Chapter 21
Twenty-One
“. . . and if I am the man who uses it and doesn’t know about it, the answer is this.” Her king used one finger to tap between the concubine’s brows. “Because I will forever rely on your wits, but I will never know all the corners of your prodigious mind.”
— The Concubine and Her King. Unpublished MS.
Henry saw Charles’ face change. His son might have reached his majority, but he was still Henry’s little boy, and Henry knew what that tremble in his lower lip meant. Tears were close.
His son needed him, only him, and Mina went willingly into Susannah’s arms when Henry gave her to Susannah.
He said to Charles, “A word.”
His peremptory tone did not sit well with Charles, made his son’s anger rise to the top and overtake those tears.
“My lord,” Charles said.
Henry gestured to the door, and he and Charles left the room. He could hear the marchioness thump her stick in frustration.
“Where are they going?” she said. “I want—”
Henry closed the drawing room door on the marchioness’ demands. Her wants didn’t matter. If Charles needed to cry, he could damn well cry. But Henry remembered what a young man wanted more than anything. Dignity and respect.
Henry steered his son into the closest room, the little library. Charles went directly to a chair and collapsed into it. He leaned forward and put his hands over his face and began to cry.
It was an agonizing sight to see his son in so much pain. And it was a thousand times worse because he knew he had been the cause of that pain.
Henry was the villain. How had he let things go so awry?
There was no other chair near, and Henry was not going to loom over his son. He got on his knees—fuck these knees—in front of Charles.
Wrapped up in his sorrow, Charles was oblivious to Henry, and Henry did not know how to comfort him. It was a hopelessly awkward position. He could not take Charles into his lap as he did with Mina.
Henry tentatively put a hand on Charles’ shoulder. He could feel his son’s muscles tense, but the crying continued, and Charles did not pull away from Henry’s hand.
“Why?” Charles asked through his sobs. “Why? Why?”
“Why what?” Henry asked gently. “Why what, Charles?”
Charles raised his head. His face was flushed, his nose was running.
He shouted, “Why did you never have affection or affinity for me?”
He put his face back into his hands.
His boy. His lonely boy. And Henry had missed years of his life by not making sure Charles knew Henry loved him. Loved him poorly, loved him badly, but loved him.
“Forgive me. Forgive me,” Henry said, his heart a lead weight in his chest. “It wasn’t you.
It was never you, never Hal. It was always me.
My lack. My stubbornness. My foolish belief that you two loved your mother and, therefore, could not love me.
But it is not the child’s task to show their love to a parent.
It is the parent who should be reaching, mending misunderstandings, making room for the child.
It is the parent who has to bend, has to learn.
But I didn’t know that back then. I should have, but I didn’t. ”
Charles’ back was not moving up and down with his sobs any longer.
“I am your father. I did very badly by you. And I am more sorry than you can know. More sorry than I can say.”
His voice thick with tears, Charles said into his hands, “I thought you hated me. I believed Mother and thought that was why you hated me.”
“I never hated you. I was proud and stupid and arrogant and deeply unhappy. I’m still stupid, there’s not much hope for that, but I have been humbled.”
Charles took his face out of hands. His eyes were red, his cheeks were wet. “Ah.”
He avoided looking at Henry. Henry fumbled a handkerchief out of his pocket and put it into Charles’ hand.
Charles took it, wiped his face. “Are you happy now?”
“Yes. But part of my heart is missing. The part labeled Charles.”
“You love that little girl,” he said, finally meeting Henry’s eyes.
“I don’t love her more than I love you,” Henry said. “I know her better than I know you. But I want to know you.”
“You do?”
It was not said in defiance. Charles did not seek information. It was the question of a little boy still needing reassurance, needing to hear again that his father loved him.
“I do,” Henry said. “I want to know you and love you. And, so far, what I know about you—that you always thought of your niece and her well-being—makes me want to know you even more.”
“I’m not as noble as all that. I suppose . . . some part of me wanted to punish you by taking Mina away from you.”
“I deserve punishment, but Mina doesn’t.”
“I won’t take her.” Charles sounded defeated, exhausted. “She doesn’t want to go with me.”
“Like me, she doesn’t know you.”
“Yes.”
“But you could stay, and you could allow Mina and me to come to know you.”
There was a long silence. “I could.”
“Good,” Henry said.
Two men looked at each other. One on his knees, in supplication. The other, lonely and afraid, desperate for love but wary of a trap.
Two men can rarely talk of love for long. And actions speak louder than words. But Henry could not give Charles sweeties to gain his trust as he had done years ago with Mina.
Instead, he said, “Do you suppose the marchioness is over her fit of temper that we abandoned her?”
Charles half laughed. “No.”
That half laugh. Their unity in opposing the marchioness. Both gave Henry hope it was not too late for him to form a bond with his son.
The chasm between him and Charles was still there, and it was both wide and deep.
But Henry must believe he could build a bridge with a little bit of help from Charles.
Henry now knew more about love than he had ever known before, and he would move heaven and earth to make sure Charles felt his love.
Henry heaved a sigh. “And now, I must ask you, son . . .”
“Yes?”
Henry winced. “Can you help me off my infernal knees?”
“Of all of them, I think I like best the names Kitty, Arabella, Henrietta—”
Susannah slipped out of the nursery. Henry and Mina were in the big chair, admiring the new doll together and talking over names for her. A chambermaid ran past Susannah in the corridor with a stack of linen, her cap askew.
The household staff were in an uproar. Charles, the marchioness, the secretary, and the solicitor were all staying until at least tomorrow, and there was much to be done. A fancy dinner prepared, beds freshened, rooms made ready.
The marchioness would be sleeping in the Queen Elizabeth bedchamber, of course, as befitted her rank and greatness. Lady Chalfont would not be overawed, not in the least.
Henry had returned to the brown drawing room alone and told everyone the matter was settled. Mina would be staying at Bledsoe Park.
“Charles has gone for a walk,” Henry had said to Susannah privately, minutes later. “I think he needed some time to recover.”
“And you?” she had asked, worried. “What do you need?”
“Love, I have everything I need.”
A short kiss and a quick embrace had followed because they had guests to attend to. But the marchioness, the secretary, and the solicitor had all settled to tea and cakes, and Mina, Henry, and Susannah had been able to escape to the nursery.
Susannah was determined to help in the kitchen as a peeler of potatoes, but when she crossed the gallery, she discovered Charles had returned from his walk. He was standing under the portrait of his father as a young man in uniform, staring up at it.
She approached him, stood at his side, and joined him in gazing up at that oil painting. How very handsome young Henry looked in his red coat. But not nearly as handsome as he looked now.
Charles was the first to speak. “He is my father, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
They stood in silence, both looking at the painting. Then Charles felt his nose.
“Explains this unsightly thing.”
Impulsively, Susannah said, “I adore your father’s nose.”
“Mother always said it was coarse.”
“It’s not. It’s . . . magnificent. Very manly.”
Charles dropped his hand from his nose.
“I hope you had a pleasant walk,” Susannah said.
“I went to the stables.”
“Ah.”
“I’m worried about Miss Quick. I didn’t anticipate . . . will she lose her position?”
What a caring person Charles was to think of the nursemaid, to remember her and think of her welfare even in the midst of such a tumultuous time for him.
“She has not been dismissed. If she wants to keep her place, I think your father would welcome that. If she doesn’t, she will receive excellent references.”
Charles nodded. “Good.”
“Your father is very proud of you for finding a way to give Mina an ally in Miss Quick. And Mina is very lucky to have an uncle like you. Too many children have no one to speak for them, no protection. You gave Mina that.”
Charles looked away and fidgeted, but it was not, she thought, the fidgeting of a young man receiving a compliment. It was something else.
“I know you saw, Miss Beasley . . . that you saw me when Mina came out of hiding, out of the cabinet.”
Susannah turned back to the painting and resolved to keep her eyes on it.
She must not look at Charles. Boys confessed hurtful things more easily when they did not feel cornered.
Even better when there was a distraction, like a ball or a chore.
But, here in the gallery, there was no ball, no dishes to wipe.
Only paintings and a spotless floor with no broom to hand.
“Yes,” she said. “I did.”
“My brother used to put me in a cupboard when we lived in London with Mother. I remembered when I saw Mina . . . and what Father said about my mother’s lover .
. . Hal always said it was a kind of game, and I should go into the cupboard and stay still and not make any noise until he would come and fetch me.
And I would do anything Hal told me to do. But now I think he was protecting me.”
They both stood completely still.
Finally, she said to the painting, “Hal sounds like he was a very good big brother.”