but I don’t know if I can do this.”
“No,” he said harshly, confronting her. “I have gone to great lengths to provide for your future, to secure your happiness. This was hardly a simple negotiation! I want you to return to Harmon House immediately.”
Blanche was dismayed. “I want to spend the holidays here, with you,” she said.
And as he was wont to do, he lost his temper. “You need to be with your fiancé. Or would it please you if he went back to his mistress?”
Blanche gasped. “He has a mistress?” She was as intrigued as she was aghast.
Harrington flushed. “He was very involved with Miss Elizabeth Fitzgerald last summer. In fact, they were living together at Wicklowe. She is the mother of his bastard.”
Blanche was disbelieving. “And this is the first I have heard of this?”
“I confronted Miss Fitzgerald there and made sure she saw the error of her ways. I made certain that she left him,” Harrington said. “I did not want her in the way.”
Blanche began to recover from the shock. “It must have been quite serious! If she bore his child and was living with him—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Harrington said. “Surprisingly, she is a well-bred young lady and she felt some remorse for her sins. But to make certain the affair was over, I had to destroy the farewell letter she left for Tyrell. She was certainly in love with him,” he added darkly.
“You destroyed her letter? Father!” Her curiosity increased—it had been a love affair?
“I did it for you, my dear. I did not want Tyrell chasing after her.”
If her father had gone to such lengths, did it mean that Tyrell had been in love with Miss Fitzgerald? He was so aloof, she could hardly imagine him being passionately inclined toward any woman. “Father, I don’t think you should have destroyed that letter.”
“It was a love letter and I did not want Tyrell to see it.” He was grim.
“I am telling you all of this for a reason, my dear. Miss Fitzgerald is residing with her aunt at Belgrave Square. Now Tyrell is in London, too. It bothers me. I want him dancing attendance on you, Blanche. I do not want him running into her in the park one day! And that is why I am insisting you return to Harmon House.”
Blanche could not go back. She shook her head, filled with determination. “Father, I don’t want to leave you. Please, don’t make me go.”
Harrington stared for a long moment and then his face collapsed. “You know I have never been able to deny you, not when you plead with me like that.”
Blanche was filled with relief. “Thank you.”
“But you must not give up on Tyrell,” he added swiftly. “This is your future, Blanche! I will not be here forever.”
She swallowed hard, refusing to think about the day when God would take her father from her. She could not bear to contemplate it.
“I shall ask him to join us for supper tomorrow,” her father was adding. He put his arm around her. “How does that sound?”
“Fine,” Blanche murmured, but she had hardly heard him. She was thinking about Tyrell’s mistress now. Apparently Miss Fitzgerald was but a short carriage ride away.